Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

One of the Labour rebels:

At some point there will be a ceasefire. Had we called for a ceasefire yesterday, 144 children might still be alive. A child dies every 10 minutes."

OK then.

I can't remember who it was as I just had it on whilst playing a game, but a Labour guy on Newsnight last night had a good conciliatory point that just because we say to stop fighting doesn't mean the fighting will actually stop.
It is very weird it's becoming such a huge concern for so many MPs.

I do wonder sometimes just how much people are actually aware that the Empire and more precisely the late 19th century is gone. It's not like Britain is going to send some gunboats up the Jordan once Parliament demands ceasefire.

More seriously though, I suspect at least some of those rebelling frontbenchers were too worried about their constituents to be seen as considering nuances in this question.

Maybe but then they could have voted for the meaningless ceasefire resolution without the overwrought statements to the press.

It's important to be seen waging Jihad fighting the good fight.

[Sheilbh]

I do wonder sometimes just how much people are actually aware that the Empire and more precisely the late 19th century is gone. It's not like Britain is going to send some gunboats up the Jordan once Parliament demands ceasefire.

Although I think it's six of one half dozen of the other.

Some think Britain has more power than it does - I think it's less imperial and more like the unilateral disarmament tradition in Labour, that the moral force of Britain giving up its nukes would be transformative Others would say our attempt to cling to power and influence means we triangulate our position with the US when we should just be like Ireland or Spain or Portugal and not worry about that.

Edit: Thinking about it - I'm not sure if other countries with nukes have had big unilateral disarmament movements? It was Labour policy in the 80s but had been a force in Labour throughout the post-war era. I don't know if there's been similar in the US or France - it feels more like the German anti-nuke/anti-missile movements.

More seriously though, I suspect at least some of those rebelling frontbenchers were too worried about their constituents to be seen as considering nuances in this question.

That's definitely a factor and I can 100% guarantee that George Galloway is lurking, trying to work out which seat he'll run for.

And it is worth pointing out Tower Hamlets. George Galloway won Bethnal Green and Bow from Labour in 2005 on a primarily anti-Iraq War campaign, in one of the most Muslim constituencies in the country. His Respect Party also formed the nucleus of splits in local government. There's lots of local factors there as well - and also some international ones, as I believe splits within the Bangladeshi community also reflected the Hasina v Zia dynamic in Bangladesh. Lots has happened since, but today, Tower Hamlets Borough is still run by the Aspire Party which is the successor to Galloway's Respect

I wonder, given that Corbyn won't be allowed to run as a Labour candidate, if he'll run as an independent in Islington North or possibly try to form some form of party with Galloway. Galloway moved Respect into the Workers Party, and they were recently joined by Chris Williamson who was an ultra-loyalist MP under Corbyn who was suspended for anti-semitism and then kicked out of the party - and now hosts Palestine Declassified on Press TV (Iran's version of Russia Today who also, coincidentally, used to have a show hosted by Corbyn).

Incidentally Galloway is already discussing a "Zionist connection" to Suella Braverman - and you've sen more than one clip of people giving speeches where they criticised her comments about the Palestine marches and then note her "Jewish husband - sorry, her Zionist husband", which gives the game away of what some people mean when they say Zionist.

Maybe but then they could have voted for the meaningless ceasefire resolution without the overwrought statements to the press.

A number of them are resigning from the frontbench over this vote. It's not unusual if MPs vote against the whip to put out statements explaining why they're not voting with their party.

[garbon]

That doesn't make the statements less ridiculous.

[Sheilbh]

Relatedly Wes Streeting abstained and followed the whip - but there's been big protests outside his constituency office on a very regular basis and I think there's more going on there.

I saw this post by him on Twitter:

Wes Streeting MP
@wesstreeting
My constituents are better than this.

They know what prejudice looks and feels like.

So do I, which is why I've stood proudly against Islamophobia as Ilford North's MP.

🗑� @Shah_Hussain99

He's now getting lots of criticism from, say, Owen Jones for causing dogpiling on a gay Muslim activist, who, I'd suggest, was sort of weaponising homophobia which is not great even if you are gay. I mean....


Lot's of people on the online left similarly defending the original Tweet. I don't know if it has anything to do with it, or when he changed it - but this is George Galloway's current Twitter head:


Lots of calls for an "independent left" candidate to stand against Streeting. We'll see

[garbon]

Owen Jones generally has bad takes.

