It’s probably time the Labour party moves on from the divisive and constant faux pas of Abbott. Recognise her contribution to the Labour movement but don’t give her a free pass to cause shit and discontent within the new government.
And, look, if she feels so strongly then start a party with JC. I’m sure she’ll have lots of backing. Or tear the Labour party up from the inside? 😅
Anyone who needs to sit a course on how not to be a racist shouldn’t be holding public office.
She obviously isn’t a racist. She was targeted in the anti-Corbyn purge carried out by
StalinStarmer.No, of course not. She just thinks that Jewish people don’t experience racism. Which is, at best, completely ignorant.
She said there’s a hierarchy of racism which, if you are a person of colour, you would know there obviously is.
She obviously isn’t. But she got tarnished with the “anti semite” brush with Corbyn because he’s anti Israel.
100%
Her remarks were a bit ignorant but she rightly apologised for them.
Compare that to Natalie Elphicke who tried to pervert the court of justice by influencing the judge to let her husband off with sexual assault. Result? Welcome to the Labour party Ms Elphicke!
The only reason Elphicke’s defection was accepted was because it further damaged the government, and she’s not standing in this election so it was an easy win for Labour.
My personal opinion, which I accept is not universal, is that this has damaged Labour far more than the Tories. This is a perfect example of putting party before principles.
Not according to the opinion polls. The only people who might take issue are political nerds, the majority of the electorate just saw “Tory defects to Labour” and that’s all that matters.
This was my initial thought (after ‘What the fuck? Is there a different Natalie Elphicke?’), but when I saw she was standing down anyway, I could understand why they decided to let her in. As [email protected] points out, it’s only us nerds who think much beyond the headlines.
Her remarks were straightforwardly true. A Jew, an Irish person, a Traveller and a Black person walk into a bar. Who gets racially profiled before they’ve even ordered a drink?
Yes Jews and Irish people and Travellers will likely experience racism at times throughout their lives. Only Black (or brown) people will experience racism just existing in a white society, just walking down the street, regardless of their clothing or their speech or their cultural practices.
It’s like, women experience sexism always. Gay men only experience homophobia in contexts where their sexuality is known. Visible minority status is a thing.
She’s not great during election campaigns at the best of times even without the racism cloud hanging over her. By all accounts she is an articulate and intelligent person in private but she has a bit of a habit of engaging with the media while unprepared for interviews. Things like the gaffe where she misquoted the price of training a police officer tend to stick in people’s minds; feeds an unhelpful narrative about Labour being bad with money, etc.
This is a massive unforced error by the Labour party. If the process was finished months ago, which it sounds like it was, why not get all of this out of the way sometime when you’re not running a GE campaign?
Fairly obvious it was punishment.
Rayner, subjected to police investigations, carries on as normal.
I suspect they hope Bringing abbot halfway back, will grab a headline and snaffle a few votes.
Rayner was innocent. Why shouldn’t she carry on as normal?
Abbott, by contrast, admitted she was in the wrong. That much isn’t in question. The questions are whether the process was fair and the punishment appropriate, and whether now was a good time to finally go public with the results of an investigation that apparently concluded months ago.
She’s on the radio saying she’s been barred from standing at the election.
Starmer’s just said this isn’t true. Really not clear what’s going on, now. Bit of a comms disaster!
Ffs, guess we wait and see who’s on the ballot for Hackney then?
If it was up to me, I’d just let her stand. Her seat’s basically in the bag. She’s already apologised for what she said. Let her run and the issue is over.
Tch, you won’t get far in politics with that sort of reasonable attitude and sense of proportion.
If Starmer says it’s not true and she says that Labour “haven’t communicated with me personally”, then where is she getting the info from?
Like, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Labour were trying to bar her but… is it at all possible that she’s read it in the Times and believed it without any official word?
I wouldn’t put it past them to simply make that part up to try and sow division in Labour ranks. Which it most certainly has done.
Labour’s best move here is to quickly clarify that she’s not banned and announce her as the candidate, if she wants it.
They assumed as much on the radio last night because she has been officially censured by the NEC which usually stops someone from being selected. It seems the idea was to allow here back into the PLP, so she could stand down before the next election but that assumes she would go without making a fuss, which struck me as unlikely.
