To be fair, Europeans have been acting like that’s true for a couple of centuries now.
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Is that the unutterably disgusting Cecil Rhodes, of whom Mark Twain said that when Rhodes died he would buy a piece of the rope for a souvenir?
…and that the entire Earth is theirs for the taking since the mid-1500s.
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Indeed. I always thought that image really captured the Victorian era British empire hubris towards the rest of the world, and that Rhodes was the canonical example, especially in Africa itself.
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He had Warren Hastings as an exemplar. Lord MacAulay’s essay on Hastings is worth reading; it’s as forensic as you would expect. To be fair to us, there was an attempt at impeachment, and an acknowledgement in the UK that Indians had rights. British policy in India was basically a decapitation and replace strategy; new boss same as old boss but with slightly less oppression. Rhodes’ policy in Africa was just plain old unrestricted grab.
It would be a mistake, I think, to believe that human progress means our present politicians would not do exactly the same if they thought they could get away with it. Which (where we came in) is why Corbyn presents a threat; he is anti-colonialism and anti-support for colonial régimes. He may be wrong to perceive Israel as such a régime, but Israel has its own mini-Cecil Rhodes in waiting (I recall Mark Thomas describing how he interviewed one of them who told him that, basically, Biblical Canaan stretched westwards as far as the IDF could control.) The reluctance of Westminster politicians to let go of Scotland is an example.
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Not sure what your direct experience of the internals of the Labour Party are but [quote=“toyg, post:118, topic:86129”]
There is no “internal party dissent”
[/quote]
definitely doesn’t describe the Labour Party I have experience of.
My description would be much more:
"There is no culture of dissent and even the idea of a respectful, informed discourse appears to be abhorrent to many card carrying LP members and officials. It is among the most dysfunctional organisations I have come across and I am increasingly of the belief that membership is bad for your health. I am thinking John Smith, Robin Cook, Mo Mowlan. The LP environment doesn’t appear to foster visionary politicians.
I am sorry to say this, but what exactly has Jeremy Corbyn achieved in the last year or so, other than being elected as the leader of an opposition in tatters? As a matter of fact, what exactly has he achieved in the last 30 years in Parliament–aside from being on the right side of history–which I guess is kind of an achievement–although for politicians, I always thought it was more about actually making history.
But most importantly to me at this moment in history, for me as an immigrant Corbyn’s Labour Party is very bad news.
I’m pretty sure that the pack of skinheads who beat me bloody when I was a teen, or the group of white supremacists who drove through a Jewish summer camp with fully automatic paintball guns a few summers back shooting at children, to give two examples, had any motivation other than “we hates them for they are Other”.
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I quoted the same passage you did. How is that “selective quotation”?
I can’t see how the Palestian refugees don’t meet the same standard; and because they were dispossessed within living memory, and many of them can establish individual/family/village claims, the refugees’ claims deserve the same consideration.
I would add that there are often old irridentist claims, and because these can go back far before living memory, and no one can establish individual/family /village claims, and because there are often conflicts between these claims, these claims require skepticism more than consideration.
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Oh dear. Welcome to politics. Political parties were not built to have “respectful, informed discourse”; they are, first and foremost, instruments necessary to reach power in parliamentary democracy. They can be pretty brutal - look at the Tories constantly cannibalizing their best leaders.
Modern politics is bad for your health, inside or outside a party – any party. It requires obsessive and unending dedication.
It’s not about fostering, it’s about selecting. Again, quite the bipartisan problem - the current PM being as anti-visionary as they come, the Foreign Secretary somebody who basically tossed a coin to decide which side to choose in the most important vote of his life, etc etc. It’s not even a purely British problem…
He has consolidated his standing in the face of relentless attacks from inside and outside the party; he tirelessly campaigned for a policy (Remain) mostly out of respect for the party, achieving the same result (or better) than all other party leaders did; had to reshuffle his Shadow Cabinet every few months, and still has to put up with half the necessary manpower for frontbench roles; helped industrial-action campaigns in various sectors; strongly reaffirmed opposition to Tory policies, ending the shameful practice of abstaining on hard votes like welfare cuts; and proposed policies that are more visionary than we’d seen for decades (in fact, the argument is on whether they are too visionary and not pragmatic enough). Just by marking discontinuity with New Labour without compromises, he has achieved more in a year than Ed Miliband did in 5.
