Good, this was getting majorly embarrassing for all countries still involved with this legal mess. The man dying in prison stuck in legal limbo without any conviction whatsoever (innocent until proven guilty and all that) would have been a PR disaster for the UK. And of course there's also the issue that the UK is very likely to get a new government that would have likely been leaning to just letting the man go in any case. At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do.
This would have been embarrassing for the US. One country doing something decent and calling another out on the whole indecency of the whole case. Not a good look after a decade plus of legal limbo with no end in sight. And of course the man actually being extradited (as unlikely as that would have been at this point) would just refocus the attention on all the embarrassing things that Wikileaks actually leaked that have caused this whole vindictive attitude towards Assange. All that stuff being rehashed in court rooms and the media for months on end was not going to end well. So, the US grudgingly finally doing the right thing via a plea deal seems like a good face saving compromise that just ends this now.
> At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do.
(massive sidetrack, but I can't let this sentence go unpunished)
The current labour leader is the lamest duck in a group of wet blankets. His policies revolve around not being as corrupt as the Tories whilst doing virtually nothing else to better his constituents. His backbone has a restitution coefficient somewhere in the Oort cloud.
He is also personally responsible for the persecution of Assange. He was head of Crown Prosecution Services in the UK at the time we know (from Stefania Maurizi's FOIA requests) they actually threatened Sweden when Sweden wanted to drop the case.
Wet blanked doesn't begin to cover it. I honestly think he's an entryist trying to tank the Labour party on the behalf of some British spy-lord. He's failing, but that's more the Tories' fault.
FWIW, I am one of his constituents in Camden, and he helped us out tremendously in a pickle with Home Office when the latest war in Ukraine broke out. The issue went from 6 months in limbo to being resolved within a week.
I am not commenting on the backbone, but he is definitely there for his constituents.
I would genuinely love to know which media your parent watches and reads to come to such a conclusion. It is remarkable. I've never heard such a statement about Stamer, but it's clear that I don't read the same sources.
Yes. He's dragged his feet on the Gaza war and on this for as long as he possibly could, but has increasingly faced outrage in more left-leaning areas and areas with more Muslim voters and all his policy stances appear to be calculated on the basis of what will win more votes/lose fewer votes rather than any kind of backbone. Nothing happens until he has more to lose by doing nothing.
Keir Starmer is a human rights lawyer, would be a bit weird for him to suddenly have no regard for international law where many human rights (ECHR) come from and likely divide his party.
Not saying he's got a backbone, but he's just going for the easier option that keeps his party united.
Starmer has absolutely no opinions on anything other than not rattling the cage of conservative voters. This makes him broadly acceptable, but long term nobody is truly supporting him.
Have you actually read their policies? There are plenty of big changes.
Maybe you are referring to them not stating that they will change taxes significantly? Well, yeah no shit. a) they can't, taxes are at their highest level since WW2, and b) they don't want to destabilise things like Truss did.
I think his biggest issue is that his voice sounds a bit wet and that makes people think he is wet.
His biggest issue is that in Labour's first shoe-in election in my lifetime, he's U-turned on basically all of the left-leaning pledges that he made in his leadership campaign, such as:
- Scrapping private schools charitable status
- Ending the two-child benefit limit
- Ending tuition fees
- Increasing income tax for the top five per cent of earners
He is Tony Blair / New Left all over again. Labour bleached from left wing policies. Nothing will change as they are on board to keep status quo. This (just like the New Left) will pave way for even more populist right candidates get in to power. Namely it paves way for Farage to be PM.
I am always very curious of hugely enthusiastic New Labour supporters. Happy to share my own opinion, but what are the achievements you laude them for, and what failures are they to be weighed against?
Off the top of my head: saving the NHS from decades of under-investment; introducing the National Minimum Wage; putting in place a huge school repair programme; ending the Troubles in NI; writing off the debts of poorer countries; Scottish devolution; and, for the majority of their term at least, fiscal stability and consistent economic growth.
