Jeremy Corbyn - PM by default?

[Considermesometimes]

I am not a 'woke' labour supporter. I come from a long line of many generations of stout labour supporters. It would be unthinkable up to now in my family for anyone to vote for any other party. I would be shown the door at my gp's house for even having this conversation.

However, I am seriously seriously worried, I would go as far as to say terrified of the prospect of voting for Labour this time, and Jeremy Corbyn actually becoming Prime Minister.
I am interested to know how others are dealing with this problem.

I am worried that some of the policies such as seizing assets and homes from people, massive taxes etc. We are home owners and work very hard, it could all be jeopardised.

Forced closure of private schools in this area would be a complete and utter disaster. As it is we have to finish early on Friday afternoons, and do not have funds for every day stationary much less hundreds of extra children. What would happen to our already very full classes of 33-38 with all the extra children from the private schools? How is this even possible? And yet it seems Labour are fully committed to it when pressed on the issue.

The huge privatisation plan of utilities looks to cost around 200 billion pounds. I don't want our money spent this way! I would much prefer better schools and hospitals, and crime to be under control in this part of the country. I can't even get a GP app for my asthmatic dd at the moment. I could not care less about the Utilities or the railways etc. The LP just do not seem to understand at the moment what matters to most people.

The whole defence and nuclear issue. I don't feel we live in a particularly safe world. I like the fact we have some defences against the nut jobs in the Middle East or North Korea. The fact that other countries would not trust the UK under Corbyn to share intelligence with us, and his lack of decision making in a crisis, or even his basic understanding of deterrents is deeply disturbing.

I just don't think Corbyn is up to the job in any shape or form. Nor do most of the party.

I have thought about voting Lib Dems, but looking at the numbers that will almost certainly result in Corbyn being PM. There is almost no chance at all of Lib Dems getting 326 seats. A vote for Lib Dems is a vote for a Labour government probably propped up by the SNP who will demand another independence referendum in six months.

I am livid with the party for allowing this to happen, how is Corbyn still the leader of the party it is beyond me. How has this been allowed to happen? Chuka Umunna would have made an excellent PM, but all the best candidates are leaving the Labour party.

I don't think I can vote for anyone. That is my final conclusion, for the first time in thirty years I will not vote. What are you planning to do?

The very fact your position is too immediately defend him is somewhat startling.

No, my position was to immediately post it on the JC antisemitism thread. But given that several people on the bus immediately said that that they didn’t hear anything and there was no proof I was then more cautious, especially as it was a year and a half ago.

I’ve just seen on twitter that there are apparently real time WhatsApp messages backing up the claims, in which case Carden should stand down.

Why are you going and on about antisemitism. This thread has become like a broken record. Not saying it’s unimportant. But as mentioned previously there’s a huge racist problem in Tory party too. I’ll link again if you’ve forgotten. Boris’s letterbox comment only scraped the surface. Islamaphobia runs deep in the Tory party.

The way OP speaks is as if it’s fine to be Islamaphobic but not antisemitic. That in itself is a racist stance to take.

Always find it odd that supposedly dyed in the wool multi generational unthinking supporters of Labour have a problem with the first actual labour government in decades

Centrist politics has alot to answer for

Unfortunately, if you are genuinely left-wing and want a real and positive alternative to the Tories, voting for Labour under Corbyn is the one way to ensure that Labour will be stuck with Corbyn. And so will we all.

So for genuinely progressive people, the only alternative is to vote for one of the other non-Tory options - as you prefer, most constituencies will have at least one. Ideally not more than one, and in some constituencies, Remain parties are at least working together to ensure that.

But we should avoid swallowing the lie that 'if you don't vote Labour, you will get the Tories'. Because that is not a given.

I've read 2 interesting articles recently - can't find one of them but the point it was making is that in the 2017 general election, over 80% of the vote went to the 2 main parties. BUT in the 2019 local elections, only 23% did.

I get that people do vote differently in local to general elections. But even taking that into account, the results are not at all a given. For example, most recent polls are suggesting that Luciana Berger could well win Finchley & Golders Green for the Lib Dems on the back of a) Remain and b) anti-Semitism. And this is in a constituency where the Lib Dems got 6.6% at the last general election. But she's now polling at 33% to the Tories on 25%, and Labour on 21%- so we shouldn't assume that FPTP means there is no alternative. www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/09/luciana-berger-lib-dems-finchley-golders-green-remain-voters

When the 2 main parties are this shit, and the stakes are this high, the political map can be redrawn very quickly. Who would have thought that Labour would be wiped out in Scotland to the extent they now have, a generation ago?

Or look at other countries - Macron in France, for example, who have come to the fore with new parties.

Something has to change. Because it certainly can't go on as it is. As has been observed wryly on social media, 'If None of the Above' was to stand as a party, they would win a roaring majority.

That should tell us something - that the 2-party carve up is not a given.

The Lib Dems had 57 MPs in 2010, which wasn’t that long ago.

But as mentioned previously there’s a huge racist problem in Tory party too.

Quite. The PM himself hanging around eugenicists and openly insulting women who wear burkas? Rees-Mogg aligning himself with the Ku Klux Klan?

If anyone thinks the Tory party have lifted a finger to stop racism in any of its forms then that's pretty ironic. Not least since Brexit has enabled many people to feel and express that their nasty prejudices don't need to be hidden any longer!

