Your Corbyn/Sultana Party - Discussion thread - Part 2

[fromorbit]

The YP starting conference is in the ACC in Liverpool between 29-30 November so only three weeks off. With competing factions involving Islamic conservatives, every variety of Marxist/Communist, former Labour members, trade union activists, entryists from SWP and SPEW, splitters from the Scottish Greens, trans activists and actual left wing feminists [not the nice kind] it is difficult to underplay how much controversy there is likely to be. So we will need a second thread in advance.

Thus far following the internal drama of the UKs newest left party has taken a whole thread. It has been a wild ride and the party still does not have a name.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5394557-your-corbynsultana-party-discussion-thread

Sounds like the Greens are cooling on the idea of a pact, wisely they would not get much out of it.

Your Party’s battle to survive after Corbyn-Sultana infighting ‘shambles’
The inside story of the left-wing challengers as they target local elections - as major players clash and a raw operation tries to get off the ground

Greens cool on idea of a pact
The Your Party campaign will be centred around a “no cuts, anti-austerity agenda, which we think will resonate”, a party spokesperson said.
Squeezed local government budgets, and a creaking social care system unable to keep up with demand, will be on the forefront of voters’ minds, they argued.
The party is focused on maximising seats, not candidates. As a result it will not stand in every ward but will direct efforts where it believes it is most likely to win.

Sources said they would be led by party members who might choose to coalesce around a left-wing independent candidate.
“That targeted approach opens the door to localised electoral pacts, particularly with the Green Party – not a formal national pact, but more of an organic agreement about where we choose to target seats,” one source said.
Noises from the Greens suggest, however, that there is less appetite from their side to enter into such an agreement.

The Green Party’s public line is that it is always open to cooperation where there’s political overlap. But privately, insiders admit that the recent surge in support under new leader Zack Polanski – and the perceived chaos of Your Party – has left them with minimal appetite for collaboration.
Green sources at Westminster said they were happy to leave Your Party to its own problems for the time being.
https://archive.is/T2C0d

Sultana tweeted to abolish the monarchy on NYD. The monarchy she swore an oath to defend. Actual Republicans don't take seats in the King's Parliament though.

She followed that up with an attack on the Scottish Greens as militarists. Presumably to help YP Scotland. Led to a scrap which was part of wider divisions between SNP and Scottish Greens over arms sales.

Ross Greer hits back after Zarah Sultana attacks Scottish Greens
https://archive.is/x8pFu

Another look at some of the year's events in Greens and YP:
The dark comedy of the Islamo-left alliance
https://archive.is/V0mSi#

Can anyone genuinely look at Greer and Sultana, Young Ones Rick wannabes, more angry children than thoughtful adults, and imagine for one moment them being in power?

We had Boris Johnson in power. He was no less ridiculous just by virtue of being a white guy in a suit.

This is true

Well, the trouble with trying to reassure me that YP is full of Serious People is that I know far too many of them.

If Corbyn had ever got to be PM he'd almost certainly have appointed Tony Greenstein to the House of Lords. The last time I interacted with Tony he called me a Mossad asset. I didn't take it too seriously becase he thinks everyone is a Mossad asset.

I think BJ had pretty good political instincts, albeit they were undermined by his lack of self-discipline. I do not think I'd say the same about Sultana's political instincts.

Well that's your opinion, whatever "political instincts" might mean beyond simple prejudice about which class of people get to run the country no matter how corrupt, incompetent and ridiculous they are.

As ridiculous as I find Corbyn, it's probably relevant that Corbyn is now the sensible centrist in YP, and on that basis is opposed by half of the membership.

I am not particularly fond of the people around Corbyn, but they're a quantitative step up from Sultana or the people aligned with her, like the rape enablers of the SWP or the antisemitic nutcase David Miller.

When confronted with those people, "they're much better quality than Boris Johnson" does not seem very obvious to me.

I mean political nous. A sense of how to operate to achive what he wanted in politics, in terms of the public, but also all the behind the scenes elements. I mean, that's a large part of the reason he managed to be successful as a populist and get where he did in the party.

It has nothing to do with "the class of people who get to run the country", do you think admitting any kind of vaguely positive thing about someone must reflect some kind of class bias?

Of course, even in a Mickey Mouse outfit like YP, lots of people are highly motivated to seek power. It may be power in a very small bubble, but I've seen incredibly vicious infighting in Trotskyite groups that barely topped 100 paid-up members. If that sounds like schoolgirls fighting over who gets to be president of the chess club, you aren't far wrong.

Lord Acton used to have a good line about power and its tendency to corrupt. His great-grandson Alex Callinicos should have paid more attention to it.

I don't much like Corbyn, but I will say in his mitigation that he wants to appeal to the masses, even if he isn't capable of doing so. Sultana wants to be queen, and doesn't care much if she's queen of the ashes. The people behind Sultana are the most evil people I know.

