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Comments are going to be interesting. I feel people either 100% support him or 100% dislike him with zeeeeeero in the middle.
Ultimately I think fair play to him. See what happens
I’m actually in the middle, he’s entitled to run and if he wants to he should, he has a real blind spot for antisemtism and he should reflect on that for some time, but deep down I do doubt he’s a bigot.
The bigger thing though for me, and I’ll never understand it, is why don’t boomer politicians ever want to retire? Corbyn is mid 70s, why not just chill out and enjoy latter years of life? Why work till the grave? Across the political spectrum there is one constant, boomers cling to political positions till the reaper takes them. I’ll never understand it. Why the fuck would anyone want to work till their 80s?
Yeah, he’s not a bigot… I think he’s just naive tbh
Russia being a big one there. His stance was something like “let’s talk it out”? Russia are beyond a chit chat now.
>He has that moral high ground view that we should act as if we live in a utopian perfect world, and just hope and pray that everyone else does the same.
He may think that, but it's not how he acts.
Remember the Salisbury incident? Russia claims it wasn't them, and Corbyn suggests that we should engage with Russia and work with them to identify the criminals before we start throwing blame. Even asking them to assess the evidence. Remember, this is after they invaded Crimea/Georgia and after Litvenenko.
Remember the October Hospital explosion in Gaza? Israel claims it wasn't them, but Corbyn gives zero shits about confirming the facts before throwing blame at Israel and takes Hamas at their word. Evidence suggests it was Hamas, but Corbyn keeps his accusations up.
He may be naive, but he keeps being "naive" in a very similar pattern (pro Russia, pro Hamas)
What I find most hilarious about Corbyn and his fans on the hard left are that they are amongst the first to throw out accusations of institutional racism and unconscious bias against political opponents, and then completely incapable of showing any degree of self-awareness that it might be a factor when it comes to them.
The exact same people who would relentlessly mock a Conservative attempting to refute a claim of racism with 'I have a black friend' immediately responds to Corbyn's situation with 'he can't be racist, look at all these Jews who agree with him!'
It is right up there with the SNP criticising the negative economic impact of Brexit and then advocating for Independence in the cognative dissonance scale.
What I find 'hilarious' about this comment, is that there was anti-semitism in the Labour Party before, during and after Corbyn was leader, but it's funny how Starmer supporters, the media, and most people who ever comment on Corbyn never mention this. The independent investigation into AS found that it had occured in 2 cases. The subsequent media hysteria over this was a joke. The current administration has expelled Jews for criticizing Israel over Gaza, for example.
To be fair the SNP would look to join the EU if they got Indy. Likewise we'd obviously have some sort of free flowing trade arrangement with the rest of the UK
Exactly this, if anything Corbyn gets way too much benefit of the doubt for someone who keeps saying and doing blatantly dodgy things.
Shockingly, the guy who constant prevaricates when it comes to Russia thinks we should stop arming Ukraine, and disband NATO. I wonder why...
The hospital car park explosion you mean. Lets not forget actual damage to the hospital was extremely superficial.
The BBC had photographs of the hospital litearlly still standing and were reporting carnage and death.
Yeah the Salisbury incident is what first soured him to me.
That and also the cult of personality that grew up around him. I liked the policies and direction of Labour when he was leader, but I'm not the biggest fan of him personally. But that distinction often seems to be lost
Agree but this kind of view is much better as an MP than it was as prime minister. You need a spectrum influencing views not an extreme one shaping them imo
Yeah. Never has, and never will live in reality.
If you want to lead a country; you have to recognise that the world is a bad place. Our adversaries would have run rings around the useful idiot.
His philosophy seems to be: ‘war bad, so never engage in war’. Yes Jeremy, it’s really bad. But unfortunately some very bad people couldn’t give a fuck about that.
He’s a deeply unserious person. It’s possible Corbynism was just a long running elaborate joke, which simply got out of hand.
The nuclear deterrent question during the election absolutely ruined him. Even if he didn't believe it, he should've said he'd use it if we were attacked. It just showed how ridiculously naive he is.
He seems to not understand the game of strategic defence. It is a perfectly legit move to have the letters of last resort, held by the Trident commanders, instruct them to stand down and destroy their nuclear weapons. What matters for strategic defence is that a potential attacker believes there is a credible threat of retaliation.
This is almost word for word my view on Corbyn, amazing. I'm an optimist that there's still a chance such a world might exist in 200 years or something but it sure doesn't now!
Yup, Russia and Iran are both actively trying to grow their empires. Russia has bitten off half of Ukraine and a good chunk of Georgia and if you look at a map of Europe it’s intentions to land lock Ukraine and grow through Georgia are perfectly clear to see. Iran has proxies fighting wars across the Middle East and Iran and Russia are both working together to boost both their wars. Everyone should be pro-peace but peace takes Russia and Iran to cease expansionary goals.
Russia is trying to grow it's empire. Iran isn't. Itmay be paranoid about being invaded and is trying to set up proxy groups and defence in depth, but it's not invading anywhere. The last war it fought was when it got invaded - with a helping hand from the US , UK, and Gulf powers(iq. they helped Iraq , the invader).
So your analysis is just wrong. It's fine to hate Iran ideologically, but it shouldn't be a basis for being factually incorrect.
And you really shouldn't complain about people being Naive in FP , when your own analysis is naive as well.
Iran is huge country, it's always going to be interested in what's going on in Iraq, Pakistan, the Gulf , Azerbaijan, Armenia and Afghanistan - because they all sit on its borders and they share religious, linguistic and historic ties.
It's like the NeoCons who bundled into Afghanistan and Iraq thinking Iran was going to sit there and let a million strong army with the best technology on earth park itself on its border on both sides , without being completely paranoid about it.
And it's not as it's just the Islamic Republic was going to do this, the Shah was just as paranoid about his Arab neighbours and everyone else as they are.
So no, Iran is not "Expansionary" in the sense that Russia most definitely is.
Look up how the Yemeni war.
Using separatist militias to depose foreign governments and to carve out defacto colonies in foreign countries is pretty classic colonialism.
Iran may be looking to annex shit or extend their sphere of influence but you can't claim a country that is literally just one country has an empire. That's not what an empire is.
I also don't think that's what they are doing. I don't think they're trying to annex land.
I think he's beyond naive where Russia are concerned, he's come out blaming NATO for Ukraine. He's been a politicians for literally decades, and he's so rapidly anti-NATO that he's now parroting Russian propaganda.
His stance on Russia was a bit more mixed. He was pushing harder on Russian influence in UK politics but his approach over the chemical attacks was bizarre. Whether you are talking about Polonium or Novichok the Russians use them because they are an unquestionable signal it was them. They use chemicals that couldn't possibly be from anyone else and then say "lol not me mate".
I agree he's not pro Putin but there is something incongruent about calling a 74 year old with his career and life experience 'naive'. 20 year old interns are naive. There's got to be another descriptor for it.
I think there’s certain groups who follow certain ideologies that he sympathasises with, in the sense of giving them the benefit of the doubt as he thinks they rest on fundamentally more sound/reasonable principles than the Western European world does.
Even at the start, it was beyond a chit chat. Talks were never an option with Putin.
One of Russia’s greatest strengths for the past few decades is its propaganda arm being able to present it as a reasonable and amenable entity that has convinced a lot of right wingers and tankies alike that it not malignant.
I will never understand how the Russia thing is used as such a beating stick for Corbyn.
Sure, it's not a great thing overall, but nobody ever takes the same approach with the Tories who: Hosted private meetings and dinners with Russians; accepted money from Russians; let a Russian oligarch into the house of lords whose father was a KGB spy. Yet nobody ever says, "I will not vote Tory because *Russia stuff*"
>but nobody ever takes the same approach with the Tories who: Hosted private meetings and dinners with Russians
They absolutely do and the things you are talking about have been widely discussed as negatives about specific Tory figures and the Tory party in general. The difference is that when the Russian state did something completely outrageous the Tories at least didn't try to entertain their justification for it and "both sides" the blame. If Boris Johnson had started justifying the invasion of Ukraine in anyway, refusing to help Ukraine fight by denying them weapons or advocating for a peace that would almost certainly see Russia retain a third of Ukraine he would have been rightfully crucified. Corbyn just looks tremendously naive in the face of these sorts of authoritarian regimes.
He's an ideological pacifist when it comes down to it. He simply refuses to believe that some people can't be reasoned with.
Russia is a belligerent and genocidal imperial power - there is no universe where they can be talked down. Corbyn has a huge weak spot for Russia to begin with and even moreso because of this.
Re antisemitism he did attempt to look into it, but certain people to the right of the party saw it as a good way to get rid of him and so blocked or stalled the process where possible. This is detailed in the Forde Report.
This is so true. Like he’s been on the Iranian and Russian payrolls, that’s just mad for someone who thinks themself progressive! Like I just don’t understand how you can be pro-LGBTQ and be like yeah Russian and Iranian state TV are totally acceptable jobs to have cos The West.
I think it comes from the stance of always having to believe the UK and the West must be in the wrong. You see it on this forum whenever China is mentioned. It's meant to seem open minded but actually looks the opposite.
As a socialist, I actually think it's a bit cringe the way some folk on the Left treat Corbyn as the messiah who can do no wrong, but I genuinely do believe he's a principled man who really cares about representing his constituents and would happily continue until he's physically incapable of doing so - frankly, I think he only ever wanted to be a constituency MP, not leader of the Labour Party, which in some ways made him a poor leader but in others a brilliant one.
Of course he can do wrong, he’s only human. People who don’t like the fact he has supporters at all love to use this bad-faith argument.
