The Labour MP Kate Osamor has had the whip suspended while she is investigated for saying Gaza should be remembered as a genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day.
The MP for Edmonton in north London is due to meet party whips on Monday after issuing an apology over the message she sent on the eve of the day that marks the murder of 6 million Jews during the second world war.
I think what she said (timing wise at least) was pretty politically naïve in that it paints a giant red target on her back…
But is this really the level at which we’re withdrawing the whip from Labour MPs now?
Jesus Christ. A few years ago a sitting MP could go out and say she’d stab the party leader “in the front” and nobody said a bloody word about it.
Starmar wants to win. He cannot afford the right wing media to go after him. A right wing media that is rabidly anti Palestinian. So yeah, he is clamping down on any Palestinian related comments.
Don’t blame him personally… It’s our media landscape that is lop sided.
A Labour party which will not stand up to the right-wing media might as well not be in office.
And that’s how you get another 10 years of Tories or a Tory-Reform coalition government.
Improved party discipline is a large part of the reason why Labour stand a good chance of winning a majority in the next election, which is a huge turnaround. The absolutely shambolic party discipline under Corbyn really didn’t give the impression they would be able to get anything done in office.
I don’t disagree. What I will say is that if Corbyn had gone after those on the other side of the party with as much enthusiasm as Starmer has with the left, the media would be all over him saying he’s ‘purging’ the party of it’s enemies.
Yeah I think that’s true, in most cases Starmer is stomping on anything that could be construed as even vaguely antisemitic, for obvious reasons given recent history. I’m not sure what the equivalent justification would be for Corbyn, going after people for flipping houses or fiddling expenses or something like that?