The other side of the coin is, of course, the Iraq War. We needn't debate that, because we'll surely violently agree, but let's not pretend the Blair/Brown partnership didn't lead to many positive things for the UK. It did.
Introducing tuition fees is also firmly on the "other side of the coin", for many people that I speak to. And for me personally, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is a huge misstep with ongoing repercussions.
Like the other commenter, I think that his interventions in the NHS were potentially short-sighted and ultimately more damaging than they were worth. It feels to me that rigorous performance metrics and PFIs contributed - along with subsequent under-funding by Tory governments - to running it into the ground.
I will concede however that the minimum wage and Good Friday Agreement are big wins!
New Labour more than doubled the NHS budget in real terms, and maintained that level over time [1].
Having worked in both environments, it's not particularly important to me whether work gets done by a private or a public entity, the most important thing is that money is spent efficiently. If the public sector is spending public money then efficiency usually means ensuring that pointless work is stopped, and that staff who have become ineffective are shed. If the private sector is spending public money then efficiency usually means hawk-like contract negotiations are required to prevent a good chunk of the cash from being siphoned off by middlemen.
Let's see how really decimated tories will be. If will Reform get more votes than Conservative party then they become leading right wing party in UK and natural candidate for leading the country.
The question is whether his backbone will grow back once he's in power. I'm in two minds. In our house I'm of the opinion that Labour should go "Full Left" and be strong and confident about it; my wife thinks they should get in using whatever means possible (including the slightly pathetic not-very-left agenda they're currently sporting) and then hope they'll make proper changes once in. Let's see what 4th July brings. At least it'll be the end of the current horrorshow.
> In our house I'm of the opinion that Labour should go "Full Left" and be strong and confident about it
Unfortunately the UK public doesn't seem to buy into that sort of thing. Sure, a large, vocal minority does, but enough to win an election against the hoards of basically-tory-supporting middle-englanders?
Not as far as I can see. Labour has to claim the middle ground to win, at least if it wants to win more than once. The next session is probably in the bag either way.
Going 'full left' is the exact reason Labour hasn't been in power for 14 years.
You are describing the recipe for a one-term government IMO - Elections are won from the center, and moving Left will open a center gap for someone else to claim.
The last time a 'full left' Labour government ruled was probably just after the war (i.e. Clement Attlee).
Firstly Labour went mildly social democratic, offering policies to the right of Nordic conservative parties in some areas. Just to contextualise what "full left" means in this respect. (A concrete example is parental leave, where the Norwegian conservative party is fine with far higher statutory pay than Labour would even dare suggest even under Corbyn)
Secondly, I see this, but at the same time Corbyn was the most vilified politician in the UK in a generation and he still got close to a win with that program. Suppose Corbyn could do that at a point where the Tories were not historically unpopular. In that case, it's clear Starmer could have stuck to his pledges to be "pragmatic continuity Corbyn" and walked this election - most of the actual policies in the 2017 manifesto were highly popular when polled, including with conservative voters.
I mean - from my point of view there are two glaring issues in this election that are just being coughed aside in a deeply disingenuous way, by all parties (with maybe the exception of the LibDems, a bit):
1) Brexit. For this not to be on the agenda when it has been the most ruinous decision made in the last 10 years of our political history is just ...well, weird at best, totally surreal at worst. Widely recognised [even by many? most?] of those who voted for it as now being a mistake, it just seems insane to leave any discussion off the table.
2) Tax rises. Everyone knows that for our UK standard of living to continue (or even - lol - rise), the money has got to come from somewhere. And that place can only really be taxes. All of the parties seem to be pulling out a magic hat full of magic money - an honest conversation would have all the parties in a room agreeing that someone, somewhere has got to pay for all this stuff.
1) It's politically toxic. As soon as anyone says anything they'll be accused of betrayal etc
2) The UK's in a bit of a hole that it can't really tax and spend out of. What we need is more like sane government and economic growth. Just not having something like Boris's "fuck business" and tearing up our trade agreements for a while would help.
