Owen Jones says he is leaving the Labour Party

[SiobhanSharpe]

Today's Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/21/labour-party-cancelling-membership-policies
Mostly due to apparent party policy changes under Starmer. And he urges people who feel similarly to vote independent or green.

You can’t trust a word Starmer says though. We have a fantastic local Labour MP but I just can’t vote for Labour. Starmer has broken every promise on his leadership pledge, I don’t even view him as standing for anything that should be Labour.

At least people like Owen Jones have principles.

His article says:

Another fellow leftwinger, Kate Osamor – again, a Black female MP – was suspended for describing the assault on Gaza as a genocide on the day the international court of justice placed Israel on trial for alleged genocide. Questions of racism, then, seem to be judged on whether they have a factional use – a sure sign of moral bankruptcy. This leadership style is crude in opposition; with an overwhelming majority, it will be chilling.

But if you go to the linked article you find that Osamor was suspended "for saying Gaza should be remembered as a genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day." She said: "She also wrote that there was an ‘“international duty” to remember the victims of the Holocaust as well as “more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and now Gaza”."

She chose Holocaust Memorial Day to say that. Rather different to the way Jones described it.

It depends. Here in NZ the recent general election kicked out a Labour government that tried not to frighten the economic horses while being significantly more aggressive about social, ie progressive reforms. The effect was that after six years of Labour government none of the economic reforms we needed have been achieved and the public, annoyed at all the do-gooder social stuff combined with economic hardship, have elected a reactionary crowd who won't sort out the economic stuff either.

I am afraid that Starmer is heading the same way and that even though Labour will win this year they will lose the subsequent general election.

Thank goodness for that. I am so sick of him and his whining.

I don’t mind the wee scamp, but I can see why he grinds people’s gears.

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/why-owen-jones-is-leaving-labour-by-someone-unfortunate-enough-to-sit-next-to-him-on-a-train-20240321246338

Result 😀✅

I will be very disappointed if that's the way it goes but what choice is there? I'd take pretty much any government of the last century of the incredible and increasing incompetence of the last 14 years.

Jones is completely one-sided in the way he discusses things. Maybe that shows his principles but it means I don't trust what he says.

I'm not a big reader of the commentariat but I think they should at least try to see the other side. Otherwise it's just propaganda.

People seem to be missing the point that Labour is a political party. It ultimately exists to form a government. It therefore needs policies to gain enough votes in enough constituencies to get a majority. Historically many of us don’t count: we don’t live in swing seats. The calculation must always be: what do the swing seats want? These are people who might have voted Con for 14 years. Keeping left wing policies might mean Labour doesn’t get their vote. It also now means policies need to have financial literacy. Truss found out you cannot just do what you want. A Labour government would hopefully understand that too!

COVID did mess up our economy. We have low productivity. Our birth rate is falling. We cannot have a fiscally imprudent government. What we might also see is the red wall going Reform. Other constituencies might vote reform because they want the drawbridge they crossed pulled up for others. We shall see but Brexit and immigration will still play a part.

Can’t stand him anyway. No great loss.