National News Long Bailey sacked from shadow cabinet

It was a token gesture to give her a position on the oppo front bench. She would have been gone in the next reshuffle. But she gave KS a reason to do it earlier than planned.
At last its starting to look like Labour have woken up and realised that with people like RLB they are not electable.
She has been electable since 2015 and has pretty much held down responsible Shadow positions since. Her judgement here was poor and she has paid the price.
 
She has been electable since 2015 and has pretty much held down responsible Shadow positions since. Her judgement here was poor and she has paid the price.
I mean the party as a whole with people like her holding responsible positions. The same goes for Abbott, Burgon Corbyn etc.
 
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Not bright to retweet that allegation, and she handed him the ammunition he wanted.

But I too find it difficult to accept that criticism of the Israeli state is automatically anti-Semitic. There are plenty of African regimes I could criticise and that wouldn't make me anti Africans as a whole or racist against all black people, all Zimbabweans or whatever. I am happy to put my tuppenceworth in on our own government, that doesn't make me anti-English or anti-Christian (since we are nominally at least a Christian country). And surely it is true that not everyone who lives in Israel is Jewish anyway (although I do of course understand that it is a Jewish state)? And some Jewish people also criticise Israel's role in various things - but surely they aren't being anti-semitic?

Can someone help me out?

So while not wholly disagreeing with your point, I would argue that there is a stronger connection between Israel and Judaism than between just about any other nation state/religion (without wanting to start a debate about whether the Vatican really is a country.......)

Israel still has a Law of Return, meaning that any Jew (or first or second generation descendant, or spouse) can move to Israel and is eligible for Israeli citizenship. So from the state's perspective, every Jew in the world is potentially an Israeli. To my knowledge, there isn't another country in the world that has a similar law tied to a particular religion.

Now of course that doesn't mean that no-one else should be able to criticize the Israeli state. But I think it is why it's particularly sensitive.
 
Some countries you can get 2 years prison for just suggesting that the holocaust stats were not true and were just propaganda.???........... you can get the sack for retweeting something against the same people??????? what is the problem with arguing these points and showing the full story???? what are they afraid of???? the problems are caused by not wanting to answer simple questions,if simple questions are not answered and people are punished for asking them then there MUST be a reason.
 
Some countries you can get 2 years prison for just suggesting that the holocaust stats were not true and were just propaganda.???........... you can get the sack for retweeting something against the same people??????? what is the problem with arguing these points and showing the full story???? what are they afraid of???? the problems are caused by not wanting to answer simple questions,if simple questions are not answered and people are punished for asking them then there MUST be a reason.
Each country is different. In some countries if you asked or said the wrong thing, you disappeared and was never seen again.

So why we embrace freedom of speech, you do have to be careful what you are saying or asking.
 
Antisemitism and Israel is tricky because of the link of genetics to Judaism (the only “inherited” religion I know of), and the link of Judaism to the Israeli state.
This means that criticism of any one of “people”, “religion” or “state” can be perceived as criticism of the others.

Just the term “Semitic” is problematic anyway. It is a term that isn’t really used any more (apart from in linguistics) except in the context “anti-Semitic”. The descendants of Shem aren’t all Jewish anyway.

It would be a bit clearer if people said “anti-Jewish” instead. Then they might need to work out whether they really mean that, or mean antiIsraeli instead.
 
Good.

Aside from the massive error of judgement displayed here, what exactly has she been doing as Shadow Education Minister in the last couple of months?

KS was always going to offer his running mates a Shadow Cabinet role for the short term but surprising that her incompetence and links to anti-semitism became apparent so quickly and allows him to move her back to the backbenches.
I think her incompetence has been on display for a while. One of the most mediocre, uninspiring front bench politicians out there. And that's up against some stiff competition.
 
Not bright to retweet that allegation, and she handed him the ammunition he wanted.

