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Number10 Profile picture
Number10
@ElwinWay
Chronic procrastinator
Sep 10 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
On the uses and misuses of ‘crank’ in the late Corbyn era. Loads of the Corbynites who work in media at various levels used to throw this word around like confetti. And then one day it just stopped. Largely disappears from their discourse almost overnight around mid-2020: The whole ‘Labour antisemitism crisis’ thing blatantly did have a chilling effect on criticism of Israel in the upper echelons of official and unofficial Corbynism. Here’s me talking about in November 2019. Israel was bombing Gaza and there was near *silence* from them:
Sep 8 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Owen Jones voted Labour in 2005 and 2010 and 2015. He is fine with supporting mass murderers and war criminals as long as they are Western bourgeois white men.

Fact. He presents a show with Mehdi Hasan, someone who is open about the fact he is going to vote for the genocidaire Kamala Harris.

He is very, very selective about which supporters of war criminals he thinks are persons non grata and which he thinks are good.
May 18 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
According to this New York Times article, Ukraine has barely any reserve forces left to deploy.

Once again: westerners who think it’s a moral imperative that this war continues need to be signing up to fight it.

nytimes.com/2024/05/18/wor…
Screenshot of a New York Times article stating: ‘As the scale of the Russian push became clear over the weekend, Ukraine's military scrambled to divert troops from other areas of the front, rather than deploying reserves. The reason, according to Ukrainian officials: There are few reserves to deploy’. You can apply to join the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine here. They are so desperate for bodies that unwilling Ukrainians are being snatched off the streets and sent to the front lines:

ildu.com.ua
May 4 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Owen Jones ‘supporting war crimes and the mass slaughter of civilians is my red line’ latest:

Iraqis still don’t count.


Screenshot of Owen Jones tweet, dated 22/03/24, stating: ‘That answer would be two things - honest, and absolutely appalling. As I texted her at the time: "I've always voted Labour, but this is it for me, I won't vote for you. We all have our red lines, mine is supporting war crimes and the mass slaughter of civilians."
Screenshot of Owen Jones retweeting Momentum on 04/05/2024. The Momentum tweet says: ‘Congratulations to @AndyBurnhamGM on a well-deserved third term. As private interests howled, Andy delivered a publicly-controlled bus system in Greater Manchester. Voters rewarded him and backed his vision for more council housing & a National Care Service @TeamBurnhamGM’.
Screenshot from They Work For You showing Andy Burnham voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2023.
Screenshot of an Independent article from 2010 about Andy Burnham. It says: ‘ Andy Burnham, one of four former cabinet ministers vying to be the next Labour leader, has announced that he is "proud" to be seen as the candidate who would carry on where Gordon Brown and Tony Blair left off. He defended the most contentious decision of the Blair years, to send British troops to war in Iraq, unlike his rivals, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, who have distanced themselves from the war. "I don't back away from the original decision," he said. "I think it gave 20 or so million p... As I’ve been saying for years, the invasion of Iraq - one of the greatest war crimes of the modern age - is just a comradely disagreement among friends for too many people on the Labour left. You can have voted for it, defended it as late as *2010*, and still be one of the lads.
Apr 27 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
People are calling AOC an opportunist because she’s rhetorically opposing the genocide in Palestine, while practically working to empower the people arming and funding it. That simple. AOC isn’t naive. She must know that Joe Biden - again, a man who is arming, funding a supporting an ongoing genocide - is using her to launder his reputation and increase his chance of being elected so he can do more genocide.
Aug 5, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Still this tbh. If they have said anything in public I’ve missed it. All weapons are terrible but cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells are particularly nasty. Indiscriminate and toxic often long after the war has ended. A few different sources have said Ukraine couldn’t have continued their ‘counteroffensive’ without the provision of cluster bombs. I’d genuinely like to know wether they think sending cluster bombs to Ukraine was worth it to save the ‘counteroffensive’?
Jul 27, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The Washington Post says that Western officials have known for months that the Ukrainian armed forces simply weren’t equipped to launch a successful counter-offensive against Russian forces. They urged them to do it anyway:

https://t.co/hKSMAiZDkUwashingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…
Article from the Washington Post stating: ‘In public, Western leaders are urging patience. Ukraine's counteroffensive is far from over. Yet Milley's skepticism about Ukraine's ability to achieve total victory appears to have been widespread within the Biden administration before the counteroffensive began. The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Michaels reported this week that "Western military officials knew Kviv didn't have all the training or weapons - from shells to warplanes - that it needed to dislodge Russian forces." That tracks: In April, The Post reported on a leaked U.S. int... Personally I think the casualty figures from this war are hugely inflated by both sides for propaganda purposes. But the toll is still genuinely horrific. Why would the West pressure Ukraine into launching a counter-offensive if they knew it wouldn’t go well for Ukraine?
Jun 1, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Remember 24 hours ago when helping sovereign states resist the occupation of their territory by hostile powers was Good Actually? Wonder what’s changed since. McDonnell, Lewis, Jones, Whittome, etc, will be producing a statement supporting Syria’s right to resist occupation - an occupation which almost certainly includes British special forces and fighter jets - and Iran’s duty to arm them any day now.
Mar 31, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Hard to see this as anything other than bad faith nonsense. As if ‘transforming Britain and saving the planet’ hinges on whether Corbyn runs as an independent in Islington North or not. It’s bizarre rubbish. It’s also extremely nasty tbh. As Lansman concedes, Corbyn has been treated despicably. And yet the suggestion is if he doesn’t just roll over and retire quietly, it’ll be his fault if Britain isn’t transformed and the planet isn’t saved.
Mar 30, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The socialist equivalent of TINA this. As if advancements can only be made via a party that, in the entirety of its history, has never been anything but social democratic / imperialist *at best*. ‘Oh, so you don’t want to be a member of a racist, imperialist and neoliberal party that thinks you’re scum who should be ground into the dirt? Well what’s YOUR plan, comrade?’.
Mar 21, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Here's the U.N.'s Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief saying a political solution is need to the war in Ukraine:

The argument against a political solution - an argument which is currently being pushed by the U.S. State Department and large sections of the liberal-left - is that it will cement Russian control of Ukrainian territory (Crimea, Donbas).
Mar 21, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
And yet 3 and a half years ago John McDonnell was disgracefully trying to launder the reputations of Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell by whitewashing their crimes in Iraq. He’s never properly apologised. I wrote about it here:

interventionswatch.wordpress.com/2019/10/12/joh… McDonnell also has lots of nice things to say about another of the perpetrators, Gordon Brown. Quoting a mildly critical speech from 20 years ago pales compared to normalising and rehabilitating the perpetrators now:
Mar 20, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Had this person in my mentions for two days giving it ‘I’m a proper Marxist and you’re a liberal’ because I said university professors are middle-class. Here’s what they actually think of working-class people. Vicious ableism and snobbery: Me: Professional middle-class people are not working-class.

Professional middle-class people / their children:
Mar 19, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Also supported the bombing of Kosovo and Serbia. People don’t see that war as straight forwardly problematic as Iraq. But I find the argument that it exacerbated, rather than prevented, atrocities and mass displacement - and NATO knew it would - very persuasive. Was also illegal. Thread outlining the basic contours of the anti-war case here:
Mar 14, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A reminder that an International Criminal Court investigation found that British forces had committed war crimes in Iraq - including torture and rape, for which there was impunity - but they decided not to prosecute for reasons:

amnesty.org/en/latest/news… In 2014, France wrote a draft U.N. resolution to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC. Under U.S. pressure - this was Obama and Biden, not Trump - they included clauses that would de facto protect the U.S. and Israel from prosecution:

nytimes.com/2014/05/08/wor…
Mar 12, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I see Gilbert Achcar is back on his ‘Genuine anti-imperialists must support NATO imperialism’ bullshit, while denying that’s what his position amounts to:

labourhub.org.uk/2023/03/12/con… Once again: the U.S. and NATO states are arming Ukraine to further their own imperial interests. To support that is to support U.S.-NATO imperialism, no matter how well intentioned you are. At least be honest about that.
Mar 7, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Ash Sarkar: *Asks some mild questions about U.S.-NATO strategy towards Ukraine, what the end game might look like, and wonders why no-one in the media seems to be discussing these issues with any seriousness or honesty*

Twitter: SHUT UP PUTINIST TANKIE TRAITOR! That's about the level of debate you get on war from so many people who consider themselves the 'grown ups' in the room. And I know, because I've been arguing with them for 20 years.
Mar 6, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Compare and contrast: More and more U.S. lawmakers, diplomats and NatSec types are openly saying what some of us have long suspected. That war in Ukraine is good for the U.S. because it’s weakening Russia without the U.S. itself having to fire a shot.
Mar 5, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This line of argument is now standard in social imperialist discourse. That by opposing the imperialism of the U.S. and its allies, you are in fact an imperialist yourself for reasons. And it’s the people supporting U.S. imperialism who are the *real* anti-imperialists. I’m seeing it more and more in debates over Ukraine. People saying their support for arming Ukraine is rooted in their anti-imperialism. How do you square that with the fact most of those weapons are being provided by the worlds most aggressive imperialist state?
Mar 1, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
‘I wasn’t able to recognise the BBC Panorama antisemitism episode as the obvious establishment hit job it was. But by God, I can sniff out Putinist sympathies in left wingers from 1000 paces, even where none exist’ -

My latest for The Guardian. Evidence of serious misrepresentation in the Panorama antisemitism episode - the same evidence certain people are now citing as damning - has been in the public domain since July 2019. It was conveniently ignored by state-corporate media columnists:

thecanary.co/investigations…
Feb 28, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Literal pogroms in the occupied West Bank - carried out by settlers who are protected by an occupying force that is armed by the U.K. - and almost total silence from ‘The left should be vocal about an occupied peoples inherent right to defend themselves’. ‘The left should be vocal about an occupied peoples inherent to defend themselves, just so long as it doesn’t upset newspaper owners, TV producers and right wing politicians’.