Sir! Keir! Starmer!

It appears to be well documented that the Israeli defence forces are training US police. It seems to be unproven that they are specifically training them to use the choke hold technique that has caused so much outrage recently, so it’s fair enough to question the accuracy of the story that Peake repeated, but I don’t see the original article as anti-Semitic.

Neither do I. The Israeli defence forces have built a fearsome reputation over many years of persecution, so it’s only to be expected that other countries would wish to take advantage of their experience and expertise.
The real issue isn’t to do with the Israeli government or even its people; the issue is the ongoing movement towards American police becoming a paramilitary force being used against their own civilians, in particular the Black population, but also against the Hispanic population - see Tinkerbell’s Wall; where they get their training is largely irrelevant, it could just as easily be the SAS, the French Foreign Legion, or any other special forces/operations unit.
I’ll wait quietly for someone to accuse me of perpetuating an anti-Semitic trope in 5, 4, 3...

On it's own, I don't view the comment as antisemitic - I agree with CZ that I think the "Israeli" part was in reference to their particularly aggressive reputation.

HOWEVER, if I was a politician who's party had recently become quagmired in numerous antisemitism scandals (due largely, in my view, to their inability to connect their mouths to the brains before speaking/tweeting), and who's new leader was obviously going to make an example of anyone further ****ing up in this regard...... the very last thing I would be doing is going near anything at all to do with Israel/Palestine/Jew's/the middle east. Particularly when it's nothing to do with her portfolio. On that basis alone she's proved that shes intellectually incapable of being in the shadow cabinet.

More evidence that SKS has what's needed more than anything right now - competence

To associate all jews with the actions of the Israeli state is to stereotype and is anti-semitic as is dismissing the Jewish Virtual Library as pedlars of fake news or conspiracy theories. As for Amnesty, I don't know, but they're not famed for barking up the wrong tree.
NB 1970s light entertainment written and performed by ex-public schoolboys who punch down on the usual targets (gays, northerners, socialists, the working class, shop keepers) can raise a titter but why venerate a tax-dodging emetic splenetic like John Cleese? Spitting Image was tons better, 'Tomorrow belongs to me' vs 'The lumberjack song'?

From a floating voter perspective:
He's just shown some form of leadership on the issue, which Corbyn never did.
RLB was a Corbyn crony, and desperate to keep the party hard.
Yesterday has just made them more electable IMO. And that's a good thing given the Tory Government we have.

True story. Corbyn got more votes than Blair did in 2005.

True story. Corbyn failed to beat two woeful Tory leaders, Maybot nearly self destructed in 2017 and BloJob, is well, BloJob. Let it go.

As another floaty voter, the basic take home from the story is that Starmer isn't having any of more of the antisemitic rubbish. Shows leadship, decisiveness. He was handed an open goal and in stark contrast to his predecessors style, popped it in without fannying about.

From whatever angle, it looks good.

The original part of the interview with Peake simply looks naive and a bit thoughtless on her part, but her job is acting, isn't erudite political commentary or hard investigative journalism in conflict areas or paramilitary actions.

Quoting the whole article without checking the detail just put RLB in an essentially indefensible corner given recent major stories about the party. Refusing to delete the tweet made that doubly so.

I think it's sad that there was a chance of having a possible slightly-left leaning party which has been scuppered by the labour-right deliberately wrecking things, both in the 2017 election and in continually blocking any moves to combat AS. Now we're back to having two shades of blue to vote for rather than a party which might make things better for people.

Comments like this really illustrate the level of deviousness at play by the labour right:

RLB was a Corbyn crony, and desperate to keep the party hard.

Words like "crony", and "keep the party hard" - Corbynism was never Communism, it was some very mild social democracy. Unfortunately "floating voters" swallowed the bullshit whole and will keep voting for their lives to be worse.

Meanwhile Forensic Keir can apparently only show leadership when purging his competition. Otherwise it's just "we support the government" repeated ad nauseam.

slightly-left leaning party

But what is the point of that if the electorate don't want it (are told by the Sun/DM not to vote for it)?

I'd rather a right leaning labour party than the Tories.

To me this is about having a viable alternative to the Tories and about Starmer achieving this by making the party into a disciplined outfit that people will vote for. I'm sick of 10 years of Tory government and a lack of any viable opposition. Corbyn couldn't even beat them when they were on their knees. This is not about policies its about the competence to do the job which Corbyn, Abbott and MacDonald and now RLB showed they didnt have.

The context of RLBs dismissal is daft. Sacked for retweeting the views of an actor in an article that was later edited that referred to an Amnesty Internationl report that was later refuted. And when this was known RLB still refused to delete the tweet. I'd sack RLB for incompetence as much as anything else, aside from the urgent priority that Labour deal with antisemitism which Starmer is doing here.