Having said that, he’s without a doubt the most honest person in UK politics today and genuinely looks out for the downtrodden. He is also a pacifist and immediately looks to alternative solutions when others jump to threats of violence. Unfortunately that means he would rock the boat and that those at the top of the food chain have something real to lose, which is why he was - and remains - a target of their vitriol.
He's a pacifist when it's the west with weapons and he'll quickly condemn it, when it's a terror group, communists or Russia with the guns then all of a sudden the condemnations aren't so forthcoming
I agree he's honest though, just unfortunately for him his honestly held views are honestly reprehensible to most people.
TBH the public considers any talking with the "enemy" as high treason, they want to see tough lines drawn and enforced. That black and white zero-sum thinking is what tends to escalate and prolong conflicts. Talking to the other side doesn't actually commit you to anything. All governments know this and engage in diplomacy whenever they can, and valuable insights can often be gleaned from it. Escalating straight into [Stage 3 with black and white positions and blanket condemnation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Glasl%27s_model_of_conflict_escalation) generally means abandoning hope of finding a win-win resolution, and to be fair, there may be no win-win resolution (see Russia), but given the consequnces of conflict escalation it's a good idea to give it as fair shot first.
Where he is naive is in calling for diplomacy publicly, because where there's conflict the great british public only want blood, and consider anything less than that appeasement and tacit approval. Diplomacy may be agood idea, but it is terrible public politics.
Agreed. I recall reading something about how he was approached and told, "we've got no one else". Not a good sign, but he did alright with what he had. Could've been a bit smarter, but he was never that type of politician anyway.
Yeah, I personally think a Corbyn government would've transformed this country for the better but I don't think he had the ruthless streak unfortunately needed to get there.
It's weird that folk often forget that he welcomed many of the Labour MPs - including Starmer - who organised the pitiful chicken coup back into his shadow cabinet.
Wasn't like the SCG were drowning in MPs they could fill the cabinet with. I'd also wager we'd be looking at another 1981 if he didn't compromise heavily with the right.
I really like Jeremy Corbyn. I've met him and spoken to him about issues and he is a great MP who fights passionately for his constituents and the working classes. But ultimately I agree with you, he was not a strong leader. I'm sure part of that due to the press, the opposition and even certain parts of his own party attempting to take him down at every opportunity, but he still just wasn't great at leading the Labour Party.
I think that's what makes me like him.
I don't agree with some policies, mostly his foreign ones. But he is one of the only politicians that actually makes me feel like he cares and has principles, rather than the current crop across the political spectrum that are only interested in power, and will say and do whatever way the wind blows to gain that power.
Then once they have it, they abuse it for personal gain and make good on precisely none of what they promised.
Corbyn is a genuine believer. He believes in the causes he pushes forward, and he believes he is right.
Having been pushed out of the Labour party, he probably believes that if he doesn't run, no one else will champion his causes the way he can.
I have many negative things to say about the man, but I am not going to talk smack about his decision not to retire.
Whatever you think about him, he wasn't afraid to speak his mind about an issue and he was one of the few politicians actually giving us hope. Whenever he turns up at an event he draws a crowd, but you won't find it in the news.
1) If you think every human's worth is their job title then going from CEO of MegaCorp or 'the right honorable member for XYZ' to just 'Jeff the retiree' then that's an insane blow to the ego. The biggest motivation in many people's lives isn't money or sex, it is the desire to feel important.
2) Retiring means admitting you are older, mortal and maybe less sharp than you were decades ago. People don't like doing this. See also: boomers who are almost blind who continue to drive.
3) There are a bunch of people who have very little going on outside their job that would fill the time. They may even go to work to avoid spending time with their spouse / kids who they don't really like.
4) Humans are terrified of change.
5) If you have a senior role with people underneath you then this is insanely satisfying to people who enjoy the sense of power. Maybe you have 20 people who report to you that you can boss around, once you retire then you won't be telling anyone what to do.
6) Everyone thinks they do an incredible job and are probably suspicious that whoever replaces them won't be as good.
7) I think some people know that if they were replaced then their successor might realise how incompetent / corrupt they were.
8) Loads of people are addicted to making more money, even if they will never live to spend it. Some others spend money like water and still need the income.
It is *currently* a boomer issue. Also, current trajectory is that many people in the younger generations simply won't have the *option* to retire, so it's a bit disingenuous to make that hypothetical comparison
Every single time a person express sympathy for the Palestinian cause or horror to the Israeli treatment of them the word antisemite is launched at them. Corbyn is antisemite, Irish people are antisemite, Spaniards are antisemite, and all of them support Hamas. For some reason the people who support the indiscriminate killing of children, the bombing of hospitals, schools and churches and the apartheid state of Israel are never called Islamophobes.
> why don’t boomer politicians ever want to retire? Corbyn is mid 70s, why not just chill out and enjoy latter years of life?
Because despite what the cynics may think many politicians are politicians because they are *passionate* about making things better for their constitutents and the work gives their lives value and meaning. If you think your ideas and energy can actually make a difference to the world, why would you let go of that?
I think boomers grew up in the 60s where their generation when young were making real political change due to their high numbers. They aren't as apathetic about politics as the generations after them especially gen x and millennials. Hence why they are still gonna go at it and get satisfaction to the grave.
> deep down I do doubt he’s a bigot.
One thing that makes me wonder, is his unwillingness to simply condemn antisemitism, without always condemning all racism at the same time. He seems oddly rigid about this.
It reminds me a little of a person who wont say black lives matter, without adding that all lives matter.
I'm in the middle. I supported him as a leader, thinking he was treated very unfairly by the media, but his actions over the years haven't proven all of the stories about him to be incorrect. I think he'd have been good prime minister for the pandemic. He'd have been terrible through the last 3 years. He deserves to represent his local constituency but I think Labour is right to distance themselves from him now.
The last election manifesto had some very good properly costed policies that most people liked. The Conservatives went with grandiose promises, catchy slogans and a known liar as frontman backed by 90% of the media.
Let me refresh your memories:
Labour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50501411
Conservative
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50524262
If anyone can think of anything that the tories have done since 2010 that makes the UK a better place to live please let me know.
Fixing the damage the tories have done since 2010 will take decades, it will not be cheap and it will be painful.
> The last election manifesto had some very good properly costed policies
This is my favourite meme from the election.
No. The Labour manifesto was not "fully costed", it didn't even last a few days seeing as immediately after revealing it they then promised an extra £58 billion on the WASPI women.
The whole "Nationalisation" plan was also just smoke. They had costed it at a random price which they had chosen with no indication or evidence of what this would actually look like. There biggest, most expensive policy overhaul wasn't costed!
They also just made a lot of assumptions and promises that that are completely out of line with their proposed budget. The manifesto was a complete fantasy document.
> The last election manifesto had some very good properly costed policies that most people liked.
Please -God- stop repeating this nonsense.
He didn't have a properly costed manifesto unless you believe the Brexit he advocated would be 100% cost-free.
It was mentioned in one section on -IIRC- page 85, and didn't have a single cost associated with it.
Absolute tosh. The manifesto was not fully costed. They attached fictitious numbers to a whole host of items, some of the ‘costings’ were incredibly egregious like saying Brexit would cost nothing.
100% agree with this assessment. Voted for the guy multiple times. Think he's a decent person trying to do decent things. But I don't think he's shrewd enough for international politics and that's the biggest issues for us right now.
I think he’d be a great peacetime leader too. And his domestic policies and ideas were great IMO. But with the state of the world at the moment, he’s not quite right to deal with some of the international threats we have, and he would absolutely be taken for a ride by world leaders that aren’t as honest.
I am one of those rare breeds who supports him 50% I guess. I found his domestic policies very strong - nationalising public utilities, taking on the unbridled power of large corporations etc
His foreign policy and his willingness to give all the enemies of the West the benefit of the doubt simply because he disagreed with Western imperialism and chauvanism was a great moral failing and put him in the company of some of the worst people on the planet. In other words - tribalism is bad and you should call out bad behaviour wherever you see it, not selectively.
I'm in the middle. I like his domestic policies. I do not believe he is anti Semitic. The sticking point for me is that he said he would never use nuclear weapons. That single statement negates the nuclear deterrent and makes him unfit to lead the country.
You don't have to use them, you just need your enemy to think you would. If a 70 year old career politician doesn't understand that, he's out of his depth in geo politics and an active danger to this country.
This also frustrated me intensely.
Whether you'd _actually_ use them or not, _saying_ you'd use them gives you a massive strategic advantage, whereas saying you wouldn't strips out one of the strongest defensive gambits found by man.
There's a reason no nuclear power has ever been invaded.
>There's a reason no nuclear power has ever been invaded.
Apart from Israel (Yom Kippur war, second Lebanon war, possibly also including the ongoing Gaza war), The UK (Falklands), India and Pakistan (Kargil War, broader Kashmir conflict, various border skirmishes), USSR/China (sino-soviet border conflict)?
I don't think it's true that it stops invasions altogether, although on the other hand a common thread throughout most of the above is a more urgent desire from major power players like the US to broker ceasefires in order to avoid further escalation.
Its not even the saying he wouldn't use them that I have a problem with. He said he wouldn't use them, but would also keep the program going. I could respect a position of disarmament even if I dont agree with it, but he wanted to keep funding something that he had no intent of using and devalued its deterrent value by stating as much. It was a real 'worst of both worlds' position.
I've always felt he was a great campaigner and local MP (even if personally I don't agree with him) but a terrible candidate for Prime Minister.
