Corbyn’s leftist clique
 

https://news.sky.com/story/blackadde...lique-11210455

Agree with Robinson. The extreme left are taking over the Labour Party and it can only end in tears for all of us if they ever get any real power.

If today’s controlling PC is anything to go by we will be living in a nanny state with not only opposing opinions being completely censored but free thought becoming a thing of the past.

A scary prospect in what is supposed to be the free West. We are supposed be going forwards - but in reality we will be going backwards and swapping one set of victims for another. That is not progress.

The Left is definitely taking over the Labour party. And Momentum will stop at nothing to get Marxists into power. They are aggressive in their campaigning in a way that's not been seen before. They will argue, whether they're right or wrong, and if they're losing they'll accuse you of all sorts of things. They'/re also the noisiest. The Left have no worries about one of their number hanging up a banner that says "hang the Tories" but would squeal like pigs if that message was reversed. You only have to take a look at the language used on this very forum against anyone who's not Labour. It's a worry. We need a strong Labour party... but the more the Left push, the harder people in the centre will push back. We don't need extreme Left or extreme Right... we don't need extreme anything. And I'm sure that at the next General election all those people who don't discuss their vote for fear of being abused by someone who's a bit frantic about it all, will use their vote like they always do.

Load of tripe again.

However,even if it was remotely true, I will take the leftist clique over this rotten,hardline,gutless and heartless extreme right wing clique we have in govt.at present and their massively deceitful leader.

Yes, that's the ticket... go for the extreme Left (which is what Corbyn is) over the centre and the right. I would encourage people to do that. Because I doubt Corbyn, despite the efforts of Momentum, will ever get into power.

I agree Livia. The degree of censorship and the manner in which it is done is disgraceful and not what a country like Britain is supposed to be about. There is a lot of hypocricy with the equivalent of a lynch-mob reaction to Tory failings but nothing but the sweeping-under-the carpet of or support of Labour failings.

I agree we need a stronger more central Labour Party if there is any chance of getting better than what we currently have - which is far from perfect - but the current Labour government would be an even bigger disaster. No extremes should be the name of the game.

You were indicating almost that he would lead Labour into near oblivion,that Labour was finished under him in the election of June last year too.

I wouldn't be so sure he won't get into power,especially the way this lot are continuing to go as to incompetent,heartless and hardline actions.

If this lot are in any way good govt.then all powers that be need to help the UK.
You were way off the mark in June last year,I think you have another shock to come in the next election too.
I never believed Corbyn could win enough seats to lead a govt,majority or minority one.
He surprised me and I think he well may do again.

His is the only real alternative to this govt. I think you may have to witness it's an alternative voters,and the new voters next time will want too.

You have to ask the reason behind so many people becoming hard left.

Could it be that Tory style capitalism and corruption has become so corrosive that people are becoming heartily sick of it?

Heartily sick of it perhaps - but that is no reason to let desperation cause them to lose sight of the the bigger picture. Swapping one inadequate government for another is no answer and will simply lead to people voting for the lesser of two evils.

People will need to think hard about what Party is most likely to cause the most damage in the long-run. Older voters are more likely to have personal experience of that.

cORbyNs LeFTisT CLiQue!!


...I'm actually not a huge fan these days to be fair. I don't see why we can't have a genuinely, properly, centre oriented party that ALSO has a commitment to fair social policies to support low incomes and disabilities comfortably (meaning, not on a subsistence existence and also not piling pressure and stress onto people who need it least).

Basically we need a party that realises two things:

1) Capitalism isn't ideal and there are huge problems, but it's the only viable system we have and it's so ingrained at this point that we have to accept that there's no way to change the momentum behind it.

2) Capitism WILL INEVITABLY FAIL if we don't accept that some level - an increased level - of socialism is 100% necessary in the foundations of our economy to prop up the upper levels. People need to be able to live full, proper, engaging lives (buy homes, go on holidays, survive without getting into masses of debt) in low wage employment. It is as essential to right wing thinking as it is left.


Until people realise that our only current survival option is, paradoxically, right-wing economics with an increased focus on social policies that increase spending power and general life comfort, then we're kind of ****ed.

No matter how much you want to believe that people should only get to be comfortable / have spending power "later in life once they've werked rly hard" - Right wing economics does not function without consumers. People on low and low-middle incomes MUST have spending power. It's that simple.