I think you're probably correct, as only the Green Party seem to be committing to moving back in (one reason I'm considering voting non-Labour for the first time in my life). I wonder though, do you think this will last forever, especially in the face of consistent polling suggesting that twice as many people think it was a bad idea as think it was a good one? [0]
My guess is Labour once in power will move to undo some of the more stupid bits of Brexit like having different animal health regs so you can't export fish or meat without great difficulty. I can't see full rejoining in the near future but maybe becoming more like Norway or Switzerland.
I didn’t vote for it, and think Brexit was bad, but also agree that the EU is overly bureaucratic, un-democratic, and doesn’t see countries as truly autonomous (eg tries to be redistribute wealth between the countries). The best scenario now is probably somewhere in the middle.
The EU today is significantly different to the original idea, but I can see the UK entering into the single market and military partnerships etc (contrary to popular opinion, there are lots of free trade agreements worldwide that don’t have full regulatory alignment!).
I understand where you're coming from. I agree that the EU needs a lot of work. I'd just prefer if we were in it getting stuck in and spear-heading that transformation.
However, what I'm really wondering is whether (and when) there will be a gradual political shift in the UK towards rejoining.
RE 1, it was pretty much the sole discussion of the last election and the winning party slogan was "Get Brexit Done" (ie let's stop this endless talking about this).
There's very little public appetite to focus on it again for now. I disagree with Starmer on a lot but he's right to totally shut down discussion on this until after an election
If labour ran on a manifesto of higher taxes and reverse brexit this election would be a shitshow.
I don’t actually agree that our taxes/spending have to increase in order to get a better standard of living - what we need is services which function better for the same costs.
Just to put this in context, the last time as you say a "full left" government ruled, over the span of six years we:
- Built the NHS
- Decolonised India, Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Jordan
- Nationalised the coal industry, electricity utilities, railways and long-distance haulage
- Established a national childcare service
- Paved the way for the creation of National Parks and introduced public rights of way
There is a lot of progress that can be made with a genuine left-wing government with a majority, even in a time of economic upheaval. With Reform splitting the right-wing vote this is the best opportunity the left has had in my lifetime. But Starmer is in the lead, banning MPs from attending strike pickets and talking about how he's had to give up his pledges on the NHS in order to "grow the economy".
I really hate this line of thinking. Your blatently encorauging politicians to lie to voters.
Campaign on a platform of comprimise and sensible polices to attract moderate voters... And then just completely ignore everything you said you would do...
This is the exact opposite of what we should encourage from politics.
I'm sorry, but I find this kind of ridiculous - Starmer is being pretty clear about the kind of man he is. Fervent capitalist, previous member of the CIA-linked Trilateral Commission, notorious U-turner, War on Drugs(TM) supporter, outright liar, genocide supporter, and absolutely completely beholden to Israel (he has even said he'll put Israel lobbiests into the highest echelons of gov - he's practically a foreign agent at this point).
He's telling you who he is, so please believe him - the idea that this man will become PM and then suddenly turn into Jeremy Corbyn is, frankly, delusional. I can understand why someone would want to believe that, but in all likelihood we're just getting more of the same.
He was smeared with false antisemitism claims, hence the massive defeat. One of those involved in the smearing was... Starmer.
Corbyn was never going to be "allowed" to be Prime Minister. Also, listen to his recent interview where he says he was asked by a committee if he would guarantee to be 100% behind any military action instigated by Israel.
> An investigation based on the largest leak of documents in British political history. The Labour Files examines thousands of internal documents, emails and social media messages to reveal how senior officials in one of the two parties of government in the UK ran a coup by stealth against the elected leader of the party.
Politician smeared during election? Shock horror, it happens during every election.
Leader of the party can't unite their own party so there is a plan to oust them? That's politics.
