AIBU to be glad that Jeremy Corbyn won his seat?...

[Beeinalily]

...even though I'm not remotely left wing? I think he was treated appallingly by the Labour Party.

Such hostility. I'm simply asking for the reason behind your assertion

No hostility intended. Odd that you should think it.

Chomsky is well known among the broad Jewish community for being an antisemite - the worst kind, a Jewish one.

Is that because he criticises Israel?

Someone can be a fantastic MP and serve his local people. But have zero talent to be a manager and PM and bring a party together. Two very different things!

I'm no Corbyn fan, but I am rather glad he won his seat. Just because I dislike it when a national party gets over-involved in local selection of candidates.

I mean this very respectfully, but I've been searching online, and honestly can't find anything to suggest that Noam Chomsky is anti-semitic or a self-hater. None. Please could you provide examples or evidence?
He's critical of the Israeli government of course; but that's not anti-semitic.
I'm highly critical of many things British governments have done, including the Iraq war, the trans-atlantic slave trade and many other things, does that make me anti-adherents to the Church of England or anti-British people generally? Of course not!
I'm highly critical of Saudi Arabia, and the treatment of women and migrant workers there, as well as their war on the Yemen. Does that make me Islamophobic? Of course not!
I'm highly critical of the Chinese government and the appalling lack of human and animal rights there. Does that make me Sinophobic or anti-Buddhist? Of course not!
...and on and on. Do you see my point? Yes, I'm also highly critical of Bibi Netanyahu and the Israeli government. Does that make me anti-semitic? Of course not! I take as I find. It wouldn't occur to me to judge someone on the basis of their religion or race. But that doesn't mean that I can't criticise governments anywhere in the world when I find fault.

So the "reason" is that it's "well known".

So glad that Jeremy won his seat. One tiny ray of light amid the mass national delusion that the Continuity Tories are going to change anything, just because they have a different name.

It's just a question of realistically addressing the facts of what happened.

There has been no great mass of votes swinging to Labour. Starmer hasn't made the Labour party any more popular (at least, as far as votes cast attest) than it was under Corbyn.

What has happened is that the right wing vote has fractured due to a combination of the Tories' venality and the rise of Reform. (And the SNP has imploded delivering many Scottish votes to Labour). Those things could have happened at any time, during the tenure of any Labour leader.

Now, was Starmer justified in pursuing a pragmatic course that would get him elected under the circumstances he found himself in? Sure.

Has Starmer massively increased the popular appetite for a Labour government by dealing with supposed antisemitism and purging the left? Apparently not.

Slightly disagree.

I voted LibDem for a Labour government (Oxfordshire). Everyone I know voted tactically. Most of my Labour friends voted LibDem because they had the best chance of booting out the governing party. This skewed Labour support towards the LibDems, somewhat.

Lots of people voted tactically for Labour too though. Just to get the Tories out. I actually haven't met any ideological Labour voters this time round. Met loads of ideological Greens. Myself included. Voted Labour in 2017 and 2019. Voted Green this time. So glad I glad. I'd have to have held my nose very tight indeed to vote for the red tories (Labour).

Yabu, he’s been treated as he has for his awful anti-Semitic views. I don’t want purple like him in Parliament. It’s a great sadness the number of any semite independents that were returned.

He's not remotely anti-semitic. He's spent his entire life fighting racism.

🤣🤣🤣 only fighting for those against our national interest. He’s a student politician who hasn’t changed his mind on anything since he was 16.

What Starmer has done is make the Labour Party substantially less toxic than the Labour Party under Corbyn. Tory voters were absolutely terrified of a Corbyn government because he was a hard left crank. There is no way that they would have voted Reform in such large numbers if they weren't reassured that Starmer wouldn't actually be that bad. The right-wing press acknowledged this by trying to pretend that if you voted for Starmer you'd be getting Angela Rayner in charge instead because Angela Rayner is more of a lefty than him. But voters weren't having it.

We also know that people like Owen Jones were encouraging those on the left to vote Green because Starmer already had it in the bag. If those voters were not sure that they'd be getting a Labour government, would they have been voting for minority parties rather than their Labour candidate? Of course not.

So the vote on the right collapsed because it was Starmer and not Corbyn, and the vote on the left split because Starmer, unlike Corbyn, looked like a winner.

No one would have elected Jeremy, even as the Conservatives fell apart. He’s an anathema to the average man/woman on the street outside of the big cities.

Starmer has run a tight focussed campaign to get elected. Credit needs to go where credit is due.

Jeremy had two goes and failed both times, because he only cared about getting people who’d vote for him anyway to vote. Theresa May literally left the door open and he still couldn’t find his way in.

As a fellow hard left crank I am glad he is still an MP.

As far as I can see the things which he was accused of anti semitism for were being pro Palestinian and criticising Israeli government policy. Lots and lots of people share those views judging by the numbers on protest marches, on campus protests, voting for Independent pro Palestine candidates and starting threads on Mumsnet so if he is anti Semitic then so are an awful lot of people

OTOH I do realise that the great British public guided by the right wing press were never going to let Jeremy be PM so to that extent I am glad that Keir Starmer has actually got elected and I hope he will push through some proper left wing policies.

As far as I can see the things which he was accused of anti semitism for were being pro Palestinian and criticising Israeli government policy.

and liking an antisemitic mural, and referring to the extremely antisemitic Hamas and Hezbollah as 'friends' and inviting them to Parliament, and blaming the 'Zionist Lobby' for the deportation of a Muslim cleric who said that Jewish bread was made with the blood of children (the blood libel Jewish conspiracy theory), and for saying that 'Zionists' who have lived in this country a long time still don't understand English irony and for allowing antisemitism to flourish in his party under his leadership and then dismiss the report that showed this as overstating the problem etc etc.

What Starmer has done is make the Labour Party substantially less toxic than the Labour Party under Corbyn. Tory voters were absolutely terrified of a Corbyn government because he was a hard left crank. There is no way that they would have voted Reform in such large numbers if they weren't reassured that Starmer wouldn't actually be that bad. The right-wing press acknowledged this by trying to pretend that if you voted for Starmer you'd be getting Angela Rayner in charge instead because Angela Rayner is more of a lefty than him. But voters weren't having it.

I do think that's a fair point, and any majority Corbyn might have won under these circumstances would have been smaller than the one Starmer has.

We can only speculate whether enough people would have been motivated enough against him to hold their noses and vote Tory despite everything, to deliver them a majority. Or whether Reform (or the lib dems) would have had even more success by presenting themselves in specific constituencies as the way to prevent a Corbyn majority while still getting the Tories out.

Yep agree with this.

He wrote the foreword to a book that claimed that the Jews control the banks and the press.
He hung out with known antisemites.
He called Hamas 'our friends'.
He ignored blatant antisemitic imagery in a huge mural.

It's not about whether or not you criticise the Israeli government. I have Jewish friends who do it, and I have joined in the convo and have never been accused by them of antisemitism.

Exactly, there’s a difference between criticising the Israeli government and having an issue with Israel’s very existence. The former, ok. The latter, not ok.

This

I notice the people praising Corbyn studiously ignoring these facts.

Re the book he wrote a forward to. He actually openly called out and condemned the anti-semitic aspects of it. That's on record.