But I too find it difficult to accept that criticism of the Israeli state is automatically anti-Semitic. There are plenty of African regimes I could criticise and that wouldn't make me anti Africans as a whole or racist against all black people, all Zimbabweans or whatever. I am happy to put my tuppenceworth in on our own government, that doesn't make me anti-English or anti-Christian (since we are nominally at least a Christian country). And surely it is true that not everyone who lives in Israel is Jewish anyway (although I do of course understand that it is a Jewish state)? And some Jewish people also criticise Israel's role in various things - but surely they aren't being anti-semitic?

Can someone help me out?
All very fair points, however the far left appear to have their own rules and guidelines on what is racism and what isn't. You only have to mention Dianne Abbott on here and yellowtaxi is throwing race cards around like wedding confetti. I cant remember exactly what Sarah Champion said about grooming gangs, muslim Tory MP's agreed with what she said, Corbyn sacked her for being racist whilst everyone else except for momentum were shaking their heads. What goes around comes around.

As others have said, this may be a very convenient opportunity to rid the party of one of the group that moved the labour party from a political party that represented the working class to an anti Jewish cult, or it could be that schools are arguably the biggest obstacle presented by coronavirus and she has been invisible.
 
All very fair points, however the far left appear to have their own rules and guidelines on what is racism and what isn't. You only have to mention Dianne Abbott on here and yellowtaxi is throwing race cards around like wedding confetti. I cant remember exactly what Sarah Champion said about grooming gangs, muslim Tory MP's agreed with what she said, Corbyn sacked her for being racist whilst everyone else except for momentum were shaking their heads. What goes around comes around.

As others have said, this may be a very convenient opportunity to rid the party of one of the group that moved the labour party from a political party that represented the working class to an anti Jewish cult, or it could be that schools are arguably the biggest obstacle presented by coronavirus and she has been invisible.
Sarah Champion wrote an article for the ’Sun’ newspaper and then was surprised that the published article had been so heavily edited (in her view) that it bore little similarity with what she intended to say. She was probably replaced in light of her naivety.
 
All very fair points, however the far left appear to have their own rules and guidelines on what is racism and what isn't. You only have to mention Dianne Abbott on here and yellowtaxi is throwing race cards around like wedding confetti. I cant remember exactly what Sarah Champion said about grooming gangs, muslim Tory MP's agreed with what she said, Corbyn sacked her for being racist whilst everyone else except for momentum were shaking their heads. What goes around comes around.

As others have said, this may be a very convenient opportunity to rid the party of one of the group that moved the labour party from a political party that represented the working class to an anti Jewish cult, or it could be that schools are arguably the biggest obstacle presented by coronavirus and she has been invisible.
There certainly seems to be a bit of opportunism going on on Starmer's part however given the complexity of the Jewish v Israel situation and the recent history of antisemitism in the Labour Party how stupid was RLB to even get close to the issue for the sake of a retweet. Based on that lack of judgement she had to go. Imagine the criticism of Starmer should she blurred the issue again.
 
There certainly seems to be a bit of opportunism going on on Starmer's part however given the complexity of the Jewish v Israel situation and the recent history of antisemitism in the Labour Party how stupid was RLB to even get close to the issue for the sake of a retweet. Based on that lack of judgement she had to go. Imagine the criticism of Starmer should she blurred the issue again.

She didn't help herself by refusing to remove the retweet either after being asked by Starmer.
 
Some countries you can get 2 years prison for just suggesting that the holocaust stats were not true and were just propaganda.???........... you can get the sack for retweeting something against the same people??????? what is the problem with arguing these points and showing the full story???? what are they afraid of???? the problems are caused by not wanting to answer simple questions,if simple questions are not answered and people are punished for asking them then there MUST be a reason.
It depends if your asking a question in good faith.
Sadly many out there twist or load their questions to drive a particular agenda. Virtually all conspiracy theories are based around little to no evidence, but convincing people they are true is important to support their own outlook on the world.
 
Starmer showing his true colours in changing the party to that of his idol Tony Blair.
Easy decision to make for him though. His party is beginning to look more and more electable.
At least Johnson has some opposition now
 
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