I think it’s sad that there was a chance of having a possible slightly-left leaning party which has been scuppered by the labour-right deliberately wrecking things, both in the 2017 election and in continually blocking any moves to combat AS. Now we’re back to having two shades of blue to vote for rather than a party which might make things better for people.

I think that's the issue though isn't it. Labour were more successful when they were slightly more centre-leaning than hardcore socialist (or at least portrayed)like Corbyn. And Tories are more palatable to those of a left persuasion when they're slightly more centre-leaning. The issue with Corbyn and Boris is that to the voters they're two end of the spectrum - when this happens it becomes a race to the bottom and the team with the best PR/ability to play the media wins. I think we can all agree that Corbyns PR was nothing short of terrible where as Boris had the support necessary.

I think SKS is playing the long game. For the most part, the people commenting on here aren't the missing votes that Labour needed in the last election. The votes they needed are the majority that are swayed by what is written in the press or by what's shown in the news. In the mean time we get to enjoy Johnson getting angry at SKS pointing out how incompetent he is..

I’d rather a right leaning labour party than the Tories.

Idealism has cost us far too much Tory government. I fear this pragmatic approach is what is needed

Corbynism was never Communism, it was some very mild social democracy.

That's a matter of perspective though, innit? And, unfortunately for Corbyn, it was not the perspective of the majority of potential Labour voters.

I'm 100% in support of a left-leaning government. But I'm also of the opinion that the way to get there is to provide a realistic alternative that people will vote for, even if it means sacrificing some of your ideals. In my lifetime there has only been one period of Labour government (under Blair/Brown), and Tories have been in power for the rest of the time. Going too far left alienates people.

Starmer was just gifted a situation whereby the morally correct populist thing to do was in perfect alignment with the politically correct personal gain thing to do.

Bojo would be very jealous of that move.

I think that’s the issue though isn’t it. Labour were more successful when they were slightly more centre-leaning than hardcore socialist (or at least portrayed)like Corbyn.

They learned this lesson in 1983 with Michael Foot, who was a genuinely gifted politician, who would have wiped the floor with Corbyn, so why repeat it again in 2017 and AGAIN in 2019 is beyond me!!

Looking at social media it seems the virtue-signalling, sixth form bed-wetters are up in arms and all apparently leaving the Labour Party, so it’s a win/win/win for him.

Starmer was just gifted a situation whereby the morally correct populist thing to do was in perfect alignment with the politically correct personal gain thing to do.

I think that's about the size of it. Politically, there's little downside to this move. I just wish he was as decisive on stuff that actually matters.

whereby the morally correct populist thing to do

Populist means not putting up with the spreading of anti-Semitic tropes now, does it?

Populist means not putting up with the spreading of anti-Semitic tropes now, does it?

It's a matter of debate as to whether this was an "anti-semitic trope". RLB re-tweeted an unsubstantiated allegation about the Israeli state, which I would argue is not the same thing. I would certainly agree that it was a spectacularly unwise thing to do.

The jump from the central complaints of the BLM movement to blaming Israel was conspiracy theory nonsense. Peake has apologised. Amnesty have set the record straight. The newspaper were quick to annotate their piece online. Yet some people still can’t see what was wrong with what was originally said. I find that quite depressing.

I’d rather a right leaning labour party than the Tories.

The flaw with this thinking is the window will shift rightwards. You can see it over Blairs time where the tories moved rightwards to try and keep the separation and labour followed them resulting in right wing options being portrayed as centre ground. The extreme end case can be seen in the USA.
Cameron counted this somewhat by moving leftward on some social policy whilst going more right wing on the economy.

The flaw with this thinking is the window will shift rightwards.

The government of this country has kept shifting rightwards fast in recent years.

The flaw with this thinking is the window will shift rightwards.

Back when we had large scale manufacturing, there must have been plenty of working class people to vote Tory given the number of governments they formed compared to Labour. This is a broad brush assumption that a "worker" would be more in tune to the left than party of the ruling class. Given this country's Empire and history I think you can say it has largely been on the right of the political spectrum.

It would seem the general population have forgotten the Chartists, Peterlooville, Union campaigns for reasonable time off and working conditions that they benefit from now. We celebrated the Suffragettes recent centennial anniversaries but when they were campaigning most men had not long been given the vote.

RLB re-tweeted an unsubstantiated allegation about the Israeli state, which I would argue is not the same thing. I would certainly agree that it was a spectacularly unwise thing to do.

