UK and Europe World • Page 8

"Abuse" is not the same as "criticism". I never said she deserves abuse. There's no doubt she would have faced racism in her life and being a popular politician in the public eye is only going to sadly further instigate that. But most of the criticisms (beyond pathetic trolls) are not "she's black" or "she's a woman" (especially if the popular alternative is also a woman?) but from her clear inept at potential home secretary.

Tweets like:

Have nothing to do with her skin colour or gender but how she's presented herself on TV lately - often in total shambles.

Tories supporters run smear campaigns on labour MPs. Corbyn alone proves that.

 

Still not a racist agenda minus the tweet from some random twitter handle - you're literally looking for cases where people may have been racist. How has that got public support? It hasn't.

People find Abbott incompetent for the role based on her poor campaign. That's it. I'm a Labour supporter and feel that way myself. There's no need to invent some agenda to prevent her getting any criticism.

 

1. I never said that politicians shouldn't be scrutinised, of course they should be. My point is that Abbott receives a disproportionate amount of criticism when compared to white male politicians who have made similar mistakes. Also, the type of criticism she receives is important to point out here- she is very often ridiculed and humiliated in a way that white men in similar positions aren't.

2. Read this article.

3. Read this, from Abbott herself.

 

I don't mind Abbot but I do think she doesn't help herself sometimes with some of the mistakes she makes (like the amount of votes thing the other week). I do definitely agree that she gets a lot more abuse thrown her way though compared to a lot of other unqualified/inept politicians. Just look at Michael Fallon this week, yes he's rightly being brought to task but he's forever been this inept and you don't hear about it anywhere near as much as Abbot.

 

1. You conflated "abuse" with "criticism" and accused me of supporting that abuse. I don't. She receives a disproportionate amount of criticism from individuals who want to smear Labour's chances of winning. But again, it's nothing to do with her skin colour/gender. Politics always has smear campaigns. White men are always mocked too? The amount of David Cameron pig jokes over the years is staggering. Boris Johnson? He does stupid things on the daily and gets heavily criticised:

2. Read it. This line: "Abbott isn’t taken seriously because she’s a woman and because she’s black" Where is the examples that it's because she's black? The article focused very little on Abbott herself, beyond one tweet criticising her, but fails to prove it's for racial undertones for her (not others). That's what I'm asking for.

3. Read it. Finally got some examples of recent racist and bigoted comments:
UK TODAY: disgusting torrent of racist and sexist abuse unleashed at UK’s first black woman MP
Gross. But they're still a bunch of nobody trolls - not representing the majority who find her incompotent in leading her role. You think ANY of the politicians aren't getting daily tweets like this? The popular smear jokes are not at the expense of her skin/gender. Her campaign has been awful. She even said she though police officers earned 23p an hour? Wtf? In contrast, Corbyn has been brilliant to turn things around, making me favour him. Abbott is a stain on the Labour campaign.

 

Because Lib Dems aren't as much as a threat to the Tories as Labour are. So of course the right are going to direct more of their hate towards Labour MPs.

 

"Abbott is a stain on the Labour campaign." - Erm... framing your criticism of Abbott in such terms is kind of what I'm talking about. It's disgusting and I'm not going to engage anymore with someone who is very obviously part of the problem.

 

She evidently is a stain on the campaign if she's luring away potential votes? Same for Corbyn originally (go see J.K. Rowling's constant rants on him) but he's turned it around and done brilliantly. Better than Ed Milliband last time.

But no, YOU'RE part of the problem trying to bait the race card to everything to dismiss any form of criticism. The majority of the public find Abbott inept for the role and find Amber Rudd a better pick. That's a problem in itself. As a Labour supporter, I expect better candidates.

 

Okay, I've blocked the moron. If anyone else wants to engage with him then feel free, but I'm done.

 

I'd just like to clarify that when I say she gets way more abuse thrown at her I think in part it's down to her mistakes but I'd imagine a lot of it is down to casual racism that is deeply rooted in our political parties (and country).

Which is hardy surprising when most of the politicians come from Cambridge and Oxford where the population of students is made up by mainly white students.

 

Good riddance.

 

I think people fail to understand that racism and sexism are still very existent in the UK because it's not nearly as overt as it is in the states. But it exists, just with more nuance and as an underlying factor rather than anything on the surface. Just because nobody is bringing race into the conversations with Abbott doesn't mean it isn't sticking BECAUSE of race. I'm by no means her biggest fan and I'd personally say that Labour would be doing better in polling with a different home Secretary candidate but just looking at her treatment as opposed to white conservative men making comparable mistakes and you can see the problem.