But also, no matter how much you want to believe that we can have a fully inclusive and harmonious socialist society - we are WAY past that point and slamming the brakes on the system as it is, will collapse the entire things. Sure everyone can be equal... in that no one will have much of anything.

Basically... in order for there to be people that are doing well, there sadly have to be people who are not doing so well (right wing thinking - Corbyn doesn't like / doesn't get this). At the same time, in order to keep that system functioning, the people who are not doing so well have to be supported in such a way that means that they ARE doing well enough to live normal, comfortable lives (left wing thinking - the Tories do not get this and believe that a system that works for those nearer the top can function on the backs of miserable people indefinitely, which it cannot and will not).


Basically... there's really no one to vote for right now. It's an impossible situation that is potentially unfixable on a UK-wide scale. It COULD work on a smaller scale, e.g. for Scotland, but that ship has pretty much sailed now :whistle:.

No, it isn't, but we live in a two-party system so we really don't have any choice but to flip and flop between the two. A one-party state is certainly no answer, either.

I remember when the left were seen as namsy pamsy tree huggers. Now they are seen as revolutionists that want to take us down the socialist route. How things have changed!

The problem with both parties is, the divide is too big. The left see the right as enemies of the state and vice versa. The Right had its time at being a one party state and I believe if the Left get in at the next election, that too will have its time.

I'm not hard left... anything but. I would just like to see more social services serving its public. Services like the NHS, libraries, the postal service and possibly national rail. I don't want to live in a socialist country anymore than I want to live in a neoliberal style one. I don't want a government that runs its business on the backs of limited companies and I don't want a country that follow Marxist philosophy.
Like you TS, I want good governance and I believe we can get that with Corbyn. I've always followed The Green Party and I find the way they are presently holding hands with Labour, somewhat reassuring because they aren't hard liners

So is the answer really to become part of the hard left hysterical outrage led by a Marxist loving Corbyn that is increasingly becoming more strident and intolerant? The young are being encouraged to have contempt for free speech and dissenting opinions, to take offence at the drop of a hat, to view themselves as poor, hard done by victims. They thumb their noses at tradition, see themselves as keyboard warriors and heroic activists.

It will all end in tears, disillusion and disappointment for them because the majority of people in our country are decent, tolerant and have no time for hard done by martyrs who think the world owes them a living and opinions opposing their own should be silenced by hysterical offence - taking.
As others have said, extremism of any kind is not the answer. History has shown that time and again.

EVIL LEFTIES :fist:

It’s scary to watch.No Labour votes from me again while this hard left element hold the power in Labour.
The woman who got most votes Yasmin Dar spoke at a rally last year to celebrate the 38th anniversary of the Iranian Khomeini-ist Islamic revolution.The regime responsible for shooting unarmed protesters.
“We’re here for a celebration.It’s a happy time,this is the third year i’ve been.It’s always in my diary”
Chairman of Labours disputes panel Christine Shawcroft says we should invite Islamic State for cups of tea rather than bombing them.

Ref:Daily Politics BBC2

At the rate things are going, I will have to spoil my ballot the next time. There is noone to vote for. Labour is ridiculous, Tories are horrible, Lib dems are useless but they have no chance anyway. Its all a huge ****ing mess.

I cannot believe how much i thought Corbyn was amazing maybe 6 months back. Momentum are ****ing arseholes too. I do agree with a lot of Corbyns politics, but some stuff is extremely important to me and I am polar opposites with him/the party on

Also this^

It’s all a bit of a mess really.
If labour split into two separate parties, Labour and Momentum, then a clearer picture would emerge for voters.
Giving voters the option of how far off centre they would like to go.

I would like this.

I want Jess Phillips to lead the new Labour party too. Though that wouldn't happen :laugh:

God No!
(Jeremy Corbyn all is forgiven :laugh: )

:laugh:

If Labour were to split,which the Cons and their hardline supporters would likely love to see.
All you would end up with would be continuous Conservative govt.near without any real organised opposition.

As happened when centrists split Labour in the 80s with forming the SDP, thereby ensuring Margaret Thatchers run of absolute power,with the Cons in govt for an astonishing 18 years.

What's really needed is a change to proper PR as a voting system to curb extremes.
PR is something the Cons would never support however.

Many people predicted that Corbyn’s hardline extremist political views would soon come to the fore and that is exactly what is happening. I imagine, that due to the current political climate, he feels the time is right and quite likely with a bit of aggressive pushing from Momentum.

