Simon Thorpe

Glad to be off service 🫡

There is, indeed, a lot of nuance to the situation.

Fair

Hello very polite Smazak. This thread has helped me to consider the situation more thoroughly. Thank you for your constructive contribution.

It's possible he's avoiding the topic to avoid a conflict with some of the independent MPs. If that's the case, that sucks and I disagree with that approach. I still want to be part of the process of trying to create a trans-inclusive socialist party.

Thank you for the food for thought.

Honestly, when you set it out like this, you have a point. Corbyn's position on trans rights is clear from past statements (hence the urge to defend him). There is no official party policy (this is just true), but you're right he & Sultana have been making their own views known, to set the tone.

But Greens are also an important part of that strategy, so if you feel more at home with them, then I look forward to collaborating with you in that way instead

I mean, I joined the Greens some time ago, so again I'm right with you, up to the point that #yourparty was announced, which I think has the potential to be a powerful force alongside the Greens in the fight for PR (the most important initial goal) and everything else we want.

Terrible take. Damsons are the shit. I am officially founding the pro-Damson faction of the unnamed party.

I hope they consider defecting now there's a viable socialist alternative, but it doesn't automatically make them evil if they have a different strategic view with which we disagree

I agree with your assessment of the Labour Party, but I think there's room for reasonable disagreement here. McDonnell, Lewis, Burgon, Long-Bailey, etc, there are plenty of good people still trying to counter Starmer's bs from the inside.

There is no such thing as official policy for a party that hasn't yet been founded. Join and help make sure that trans rights are front and centre when we do actually become a party. It's going to be a democratic collective, not just a celebrity vehicle for Corbyn and Sultana.

@zarahsultana.bsky.social was pretty unequivocal about Labour's failings long before announcing #yourparty

I was actually quite surprised and disappointed, always saw him as unusually thoughtful, critical, reflective, e.g. impressed by his interest in citizen assemblies. But evidently being thoughtful *for a centrist* doesn't mean a whole lot in the end.

YouTube video by Zohran Mamdani for NYC Release Your Client List, Cuomo.

Damn he's good.

youtu.be/zcOUUXvi-Xc?...

“We’re here to talk about A levels”

“Free Palestine the BBC is complicit” 💀💀

This is fundamentally why I know I will always be on the left: we are actually serious about understanding the world, and acting on that understanding to change it for the better. It's hard to think of another political tradition still popular today of which I could say the same.

A further point of unseriousness: note the anti-intellectualism of ‪‪@rory-stewart.bsky.social‬, mocking Andrew Murray for daring to have a theoretical understanding of the possible roles of a new left political party. #yourpartyuk #yourparty

Add to that factual accusation the histrionic claim that Corbyn wants to 'renationalise everything that ever existed'. So much for 'rational debate'. This is centrism: cynical, disingenuous, unserious, contorted around its ideological commitment to the false equivalence between left and right.

I feel bad mocking the naive 20-something featured on this episode, but this is classic centrist idiocy, too perfectly exemplary of why centrism is a failed politics: he can't 'relate' to either Farage or Corbyn, in the latter case because Corbyn wants to 'bring about world peace'. What a monster!

Yes but we are usually governed by an absolute majority in Parliament. That's what I think is so unlikely this time, that it changes everything.

Fuck yes! Elated to see Defend Our Juries are not backing down.

It will require some shifts of attitude for sure. My tentative prediction is not that such a shift is guaranteed to occur among all parties, but that electoral success will be determined by who does and who does not make that shift.

'Dangerous idiot' describes the majority of today's Parliamentary Labour Party terrifyingly well. Just heard an anonymous Labour MP cited on the Guardian podcast as saying they felt 'tricked' by the government into voting to proscribe Palestine Action. It's morons all the way down.

www.instagram.com/p/DIjMnz4Nib...

Note how Guardian journos can't even mention the so-called controversies of the past, so thoroughly has Corbyn been vindicated on everything. Their silence speaks volumes, but it's still galling to hear nothng in the way of contrition for their part in electing May and Johnson.

Is this the summer the British left comes back? – podcast Guardian columnist Owen Jones and political correspondent Aletha Adu explore the prospects of the new leftwing party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana

Nice to include @owenjones.bsky.social, lending some sanity to the discussion.

www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

Oh Israel's don't a genocide now?

Always has been.

Often our disagreements will get blown out of proportion in bad faith, obviously. But we also need to consider how some of it is just due to the British conception of democracy being so limited; because that's something we can and must do something about.

Democracy means disagreeing about things. We need to get good at explaining this, because a democratic party is going to disagree a lot, out in the open, and people outside the party will be picking apart every morsel of so-called 'drama' like it's bloody Love Island.