Leaving Labour

[AlexaDavie]

So I was searching for information on self ID and left and right wing parties and came across this article by Posie Parker www.theposieparker.com/grieving-the-left

For me it rang so true. Posie wrote: “Throughout my teens I was served an incredible political nourishment, a unified left satirising our politics. Loads o'money, Ben Elton, Spitting image all pulled me closer to a left wing ideology and one that I’ve held in my pocket for a good quarter of a century.”

Living in a trendy part of a well to do city I was always smug and self satisfied in my left wing politics and looking back at it now I guess I did see Tories and UKIPers as self centred or somewhat morally deficient people which as an appallingly arrogant attitude to someone for simply having different views.

I left the left long before I had ever heard about self ID though, I left the left when I realised that they were neither liberal nor tolerant despite their language and that believe in freedom of speech and individual rights was most (where it even still existed) to be found on the right.

I’m not sure if the left really did change, or if I did, or if I just came to understand what the left actually were but I suspect it’s largely the last one and my deepest convictions were always towards a belief in individual freedoms. But I wondered if anyone else had a similar experience as what Posie wrote rang true for me so I imagine there will be other who came to see the left in a different light. For for those have I guess I’m asking what caused this for you and do you believe the left actually really changed at heart or do you think you have just come to see it differently.

It's all cult bullocks this left and right stuff. I doubt politicians believe in it, they are all about their narcissistic self, showing others up and bending rules do suit.

Always a handy maxim:

The Left are Stupid
The Right are Evil

It wasn't freedom of speech that drove me out of the Labour party I'd supported and been a member of for 40 years. It was their appalling misogyny. They're entirely focusing on men and don't give a shit about women now.

Mind you, if it hadn't been that, the continuing leadership of the intellectually challenged non-leader Corbyn, coupled with their attitude towards the EU, would have also driven me out.

Unfortunately, there is no alternative party I can vote for, so I'm spoiling any ballot paper with the reasons why.

Uk left wing politics is not very left though. It all depends on the political context of each country how left is left.

There are a set of ideals, and there are the people who use the movement for their own ends. Its the same for every single religion or political party or charity movement you can think of. Every organisation attracts people who value power.

Put simply, the Rights values are ''stand on your own two feet within a hierarchy'', the Left are community thinkers. People don't suddenly switch from left to right thinking, they are 2 completely different modes.

Feminists tend to lean towards the left, because most of the rights women need depend on a supportive community. For example, to tackle domestic violence, you need to have a way for women to exit the relationship. They need to be able to take time to recover and get back on their feet, and they need to have their own income.

What do I think? I think that both left and right have been co-opted, politicians a decade ago were focused on how to run our society as a functioning democracy.
Now there appears to be an agenda to dismantle it, and I'm actually scared for the future.

I left the left long before I had ever heard about self ID though, I left the left when I realised that they were neither liberal nor tolerant despite their language and that believe in freedom of speech and individual rights was most (where it even still existed) to be found on the right

I left because of Corbyn and Momentum- nothing to do with self- ID

“Mind you, if it hadn't been that, the continuing leadership of the intellectually challenged non-leader Corbyn, coupled with their attitude towards the EU, would have also driven me out.”

You mean because they haven’t fully committed to honouring the referendum result and leaving with no deal if that is the only way to leave? Or because they’re not fully committed to giving people another referendum? If leave won again would you accept leaving? Or do you just want labour to commit to staying and think a referendum shouldn’t be used to decide something like this? Forgive me but I’ve no idea from your post what you want to see Labour do.

Sadly I think this does in fact sum it up:

The Left are Stupid
The Right are Evil

What a wonderful choice.

I can’t see much difference between the labour party and the tories. Corbyn was busy telling all his people to vote for Brexit.
I’m not left wing or right wing. I’m me and yet I’m still a feminist. I bet there’s a whole lot more feminists who are not politically defined than left wingers. Telling everyone they have to be left wing to be a feminist is very divisive and silences people who do not agree.

Lord Moonie has been reprimanded now. Though not, as far as I can see for referring to Fanny Haddock as a c u next Tuesday.

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/fife/814511/fife-labour-peer-reprimanded-for-sharing-unacceptable-image-on-twitter/

What was the unacceptable image?

If you scroll down the article, Repeal, it's in there - it's the one about the bathroom.

The looks to have been a very ill-advised tweet by Lord Moonie.

I didn’t click on it as I didn’t recognise the website. I do recognise you and Iused2b so I will do now

Ah!

I suspect that is a viewpoint shared by many males.