Dusty - I'm not saying Islamophobia is unimportant at all - Boris himself is clearly, unquestionably Islamophobic. And there are clearly other Tories who are too. I think the difference with Labour is a) there is not clear evidence that Islamophobia is institutional in the Conservative Party - it affects individuals but I'm not yet seeing evidence that it affects the entire party machine. b) I'd expect the Tories to be racist - Labour's whole raison d'etre is that it is a pro-equality, anti-racist party. So it is much more shocking for those of us who expect Labour to be anti-racist to see it double down on anti-Semitism. And c) this is a thread about Labour - if it was a thread about Boris as PM, we'd be on the same side in agreeing he was unfit to be PM as an obvious racist.

Moreover, I am very concerned by your underlying premise - that if we can show the Tories to be racist, that that somehow makes racism in Labour OK - as though every party is allowed to be racist to at least one minority, and the fact the Tories do it too makes it just fine for Labour.

IT IS NOT FINE.

Not even if the Tories are as bad.

openly insulting women who wear burkas

He was insulting burkas, not the women who wear them. I hate burkas and the reasons behind wearing them so that didn't bother me particularly, it was pretty juvenile but not a red line as far as inam concerned.

On Thursday this week a labour candidate for Pudsey left 12 minutes silence on the radio (12 minutes!! Dead air!)

12 seconds actually but don’t let the facts get in the way of a good lie.

I could link many many embarrassing gaffes, and I will if you like,

Go on then.

bert Ian Austin made me cringe and wince declaring we . So does Diana Abbott every time she opens her mouth. Starmer was mortifying on the Good Morning show, Emily Thornberry is a thug. Jeremy stutters over every word and can't follow his own notes in the commons. John M's speech in Liverpool should have been great, but it made me worry even more about where they are taking the country. I am not a hardliner, no, I am a moderate labour party supporter, now homeless

These are aren't the words of a Labour voter. They are the words of someone who had swallowed the right wing media narrative. And swallowed it whole.

I am not sure of your intentions here, but they don't seem that honourable.

You're a Tory. And that's obviously fine. But do own it.

Why is Ian Austin on that list? He’s not Labour (any more) he’s independent.

Considermesometimes

"If you are a British Jew do you feel very threatened by Labour? How has this been allowed to happen in a so called progressive caring party in your view?"

Yes, I am, and yes, I do.

How has this been allowed to happen in a so called progressive caring party? I think there were always less caring progressive fringe elements on the left - nothing very caring about Militant (as the name would suggest). And one of the downsides of lovely caring progressive people as they can be a bit wet and naïve. As the generation that fought WWII and personally remember fascism and can warn against it have now increasingly died out, we end up with a younger generation who don't understand the existential risks and who are inherently a bit unsuited to warding off the threat from militant (in both senses) entryists.

Ed Miliband's unfortunate introduction of the £3 vote (no doubt introduced with good intentions) unfortunately led to the leadership election being skewed by Tories etc voting for chaos in Labour. And while as a Jew I was well aware of Corbyn's anti-Semitism before he became leader, most Labour members were not. And even I could not have anticipated the extent of it or the steps he and those round him would take to entrench anti-Semitism and anti-Semites in Labour.

Am I surprised that anti-Semitism is rising again? Not remotely - I fully expected that austerity and the financial crash would lead to the tensions it has had and the rise of the far right. What I did not foresee though was that the far right racist, misogynist, homophobic elements in Labour, like Ken Livingstone, or Communists like Andrew Murray or Tankies like Milne, would turn from fringe figures to representatives of the leader's ideology.

Dusty01

Why are you going and on about antisemitism. This thread has become like a broken record.

You don’t think it’s a problem for the Labour Party, that claims anti-racism as the bedrock of its morality, to be riddled with, er, racists?

It would be a bit like the Greens being full of oil executives, or the SNP full of English Nationalists...

I’m waiting for all the threads about Johnson at the Cenotaph today, discussion about Corbyn’s coat went on for weeks!

Alsohuman - why don't you care about racism against Jews in Corbyn's Labour?

Or are Jews not 'Alsohuman' in your view??

Corbyn had a much better coat on today, what was the problem with Johnson?

This sums up what some, more sensible, people have tried to explain.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/10/boris-johnson-versus-jeremy-corbyn-for-number-10-battle-of-unfittest

What are specific examples of anti semitism in the labour party?

Investigations never seem to turn anything concrete up other than criticism of Israel or sympathy with Palestine, neither of which are positions that are in themselves antisemitic

And that goes for anyone defending Cobyn and planning to vote for him.

Tell me, as a British Jew why you don't give a shit about anti-Semitism and are determined to enable it.

Then try and pretend you're really a progressive left-winger and/or a decent human being.

what was the problem with Johnson?

Messed up his timing, did a weird lob with the wreath rather than placing it, and put it down upside down.

Although he was also in navy blue, which Corbyn got criticised for another year

easyandy101 - either you're a Momentum/Russian Bot (is there a difference?) or you're an anti-Semitic troll.

I'm not your google. Go read the thread. Go read Twitter.

Nice tries by Corbyn supporters to deflect from discussing anti-Semitism in Labour to discussing Johnson's coat.

FFS. That's really weak.

Own your racism. Justify it. Then fuck off.

I'm not your google. Go read the thread. Go read Twitter.

That’s not how it works. If you don’t provide evidence, particularly when asked for it, you can’t expect to be taken seriously.

And Labour may give you an easy pass for being a racist but I'm not going to.