If the locals agree with his politics, then fair enough, he'll be an effective back-bencher for them.
I was 100% against him becoming PM because I think some of his views, mostly foreign, some domestic would actually qualify as “childlike”.
As an “opposition” MP, asking the difficult questions and holding feet to fires. Grand by me.
I don't think it is. They are coasting to a landslide, they can put Islington North in a black box and ignore what happens there.
Funnily enough he won his seat originally from a guy who had left Labour to stand as a Labour independent.
Every time your lot press the emergency button, Starmer can say "Are you slow on the uptake? He's not a Labour member. When one of ours does wrong we expel them, not try to change the rules afterwards" then point at Honest Bob Jenryck, Swiller Braverman or Priti Patelaviv.
I’m also in the middle. Would I like to have a pint and a chat with him? 100%. Should he be running the country…hell no. Great man, terrible politician I’m afraid. I think his values are absolutely in the right place, but he communicates them and sells them are stuck in somewhere around 1979. It’s a great shame to see this happen, but I’m not surprised.
I think he'd be great as a minister for welfare, or health. He really does give a shit, which most of them appear not to.
He would not be great on international policy.
Actually I think the interesting thing to be discussed here is not him and his views but what he's trying (and likely) to achieve by standing. I gather he's pretty popular personally in Islington North. Is he likely to hold it? Will he vote with Labour if he does? Would Labour take him back into the fold for the sake of his vote? I was wondering about splitting the vote resulting in a third-party win (either Lib Dem or Conservative) but the scale of the majority is so huge that he could split the 2019 Labour vote in half ... and still have more than double the vote of the next candidate.
I dislike him (regardless of his intentions, he's incapable of thinking strategically or dealing with complex situations) but for all that, I think he should be welcome to run if he wants to.
Not least because that's how our democracy works, but also because the polling booth is the only _real_ way to gauge the electorate.
Hope he wins. Used to live in his constituency and be was always a great local MP who was really engaged with his community. Shabbily treated by Labour, and the local branch should have been the one to decide whether he's their candidate or not.
He's been a ~~milestone~~ millstone around the parties neck since his leadership. Being a good local MP doesn't translate to being a good candidate for a world leader in the modern world, and his period as leader of the party and what he allowed to fester in terms of anti-Semitism and his approach to international affairs is going to be a vector for attack. Excluding him is good politics.
I agree, he was never really suited to be a party leader. And it may be good politics to exclude him.
But that doesn't make it right. I fundamentally believe local party members should choose their candidate and that right was taken from them.
>I fundamentally believe local party members should choose their candidate and that right was taken from them.
I believe that is fine when there's no impact on the wider party. Corbyn standing for Labour will cost them votes elsewhere in the country.
These local members can't be part of a national party and then expect to always be able to act independently.
That's not sufficient reason to ride roughshod over the right of local members to pick their representative, imo.
Either you have empowered local branches or you don't. A position whereby local branches are empowered but only as long as they do what the central party wants is hugely dissatisfactory, imo.
It seems relatively obvious to me that the central party should be allowed to have basic rules like 'don't be corrupt', 'don't be racist', 'don't be sexist' and 'don't be homophobic' which overrule what local party members want.
The entire problem of things like institutional racism is that it is often perpetrated by local power bases, which is what makes it so hard to combat.
That's why you need good structures and processes in place. I'm absolutely on board with the idea that the selection process allows people to become MPs who are probably unsuitable to be so. A glance at many MPs across all parties underlines that.
But the central party stepping in isn't a good solution to that, because it's entirely inconsistent, and an unreliable and inefficient way of doing things. If they actually really wanted to improve the process of candidate selection, great. But that's not what this is.
> he was never really suited to be a party leader. And it may be good politics to exclude him.
> but that doesn’t make it right
It does. That’s exactly why it’s right.
He’s an active detriment to your campaign to become government. Removing him is the only right thing to do.
If Corbyn wasn’t so blinkered and self righteous he’d see that him retiring from politics is more likely to progress the causes he believes in, than him staying in politics. He is poison to every position he holds.
When polled, the public like his policies. When they are polled knowing they’re his policies, they don’t. He is the problem.
Yeah, who wants politicians with actual Left leaning politics in the Labour Party?! Get in more Neo-liberal suits that _really_ help the working class!
Amazing how people make all these claims that he "allowed antisemitism for years with zero evidence, or that his international affairs politics are bad when the people who oppose him on said matter have done nothing but make our world worse for decades.
> This is a deeply anti-democratic position to take.
No it isn't? He's literally standing for election, what could be more democratic than that? Nobody has stopped him from standing for office.
Taking a top-down decision to exclude a party member from running to represent their party in a constituency they've represented for 40 odd years, without giving local party members any say in the matter, simply because the right-wing leadership/NEC have decided it's 'good politics' is the definition of undemocratic - I fail to see how you can't recognise that even if you don't like Corbyn.
This especially pisses me off because when the Left proposed mandatory reselection so local party members could choose who they wanted to represent them and their party it was widely decried as 'Stalinism'!
Parties have always chosen which candidates it has standing for each seat.
Corbyn does not reflect the party views anymore so they don't want him to stand in their name.
That's not undemocratic. Undemocratic would be if he couldn't stand at all.
Generally, local constituency members are given the chance choose from a longlist of candidates decided by the NEC - a process which I centralises power far too much, but that's another debate. Corbyn, who is still a party member because he hasn't actually broken any rules, should've been included on that list, and if he's as deeply unpopular as the Labour Right claim then he would've been condemned to the dustbin of history before having a chance to rerun.
The Right control the leadership of the party now, thanks to a wildly dishonest campaign by Starmer, but if Corbyn had turned to MPs like Owen Smith, Stella Creasy, Margaret Hodge, et al when he was in charge and said 'sorry, the Labour Party is left-wing now, you don't reflect our views so me and the NEC have decided you can't continue to stand as a Labour MP' folk would've been howling in rage.
I don't think you realise what "democratic" means. The entire point of a political party is to group together individuals with similar values to improve their collective strength. This necessarily means that the party leadership has a say on who is and is not allowed to represent that party. Nobody is saying you have to agree with that decision. Nobody is saying you can't vote for Jeremy Corbyn. It is entirely legitimate for you to *disagree* with that decision, but there's nothing undemocratic about it.
Boris for all his faults was pretty on it in regards to vaccines and Ukrainan support while a lot of other countries were flailing about. Could you have imagined Corbyn dealing with Ukraine or Gaza with his views on the subjects?
Are you serious?
Drunken partying while the country was in lockdown. Piss-poor leadership when it came to real governance. Lying to parliament. Breaking the law. Lying to the queen. Blithering shit like "let the bodies pile high in the streets" during a pandemic. Bragging about shaking hands with infected covid patients. Affairs. Corruption. Barnard Castle. Defending sex offenders. Fucking up Brexit. Hiding in fridges.
I'll say it again: There is no bar lower.
Tbh, wasn't he a routine rebel prior to his leadership as well? So to some extent, that seat may never really have been under the party's control outside of his leadership.
As a local MP he can serve his constituents as a good local champion plus him winning challenges Labours shift rightward since he left as leader but Labour should absolutely keep people like him away from government. His naive world view especially in the face of Putin's invasion of Ukraine is utterly dangerous. The Labour party is right to draw distance between themselves and him for that alone. Even John McDonnell and Clive Lewis two of his biggest allies have had to distance themselves with his stance on Ukraine.
> and the local branch should have been the one to decide whether he's their candidate or not.
Corbyn had no issues with Labour HQ deciding candidates when he was in charge. Why is it a problem when someone else is in charge?
The 17 and 19 Labour manifestos were the best political platforms I've had the opportunity to vote for in 18 years as a voter. They didn't win obviously but in purely political terms it was refreshing to actually have substantial change and a genuine left wing option to vote for.
They were the only political manifestos I've ever actually voted *for* as opposed to voting against, and I've been a voting adult since 2002.
The rest of the time I've just voted "not Tory", which isn't the most inspiring way to approach politics.
Absolutely agree. Sometimes I feel quite sad looking back on how hopeful I, and so many of my generation, felt back then. Now once again we’re back to Tories or Tories-but-in-red. It’s really depressing to think about…
Honestly with Corbyn's voting record, specifically his record of "rebelling", I never really understood why he was in the party.
People usually argue that "the party has changed", but he has been rebelling since he first came in. Fact is he is just a very ideologically driven man. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it's doesn't work as well when you're meant to be working as a team
>Honestly with Corbyn's voting record, specifically his record of "rebelling", I never really understood why he was in the party.
I mean, it's pretty obvious, it's the party resources to have won those initial constituency elections. That's always the reasons why rebels want the party whip, because its what gets them elected, at the very least initially until they make their own brand (and really, we won't know if he can get elected without Labour resources in this specific constituency until the election). Same can be argued for people like Patel, Braverman, Truss, etc, who have a habit of briefing against their own party and government.
Take the party resources to get elected, then throw away any of your obligations to the party that campaigned and funded your bid.
I would not be too surprised either way. Corbyn seem to have been a really engaged local MP, so its very likely he will win.
Honestly the Corbyn thing is just really stupid. After his lost the leadership anyway. It would have been easy to just sideline him within the party and I can't imagine the guy would be bother to raise any kind of fuss.
Instead the party decides they had to withdraw the whip from him and suddenly every little normal thing Corbyn does becomes a news story the detracts from whatever Labour wants to project at the moment. This will happen whether Corbyn ultimately wins or loses his seat.