[Sheilbh]

Owen Jones generally has bad takes.

Yes. He is fairly popular though and him and the alternative media on the left - all the Novara bods on Twitter too - are going to be a constant critic of Starmer once he becomes PM. He has a big platform and he will also promote those others like Ash Sarkar, Michael Walker, Aaron Bastani etc. The internal Labour fight has been a preview of what Labour will face from the left.

With the specific stuff about Streeting can't help but think that he's been talked about as a future leader from the right of the party. And coincidentally a particular focus for Jones etc - previously they had a big thing about Jess Phillips when she was more prominent.

[Sheilbh]

One for Tamas. Minister of State for Trade staring angrily at a model of new housing:

Greg Hands
@GregHands
📣Earl's Court development latest consultation now live!

Too many skyscrapers 🏙�!

I went on Monday to the Conversation Corner on Lillie Road👇
https://theearlscourtdevelopmentcompany.com/consultation

I urge residents to go along and see it for themselves:
▪️Wed, Thurs & Fri: 12pm – 6pm
▪️Sat: 11am – 3pm 🕒

Earl's Court is not great - but I believe this is the current cleared site. Not sure I see much reason to oppose "skyscrapers"

[garbon]

Owen Jones generally has bad takes.

Yes. He is fairly popular though and him and the alternative media on the left - all the Novara bods on Twitter too - are going to be a constant critic of Starmer once he becomes PM. He has a big platform and he will also promote those others like Ash Sarkar, Michael Walker, Aaron Bastani etc. The internal Labour fight has been a preview of what Labour will face from the left.

With the specific stuff about Streeting can't help but think that he's been talked about as a future leader from the right of the party. And coincidentally a particular focus for Jones etc - previously they had a big thing about Jess Phillips when she was more prominent.

But of course he will be an opponent. Jones has been hating on Starmer from the jump. It is given that it will continue.

[Josquius]

Is this a culture war thing?
Or just being stupid?
Opposing towers in the centre of London is just insane.

[PJL]

Is this a culture war thing?
Or just being stupid?
Opposing towers in the centre of London is just insane.

I'm hoping they're called Minas Tirith & Minas Morgul respectively. 

[Sheilbh]

Is this a culture war thing?
Or just being stupid?
Opposing towers in the centre of London is just insane.

It's just a NIMBY thing.

Same reason you have a Labour MP (a Labour MP!) in Birmingham boasting of her opposition to sheltered housing for people with learning disabilities.

I'm hoping they're called Minas Tirith & Minas Morgul respectively. 

Literally none of them appear to be bigger than the existing tower block next to West Brompton station.

But of course he will be an opponent. Jones has been hating on Starmer from the jump. It is given that it will continue.

I think lots of quite nice moderate centre-left people (the entire readership of the Guardian) haven't realised this yet. And it's going to be constant criticism from the left from day one.

[garbon]

But of course he will be an opponent. Jones has been hating on Starmer from the jump. It is given that it will continue.

I think lots of quite nice moderate centre-left people (the entire readership of the Guardian) haven't realised this yet. And it's going to be constant criticism from the left from day one.

Maybe if they never read any of Owen's opinion pieces in Guardian?

I just took about 20 minutes to look back over his headlines/subheadlines since Starmer took leadership. Here's what I found - about 33 pieces that directly criticise Starmer in headline or near start of the piece in a little over 3 years so roughly 1-2 months per next critical piece.