In my opinion Corbyn is either every bit as hardline as much has suggested or he is fast becoming Momentum’s puppet. We have a lot to fear from such a government with long-term consequences.

Before you tar me with a 'hard left' brush stroke, let me make it clear that I couldn't give a flying **** about those rallying against free speech and the like. As far as I'm concerned, the lot of them can take a running jump, hopefully off somewhere high.

I think the likes of such people are monsters who have gone all out to take something positive and turn it into something negative with all their trivial nonsense.
Do you believe I disagree with that? or did you take some sort of offense about what I said about the Tories?

No, I don't believe you are hard left DM.

I was just giving my view on what you said here as to what the alternative is:

I'm very much centrist though I must say the current hard left's behaviour (and the fear of Corbyn as a PM) is pushing me slightly more towards the right.

Corbyn is about as far from hard left as Britain is from Australia. Where on earth has this suggestion stemmed from? Where and what is the evidence that brings about such accusations? I don't care how many tabloids try to ram this nonsense down my throat. I refuse to swallow it. All these borrowed words like Marxism, Trotskyism, Socialism that’s being bandied against a man who’s most radical principal is to re-nationalize the railways. For ****s sake, he's not going to storm Buckingham Palace or have us all lining up for butter! From where I'm sitting he just wants to curb the sins of capitalism to a point where the vulnerable have more protection. That isn't communism or socialism, its democratic.

This Red Army analogy you keep painting about Corbyn is nonsense. Hit out at the hard liners by all means but Corbyn isn't one of them.

Tony Robinson is a TV personality and like me, a Labour supporter and his views are no less important than the next Labour supporter. The difference is, because of who he is, his views get published in main stream media. It means nothing unless you want it to mean something.

But why? why do you fear Corbyn so much?

I've said to you before, I can't go there.

Superb post.

The thing ignored now is we have an extreme right wing govt in power.
Which is failing miserably.
One whose supporters are allowing it to trample over and add massive undue stress, to the weakest,poorest,sick and disabled.

One of the most sickening and unjust things anyone can do with power is hammer its most vulnerable in society.
Despicable.

Then when anyone speaks out against such vindictiveness and discrimination being enacted against the sick and disabled.
They get called extreme lefties.

Well hey I will happily be an extreme leftie than an extreme right winger,allowing their govt to have the sick and disabled being made to feel further low class citizens.
Rarely if ever saying anything against their govts policies never mind stopping supporting such a cruel hardline govt and PM.

I was brought up with the saying,the only time you should look down on others is when you are helping them back up.
This govt takes away vital support needed for those in dire need,while it protects those who don't need to be.

The ones being referred to as extreme lefties are the ones constantly trying to ram their opinions down people’s throats by trying to shut down their opinions - people quick to label those with differing opinions as far right.

Many people on the left genuinely care about the less advantaged, the sick and disabled as do many on the right but to think that all those on the left, especially those at the extreme end, care and none of those on the right do so is ridiculous. Politics is about a hell of a lot more than that.

How simplistic a view to think the left are all good people and the right are all bad people. People vote for a political party for many different reasons - but the core discussion of this thread is the controlling behaviour and shut-down tactics of the PC far left doing their utmost to censor any opinions that don’t tally with their own and the way in which they do that.

As usual you put your own words in as to what I said which is why I refuse to even try to debate with you.
I never said ALL as in any context.

However continue to do me your biased against me disservice if it gives you that so much pleasure for some reason.
I really don't care a jot what you think, as you with me vice versa too.

The doom and gloom is rather overdone. In the United Nations index of World Happiness, in which data is used to implement policies, Britain comes 19th out of 157 countries, beating the likes of Italy, France, China, Japan, Spain.
There was a 4 point rise from 2016 to 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

Another recent survey by the Office for National Statistics found that our levels of happiness, well being and life satisfaction are higher than ever before.
The truth is we live longer, safer and more comfortable lives than any previous generation.
Of course we have our problems, and still will have no matter which gov. is in power, as the past has demonstrated time and time again.

When you look at the desperate poverty, deprivation and lack of freedom that many countries suffer, we are damn lucky. You'd think that our weakest, poorest, sickest, were all left to deliberately starve and die. Our NHS is pretty darn good despite it's problems and the nations health and economic status is improving...despite the fact that we still haven't recovered from the recession. Count your blessings and hope that the upward trends continue.

