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8 Dec, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Love to be lectured about hard-headed thinking from people whose view of geopolitics has all the flinty realism of a letter to Santa Claus. One of the authors helped workshop the "talking about capitalism is antisemitic" into British media discourse, so no surprise there.
"The hard left, which condemns the 'West' and condones the 'rest' regardless of circumstances"—I would say "citation needed", but that's a bit like asking for more peer-reviewed articles in the footnotes of a Harry Potter book. It would be a category error.
Bold move to stress the unquestionably positive results of hypothetical "humanitarian interventions" in the Middle East after 2011 without so much as mentioning the word "Libya".
The opening sentence here is clear as mud, but they *appear* to be saying their greatest concern about a Biden administration is that it will share Obama's (comparative) reluctance to go to war. Give me "unreconstructed anti-imperialism" over this any day.
Ah, for those halcyon days when the Anglo-American right wasn't "sapped of energy in defending liberal-democratic norms across the globe" ... when was this golden age—when Nixon was president? Reagan? Bush?

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Daniel Finn Profile picture
10 Dec
I think this passage, from Open Labour's Euston 2.0 pamphlet, should kill off the "walk and chew gum" formula once and for all. It's a perfect example of mealy-mouthed equivocation about the complicity of one's own state in war crimes, dressed up as high principle. 1/ Image
"The character of the Saudi intervention" (an aggressive war deliberately targeting civilians) isn't the only thing at stake here. The direct participation of British forces in that war makes it a moral imperative to oppose such complicity. 2/

theguardian.com/world/2019/jun…
In 2016, about 100 Labour MPs refused to support a motion calling for an end to Britain's direct participation in the Saudi war on Yemen. Some, like John "Mainstream" Woodcock, openly flaunted their support for that war. 3/

theguardian.com/politics/2016/… Image
Read 5 tweets
Daniel Finn Profile picture
30 Nov
Unfortunately, this article evades the main issues at stake. It tacitly urges the left to revert to a failed strategy of unwarranted concessions and apologies that just added fuel to the fire, instead of challenging the false narrative around “Labour antisemitism” directly. 1/
Corbyn’s statement was right in every sense: empirically, politically, morally. The idea that basic questions of truth and justice should be subordinated to expediency is unacceptable. That’s part of what allowed this false narrative to take hold in the first place. 2/
A poll in July 2019 showed the vast majority of Labour members agreed with Corbyn’s thoughtful, measured perspective (or went further still). It’s fair to wonder if all those expressing negative views about his statement today even know exactly what he said. 3/
Read 10 tweets
Daniel Finn Profile picture
25 Nov
The headline on this HP article about John McDonnell's interview is tendentious, but this verbatim passage is a surrender to irrationality. The nature and extent of antisemitism in the Labour Party under Corbyn *is* the issue—it always has been.

huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/john-mcd…
The media narrative claimed that there was a dramatic increase in antisemitism under Corbyn's leadership, to the point that it became endemic in the party, and that this upsurge was actively encouraged by the Labour leadership. That narrative was provably false in every respect.
McDonnell obviously doesn't think that he was part of a project that posed an "existential threat to Jewish life in Britain". He should say so bluntly & unambiguously instead of allowing this false narrative to stand by default. "Stay and fight" has to involve actually fighting.
Read 4 tweets
Daniel Finn Profile picture
18 Nov
Behr once complained that Corbyn cared more about Colombian trade unions than about the European Union, and clearly believed this to be a great witticism, rather than a stark confession of his belief that white European lives are worth incomparably more than those of Colombians.
A few of the security precautions I noticed when visiting Colombia to meet its trade unionists: armour-plated SUVs, steel security doors & CCTV cameras on union offices, bullet-proof glass to guard against snipers (on the 27th floor!), bodyguards, etc.

aflcio.org/2019/5/16/murd…
Personally I found it refreshing that the opposition leader in one of the world's most powerful states cared more about trade unionists being murdered in Colombia than he did about the details of European Council meetings. Behr obviously didn't agree, and is anxious to bury him. Image
Read 4 tweets
Daniel Finn Profile picture
17 Nov
This message from Corbyn doesn't actually roll back on the correct things he said a couple of weeks ago—by their own lights, the BOD are right to dismiss it—but it *is* a retreat from that kind of plain speaking to more opaque statements that have to be read between the lines.
In a nutshell, "concerns aren't exaggerated" (but the scale of the problem certainly was); "I regret the pain this issue has caused" (which chiefly arose from such exaggerations); "I accept the recommendations" (which are mostly sensible—but not all the findings, which aren't).
This kind of Aesopian language is clearly a response to the corrupt internal politics of the Labour Party, but even if it's enough to have Corbyn's suspension lifted, it won't cut through the accumulated falsehoods. You need plain speaking for that.

counterfire.org/articles/opini…
Read 5 tweets
Daniel Finn Profile picture
16 Nov
As Dawn says, the grossly inappropriate tone of this article from IPSO's most implacable foe Lee Harpin stands out. But as one would expect from his track record, he doesn't supply the merest scrap of evidence to justify its main thrust. No breach of any rules, no "probe" either.
None of this violates any rule of the Labour Party (members are free to advocate things that aren't party policy). It's all based on a tendentious reading of the IHRA definition—which talks about "a state of Israel", not "the state"—that a lawyer could demolish in a few minutes.
While I'm prepared to believe Labour's current leadership is capable of all sorts of authoritarian excesses, this is clearly a boilerplate response that says nothing about the specific case. And no wonder she didn't respond: Harpin's record precedes him, after all.
Read 5 tweets

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