Thu 2 Jul 2020 Labour's real struggle is not left v right – it is to keep young and minority voters
Tue 6 Oct 2020 Labour is standing by as the government sanctions state violence against its citizens
Sat 28 Nov 2020 Both sides of Labour's internal war need to focus on a vision for Britain's future
Thu 17 Dec 2020 Labour should be wary of a rightwing media that only wants 'culture war'
Thu 4 Feb 2021 Keir Starmer must call out Johnson's Covid failures, not wrap himself in the flag
Tue 9 Feb 2021 By ignoring young voters, Labour is creating an opening for the Greens
Fri 26 Feb 2021 On tax as on so much else, Keir Starmer's team is fighting yesterday's battles
Mon 12 Apr 2021 Behind the scenes, Labour MPs are losing faith in Keir Starmer
Fri 30 Apr 2021 Labour needs to go for the jugular on Tory elitism
Fri 7 May 2021 Hartlepool fell victim to the Labour leader's lack of vision
Mon 10 May 2021 Keir Starmer's botched reshuffle exposes his loss of authority
Wed 16 Jun 2021 Whether or not Labour wins Batley and Spen, the party is in deep trouble
Fri 2 Jul 2021 Batley and Spen gives Starmer a second chance – will he take it?
Fri 10 Sep 2021 Johnson's tax raid on workers should be a gift to Labour
Thu 30 Sep 2021 Breaking promises won't get Keir Starmer into power
Wed 22 Sep 2021 Starmer's proposed party rule changes are an anti-democratic outrage
Thu 7 Oct 2021 Shapeshifting Tories have mastered playing to the crowd, while Labour fights itself
Tue 30 Nov 2021 Starmer has put Labour rightwingers back in control – are they up to the task?
Wed 15 Dec 2021 With Tories in revolt, Labour can push them to better protect the public from Covid
Mon 21 Feb 2022 The case of the Coventry bin-lorry drivers' strike should raise a red flag for Labour
Mon 9 May 2022 Starmer gambled Labour's fortunes on his integrity – no wonder he's in deep trouble
Tue 31 May 2022 If you care about Johnson's dishonesty, don't let Keir Starmer off the hook
Wed 15 Jun 2022 It's Labour's job to lead the fight for worker and migrant rights – why isn't it doing so?
Tue 28 Jun 2022 If Labour won't stand up for working people, unions will
Tue 29 Nov 2022 If Labour's leadership is hobbling internal candidates, is it fit to run a democracy?
Fri 17 Feb 2023 Starmer's banishment of Corbyn is one more step in eradicating the left from the Labour party
Wed 3 May 2023 Keir Starmer will no longer scrap tuition fees. Just what does his Labour party stand for?
Mon 17 Jul 2023 There's no point to Labour as a party if it won't pay to pull children out of poverty
Wed 23 Aug 2023 Labour's new deal for workers could be transformative, but unions fear Starmer won't stick to it
Mon 28 Aug 2023 Abandoning a wealth tax is a ruinous Labour strategy. It's 'Blairism without the cash'
Mon 4 Sep 2023 After the reshuffle, Blairites dominate Starmer's shadow cabinet. That's bad news for the rest of us
Wed 11 Oct 2023 Starmer's path to No 10 is assured – that's why voters must demand greater ambition
Wed 15 Nov 2023 Brave Labour MPs have voted with their conscience. Where is Keir Starmer's?

[Tamas]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/16/antisemitism-uk-universities-jewish-students

When I woke in my student house on Saturday 7 October, my stomach turned at the news from Israel. As fellow Jewish students and I checked on our loved ones there, one replied on WhatsApp: "Do not go to synagogue today." In their moment of terror they knew that here, in the UK, antisemitism would erupt; racism would jeopardise our safety.

There have been more reported incidents of antisemitism on British university campuses in a month than there were in all of 2022. At Oxford University, where I am an undergraduate, acts of hatred, misinformation and a lack of empathy when we are vulnerable have turned student spaces into places of hostility.

Our Jewish Society president had the mezuzah (a protective Jewish prayer scroll) ripped from his door. At a freshers' event, one Jewish friend told me that she was called a "coloniser" and "race traitor" (the latter by virtue of her non-European descent). I know male students who have removed their kippot (skullcaps) and others who have hidden their Stars of David. On Instagram, I saw students posting pictures of paragliders, celebrating Hamas's massacre. I waited five long days for my university to condemn "appalling attacks by Hamas" and stress "that there is no place for antisemitism or hate of any faith at Oxford". An Israeli student whose relatives were murdered at the Nova festival has returned home, telling me she felt safer there than on campus.


In the days after 7 October, I walked Oxford's streets, my home away from home, overwhelmed with grief and despair for victims of Hamas's premeditated massacre, rape and torture, as well as fear for the hostages held in Gaza and my loved ones. As images emerged of destruction and death in Gaza, I felt crushed and distraught at the devastation.

While I was concerned with the plight of civilians, I encountered protests and chants: "From Oxford to Gaza / Long live the intifada" – words that sustain the violence and too often lead to violence against Jews in the UK, not just in Israel.

As I struggled to work, I wrote to my tutors, explaining my distress. They replied privately, expressing sympathy. But as I appeared at tutorials and seminars, sleepless and broken, I did not feel safe to raise my most pressing thoughts in public. A climate in which we feel fearful to address what we're going through leaves space for others to dehumanise us and contribute to environments in which antisemitism is allowed to fester.