I saw him call haddock a cunt. While I agree he is, I’m not sure how I feel about members of the HoL calling people cunts on twitter!

ou mean because they haven’t fully committed to honouring the referendum result and leaving with no deal if that is the only way to leave? Or because they’re not fully committed to giving people another referendum? If leave won again would you accept leaving? Or do you just want labour to commit to staying and think a referendum shouldn’t be used to decide something like this? Forgive me but I’ve no idea from your post what you want to see Labour do.

Do forgive me for not explaining for you exactly what I meant there - I'd forgotten one is expected to write a fucking manifesto when commenting on one's political feelings.

I want Labour to be pro-EU. All right?

And don't give me that 'will of the people' shit. Politicians are not obliged to (a) provide referendums on issues (b) obey the results of those referendums, (c) follow popular opinion. If they did, we'd have fucking capital punishment back. Politicians are supposed to act in the best interests of the country. All Corbyn and his Momentum puppeteers are doing is fanning the flames that they hope will get them into power.

“I want Labour to be pro-EU. All right?

And don't give me that 'will of the people' shit. Politicians are not obliged to (a) provide referendums on issues (b) obey the results of those referendums, (c) follow popular opinion. If they did, we'd have fucking capital punishment back. Politicians are supposed to act in the best interests of the country. All Corbyn and his Momentum puppeteers are doing is fanning the flames that they hope will get them into power.”

Thanks, no I honestly had no idea what you wanted.

I think labour are pro-EU to be honest (just not corbyn and the far left) but I don’t think they will ever say to the people Vote again unless they are sure the vote will be to remain. I think they see the referendum as divisive and regrettable and won’t want to call another one and create more division and anger unless they are sure the outcome will be a strong remain and settle it. I think they think that calling another referendum risks causing more division and anger on the side of leavers only for leave to win again would make things worse. The polls say leave won’t win, but then they said that last time too and the political establishment thought so too but they got it wrong and could easily get it wrong again.

I disagree about not following the will of the people though, I think we absolutely should have a referendum on the death penalty and implement a majority decision. In fact I think the public should be able to force referendums as they can in Switzerland and some US states. Can’t see what’s wrong with that to settle issues at all.

I think we absolutely should have a referendum on the death penalty and implement a majority decision

Eh ? Public opinion in the UK supports its abolition.

It did in 2015 but it was a new thing then and that seems like a long time ago now:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32061822

Support for the death penalty in Britain has dropped below 50% for the first time on record, an annual opinion survey says.

“MargueritaPink

I think we absolutely should have a referendum on the death penalty and implement a majority decision

Eh ? Public opinion in the UK supports its abolition.”

Fine with me. I would vote to have it. But if the majority disagreed that would settle the issue for me. I’m opposed to self ID too but if the majority disagreed in a referendum and said a woman was anyone who said they were I’d accept that too, but the thing about referendums is if you vote in them you’re sort of accepting that you might not get your way and saying a majority vote is a legitimate way to settle it.

We have representative democracy precisely because we expect those elected to devote much of their time to learning facts about issues, then debating them.

Turning over decision-making to referendums tends to result in crap decisions.

The death penalty is barbaric and occasionally results in the innocent being murdered by the state.

We have representative democracy precisely because we expect those elected to devote much of their time to learning facts about issues, then debating them

Turning over decision-making to referendums tends to result in crap decisions

Referenda are also divisive and as can be seen in Quebec and no doubt eventually in Scotland will turn into neverendums.

The question of the death penalty was settled long ago.

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&source=undefined&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwitwczkqo7gAhXC2OAKHRq2DasQzPwBCAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen_uk%2Farticle%2Fpawa9g%2Ftracing-the-uks-complicated-relationship-with-the-death-penalty&psig=AOvVaw3mVbVAcdSQgy2OaedzPFRc&ust=1548691293623631

To me, the EU membership referendum made sense because it was a question which crossed traditional political lines. The unprecedented support UKIP enjoyed during the 2014 MEP elections demonstrated this and the GE the following year (where UKIP received 1.4M more votes than the Lib Dems) showed that we were at a real risk of heading towards a threshold where people were willing to make even the GE a single issue election (far moreso than happened in 2017).

“VickyEadie

We have representative democracy precisely because we expect those elected to devote much of their time to learning facts about issues, then debating them.

Turning over decision-making to referendums tends to result in crap decisions.”

That’s one side to it. The other side is that political elites can buy into ideas that are so stupid only intellectuals could believe them then use the power of the state to force these ideas on everyone else and even use the power of the state to persecute those who won’t go along with their dogma. I think the public should be able to force legally binding referendums.