I agree with this

Labour have a huge amount of work to do to rebuild their credibility regards AS, Id be happy for Labour to be a broad church but if the corbynites cant see that they are damaging the party though then they dont deserve to be in cabinet

RLB was an idiot to tweet that article, it makes her a liability & starmer had n choice

Stand back. The sixth form is mobilising. They’ve written a letter

https://twitter.com/peoplesmomentum/status/1276195438413131778?s=21

Solidarity, comrades

The jump from the central complaints of the BLM movement to blaming Israel was conspiracy theory nonsense. Peake has apologised. Amnesty have set the record straight. The newspaper were quick to annotate their piece online. Yet some people still can’t see what was wrong with what was originally said. I find that quite depressing.

I've already agreed that it was an unsubstantiated allegation, I'm just not convinced that it was anti-semitic. The appropriate response, in my view, was for RLB to issue a retraction and apology. What happened instead was some effective but cynical politics.

So, are they trying to say anyone in Momentum should also be sacked?

From the Momentum petition...

Keir Starmer says he wants party unity, yet sacks her from the front bench for no good reason.

Lots of work to do. We're still at the "I don't hate Jews, therefore I'm not antisemitic" stage... and, we need to move on from that, fast. Starmer acting so promptly seems increasingly wise. And don't look below the line on the petition (or on twitter or Facebook), it gets increasingly depressing... people even seem angry that Peake apologised.

I still like Peake. I don't think RLB is in anyway anti-Jewish. Spreading this conspiracy nonsense should be called out though, even if you like the people falling for it. Top flight politicians should and need to know far better, and act accordingly, and apologise fast if they do it by mistake.

Now we’re back to having two shades of blue to vote for rather than a party which might make things better for people.

As a Labour supporter and backer of many of the policies Corbyn wanted to introduce this sort of nonsense just makes me switch off. We don't know what shade of Labour Starmer will be and won't until he lays out his direction. Those painting Starmer as a red Tory are exactly the same people who wet their pants at the various ways Corbyn was negatively portrayed.

Corbyn and his team were disgracefully treated but they didn't half walk in to plenty of it.

Given this country’s Empire and history I think you can say it has largely been on the right of the political spectrum.

Yeah, the penny dropped for me during the last election. When given a difficult choice (in this case further right or further left) the general public will fall behind Queen, Country and the flag and back the 'Establishment'. Starmer doesn't need to shift to the right and we're yet to see what direction he'll go but he does need to present himself and the party as competent, in control and professional. To that end he has started well IMO.

The appropriate response, in my view, was for RLB to issue a retraction and apology.

She was given the opportunity to do so. She refused. Leaving Starmer no choice but to sack her, really.

What most people will take from this is a demonstration of firm leadership which stands in stark contrast to his endlessly procrastinating predecessor and the dithering buffoon opposite him.

She was given the opportunity to do so. She refused. Leaving Starmer no choice but to sack her, really.

She really isn't a savvy political operator, is she?

Played right into his hands, gave him a cast iron opportunity to send a remnant of the old guard to the backbenches while looking tough on antisemitism in the run-up to a report critical of Labour on the issue.

Alternatively, he could have allowed her non-apology to stand, said that he 'considered the matter closed', and carried on like a true leader would.

What most people will take from this is a demonstration of firm leadership which stands in stark contrast to his endlessly procrastinating predecessor and the dithering buffoon opposite him.

It's interesting how what people consider leadership depends on their own personalities...

She was given the opportunity to do so. She refused. Leaving Starmer no choice but to sack her, really.

I thought you'd taken your ball home? Anyway, the timeline of what happened is widely reported and does not accord with your partial view. Starmer made a politically expedient choice. It's a pity that he dithers on the more important stuff.

Clearly he’s taken a decision that there’s actually some serious stuff to get on with so he’s not going to get mired in the endless, circular debate about what does and doesn’t constitute antisemitism. If there’s even a hint of it then it won’t be tolerated

Which IMHO demonstrates the type of leadership that has been woefully absent for the last 4 years.

And he gets shut of another remnant of the old failed regime into the bargain

It's time to stand with RLB - and win back power in the party.

First step: Sign this letter and show your solidarity with RLB

Second step: disappear into long grass forever.

And for those of you who think we are a right wing country, get a grip. Are we right of center, yeah probably, are we Russia right wing, USA right wing etc. no where near.

And why do think the population is right of center, because people tend to have more conservative views when they have a reasonable standard of living and assets they don't want to lose. The majority in this country fit into this category. That may however be about to change due to the current government who are not conservative but right wing populist, having screwed up Covid 19 and then doubling down (I hate that phrase) with Brexit.

Starmer gets this, he needs to appeal to more centralist voters and those who don't like the Boris Buffoon. Then when he is in power (not just winning back the power in the party), he can start moving the agenda back leftwards and hopefully making lives better for those who don't have a decent standard of living.

I think there are lots of us who aren't remotely convinced it was actually anti-semitic, but we're in broad agreement here, I think, that it was extremely unwise and politically naive.

The appropriate response of a retraction and apology was refused, so I really don't think there was much alternative.