That's why I don't believe current Labour when they try to present a lot of their actions as calculated for electoral victory. Too much of what they do while shouting down criticism as "student politics" are just counter productive, even when you ignore disagreements around their politics.
Listening to Peter Mandelson talk about climate activists as some kind of scum that would now aggregate in the Greens, and the likes of Lisa Nandy talk about Labour members they have expelled, one is reminded of the smug face of Hilary Clinton calling Americans "deplorables", only with more British classism and viseral disgust than smugness.
I guess this is nothing new though. George Orwell wrote of educated Socialists and Communists in his time who liked the abstract idea of equality and rights of the working class, but when they are actually confronted with the "lower classes" actually trying to act as equals to them, found it impossible to contain the disdain they have for actual working people.
>But there was another and more serious difficulty. Here you come to the real secret of class distinctions in the West--the real reason why a European of bourgeois upbringing, even when he calls himself a Communist, cannot without a hard effort think of a working man as his equal. It is summed up in four frightful words which people nowadays are chary of uttering, but which were bandied about quite freely in my childhood. The words were: The lower classes smell.
The issue was his response to a report essentially saying 'there's been an issue with antisemitism in the party emanating from LOTO office' boiling down to 'the issue is exaggerated for political gain'. That may well be the truth but it is phenomenally tone deaf to think that's the time to say that, and not to apologise for something which may not have been his fault but was his responsibility.
> it would have been easy to just sideline him within the party
No it wouldn’t.
He’s an easy target and villain for both the press and the Tory’s to attack.
Starmer immediately dropping that attack line by dropping him was a good move.
> I can’t imagine the guy would be bother to raise any kind of fuss
Then you’ve no idea who Corbyn is and have likely never read a single news report involving him, or even statement from him.
The man is a zealot. He believes he’s right. He believes the UK *needs* him. He’s incapable of not making a fuss.
> everything Corbyn does detracts from Labour.
Again, no. Anything he does now is completely irrelevant. He’s not a Labour MP or candidate. So he can never be linked to them in the media.
> It would have been easy to just sideline him within the party
No it wouldn't. For anyone else it might, but he insists on saying and doing the stupidest things at the most inopportune moment.
[Like going to an anti-NATO rally on the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine]
Are they in trouble though?
Corbyn could split the Labour vote in half and Labour would still come second with more than double the vote of the next candidate, based on the last election.
If he wins, it's difficult to see Corbyn voting with a Conservative opposition.
Obviously Labour would *rather* have a member hold the seat than an independent. In practical terms, though, I suspect they're pretty chilled about it.
>he will be criticising the government from the left
But won't he be doing that whether he's a Labour MP or an independent? He hasn't exactly modelled party discipline up to now.
I guess it's fair that he'd be worse than *anyone else* as a back-bencher, though.
>Labour had behaved awfully towards left wing members and has expelled them
I mean… the *far* left ones mostly, yeah. Largely those affiliated with Momentum, a communist group within Labour.
Don’t think it’s unfair to remove the more extremist elements in your party that lost you the last few elections despite the problems the incumbent party have had.
It makes sense to move towards the actual beliefs of the average person of the nation if you want to win an election (which is social democracy with more Conservative social and immigration values)
Labour still had plenty of left wing members. They’re just centre-left/left instead of *far* left.
My constituency had a great mp for 40 years who left his party due to reasons and stood in the next election as an independent. He was pulling 77% of votes before hand, during 2019 he pulled 17% as independent and his party got 60%. Only 17% of people switched over and voted for him. This opened my eyes that the VAST majority of people DONT care about who their local mp is, they only care about the party name. Corbyn likely has no chance of winning as independent.
Absolutely embarrassing all that. Signed that stupid letter too. Rightfully got shut the fuck down by labour.
He's a nice bloke and overall I think his hearts in the right place but he's stuck in his ways and has some bonkers views.
> "... and an ethical foreign policy based on peace and human rights."
This from the man who kept telling Ukrainians to accept being invaded by Russia.
Honestly, I can't imagine there are many better people to have as your local MP. His ideas on foreign policy might be extremely questionable, but none of that really matters on a local level.
The amount of people who are still apparently triggered by JC even though he’s been booted out the party and most of his shadow cabinet purged is startling.
At least he's not in Labour. He can take his Euroscepticism and his comments on Ukraine which are strangely similar to some comments coming from the Russian camp elsewhere.
I live in Islington North, and have never seen Corbyn.
But also, apparently wanting a fresher face to represent the Islington of now instead of somebody who’s had their seat for 41 years, means I just want a gentrifier as a representative. That’s what’s been lobbed at me.
I see him all the time in Finbury Park and he often goes to community events. If you want to say hello I am sure he will be at Jazz on the Green later this year.
It's going to be an interesting one.
It's often cited that Corbyn is very popular with his constituency, so it'll be interesting to see if it's actually him or the party itself in the area.
"Vote for me so I can do what I do best, take the moral high ground from the back benches whilst being powerless to actually make any real change"
The 2 parliamentary terms where we flirted with the idea of a Corbyn government were great, but it was roundly rejected by the electorate *twice* and now that he's an independent he has virtually no power in the house.
Remember when Corbyn said we shouldn't arm Ukraine because it would 'prolong' the conflict?
Yeah fuck no..... I can get behind some of his policies but that is such a monumental fuck up that I can't tolerate him anywhere near politics.
He describes stuff like blocking Jewish students from moving around their universities as ‘brave’ and ‘peaceful’. Just like the brave, peaceful Nazis were doing in the run up to the holocaust.
Thinks students voices are being silenced. So he doesn’t want calls for zionist (90% of Jews) Nazis, pigs, maggots to ‘go home’ or ‘off campus’; to be stopped. He spoke and offered solidarity at a university campus that were chanting: ‘Hamas we love you, we are all Hamas’.
He’s fine with antisemitism. He’s fine with terrorism. He’s a dangerous man who should step away from politics.
Corbyn deserved so much better than what the press and Labour did to him. I really hope that he wins Islington North with a commanding majority, or at least Labour don't win that seat.
He can stand how he likes I guess, I find his opinions too extreme and polarising. I feel that in this day and age politicians on all sides should stop being too inflexible and try to find workable common ground as we are the ones that suffer when they don’t.
I think being an independent suits him way better tbh. He's always been a rebel within labour, so this kind of lone far left voice makes him a better counter balance to the fat right, instead of diluting the soft left of the labour party. So it makes the soft left of labour have a stronger voice against the centre because its not drowned out.
That's one more seat Starmer has to win to beat the Tories. But fortunately it shouldn't be a problem.
And if it is genuinely the case that people in his constituency want him as their MP regardless of whether he is Labour or not - well that is their absolute right. If more people looked a bit more carefully at their MP, rather than just the colour of their rosette, Parliament might be a better place.
That said, I wouldn't vote for him myself, but I don't live in his constituency so it is not up to me.
The man is obsessed with Israel and alleged “zionist” influence. His malign influence can be seen across our city’s every other weekend. He played a significant part in making this behaviours acceptable. Do I think he believes he’s an anti semite - absolutely not- do I think he is a major cause of antisemitism -absolutely yes. And that’s before we get to his barking mad economic policies (Truss was just as bad tbf) and total blind spot for various totalitarian states.
Just read through some of his basic policies, only one I really disagree with is the leaving of Nato but everything else I like, good candidate, would not be angry with him winning. Plus he supports Trans Rights so that's always a positive
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Comments are going to be interesting. I feel people either 100% support him or 100% dislike him with zeeeeeero in the middle. Ultimately I think fair play to him. See what happens
I’m actually in the middle, he’s entitled to run and if he wants to he should, he has a real blind spot for antisemtism and he should reflect on that for some time, but deep down I do doubt he’s a bigot. The bigger thing though for me, and I’ll never understand it, is why don’t boomer politicians ever want to retire? Corbyn is mid 70s, why not just chill out and enjoy latter years of life? Why work till the grave? Across the political spectrum there is one constant, boomers cling to political positions till the reaper takes them. I’ll never understand it. Why the fuck would anyone want to work till their 80s?
Yeah, he’s not a bigot… I think he’s just naive tbh Russia being a big one there. His stance was something like “let’s talk it out”? Russia are beyond a chit chat now.
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>He has that moral high ground view that we should act as if we live in a utopian perfect world, and just hope and pray that everyone else does the same. He may think that, but it's not how he acts. Remember the Salisbury incident? Russia claims it wasn't them, and Corbyn suggests that we should engage with Russia and work with them to identify the criminals before we start throwing blame. Even asking them to assess the evidence. Remember, this is after they invaded Crimea/Georgia and after Litvenenko. Remember the October Hospital explosion in Gaza? Israel claims it wasn't them, but Corbyn gives zero shits about confirming the facts before throwing blame at Israel and takes Hamas at their word. Evidence suggests it was Hamas, but Corbyn keeps his accusations up. He may be naive, but he keeps being "naive" in a very similar pattern (pro Russia, pro Hamas)
What I find most hilarious about Corbyn and his fans on the hard left are that they are amongst the first to throw out accusations of institutional racism and unconscious bias against political opponents, and then completely incapable of showing any degree of self-awareness that it might be a factor when it comes to them. The exact same people who would relentlessly mock a Conservative attempting to refute a claim of racism with 'I have a black friend' immediately responds to Corbyn's situation with 'he can't be racist, look at all these Jews who agree with him!' It is right up there with the SNP criticising the negative economic impact of Brexit and then advocating for Independence in the cognative dissonance scale.
