Thread by @shaunjlawson

Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition - whose aim is to lead his British party into governing the British people, and needs the votes of British people to do so - said he loved his country and wanted to prioritise it.

So far, so normal. But not on Twitter. Not in this madhouse

Apparently, the leader of a major political party seeking to govern a nation state and hence, prioritising that nation state and all its people is OUTRAGEOUS. DISGUSTING. Fascism has descended on the Labour Party. 🙄🙄🙄

Nothing - and I mean nothing - better sums up how (parts of) the (mostly online) left has completely lost the plot than its apparent disgust at something which is the norm in literally any other democracy on Earth.

Imagine the leader of France saying not France, but Czechia is his priority.

Imagine the leader of Germany saying not Germany, but Lebanon is her priority.

Imagine the leader of Canada saying not Canada, but Italy is his priority.

Imagine a country in which hundreds of thousands have died thanks to both austerity and Covid under a disgusting, lethally incompetent government - but in which some on the left think that wanting to HELP the people of that country is monstrous.

That country is Britain.

I've seen some nonsense on here in my time. I have never, ever seen such offensive, disgraceful gibberish from out and out narcissists as I did yesterday.

In the process, all those laying into the Labour Party for the crime of caring about the UK showed exactly why we lost.

The scores and scores of working class voters we've lost over the last two decades think we don't care about them, or the country. Frankly, plenty of people on here proved them right yesterday.

Imagine having to choose between heating and eating - imagine your kids starving in latter day Dickensian Britain - only for the message from some on here to be "sorry, Palestine is more important than you. Yemen is more important than you. And loving your country is RACIST".

Imagine all those who love Britain being told "you're one step away from fascism". What utter, unadulterated, juvenile bollocks.

That the left has vacated any sense of patriotism over the past generation is very much part of why we lose.

We've allowed far right nutcases to drape themselves in the flag while riding roughshod over the entire population... and we are so pathetic, we don't even challenge them and seek to reclaim REAL patriotism, inclusive patriotism, caring for everyone?

If so, we deserve to lose.

It would be unthinkable - literally unthinkable - for any party anywhere in the world to decry patriotism and expect to be elected by the people it apparently despises.

But no no: that's not how the political illiterates and inadequates on here see it.

Political illiterates and inadequates who:

1. Do not understand the yawning chasm which has always separated patriotism from nationalism. The former is about loving one's country. The latter is about hating other countries.

2. Have the brass neck to lay into the Labour leader for supporting patriotism while... also supporting Scottish independence. You couldn't write this script.

3. Think that the British working class want some sixth form version of socialism, and are oblivious to their wishes.

4. Apparently have no conception whatsoever that patriotism is part of human nature itself. And why? Because everyone needs a place called home.

5. Think that someone born working class who rises up through their talent and hard work is some kind of enemy. You what?

6. Deliberately ignore everything the Labour leader highlighted about the need for diversity in our society and its pernicious, racist inequalities: which Covid has only exacerbated even more.

People who behave in such a way are acting in bad faith: plain and simple.

7. Think, completely incomprehensibly, that patriotism and internationalism cannot coexist side by side when THEY ALWAYS HAVE - never more so than under Clement Attlee. The leader they claim to adore, while apparently knowing precisely zero about his government or foreign policy.

8. Act like their clicks and their retweets from their ridiculously stupid, regularly bad faith takes are more important to them than the life and death issue of getting a Labour government sometime before hell freezes over.

9. Are so wilfully oblivious to reality, act as though the last Labour leader somehow got just about everything right despite being smashed out of sight at election after election after election... and do not understand what Labour's brand being trashed for a decade even means.

What it meant was that under the new leader, we started miles and miles behind. Well over 20 points behind.

What it means is we need millions of people to vote for us who do not trust us and think we hate them.

What it means is that we have to get a hearing before anything else

We're not going to get a hearing if we act, ludicrously offensively, as though patriotism is somehow 'racist'.

We're not going to get a hearing if we don't appreciate people's aspirations and desires as well as their communities.

We're not going to get a hearing until we even sound like we have the first clue what people's ordinary lives actually involve - and build a real coalition of middle class and working class, professionals and blue collar workers, ethnic minorities and whites, young and old.

And getting a hearing is just step one. It's literally just base camp. But oh no: HOW DARE Starmer not alienate those we need to vote for us if we're ever to do anything good for the British people? Doesn't he realise that Twitter is all that counts?

It is pathetic. It is risible. It is beyond embarrassing.

Never mind all those demanding long term economic plans from the opposition when we don't even know where the country will be in a month, let alone a year or 4 years from now.

And I'll tell you what it leaves me concluding. Those who continue with this nonsense - those desperate to sabotage Starmer for the crime of him actually reaching out to those millions of lost voters - can only be one of two things.

Either they hate everyone and everything, and want things to get even WORSE for everyone - nihilists, in other words - or they are viewing all this from the most horrific, unimaginable positions of privilege. It's one or the other.

The single mother desperately trying to keep a roof over her head, or the disabled woman whose life has been wrecked by this wanton government, or the black man dealing with racism every single day, couldn't give a damn who the Labour leader is.

THEY JUST WANT THE TORIES OUT.

The young person horribly fearful for their and the planet's whole future, whose family needs foodbanks and whose friends only have one meal a day, doesn't give a damn who the Labour leader is.

THEY JUST WANT THE TORIES OUT.

The hundreds of thousands who've lost loved ones in this pandemic and haven't even been given the dignity of burying them couldn't give a damn about how 'left wing' or 'socialist' the Labour leader is.

THEY JUST WANT THE TORIES OUT.

And millions and millions and millions of people who despise the Tories but regarded Labour as an angry, shambolic rabble have been frantic for an opposition they can finally take seriously.

Now, at last, they've got one: which is a Mark of Cain in bizarro world on here.

The extent to which some people on here appear to view literally everything in politics through their specific (in many cases, absurd) demands ("give me exactly what I want, or else") doesn't speak of socialism at all. It reeks of selfishness beyond belief.

The extent to which some people on here seem to view the entire world through their own selective echo chamber - a parallel universe in which some of them thought the election was rigged, cos Corbyn was very popular on Twitter 🙄 - boggles my mind.

And the level of ignorance from those who claim to be all about the working class while showing, each and every day, that they know nothing about working class voters in any way whatsoever, is just completely breathtaking.

No wonder we as a party fell so far down the rabbit hole for so long. And the thing about some of those I've referred to in this thread is: they cannot bear the idea that we might actually right the ship. That we might actually become credible again. And you know why?

Because if that happens, they lose influence on here. For some people, in the perfect mirror image of venal right wing Labour (and ex-Labour) MPs, this is all about territory. All about their petty online fiefdoms.

The public? They can go to hell apparently.

I will never abide such a course - and thankfully, most people on this platform won't either.

Guess what folks? There's never been a Labour leader with my exact politics. Some have been to the left of me, others to the right of me. Yet I've kept voting Labour.

And the reason I've kept doing that, supporting every leader in the process, is I know which side my, my loved ones', my community's bread is buttered on.

Everyone I care about in Britain NEEDS a Labour government. Desperately. Urgently.

And I simply cannot tolerate those who seek to prevent a Labour government coming about. Period.