The thing is though, if you believe this (and it's almost certainly true), you have to believe the flipside, too. I know you personally hate Corbyn and have your reasons... but, if you're asking for logic / reason / levelheadedness... I think we all know that the chances of the UK becoming some sort of hard-left communist dictatorship off the back of Labour winning a General Election are realistically zero. It just isn't going to happen, is it. Huge shifts like that take cataclysmic events and the honest truth is that if you could fast-forward 10 years under Labour, or 10 years under Tory, and have a look... the country "in broad strokes" would look pretty much the same.

Oh I absolutely agree. There will be no magical economic transformation if Labour gets into power, no matter what his supporters believe. Nor do I think the majority of the UK people would tolerate a dictatorship. I don't believe Corbyn will get in at all, in fact. Thank God.
What I don't like is the current ugly mood as I detailed in my first post in this thread, and I think it would get uglier if he did get in.....and I have other personal reasons why I detest him, shared by a small number of others, and why I would despair if he achieved PM.

The "ugly mood" and tribalism has been at the forefront since long before the Corbyn / May era, though. I mean it's always been there, but I mean this current form of it, was already present when Cameron and Milliband were campaigning. People are being attracted to the extremes, picking a side, and treating it like a "game"... You only have to look at the "ha ha we won we won you lost!" attitudes in the aftermath of each vote to see that. It's not democracy, it's a sports match.

Funny thing is, I think if there was suddenly a completely centrist party, people would flock to them... But the political system is so entrenched that that's an impossible scenario. Any new party is going to be considered to be "unproven" and so people feel duty bound to vote for a "real, established" party even though the majority of people aren't that fond of either. It's a stalemate.

But with that being the case, we MUST continue to flip and flop between the two, no matter which you consider to be the lesser of two evils, the pendulum had to continue to swing. If one party - either of them - starts to feel "untouchable" in terms of retaining power, that's when the real trouble kicks in.

Good saying, I think I'll adopt that one :blush:

Well right wing politics ain't working. Maybe this is worth a try for both main parties. (Not that I'm literally humouring the hyperbole you fell for)

It's a lot uglier now. We didn't have the far left Momentum then with their Marxist ideals....and we didn't have the OTT PC nonsense which is showing a worrying loss of rationality and perspective.
We didn't have transgender activists who call you a fascist if you have the view that a woman and a man are biologically different.
Or the strident keyboard warriors who call you a racist if you feel immigration should be curbed (not that I do personally). Or a sexual abuser if you happened to accidentally brush a woman's knee with your hand.
I'm sure you can think of many more examples.
Twitter and Facebook are used much more now and are a breeding ground for dissent and online witch hunts. The hard left site Skwawkbox, endorsed by Corbyn, feed the young fake news to discredit opposition which they take as gospel.

I really think it's worse....:shrug:

It is getting worse but like I said I think that was inevitable, and it's also not one-sided. People are lurching hard to both "sides" in an almost tribal way. It's a battle... it's a "game"... and the harder one pushes, the more severe the backlash from the other, in a downwards spiral. Yes, all of the things you mention here are true and are problems; but in response, we have Trump as the POTUS, we have emboldened, GENUINE racists abusing the shield of "free speech". We have people basically saying "Damn PC to hell" and believing that they should be able to say literally whatever they want without any legal OR social repercussions (with the former being fair enough, but the latter nonsensical).

All of that said; I actually still think the problem is a very loud, very visible (especially online) minority and most people - other than on their bad days :hee: - are actually sick of ALL of it and want to settle back into a reasonable middle ground.

These are just distractions. Distractions put in place so you don't look up and see what's actually going on. Most of us, I know I do, ignore all this hot air. Its certainly not in my face because I find it boring and trivial so I just shut it off and ignore it. The only time I get annoyed is when I hear a person persistently rant about a race or a certain type of sexuality but other than that I'm a live and let live sort of person.

This isn't the nitty gritty of politics. Its not about how this government is leading our country or how another party would lead it differently. If politics is such a vast subject, why put so much emphasis into such trivial matters when there are much bigger things we should be discussing such as energy, tax, military, the economy, the impending crash, health and social care and any one of the major subjects to do with turning the cogs in the big wheel.

I don't think people pushing to say literally whatever they want is anywhere near as prevalent as people being afraid to literally give honest and even mild opinions without being labelled as some 'ist' or other.
Trump is an extreme exception - an horrific man all round. If Americans continue to tolerate him, then they deserve him. He would never last in the UK.

I do hope you are right in what you say in your last paragraph. A middle ground is certainly needed - and soon.