I guess you should ask the good citizens of Islington North who kept sending him back. At the very least, he achieved the result of keeping alive a socialdemocratic tradition that Blair and Brown tried their hardest to obliterate.
The opposition to the Iraq war made history. Winning two leadership contests against the entirety of a party establishment captured by special interests for a generation, and against the majority of the media, made history. I very much prefer this sort of “making history” over invading random countries and selling out national welfare for profit.
As a fellow immigrant, I’m much more positive. He already stated that he refuses any immigration cap. His history on race and tolerance issues is spotless, something that no other leader has (Farron is a fundamentalist Christian, May at the Home Office put the squeeze on visas everywhere she could). Yes, he’s not particularly pro-EU, but because of long-standing issues of governance, not because of Farage-like racism. The likes of Owen Smith, for all their posturing, would happily sell us out to the racists if it meant getting a few more votes; I wouldn’t expect that from someone with the history Corbyn has.
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Well need and have are not the same thing.
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Must be a bit difficult to communicate to the wider public when your so-called allies keep trying to push you off the podium. Nobody has given him a fair chance. The left is doing just fine in Scotland, they’re called the SNP. They do well because they prioritise public services, not just because they want independence. I don’t know why Labour’s left can’t do just as well in England and Wales, and maybe even get back some of the disillusioned voters they’ve lost from the grassroots all over the UK while they were trying to suck up to the City for the last 20 years. People who would have voted Labour in the past call them “Red Tories” now and cast around for any alternative or just don’t bother voting. Those are the people they need to win back.
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Imagine me giving you about 15 likes for that post. Well said.
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Yes? A parliamentary party is supposed to represent (ie give a voice to) its constituency in the governing of a country. What are you putting into it? Why can’t people be members of both trade unions and campaign groups and political parties? What is a political party but a really big campaign group that can afford to put its representatives up for election?
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It helps to have someone remarkable like Nicola Sturgeon as your first minister.
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Well to be fair he often looks tired…
She only came on after the independence referendum though. SNP did just fine under Alex Salmond.
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Well he did stand by his principles. Which I think is unique selling point in the context of the Labour party. Certainly there are a decent number of us who are horrified at the wing of the party who forced through deregulation of banking, regressive tax policies, public private partnerships which only benefit the private part, and the Iraq war.
Or put another way, what did the Blairite wing of the party achieve that the party members actually wanted?
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Thanks for a thoughtful response. Writing as someone who last year voted for Corbyn with great enthusiasm I genuinely hope your optimism proves you right.
I came of age in a part of the world (West-Germany) where our experience was that politics made a huge difference to our lives, for the better. The level of public discourse in the 80s could be described (by today’s standards) as sophisticated–we will discover in 2017 how effective that kind of political education is in the long term.
That is very much down to First Pass the Post. A more representative system can and will foster more visionary, even courageous politicians. I would consider e.g. Helmut Schmidt, Weizsäcker, Brandt, Genscher among those fostered by their party, maybe Angela Merkel–but only 2017 will tell.
Good, forward thinking politicians in my view are people of collaboration and consensus building. This doesn’t seem to be one of Corbyn’s strength, but it is the most essential of skills. And please don’t say that 2/3 of the PLP are so unhinged that no consensus building is possible–in that case we are really doomed. Another important aspect of leadership is choosing of advisors–this again doesn’t appear to be a Corbyn strength.
I am a good citizen (hopefully) of the neighbouring (Old) Labour Borough of Hackney, where Diane Abotte, Corby’s confidant reigns. Labour run Hackney is a dysfunctional nightmare (and was such in times of plenty), at this point in time our expectations are so low, that we feel privileged if the rubbish is collected. I really don’t want these people to run anything larger than a community hall.
These areas are Labour through and through and thanks to FPP, there will be Labour MPs in these constituencies no matter who that person is. That really is not an achievement. I don’t doubt that Corbyn is nice or that he is a hard working constituency MP, doing great things for the local citizenry, but that is miles removed from being a statesmen on the world stage.
I will try to learn from your optimism. I think that might be down to the Italian in you. In my experience in Italy politics happen as a side show, while people get on with their real lives. I am far more German and serious about these things–May is an obvious nightmare–but I really can’t get excited by a Corbyn Labour Party. The Labour Party is not even debating Brexit at the party conference and they haven’t made a single statement about EU immigrants and their rights. Didn’t realise Farron is a fundamentalist Christian… Ugh…But my strong sense is, that whatever comes won’t be good for us Europeans --and Corbyn is not going to change that.