It's possible that SKS may have reopened fractures in the party, but I'd hold RLB more than equally reponsible...

Yeah, the penny dropped for me during the last election. When given a difficult choice (in this case further right or further left) the general public will fall behind Queen, Country and the flag and back the ‘Establishment’.

I think what needs to be remembered is that the majority who voted in the last election didn't vote tory, and that its the voting system that keeps the tories hanging onto power...along with elements of the press etc.

You are not going to change the forelock tuggers, so you have to erode the tories support from the less susceptible voters to this 'flag waving establishment' thing. SKS is playing a long game, I only hope he does have the stomach for the fight ahead as everything we have seen so far from the blatant lies and corruption from this particular set of tories to the right wing press is only going to get dirtier and far, far nastier than we have seen since 2016.

We ain't seen nothing yet.

Which IMHO demonstrates the type of leadership that has been woefully absent for the last 4 years.

You absolutely right that this kind of leadership was absent under Corbyn: he has purged someone you don't like.

The appropriate response of a retraction and apology was refused, so I really don’t think there was much alternative.

She said that she had agreed the wording of a clarification with Labour HQ.

I believe "clarification" to have a different meaning from either "retraction" or "apology"

She was asked/told/‘offered the opportunity’ to retract it, delete the Tweet and apologise.

She refused

Why not try that in work the next time your boss asks/tells you to do something and let us know how you get on?

I think there are lots of us who aren’t remotely convinced it was actually anti-semitic

Then you are part of the problem.

It is easy to argue that there was no anti-Semitic intention behind the original comment, or the sharing of it… and I would… but we need to do far better than that if the insidious anti-semitism that continues to spread amongst us, irrelevant of left or right leanings, is to be stopped.

I believe “clarification” to have a different meaning from either “retraction” or “apology”

We can argue over semantics, but it appears that she did what she was initially asked to do. Not that it matters.

I'm sure she'll be relishing the opportunity to play the martyr, and the Momentum lot are never happier than when they get to vocally express their indignant moral outrage on Twitter

I think there are lots of us who aren’t remotely convinced it was actually anti-semitic

But given her party's recent mauling over the issue, how naïve/dumb not to think that any mention of Israel will get attraction. If she hasn't had the time to read all the article (and just liked the bits Maxine Peake was praising Labour), don't re-tweet.

Emily Thornberry got into trouble tweeting a picture of a white van outside a house showing the Cross of St George. As per the poster above, if they haven't learnt to be more media savvy, step away from twitter etc.

You are not going to change the forelock tuggers

Unfortunately that completely misses the motivation of the idiots waving the flag and voting for Brexit. They are no more for the establishment or subservient to it than anyone else. It's tribalism and a false sense of their own (and Britain's) importance. You need to understand the motivation, the last thing these people see themselves as is subservient, bullish proud springs to mind (highly misplaced of course). It was not understanding that caused Corbyn to lose so many voters, there's as many nasty small minded people vote Labour as there are conservative. Boris really dialed up the appeal to these idiots through populist nonsense and encouraging the tribalism. Corbyn did nothing to counter this apart for from engaging in tedious internal Labour politics from his allotment.

All that matters is he did the right thing and did it quickly. The longer you leave things, or worse still do nothing, the worse it will build up.
The tories have a lot on their side meaning they can get away with it but Labour don't have that privilege. This shows exactly why Corbyn was completely the wrong leader and Starmer is the right leader. Policies are irrelevant if the leader is losing it before anyone sees the policies...

Then you are part of the problem.

It is easy to argue that there was no anti-Semitic intention behind the original comment, or the sharing of it… and I would… but we need to do far better than that if the insidious anti-semitism that continues to spread amongst us, irrelevant of left or right leanings, is to be stopped.

You see I just don't agree with this approach. So what you appear to be saying is in order to stop anti semitism we need to come down hard on people who aren't actually being anti semitic.....

You need to understand the motivation, the last thing these people see themselves as is subservient, bullish proud springs to mind (highly misplaced of course).

I never voted Labour under Blair, but did under Corbyn… by that is one thing Blair’s team got right… (even if I disliked it at the time)… all that flag waving (Cool Britannia) and dropping the red flag for the red rose… was effective, even if highly cynical, signalling.

So what you appear to be saying is in order to stop anti semitism we need to come down hard on people who aren’t actually being anti semitic…

What I am saying is that even if someone doesn’t have an anti-Semitic bone in their body, if they share conspiracy theories that are anti-Semitic in nature, by mistake, they should do all they can to correct that wrong. And I think Peake has. I think the Independent has. I think Amnesty has. RLB should have apologised, fully, and at speed. I do not think she is anti-Semitic… I do think that she has a responsibility not to feed these conspiracy theories, and should be actively trying to shut them down. We all should.