Jeremy couldn't particularly unite the party, didn't take the center ground, and while I don't think he was a true antisemite there were enough mis-steps there that it meant that the claim could stick (along with the IRA sympathizer claims).
That even Corbyn - the most vilified British politician of a generation - got that close to a win is a strong demonstration of that. Since then the Tory party support has collapsed to historic lows. A win on a program close in ambition to the 2017 manifesto - which was not in any way radical - should be a walk in the park for someone like Starmer in current conditions if he actually had dared try.
I think you're right - people are desperate for anything other than the Tories.
We have a political environment where the Greens are smeared as "crazies", people remember the Lib Dems for their deception, and mass media has many believing Reform will win if they don't vote for Labour. A Labour win is all but guaranteed, so Starmer doesn't need to be the other cheek of the Monoparty arse - he chooses to be.
If Starmer is a "genocide supporter" for being tepidly pro-Israel, then Corbyn is a genocide supporter for his pathetic Russian apologism on Syria and Ukraine.
If that's where your line is, then there's no chance Corbyn hasn't crossed it either.
To be fair, this is one issue on which much of the left splits from Corbyn. Even former shadow cabinet ministers such as John McDonnell and Clive Lewis are distancing themselves from pacifist rhetoric around Ukraine.
This is pure whataboutism, but to call Starmer - a rabid member of Labour Friends of Israel who has parachuted an Israel lobbyist into a safe seat, and who plans to staff his new government with pro-Israeli stooges - "tepidly pro-Israel" is beyond disingenuous.
I'd ask you to consider that the situations in Syria and Ukraine are not nearly as straightforward as the US would have us believe; indeed, the US and Israel are, as usual, the main instigators.
Regardless, Corbyn hasn't "crossed any lines" - he certainly hasn't publicly stated that it's OK to cut a civilian population's water supply as collective punishment, for example. Corbyn takes a more considered, nuanced, sensible view on world politics, which unfortunately doesn't play well with our right-wing press's simplistic "good guy, bad guy" gov-sponsored narrative. This is why Corbyn was smeared - he stands up for what's right, even if it means going against the US and Israel.
> I'd ask you to consider that the situations in Syria and Ukraine are not nearly as straightforward as the US would have us believe; indeed, the US and Israel are, as usual, the main instigators.
OK, you've sounded mostly reasonable in this thread so far, but that came to an abrupt halt here.
If you're going to rewrite history, and ask me to ignore what I've seen and heard with my own eyes, then this thread has reached it's end. I bid you adieu.
It is, however, a condition of membership under the rules of the UK Labour Party that you are a democratic socialist, and in favour of goals that include democratic socialism. Whether or not you think that is right, it is what Starmer signed up to when he joined.
> Brillant, people voted for him for exactly this reason.
His pledges when he was elected leader was to largely be "continuity Corbyn". A lot of the Labour membership voted for him for that reason. The extent to which he has been willing to lie and deceive his own party membership to get his position is quite scary given he'll likely be PM soon.
You're being pedantic; we obviously live in a capitalist world, but Starmer is fully inboard with taking orders from corporate overlords (lobbyists) in the same way as the Tories. More balance is needed.
To be fair, he was refusing to face trial. And he is expected to plead guilty, so he isn't innocent.
That said, there may be legitimate questions about whether the United States should be entitled to exercise jurisdiction over foreign nationals who are not physically present in the jurisdiction for national security offences.
Pleading guilty under the threat of either continued incarceration in inhuman conditions or extradition somewhere that could potentially murder you says nothing about guilt in anything but strict legal terms. It's a coerced plea.
Aren't all pleas basically coerced pleas though? The entire point is that you plead guilty to a lesser punishment in order to avoid the chance of a much more severe punishment.
When accompanied by promises of a less punishment: Yes.
And so I think even with a guilty please, there ought to be a requirement for the prosecution to prove the case. Maybe lower the bar a little bit, but not much. And that is indeed how pleas work most places.