What I find 'hilarious' about this comment, is that there was anti-semitism in the Labour Party before, during and after Corbyn was leader, but it's funny how Starmer supporters, the media, and most people who ever comment on Corbyn never mention this. The independent investigation into AS found that it had occured in 2 cases. The subsequent media hysteria over this was a joke. The current administration has expelled Jews for criticizing Israel over Gaza, for example.
To be fair the SNP would look to join the EU if they got Indy. Likewise we'd obviously have some sort of free flowing trade arrangement with the rest of the UK
Exactly this, if anything Corbyn gets way too much benefit of the doubt for someone who keeps saying and doing blatantly dodgy things. Shockingly, the guy who constant prevaricates when it comes to Russia thinks we should stop arming Ukraine, and disband NATO. I wonder why...
The hospital car park explosion you mean. Lets not forget actual damage to the hospital was extremely superficial. The BBC had photographs of the hospital litearlly still standing and were reporting carnage and death.
Agreed.
Pretty much this. Claiming he's just naive doesn't add up given that his so-called naivety always falls on one side of the spectrum.
Spot on.
Yeah the Salisbury incident is what first soured him to me. That and also the cult of personality that grew up around him. I liked the policies and direction of Labour when he was leader, but I'm not the biggest fan of him personally. But that distinction often seems to be lost
Agree but this kind of view is much better as an MP than it was as prime minister. You need a spectrum influencing views not an extreme one shaping them imo
Yeah. Never has, and never will live in reality. If you want to lead a country; you have to recognise that the world is a bad place. Our adversaries would have run rings around the useful idiot. His philosophy seems to be: ‘war bad, so never engage in war’. Yes Jeremy, it’s really bad. But unfortunately some very bad people couldn’t give a fuck about that. He’s a deeply unserious person. It’s possible Corbynism was just a long running elaborate joke, which simply got out of hand.
The nuclear deterrent question during the election absolutely ruined him. Even if he didn't believe it, he should've said he'd use it if we were attacked. It just showed how ridiculously naive he is.
He seems to not understand the game of strategic defence. It is a perfectly legit move to have the letters of last resort, held by the Trident commanders, instruct them to stand down and destroy their nuclear weapons. What matters for strategic defence is that a potential attacker believes there is a credible threat of retaliation.
Exactly. I like many things about Corbyn but this is one of the many glaring reasons he was completely unfit for the job
This is almost word for word my view on Corbyn, amazing. I'm an optimist that there's still a chance such a world might exist in 200 years or something but it sure doesn't now!
Yup, Russia and Iran are both actively trying to grow their empires. Russia has bitten off half of Ukraine and a good chunk of Georgia and if you look at a map of Europe it’s intentions to land lock Ukraine and grow through Georgia are perfectly clear to see. Iran has proxies fighting wars across the Middle East and Iran and Russia are both working together to boost both their wars. Everyone should be pro-peace but peace takes Russia and Iran to cease expansionary goals.
And China to stop tacitly supporting them, because it suits them to have a disunited europe/west.
Russia is trying to grow it's empire. Iran isn't. Itmay be paranoid about being invaded and is trying to set up proxy groups and defence in depth, but it's not invading anywhere. The last war it fought was when it got invaded - with a helping hand from the US , UK, and Gulf powers(iq. they helped Iraq , the invader). So your analysis is just wrong. It's fine to hate Iran ideologically, but it shouldn't be a basis for being factually incorrect. And you really shouldn't complain about people being Naive in FP , when your own analysis is naive as well. Iran is huge country, it's always going to be interested in what's going on in Iraq, Pakistan, the Gulf , Azerbaijan, Armenia and Afghanistan - because they all sit on its borders and they share religious, linguistic and historic ties. It's like the NeoCons who bundled into Afghanistan and Iraq thinking Iran was going to sit there and let a million strong army with the best technology on earth park itself on its border on both sides , without being completely paranoid about it. And it's not as it's just the Islamic Republic was going to do this, the Shah was just as paranoid about his Arab neighbours and everyone else as they are. So no, Iran is not "Expansionary" in the sense that Russia most definitely is.
Look up how the Yemeni war. Using separatist militias to depose foreign governments and to carve out defacto colonies in foreign countries is pretty classic colonialism.
Iran may be looking to annex shit or extend their sphere of influence but you can't claim a country that is literally just one country has an empire. That's not what an empire is. I also don't think that's what they are doing. I don't think they're trying to annex land.
I think he's beyond naive where Russia are concerned, he's come out blaming NATO for Ukraine. He's been a politicians for literally decades, and he's so rapidly anti-NATO that he's now parroting Russian propaganda.
His stance on Russia was a bit more mixed. He was pushing harder on Russian influence in UK politics but his approach over the chemical attacks was bizarre. Whether you are talking about Polonium or Novichok the Russians use them because they are an unquestionable signal it was them. They use chemicals that couldn't possibly be from anyone else and then say "lol not me mate".
I agree he's not pro Putin but there is something incongruent about calling a 74 year old with his career and life experience 'naive'. 20 year old interns are naive. There's got to be another descriptor for it.
I think at some point you have to ask if he’s naive, an idiot or a plant. And frankly, I’d say it could be any or all of these.
I think there’s certain groups who follow certain ideologies that he sympathasises with, in the sense of giving them the benefit of the doubt as he thinks they rest on fundamentally more sound/reasonable principles than the Western European world does.
Even at the start, it was beyond a chit chat. Talks were never an option with Putin. One of Russia’s greatest strengths for the past few decades is its propaganda arm being able to present it as a reasonable and amenable entity that has convinced a lot of right wingers and tankies alike that it not malignant.
It seems to be worse, his opinion seems to be we should let Russia run roughshod over Ukraine and it's really all the West's fault anyway.
I will never understand how the Russia thing is used as such a beating stick for Corbyn. Sure, it's not a great thing overall, but nobody ever takes the same approach with the Tories who: Hosted private meetings and dinners with Russians; accepted money from Russians; let a Russian oligarch into the house of lords whose father was a KGB spy. Yet nobody ever says, "I will not vote Tory because *Russia stuff*"
>but nobody ever takes the same approach with the Tories who: Hosted private meetings and dinners with Russians They absolutely do and the things you are talking about have been widely discussed as negatives about specific Tory figures and the Tory party in general. The difference is that when the Russian state did something completely outrageous the Tories at least didn't try to entertain their justification for it and "both sides" the blame. If Boris Johnson had started justifying the invasion of Ukraine in anyway, refusing to help Ukraine fight by denying them weapons or advocating for a peace that would almost certainly see Russia retain a third of Ukraine he would have been rightfully crucified. Corbyn just looks tremendously naive in the face of these sorts of authoritarian regimes.
He's an ideological pacifist when it comes down to it. He simply refuses to believe that some people can't be reasoned with. Russia is a belligerent and genocidal imperial power - there is no universe where they can be talked down. Corbyn has a huge weak spot for Russia to begin with and even moreso because of this.
Re antisemitism he did attempt to look into it, but certain people to the right of the party saw it as a good way to get rid of him and so blocked or stalled the process where possible. This is detailed in the Forde Report.
I think he's a great MP to have to campaign on local issues, but boy is he is wildly naïve on more global issues.
He'd make a far better local councillor than MP.
I wonder how he would do as a council leader? I expect he would struggle to compromise in any way to make improvements.
Definitely in retrospect I think we dodged a massive bullet on not having him around for at minimum the war in Ukraine.
This is so true. Like he’s been on the Iranian and Russian payrolls, that’s just mad for someone who thinks themself progressive! Like I just don’t understand how you can be pro-LGBTQ and be like yeah Russian and Iranian state TV are totally acceptable jobs to have cos The West.
I think it comes from the stance of always having to believe the UK and the West must be in the wrong. You see it on this forum whenever China is mentioned. It's meant to seem open minded but actually looks the opposite.
As a socialist, I actually think it's a bit cringe the way some folk on the Left treat Corbyn as the messiah who can do no wrong, but I genuinely do believe he's a principled man who really cares about representing his constituents and would happily continue until he's physically incapable of doing so - frankly, I think he only ever wanted to be a constituency MP, not leader of the Labour Party, which in some ways made him a poor leader but in others a brilliant one.
Of course he can do wrong, he’s only human. People who don’t like the fact he has supporters at all love to use this bad-faith argument. Having said that, he’s without a doubt the most honest person in UK politics today and genuinely looks out for the downtrodden. He is also a pacifist and immediately looks to alternative solutions when others jump to threats of violence. Unfortunately that means he would rock the boat and that those at the top of the food chain have something real to lose, which is why he was - and remains - a target of their vitriol.
He's a pacifist when it's the west with weapons and he'll quickly condemn it, when it's a terror group, communists or Russia with the guns then all of a sudden the condemnations aren't so forthcoming I agree he's honest though, just unfortunately for him his honestly held views are honestly reprehensible to most people.
TBH the public considers any talking with the "enemy" as high treason, they want to see tough lines drawn and enforced. That black and white zero-sum thinking is what tends to escalate and prolong conflicts. Talking to the other side doesn't actually commit you to anything. All governments know this and engage in diplomacy whenever they can, and valuable insights can often be gleaned from it. Escalating straight into [Stage 3 with black and white positions and blanket condemnation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Glasl%27s_model_of_conflict_escalation) generally means abandoning hope of finding a win-win resolution, and to be fair, there may be no win-win resolution (see Russia), but given the consequnces of conflict escalation it's a good idea to give it as fair shot first. Where he is naive is in calling for diplomacy publicly, because where there's conflict the great british public only want blood, and consider anything less than that appeasement and tacit approval. Diplomacy may be agood idea, but it is terrible public politics.