 

Such a shame an interesting debate/discussion gets reduced to name calling and blocking. I'm done with this thread. Letterbomb can carry on posting tweets for him/herself to read and agree with.

 

Actually the race card is good and also doesn't exist

 

Racism IS a real thing and Abbott receives overwhelming abuse because of it. It's not up for debate. I think all Blairites should be banned from this thread anyway, so thanks for leaving of your own free will!

 

I'm all for calling a spade a spade regarding racism, but I'm not sure putting a wall up about different opinions is a good idea. I'm firmly on the left of the party but getting rid of so-called 'Blairites' is just creating an echo chamber which is really the last thing anyone needs politically. We should be discussing ideas in isolation, not criticising them for where they come from. I'm pretty certain you aren't meaning to block off discussion on this basis but yeah.

 

The last part of my post was just a joke haha. I wasn't genuinely saying we should banish all Blairites from this thread! Although now that I think about it... just kidding lol

As far as the actual Parliamentary Labour Party itself goes, I definitely think the Blairite MPs should be deselected. There aren't actually that many left tbh, it's just that they still have many connections in the media so they regularly comment on stories, etc which creates the impression that they're a bigger force in the PLP than they actually are. But yeah, why does the Labour party need neoliberals? The truth is it doesn't, that's not a direction the Labour party should have ever followed. If you look at an organisation like Progress, which was highly supportive of New Labour under Blair, these days it actually hinders more than it helps Labour under Corbyn's leadership. Blair has said himself that he wouldn't want the Labour Party to win an election on a left wing platform and so I can only assume that many of his disciples feel the same. I still think there would be a broad range of debate in the Labour party without Blairites.

 

Perhaps! The talk from the blairites of a new party (particularly Blair himself) could cause troubles though. While I don't think they make up all that much of the Labour support base these days, I think it'd be significant enough to split the vote in key constituencies and screw the left out of any ability to get power. Definitely not a fan of neoliberalism but I'd rather them be with us than actively helping the tories. Plus, I don't know if you'd consider them blairites or not but candidates like Ben Bradshaw and Chuka Umunna attract massive support on their own in their constituencies. Even if their politics don't align with the party's perfectly, they're still bringing votes in that I'm not sure any old left wing candidate could. Say what you like about a lot of the old guard, but they still remain pretty bloody charismatic.

 

Jeez, I didn't think there would ever be beef in here

 

I mean sometimes it feels like they're actively helping the Tories when they're constantly briefing negative stories to the media. There are definitely some Labour MPs (hopefully a minority but idk) who would rather see Theresa May as PM than Corbyn, and I just don't want individuals like that in the party. I really want to see more "Corbynite" (I hate that term but oh well haha) candidates put up to stand as MPs because Corbyn definitely needs more MPs that back him. The problem is the party machinery at present isn't in Corbyn's control. This article considers the challenges Corbyn would face if he actually did become Prime Minister:

As he mentions, the PLP aren't just going to roll over and get on with things if Corbyn somehow wins the election. I think they'd still work to undermine him as best they could, especially if it meant they could get rid of Corbyn and have one of their allies take over. It's a shame Corbyn didn't have more time before the election to reform the Labour party from within. Also, this is a good podcast, it's mostly about how Corbyn won the Labour leadership, but they also talk a bit about the right of the Labour party and their attempts to win the leadership. Very interesting and worth a listen:

 

The UK/Europe thread seemed so much less hostile than the regular politics one normally is! I guess tensions run high around election times.

 

Will give this a listen in a bit. I'd agree that I want more Corbyn-esque politics in the party, and that'll no doubt happen given the surge of members to the party specifically because of his brand of politics, but I'm not sure I buy how much opposition he'd get as PM. I'd understand it based on his politics specifically, but on the basis of the pledges in the manifesto, I'm not too sure. Sounds like it was pretty unanimously agreed on, so I'd think that its implementation wouldn't really get much pushback. Maybe around November/March when the party announces budget plans, but that'd be it.

 

Young people really need to make sure they turn out, because damn this could be instrumental in giving us a victory.

 

I hope you're right but I'm not so sure. Sorry to keep quoting from stuff, but other people put it much more clearly than I can haha, and this article describes the ideological differences between Corbyn and the PLP really well:

I don't think the dispute between Corbyn and the PLP was ever an issue of competence, it was because most of the PLP is ideologically opposed to much of Corbyn's platform. Unfortunately, that's not going to change even if he does pull off the impossible and become PM.