Some quick thoughts on Keir Starmer and racism and *that* LBC interview yesterday.
This will apply a lot over the next few years, so consider them ever-green tweets.
There will be times when Starmer won't react to rows on racism to how I would react.
But he has to pull together a broad coalition of voters, not me. Labour needs focus, discipline.
Stay away from culture wars. Labour doesn't need a civil war everytime Owen Jones thinks so.
On racism, I'm not convinced that "calling out" works most of the time. Depends on who is doing it and language they use.
To me it's like howling in the wind.
More specifically, it doesn't work when far-right are explicitly *looking* to get a reaction out of us.
Did Starmer react like how I would? Probably not. But did his failure to challenge a far-right troll lead to anything? Also no.
He actually avoided a trap that the far-right set for him. More on this a bit later.
Some people think Corbyn was treated badly over racism, and will leap on any 'mistake' by Starmer to claim there are double standards.
This is the weaponisation of racism for Labour's internal factional battles.
I think non-white folks should avoid feeding into it.
I didn't think all the charges levelled at Corbyn were justified either, and said so.
But the very people who looked away as Jewish and Sikh Labour members were badly horribly during Corbyn years should stop preaching about racism.
Where was Corbyn Twitter when @Jas_Athwal got suspended last minute over baseless accusations, and Corbyn mate Sam Tarry was conveniently the candidate?
There's a lot of people preaching about the right way to tackle racism when they lost that moral authority ages ago.
Just a quick refresher on that episode
Thread explaining why "calling out" doesn't work in the way many on the left think it does.
I first wrote about CSE around... 2004 (wow, 16 years now)... and how we need a full investigation into this topic instead of brushing it under the carpet, after a C4 doc on the topic got shelved.
I've always believed we need a proper investigation regardless of sensitivities.
Here is the key paragraphs, from a report with a foreword by PRITI PATEL (so don't say its trying to be politically correct!)
One of my friends (an Asian woman) on Facebook has gone full Q-Anon. It was jarring to see at first.
Didn't think people like her would be the target audience, TBH.
Some observations:
1) Q-A people spend a lot of time boosting and praising each other on each other's FB pages. Drives up engagement, visibility and makes them look much bigger.
Every post of her has lots of comments and shares. The comments are.... mad. But they work in boosting engagement.
2) Most of the messages are either #SaveourChildren#GoodoverEvil or pro-Trump. They genuinely believe they are trying to do good in the world and save others.
Lots of messages ape language of empowerment and motivation. 'do good in the world' etc etc.
I love this country and I'm not afraid to say it. I really, genuinely do.
The Labour Party too mustn't be afraid of saying, especially its leaders.
One key reason I think Corbyn lost is Brits largely didn't largely believe he loved it too.
The gripe is this: some on the modern (Twitter) left believe declaring pride / love of your country, call it patriotism, is 'shameless pandering'.
That's the problem. They cannot conceive that anyone on the left could believe such a thing.
And so we end up with really silly debates about whether Lisa Nandy sounded like she was echoing Britain First.
They folks don't even see the language of patriotism unless it's by the (English) far-right. So of course their view of this whole debate is distorted.