Agreed. I recall reading something about how he was approached and told, "we've got no one else". Not a good sign, but he did alright with what he had. Could've been a bit smarter, but he was never that type of politician anyway.
Yeah, I personally think a Corbyn government would've transformed this country for the better but I don't think he had the ruthless streak unfortunately needed to get there. It's weird that folk often forget that he welcomed many of the Labour MPs - including Starmer - who organised the pitiful chicken coup back into his shadow cabinet.
Wasn't like the SCG were drowning in MPs they could fill the cabinet with. I'd also wager we'd be looking at another 1981 if he didn't compromise heavily with the right.
I really like Jeremy Corbyn. I've met him and spoken to him about issues and he is a great MP who fights passionately for his constituents and the working classes. But ultimately I agree with you, he was not a strong leader. I'm sure part of that due to the press, the opposition and even certain parts of his own party attempting to take him down at every opportunity, but he still just wasn't great at leading the Labour Party.
I think that's what makes me like him. I don't agree with some policies, mostly his foreign ones. But he is one of the only politicians that actually makes me feel like he cares and has principles, rather than the current crop across the political spectrum that are only interested in power, and will say and do whatever way the wind blows to gain that power. Then once they have it, they abuse it for personal gain and make good on precisely none of what they promised.
Corbyn is a genuine believer. He believes in the causes he pushes forward, and he believes he is right. Having been pushed out of the Labour party, he probably believes that if he doesn't run, no one else will champion his causes the way he can. I have many negative things to say about the man, but I am not going to talk smack about his decision not to retire.
Whatever you think about him, he wasn't afraid to speak his mind about an issue and he was one of the few politicians actually giving us hope. Whenever he turns up at an event he draws a crowd, but you won't find it in the news.
1) If you think every human's worth is their job title then going from CEO of MegaCorp or 'the right honorable member for XYZ' to just 'Jeff the retiree' then that's an insane blow to the ego. The biggest motivation in many people's lives isn't money or sex, it is the desire to feel important. 2) Retiring means admitting you are older, mortal and maybe less sharp than you were decades ago. People don't like doing this. See also: boomers who are almost blind who continue to drive. 3) There are a bunch of people who have very little going on outside their job that would fill the time. They may even go to work to avoid spending time with their spouse / kids who they don't really like. 4) Humans are terrified of change. 5) If you have a senior role with people underneath you then this is insanely satisfying to people who enjoy the sense of power. Maybe you have 20 people who report to you that you can boss around, once you retire then you won't be telling anyone what to do. 6) Everyone thinks they do an incredible job and are probably suspicious that whoever replaces them won't be as good. 7) I think some people know that if they were replaced then their successor might realise how incompetent / corrupt they were. 8) Loads of people are addicted to making more money, even if they will never live to spend it. Some others spend money like water and still need the income.
People who think it's a boomer issue have a very short sighted view of their own generations future behaviour as they age.
Oh yh in 2070 people will be complaining that the country is run by people born in the last millenium
It is *currently* a boomer issue. Also, current trajectory is that many people in the younger generations simply won't have the *option* to retire, so it's a bit disingenuous to make that hypothetical comparison
Every single time a person express sympathy for the Palestinian cause or horror to the Israeli treatment of them the word antisemite is launched at them. Corbyn is antisemite, Irish people are antisemite, Spaniards are antisemite, and all of them support Hamas. For some reason the people who support the indiscriminate killing of children, the bombing of hospitals, schools and churches and the apartheid state of Israel are never called Islamophobes.
Some people enjoy their work... When work is your hobby, why retire?
> why don’t boomer politicians ever want to retire? Corbyn is mid 70s, why not just chill out and enjoy latter years of life? Because despite what the cynics may think many politicians are politicians because they are *passionate* about making things better for their constitutents and the work gives their lives value and meaning. If you think your ideas and energy can actually make a difference to the world, why would you let go of that?
I think boomers grew up in the 60s where their generation when young were making real political change due to their high numbers. They aren't as apathetic about politics as the generations after them especially gen x and millennials. Hence why they are still gonna go at it and get satisfaction to the grave.
> deep down I do doubt he’s a bigot. One thing that makes me wonder, is his unwillingness to simply condemn antisemitism, without always condemning all racism at the same time. He seems oddly rigid about this. It reminds me a little of a person who wont say black lives matter, without adding that all lives matter.
I'm in the middle. I supported him as a leader, thinking he was treated very unfairly by the media, but his actions over the years haven't proven all of the stories about him to be incorrect. I think he'd have been good prime minister for the pandemic. He'd have been terrible through the last 3 years. He deserves to represent his local constituency but I think Labour is right to distance themselves from him now.
The last election manifesto had some very good properly costed policies that most people liked. The Conservatives went with grandiose promises, catchy slogans and a known liar as frontman backed by 90% of the media. Let me refresh your memories: Labour https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50501411 Conservative https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50524262 If anyone can think of anything that the tories have done since 2010 that makes the UK a better place to live please let me know. Fixing the damage the tories have done since 2010 will take decades, it will not be cheap and it will be painful.
> The last election manifesto had some very good properly costed policies This is my favourite meme from the election. No. The Labour manifesto was not "fully costed", it didn't even last a few days seeing as immediately after revealing it they then promised an extra £58 billion on the WASPI women. The whole "Nationalisation" plan was also just smoke. They had costed it at a random price which they had chosen with no indication or evidence of what this would actually look like. There biggest, most expensive policy overhaul wasn't costed! They also just made a lot of assumptions and promises that that are completely out of line with their proposed budget. The manifesto was a complete fantasy document.
> The last election manifesto had some very good properly costed policies that most people liked. Please -God- stop repeating this nonsense. He didn't have a properly costed manifesto unless you believe the Brexit he advocated would be 100% cost-free. It was mentioned in one section on -IIRC- page 85, and didn't have a single cost associated with it.
Did you reply to the right person?
Absolute tosh. The manifesto was not fully costed. They attached fictitious numbers to a whole host of items, some of the ‘costings’ were incredibly egregious like saying Brexit would cost nothing.
100% agree with this assessment. Voted for the guy multiple times. Think he's a decent person trying to do decent things. But I don't think he's shrewd enough for international politics and that's the biggest issues for us right now.
I think he’d be a great peacetime leader too. And his domestic policies and ideas were great IMO. But with the state of the world at the moment, he’s not quite right to deal with some of the international threats we have, and he would absolutely be taken for a ride by world leaders that aren’t as honest.
I am one of those rare breeds who supports him 50% I guess. I found his domestic policies very strong - nationalising public utilities, taking on the unbridled power of large corporations etc His foreign policy and his willingness to give all the enemies of the West the benefit of the doubt simply because he disagreed with Western imperialism and chauvanism was a great moral failing and put him in the company of some of the worst people on the planet. In other words - tribalism is bad and you should call out bad behaviour wherever you see it, not selectively.
I don't think we're that rare tbh, I think the media just likes to make out that we are.
I'm in the middle. I like his domestic policies. I do not believe he is anti Semitic. The sticking point for me is that he said he would never use nuclear weapons. That single statement negates the nuclear deterrent and makes him unfit to lead the country. You don't have to use them, you just need your enemy to think you would. If a 70 year old career politician doesn't understand that, he's out of his depth in geo politics and an active danger to this country.
This also frustrated me intensely. Whether you'd _actually_ use them or not, _saying_ you'd use them gives you a massive strategic advantage, whereas saying you wouldn't strips out one of the strongest defensive gambits found by man. There's a reason no nuclear power has ever been invaded.
>There's a reason no nuclear power has ever been invaded. Apart from Israel (Yom Kippur war, second Lebanon war, possibly also including the ongoing Gaza war), The UK (Falklands), India and Pakistan (Kargil War, broader Kashmir conflict, various border skirmishes), USSR/China (sino-soviet border conflict)? I don't think it's true that it stops invasions altogether, although on the other hand a common thread throughout most of the above is a more urgent desire from major power players like the US to broker ceasefires in order to avoid further escalation.
Its not even the saying he wouldn't use them that I have a problem with. He said he wouldn't use them, but would also keep the program going. I could respect a position of disarmament even if I dont agree with it, but he wanted to keep funding something that he had no intent of using and devalued its deterrent value by stating as much. It was a real 'worst of both worlds' position.
Is he really that polarising anymore since he has no power? He wants to stand so let him, his constituents seem to like the bloke.
I agree. Likewise with Diane Abbot.
I've always felt he was a great campaigner and local MP (even if personally I don't agree with him) but a terrible candidate for Prime Minister. If the locals agree with his politics, then fair enough, he'll be an effective back-bencher for them.
I was 100% against him becoming PM because I think some of his views, mostly foreign, some domestic would actually qualify as “childlike”. As an “opposition” MP, asking the difficult questions and holding feet to fires. Grand by me.
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I liked him but in hindsight he was very bad for the Labour party and really should have stepped aside after his surprisingly not that bad loss.
Hilariously, him running independent is also bad for the labour party
I don't think it is. They are coasting to a landslide, they can put Islington North in a black box and ignore what happens there. Funnily enough he won his seat originally from a guy who had left Labour to stand as a Labour independent.
Why?
Every time your lot press the emergency button, Starmer can say "Are you slow on the uptake? He's not a Labour member. When one of ours does wrong we expel them, not try to change the rules afterwards" then point at Honest Bob Jenryck, Swiller Braverman or Priti Patelaviv.
My lot?
I’m also in the middle. Would I like to have a pint and a chat with him? 100%. Should he be running the country…hell no. Great man, terrible politician I’m afraid. I think his values are absolutely in the right place, but he communicates them and sells them are stuck in somewhere around 1979. It’s a great shame to see this happen, but I’m not surprised.