The silence we encounter stands in stark contrast to the sensitivity and outspoken support displayed by staff and students to those touched by other events, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Beyond Oxford, Jewish students have experienced similar incidents of antisemitism. In Manchester, posters with the words "kill more Jews" and "Yids" have been displayed. On Instagram, a university Jewish society was sent the message: "Wherever you are in the world, we will take you out of your homes and perform a dance of victory and happiness over your bodies"; another was sent a threat, accompanied by a video of beheaded babies, reading: "You must be killed all of u till the last naziest of you" [sic]; a university rabbi received a direct message that said: "You massacred innocent Muslims, I hope you die too."

At some universities, numbers at campus Friday-night dinners, celebrating the Sabbath, have decreased; students feel safer returning home for the weekend. In Oxford, though, I have seen numbers increase: when faced with hostility and a void of empathy, we seek belonging from each other. We've established a WhatsApp group of Jewish students, warning if we encounter protests that risk escalating from calls for Palestinian liberation to those that sound to us like a call for Jewish pain.

Perhaps the hardest part is that I've always seen myself, politically, on the left. I'm a fervent believer in a two-state solution; I consider the West Bank occupation a source of many great evils, and am outraged by Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. Being a student has painfully shown that those views and feelings make no difference to some otherwise educated, empathic peers.

When I applied to university, I never thought I would have to hide my Jewishness, chillingly echoing how my great-grandparents erased their Jewish identities in the 1930s after fleeing from Greece to Turkey. University societies do not announce Jewish events publicly; we have increased security on our doors. Safety concerns are also why I have remained anonymous in this piece, and why there are places where demonstrations gather three times a week that I avoid altogether.

When I see faces I know call "From the river to the sea" or students sign off emails with the same chant, the phrase feels like something that goes far beyond a demand for freedom: a call to get rid of Israel and a dog-whistle for getting rid of Jews. When someone shouts "Free Palestine" at a Jew walking around Oxford wearing his kippah, as happened to a friend of mine, they are weaponising that idea against him. In these moments, where anti-Zionism implies, even indirectly, an outcome that entails violence against Jews, it shelters antisemitism; universities must seek to understand why it is so ferocious in academic settings. They also must address why here, of all places, misinformation is disseminated so readily.

The psychological toll is huge: I do not sleep well and cry often. There are friends and tutors who have acknowledged my pain and their empathy has overwhelmed me. When a friend messaged offering to take notes if I felt unable to attend lectures, my eyes filled with tears. So I know it is possible for people to react differently, to not be led by preconceived notions about this conflict that harbour racism or a binary idea of who is good or bad. I urge fellow students, instead, to see us as just that – fellow citizens whose distress and pain must be taken at face value and countered with kindness, compassion and conversation in which no party experiences fear.

Things like this, the massive protests while pretty much nobody but Jews turning up for events to commemorate the terror attack victims, not to mention Labour's surreal-looking storm over how closely to match statements coming from Turkey, Iran and other balls of light of leftish values, it's just... took me completely by surprise.

[Valmy]

So is the big UK plan to force all the Jews out? That will sure show Israel when suddenly they get a flood of pissed off refugees from the UK moving in.

I don't know if that is quite the service to the Palestinians they think they are providing.

Of course that idiotically assumes this has anything to do with helping the Palestinians and not just using them as a tool, like everybody else does.

[Tamas]

So is the big UK plan to force all the Jews out? That will sure show Israel when suddenly they get a flood of pissed off refugees from the UK moving in.

I don't know if that is quite the service to the Palestinians they think they are providing.

Of course that idiotically assumes this has anything to do with helping the Palestinians and not just using them as a tool, like everybody else does.

It is very hard for me to judge what's the majority behind and I am mostly talking about anti-Israel fervour. Most of the names of Labour councillors/MPs giving grief over this, vast majority of various protesters interviewed (especially the ones harassing abstaining MPs), frankly, have Muslim names. Clearly there's a good number of far-left (and probably far-right) assholes joining in and it is entirely possible it's just my confirmation bias talking but it does feel like it's the Muslim minority in the country being radical about this.

I think Starmer is very right to hold his ground. If he yields to this sort of pressure, Tory media will have an absolute field day and not entirely unfairly so.