Few jurisdictions have US-style plea bargains where the prosecutor can negotiate large "discounts" to the potential maximum sentencing and get judges to agree.
To me, a country that allows that and where they are frequently taken does not have a functioning justice system.
There's also a significant difference with respect to the coercion when sentences are long, and when the possible variation in sentence length is huge, and the US stands out as particularly bad with respect to both of those factors as well.
The usual standard in the UK is for a sentence to get a reduction of around 1/3 for a guilty plea. The situation I hear of in the US where people are threatened with a 537 year sentence if they plead not guilty or a 3 month sentence if they plead guilty is a travesty and surely leads to vast levels of injustice.
Did the US army or its participating individuals ever get charged for killing the “collateral murder” Reuters journalists? Or for doing the same to the proximate other civilians? Or for covering it all up?
The question who is guilty by a US court does not determine the guilt of an individual in any relevant or moral way under these extreme circumstances. It just indicates if you are part of the system or if you rather are uncomfortable and need to be silenced.
Definitely whataboutism, but the crew were investigated before the leak and it was found that the reporters were with armed fighters and were not distinguishable as civilian reporters. While its unfortunate, walking around in an active warzone with armed combatants and not taking steps to clearly identify yourself as a non combatant isn't wise. These things happen in war. They were not intentionally targeted and they weren't murdered. War reporters know the risk they are taking on and this is why they usually clearly mark themselves as press.
Yes the killed journalists were in a country that was being attacked by a foreign nation. This does not make it their fault that they were murdered.
While this might be a common occurrence in war, it does not excuse anything: if wars are fought in a way that these kill innocent people then they should not be fought in the first place. Something is not morally excusable only because it is expected when done.
Thirdly, sure the crew was investigated (here i admittedly only know what wiki has to offer) but there is no known outcome of said internal investigation.
I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous and unrealistic stance. People die in wars. That's just a fact of life. I have sympathy for uninvolved civilians who don't want to be there. But war reporters know the risks and willingly enter warzones to report on them. Its just like reporting anything else dangerous. There is a risk you will die. There is a risk you will die in a tragic and preventable way too. Things could have been done differently but the footage is public now. Watch it yourself, they were walking with armed combatants and didn't look any different. There is no way the crew could have known they were reporters. The US military's ROE in GWOT was very restrictive for reasons just like this. But that doesn't mean its perfect. Arguing that nobody innocent should die is some kind of realistic standard reeks of an easy life and first world privilege.
The first paragraph is whatabouttery, the second may be accepted, but the claim I replied to was he was legally innocent until proven guilty. That is what I was addressing, not some broader notion of morality.
The US treatment of Assange did a lot of damage to the reputation of the US government internationally and also within the US itself. It contributed to a general feeling of institutional decay, decay of the media, decay of law and order which has caused a loss of trust in the current system.
In the USA defendants are guaranteed the right to a speedy trial. I'm sure Sweden has similar protections. Assange denied himself that right by evading authorities and fighting extradition. The former is wholly inexcusable. The latter is his right, but to then complain about not receiving a trial places the justice system in a catch-22.
I do think it's right to accept a guilty plea and time served, but it's hardly a story of exoneration for Assange.
> And of course there's also the issue that the UK is very likely to get a new government that would have likely been leaning to just letting the man go in any case. At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do.
If you knew anything about British politics you'd know that this is horseshit.
This would have been embarrassing for the US. One country doing something decent and calling another out on the whole indecency of the whole case. Not a good look after a decade plus of legal limbo with no end in sight. And of course the man actually being extradited (as unlikely as that would have been at this point) would just refocus the attention on all the embarrassing things that Wikileaks actually leaked that have caused this whole vindictive attitude towards Assange. All that stuff being rehashed in court rooms and the media for months on end was not going to end well. So, the US grudgingly finally doing the right thing via a plea deal seems like a good face saving compromise that just ends this now.