I think when you're talking about "behind the scenes elements" in a political culture that has been established over centuries around the shared understanding of rich, well-connected, privately educated men, it's a foregone conclusion that rich, well-connected, privately educated men are going to be "better" than other people at navigating those understandings. Which is fine, as long as you're happy for the country to go on being run by rich, well-connected, privately educated men for the benefit of their class regardless of what a shitshow they make of it for everyone else.

Well nobody said that.

And what makes you think half the YP membership are "opposed" to Corbyn?

Well the thing is @TruckDiver, your motte and bailey routine wears a bit thin after a while.

In particular I'm thinking of how you swear you're not advocating for Sultana's allies in the SWP, but that doesn't stop you ostentatiously sneering at anyone who does have first hand knowledge of the rape cult.

If you want to advocate for the prominent figures in YP being serious people who could be entrusted with serious responsibility, please provide what you think is evidence for that.

Just saying "Boris Johnson hur hur hur" is not very convincing when you're trying to have a conversation with anyone who was never a particular fan of Boris Johnson in the first place.

It seems daft to even comment about people who are just images on a TV screen, when @SionnachRuadh knows them IRL, but (slightly light-hearted), I don't like to think of JC as a bad person. I voted for him! And however wrong-headed he may have been, I don't think is. He certainly didn't go into politics with the intention of wealth, or power. Family connections in the area, not Labour supporters, tell the same story of him being a diligent and helpful constituency MP. Put it this way, come that 28 Days Later push-comes-to-shove moment, I'd like think he's be on the side of the people, not the State! 😁Sultana, OTOH, just seems an appalling person.

I'll say up front, and I've said this before, I've met Corbyn twice. Once he was charming and once he was grumpy. That's par for the course with Corbyn. I don't rely on my subjective impressions. I rely more on the many people I know who've been close to him, who have given me a fair idea of his strengths and weaknesses.

Everyone who knows Sultana well, from the Labour Party or the NUS, says she's impossible to work with. Even people who agree with her get tired of her relentless grandstanding.

If we're going to discuss the people around Sultana - who take aim at Karie Murphy because they don't want to openly target Corbyn - then you're into my area of personal expertise.

If you think Boris Johnson isn't a serious figure (and I'm not saying he objectively is), but we could entrust responsibility to Amy Leather or Lewis Nielsen or Maxine Bowler or Julie Sherry or Weyman Bennett or Lord Callinicos... I can't help you.

But of course this will just provoke @TruckDiver to say "who said that? I didn't say that!" And so the motte and bailey game carries on.

Indeed.

BJ was reasonably within his element within the Tory world, sure, but he was also quite good at it. Plenty of people with the same background as him manifestly are not. Not many people finesse their way to PM, especially with the particular deficits Boris had.

Sultana is aiming to be a figure in the labour movement/Marxist/radical world, and if she was politically capable she'd be seen navigating that world, and appealing to the the parts of the population her politics appeals to, with similar success as BJ has within his own sphere.

She hasn't though, she's fucked it up all round.

@SionnachRuadh I don't know what the fuck you're on about. I certainly don't know what a motte and bailey routine is. You still seem mortally offended by the fact that I hold a range of views only some of which corroborate yours. I've no idea whether you're The Most Well Connected Personal Acquaintance Of Everybody On The British Left that you want us to be so impressed by, and I honestly don't give a fuck. Your opinions are what they are and I'll agree when I do and when I don't, I'll say why.

I've also met Corbyn and know people who know him, and have a similar personal impression to you. I've never met Sultana and know much less about her. To me she seems forceful and passionate but not very bright. She certainly doesn't seem to have the grasp of nuance and complexity required to turn her passion into a successful mass movement.

OK that makes sense. Although one could also point out that Boris's Tory-world, where most people can overlook most differences in order to stay united in pursuit of POWER, is an innately more likely breeding ground of political success than Zarah's Lefty-world, where a difference of opinion about some obscure detail of Marxist theory is enough to render people of otherwise identical politics unable to talk to each other. 😁

Yes, that is certainly a particular problem that dogs the left. Though I would suggest that politics always seeks power, that's how you are politically effective and are able to enact policy. Right or left are both looking for that.

It's an interesting phenomena, in that when it is operating this way the conservatives seem to be able to exemplify a kind of solidarity in pursuit of political goals, while the left fracture, even to the point of individualism at times.

It's not a question of who's got the most impressive inside connections.

It's specifically a question of Sultana's open alliance with the SWP, and at this point I would say their rape cover-up culture is the best known thing about the SWP.

For some reason @TruckDiver doesn't like me mentioning this, and invariably goes into sneer mode a la "I can't corroborate your wild accusations", and backs it up with insults.

I refuse to show you the deference you obviously expect, and do not intend to engage further.

I saw Zarah Sultana calling someone a boomer the other day, and she seemed quite pleased with herself about it. Nice bit of ageism from an MP. What do her constituents think of her? She seems incredibly immature for someone in their thirties.

It bloody well should be the best known thing about the SWP. Deserves to sink them. Horrific.

She seems incredibly immature for someone in their thirties.

Have you met Nadia Whittome? 😀