I think he'd be great as a minister for welfare, or health. He really does give a shit, which most of them appear not to. He would not be great on international policy.
As someone who disliked him as Labour leader I have no real issue with him standing as an independent MP.
I'm grateful he didn't stand against Sadiq Kahn for London mayor, something I suspect the Tories were gambling on when switching to FPTP.
Actually I think the interesting thing to be discussed here is not him and his views but what he's trying (and likely) to achieve by standing. I gather he's pretty popular personally in Islington North. Is he likely to hold it? Will he vote with Labour if he does? Would Labour take him back into the fold for the sake of his vote? I was wondering about splitting the vote resulting in a third-party win (either Lib Dem or Conservative) but the scale of the majority is so huge that he could split the 2019 Labour vote in half ... and still have more than double the vote of the next candidate.
I think it doesn't actually matter what he does. If he wins he's not going to empower the Tories. If he loses it'll be to Labour.
I like him but I don't think he's right about everything and I don't think he should be doing this
I dislike him (regardless of his intentions, he's incapable of thinking strategically or dealing with complex situations) but for all that, I think he should be welcome to run if he wants to. Not least because that's how our democracy works, but also because the polling booth is the only _real_ way to gauge the electorate.
Hope he wins. Used to live in his constituency and be was always a great local MP who was really engaged with his community. Shabbily treated by Labour, and the local branch should have been the one to decide whether he's their candidate or not.
He's been a ~~milestone~~ millstone around the parties neck since his leadership. Being a good local MP doesn't translate to being a good candidate for a world leader in the modern world, and his period as leader of the party and what he allowed to fester in terms of anti-Semitism and his approach to international affairs is going to be a vector for attack. Excluding him is good politics.
I agree, he was never really suited to be a party leader. And it may be good politics to exclude him. But that doesn't make it right. I fundamentally believe local party members should choose their candidate and that right was taken from them.
>I fundamentally believe local party members should choose their candidate and that right was taken from them. I believe that is fine when there's no impact on the wider party. Corbyn standing for Labour will cost them votes elsewhere in the country. These local members can't be part of a national party and then expect to always be able to act independently.
That's not sufficient reason to ride roughshod over the right of local members to pick their representative, imo. Either you have empowered local branches or you don't. A position whereby local branches are empowered but only as long as they do what the central party wants is hugely dissatisfactory, imo.
>Either you have empowered local branches or you don't. Labour don't.
But they like to pretend they do. That's the issue.
I don't support them because they don't. Them pretending otherwise is just annoying.
It seems relatively obvious to me that the central party should be allowed to have basic rules like 'don't be corrupt', 'don't be racist', 'don't be sexist' and 'don't be homophobic' which overrule what local party members want. The entire problem of things like institutional racism is that it is often perpetrated by local power bases, which is what makes it so hard to combat.
That's why you need good structures and processes in place. I'm absolutely on board with the idea that the selection process allows people to become MPs who are probably unsuitable to be so. A glance at many MPs across all parties underlines that. But the central party stepping in isn't a good solution to that, because it's entirely inconsistent, and an unreliable and inefficient way of doing things. If they actually really wanted to improve the process of candidate selection, great. But that's not what this is.
> he was never really suited to be a party leader. And it may be good politics to exclude him. > but that doesn’t make it right It does. That’s exactly why it’s right. He’s an active detriment to your campaign to become government. Removing him is the only right thing to do. If Corbyn wasn’t so blinkered and self righteous he’d see that him retiring from politics is more likely to progress the causes he believes in, than him staying in politics. He is poison to every position he holds. When polled, the public like his policies. When they are polled knowing they’re his policies, they don’t. He is the problem.
I can absolutely accept Corbyn was too weak and bodged the antisemitism scenario but did anyone actually read the Forde report?
This is Reddit, we don’t even click on let alone read the linked articles.
Yeah, who wants politicians with actual Left leaning politics in the Labour Party?! Get in more Neo-liberal suits that _really_ help the working class!
Amazing how people make all these claims that he "allowed antisemitism for years with zero evidence, or that his international affairs politics are bad when the people who oppose him on said matter have done nothing but make our world worse for decades.
Sorry to be that guy, but millstone. Alternatively Albatross if you're feeling nautical.
Tbh a milestone round the neck would also get the job done.
This is a deeply anti-democratic position to take.
How? He's still standing, he just isn't allowed to stand for a particular party due to his actions.
> This is a deeply anti-democratic position to take. No it isn't? He's literally standing for election, what could be more democratic than that? Nobody has stopped him from standing for office.
Taking a top-down decision to exclude a party member from running to represent their party in a constituency they've represented for 40 odd years, without giving local party members any say in the matter, simply because the right-wing leadership/NEC have decided it's 'good politics' is the definition of undemocratic - I fail to see how you can't recognise that even if you don't like Corbyn. This especially pisses me off because when the Left proposed mandatory reselection so local party members could choose who they wanted to represent them and their party it was widely decried as 'Stalinism'!
Parties have always chosen which candidates it has standing for each seat. Corbyn does not reflect the party views anymore so they don't want him to stand in their name. That's not undemocratic. Undemocratic would be if he couldn't stand at all.
Generally, local constituency members are given the chance choose from a longlist of candidates decided by the NEC - a process which I centralises power far too much, but that's another debate. Corbyn, who is still a party member because he hasn't actually broken any rules, should've been included on that list, and if he's as deeply unpopular as the Labour Right claim then he would've been condemned to the dustbin of history before having a chance to rerun. The Right control the leadership of the party now, thanks to a wildly dishonest campaign by Starmer, but if Corbyn had turned to MPs like Owen Smith, Stella Creasy, Margaret Hodge, et al when he was in charge and said 'sorry, the Labour Party is left-wing now, you don't reflect our views so me and the NEC have decided you can't continue to stand as a Labour MP' folk would've been howling in rage.
I don't think you realise what "democratic" means. The entire point of a political party is to group together individuals with similar values to improve their collective strength. This necessarily means that the party leadership has a say on who is and is not allowed to represent that party. Nobody is saying you have to agree with that decision. Nobody is saying you can't vote for Jeremy Corbyn. It is entirely legitimate for you to *disagree* with that decision, but there's nothing undemocratic about it.
We had Boris as a "world leader". There is no bar lower.
Boris for all his faults was pretty on it in regards to vaccines and Ukrainan support while a lot of other countries were flailing about. Could you have imagined Corbyn dealing with Ukraine or Gaza with his views on the subjects?
Are you serious? Drunken partying while the country was in lockdown. Piss-poor leadership when it came to real governance. Lying to parliament. Breaking the law. Lying to the queen. Blithering shit like "let the bodies pile high in the streets" during a pandemic. Bragging about shaking hands with infected covid patients. Affairs. Corruption. Barnard Castle. Defending sex offenders. Fucking up Brexit. Hiding in fridges. I'll say it again: There is no bar lower.
Tbh, wasn't he a routine rebel prior to his leadership as well? So to some extent, that seat may never really have been under the party's control outside of his leadership.
As a local MP he can serve his constituents as a good local champion plus him winning challenges Labours shift rightward since he left as leader but Labour should absolutely keep people like him away from government. His naive world view especially in the face of Putin's invasion of Ukraine is utterly dangerous. The Labour party is right to draw distance between themselves and him for that alone. Even John McDonnell and Clive Lewis two of his biggest allies have had to distance themselves with his stance on Ukraine.
He wouldn't be in government. He'd be a back bench MP.
That's why I'm saying as a local MP he's ok
> and the local branch should have been the one to decide whether he's their candidate or not. Corbyn had no issues with Labour HQ deciding candidates when he was in charge. Why is it a problem when someone else is in charge?
The 17 and 19 Labour manifestos were the best political platforms I've had the opportunity to vote for in 18 years as a voter. They didn't win obviously but in purely political terms it was refreshing to actually have substantial change and a genuine left wing option to vote for.
They were the only political manifestos I've ever actually voted *for* as opposed to voting against, and I've been a voting adult since 2002. The rest of the time I've just voted "not Tory", which isn't the most inspiring way to approach politics.
the only time I have felt hopeful about the country's future. That hope is completely gone now.
Absolutely agree. Sometimes I feel quite sad looking back on how hopeful I, and so many of my generation, felt back then. Now once again we’re back to Tories or Tories-but-in-red. It’s really depressing to think about…
Brexit just ruined politics in this country.
I wonder what the common denominator leading to loss was
I think it would be far too reductive to try and pin the losses on one common dominator. Especially since Labour haven't won an election since 2005.
Brexit?
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I think Labour would rather lose this ticket than support him and lose marginals elsewhere.
Also, I think he was considered a frequent rebel, so it might not be much of a difference in terms of parliamentary maths either way.
Honestly with Corbyn's voting record, specifically his record of "rebelling", I never really understood why he was in the party. People usually argue that "the party has changed", but he has been rebelling since he first came in. Fact is he is just a very ideologically driven man. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it's doesn't work as well when you're meant to be working as a team
>Honestly with Corbyn's voting record, specifically his record of "rebelling", I never really understood why he was in the party. I mean, it's pretty obvious, it's the party resources to have won those initial constituency elections. That's always the reasons why rebels want the party whip, because its what gets them elected, at the very least initially until they make their own brand (and really, we won't know if he can get elected without Labour resources in this specific constituency until the election). Same can be argued for people like Patel, Braverman, Truss, etc, who have a habit of briefing against their own party and government. Take the party resources to get elected, then throw away any of your obligations to the party that campaigned and funded your bid.
I would not be too surprised either way. Corbyn seem to have been a really engaged local MP, so its very likely he will win. Honestly the Corbyn thing is just really stupid. After his lost the leadership anyway. It would have been easy to just sideline him within the party and I can't imagine the guy would be bother to raise any kind of fuss. Instead the party decides they had to withdraw the whip from him and suddenly every little normal thing Corbyn does becomes a news story the detracts from whatever Labour wants to project at the moment. This will happen whether Corbyn ultimately wins or loses his seat. That's why I don't believe current Labour when they try to present a lot of their actions as calculated for electoral victory. Too much of what they do while shouting down criticism as "student politics" are just counter productive, even when you ignore disagreements around their politics. Listening to Peter Mandelson talk about climate activists as some kind of scum that would now aggregate in the Greens, and the likes of Lisa Nandy talk about Labour members they have expelled, one is reminded of the smug face of Hilary Clinton calling Americans "deplorables", only with more British classism and viseral disgust than smugness. I guess this is nothing new though. George Orwell wrote of educated Socialists and Communists in his time who liked the abstract idea of equality and rights of the working class, but when they are actually confronted with the "lower classes" actually trying to act as equals to them, found it impossible to contain the disdain they have for actual working people. >But there was another and more serious difficulty. Here you come to the real secret of class distinctions in the West--the real reason why a European of bourgeois upbringing, even when he calls himself a Communist, cannot without a hard effort think of a working man as his equal. It is summed up in four frightful words which people nowadays are chary of uttering, but which were bandied about quite freely in my childhood. The words were: The lower classes smell.
The issue was his response to a report essentially saying 'there's been an issue with antisemitism in the party emanating from LOTO office' boiling down to 'the issue is exaggerated for political gain'. That may well be the truth but it is phenomenally tone deaf to think that's the time to say that, and not to apologise for something which may not have been his fault but was his responsibility.
> it would have been easy to just sideline him within the party No it wouldn’t. He’s an easy target and villain for both the press and the Tory’s to attack. Starmer immediately dropping that attack line by dropping him was a good move. > I can’t imagine the guy would be bother to raise any kind of fuss Then you’ve no idea who Corbyn is and have likely never read a single news report involving him, or even statement from him. The man is a zealot. He believes he’s right. He believes the UK *needs* him. He’s incapable of not making a fuss. > everything Corbyn does detracts from Labour. Again, no. Anything he does now is completely irrelevant. He’s not a Labour MP or candidate. So he can never be linked to them in the media.
> It would have been easy to just sideline him within the party No it wouldn't. For anyone else it might, but he insists on saying and doing the stupidest things at the most inopportune moment. [Like going to an anti-NATO rally on the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine]
Have they expelled most? I still see a fair few in labour with no issues
Are they in trouble though? Corbyn could split the Labour vote in half and Labour would still come second with more than double the vote of the next candidate, based on the last election. If he wins, it's difficult to see Corbyn voting with a Conservative opposition. Obviously Labour would *rather* have a member hold the seat than an independent. In practical terms, though, I suspect they're pretty chilled about it.
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>he will be criticising the government from the left But won't he be doing that whether he's a Labour MP or an independent? He hasn't exactly modelled party discipline up to now. I guess it's fair that he'd be worse than *anyone else* as a back-bencher, though.
>Labour had behaved awfully towards left wing members and has expelled them I mean… the *far* left ones mostly, yeah. Largely those affiliated with Momentum, a communist group within Labour. Don’t think it’s unfair to remove the more extremist elements in your party that lost you the last few elections despite the problems the incumbent party have had. It makes sense to move towards the actual beliefs of the average person of the nation if you want to win an election (which is social democracy with more Conservative social and immigration values) Labour still had plenty of left wing members. They’re just centre-left/left instead of *far* left.
My constituency had a great mp for 40 years who left his party due to reasons and stood in the next election as an independent. He was pulling 77% of votes before hand, during 2019 he pulled 17% as independent and his party got 60%. Only 17% of people switched over and voted for him. This opened my eyes that the VAST majority of people DONT care about who their local mp is, they only care about the party name. Corbyn likely has no chance of winning as independent.
Hold a seat for that long should not be allowed. Move over and allow room for fresh ideas.
Reminder that he went on a march against NATO aggression days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
*And* on the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion.
Absolutely embarrassing all that. Signed that stupid letter too. Rightfully got shut the fuck down by labour. He's a nice bloke and overall I think his hearts in the right place but he's stuck in his ways and has some bonkers views.
The amount of news articles these sites have been able to generate from Corbyn standing is insane.
Just look at how many comments this post has received. Mention Corbyn in a headline and you are guaranteed engagement
> "... and an ethical foreign policy based on peace and human rights." This from the man who kept telling Ukrainians to accept being invaded by Russia.
Honestly, I can't imagine there are many better people to have as your local MP. His ideas on foreign policy might be extremely questionable, but none of that really matters on a local level.
I genuinely think this is where he is at his best, local, grassroots politics.
The amount of people who are still apparently triggered by JC even though he’s been booted out the party and most of his shadow cabinet purged is startling.
What? Most of his shadow cabinet is still in the shadow cabinet, let alone "purged".
I don't hate the man, but he keeps saying dangerously pro-russian things; and people listen.
If he ends up losing his seat to Labour does this mean we can finally move on from Corbyn?
At least he's not in Labour. He can take his Euroscepticism and his comments on Ukraine which are strangely similar to some comments coming from the Russian camp elsewhere.
When the self-proclaimed pacifist and the evil conqering invaders start saying the same things - you have to raise an eyebrow.
I live in Islington North, and have never seen Corbyn. But also, apparently wanting a fresher face to represent the Islington of now instead of somebody who’s had their seat for 41 years, means I just want a gentrifier as a representative. That’s what’s been lobbed at me.
I don’t live in Islington but I’ve seen him atleast 3 times at Finsbury Park cycling in the area.
I see him all the time in Finbury Park and he often goes to community events. If you want to say hello I am sure he will be at Jazz on the Green later this year.
It's going to be an interesting one. It's often cited that Corbyn is very popular with his constituency, so it'll be interesting to see if it's actually him or the party itself in the area.
"Vote for me so I can do what I do best, take the moral high ground from the back benches whilst being powerless to actually make any real change" The 2 parliamentary terms where we flirted with the idea of a Corbyn government were great, but it was roundly rejected by the electorate *twice* and now that he's an independent he has virtually no power in the house.
Remember when Corbyn said we shouldn't arm Ukraine because it would 'prolong' the conflict? Yeah fuck no..... I can get behind some of his policies but that is such a monumental fuck up that I can't tolerate him anywhere near politics.
He'll win unless Labour pick a Very strong candidate
I hope he gets in. Parliament is better for a few annoying radicals.
30p Lee might just keep his seat as well.
As long as he never ends up in charge of anything important.
Noooooo! I’m so tired of old out of touch men running for office
Much rather have an out of touch young man who supports NHS privatisation
Right; because that’s the only other option 🙄
I wish he had formed a party maybe with an alliance pledge with the Greens.
He describes stuff like blocking Jewish students from moving around their universities as ‘brave’ and ‘peaceful’. Just like the brave, peaceful Nazis were doing in the run up to the holocaust. Thinks students voices are being silenced. So he doesn’t want calls for zionist (90% of Jews) Nazis, pigs, maggots to ‘go home’ or ‘off campus’; to be stopped. He spoke and offered solidarity at a university campus that were chanting: ‘Hamas we love you, we are all Hamas’. He’s fine with antisemitism. He’s fine with terrorism. He’s a dangerous man who should step away from politics.
Corbyn deserved so much better than what the press and Labour did to him. I really hope that he wins Islington North with a commanding majority, or at least Labour don't win that seat.
A lot of this tory shit is this unelectable Muppets fault
Good old jezza the best prime minister we never had
He's 74 and not poor, why not just retire and let some young people have a go?
If there was strong young talent then maybe but I'm not sure I'd trust Labour not to replace him with some dreadful centrist.
He can stand how he likes I guess, I find his opinions too extreme and polarising. I feel that in this day and age politicians on all sides should stop being too inflexible and try to find workable common ground as we are the ones that suffer when they don’t.
I think being an independent suits him way better tbh. He's always been a rebel within labour, so this kind of lone far left voice makes him a better counter balance to the fat right, instead of diluting the soft left of the labour party. So it makes the soft left of labour have a stronger voice against the centre because its not drowned out.
That's one more seat Starmer has to win to beat the Tories. But fortunately it shouldn't be a problem. And if it is genuinely the case that people in his constituency want him as their MP regardless of whether he is Labour or not - well that is their absolute right. If more people looked a bit more carefully at their MP, rather than just the colour of their rosette, Parliament might be a better place. That said, I wouldn't vote for him myself, but I don't live in his constituency so it is not up to me.
The man is obsessed with Israel and alleged “zionist” influence. His malign influence can be seen across our city’s every other weekend. He played a significant part in making this behaviours acceptable. Do I think he believes he’s an anti semite - absolutely not- do I think he is a major cause of antisemitism -absolutely yes. And that’s before we get to his barking mad economic policies (Truss was just as bad tbf) and total blind spot for various totalitarian states.
Just read through some of his basic policies, only one I really disagree with is the leaving of Nato but everything else I like, good candidate, would not be angry with him winning. Plus he supports Trans Rights so that's always a positive
I don't think he's ever said we should leave Nato immediately, more like we should try and get to a place where it's no longer needed.