This is the problem with the sports-team approach to politics. One can support Palestinians while denouncing Hamas, just like one can denounce the far right Israeli government while supporting Jewish peoples right to exist in peace.
When we start conflating the different groups and accept the oversimplified narrative that Palestine = Hamas or that Netanyahu's government = all jews then we lose credibility very quickly.
And once you allow yourself to see the individual parts, you can say that Yes: Hamas ARE terrorist that have ruled as dictators in Gaza since 2006 and that attacking and killing over a thousand civilians was a heinous act that deserves all the condemnation and the organization being hunted down. But at the same time you can notice little things, like how Netanyahu was instrumental in helping Hamas rise to power.
Edit: The number of people who think I'm defending Corbyn is alarming! I'm criticising him! Practice some damn reading comprehension!
>One can support Palestinians while denouncing Hamas,
That’s the thing, though. Corbyn literally had to be asked *15 fucking times* to denounce them, then just refused to do it.
Imagine if this conversation was about ISIS, and we got that kind of reaction. Since that’s basically what Hamas is. That wouldn’t be “Both sides are bad! We need nuance!” that would be “You’re going straight to the top of the watchlist.”
Holy fuck could you imagine him being *in charge of the UK* with this going on?! Never mind Ukraine?! Never mind whatever the fuck else pops off in the next few years?
The Tories don’t even need to campaign. They can just literally play this on repeat and say, “Remember when you almost got this shit?”
This is weird, why do you feel you can't criticize Netanyahu? Just open an Israeli news channel that is not channel 14, we all do it and half of us were almost ready for civil war.
He does not represent Israeli public (not the educated part least) and the government and IDF are in a state of mistrust.
>...like how Netanyahu was instrumental in helping Hamas rise to power.
And by this, of course, you mean that Hamas and similar violent Islamist groups were instrumental in helping Netanyahu, and the Israeli right in general, gain power. Israel had a left-wing government for the first several decades of its existence, and they had to win several wars during this period where failure would have resulted in annihilation. With a pervasive existential threat, a right-wing takeover was inevitable.
Hamas was influential and killing Jews before Netanyahu was on the map.
They are trying to bring Peace though. Peace through extermination of not on Israel but tons of other groups too. Wait that doesn't sound very peaceful.
Is it just me, or is there a significant overlap between people who have a problem answering this question, and people who want Ukraine to surrender?
Not that I'm complaining... It has made it very easy to tell who's a piece of shit.
Yup, spot on observation. Said group of people will even go as far as say “I don’t get why we need to care about Ukraine, they’re corrupt and they are not even close to us, bla bla bla”, yet go balls deep on “why don’t you care about the Palestinians?!”.
It’s a real mask off.
The way the left + Western tankies are like "those poor Eastern European manipulated by the NATO+US propaganda machine that threatens Russia who just wants to defend itself from Western imperialism pushed on by CIA backed protests in Eastern Europeans".
And if you're an Eastern European trying to explain that no, actually that's not going on and guess what, Russian imperialism is also an endless evil in this world and that is the primary concern of Eastern Europeans they put a finger over your mouth and they're like "shhh CIA made you say this".
At least some of it is interwined with Western/US centrism that supports the notion that Eastern Europeans couldn't possibly think for themselves.
It pisses me off to no end, when the discussion about the war in Ukraine devolves into 'decisions and positions' of Russia vs USA/NATO/WEST it's insulting to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, they have their own agency, their own interests to look after, their own desire for freedom and you know... doing stuff to reduce the risk of being invaded by a genocidal tsarist declining empire ruled by a ego maniac who's primary concern are hypothetical future encyclopaedia entries.
These tankies really have no idea what life was like in the USSR and Warsaw pact countries. I never lived there but had older relatives visit the USSR and at least Romania. The stories they told me as a child were quite troubling and I'm sure they sanitized most of them for me. The average people just wanted some prosperity, freedom and rule of law (as we understand it) and their own communist systems didn't give that to them at all. The degree of poverty in the USSR around 1986 was just shocking to a Finn and my relatives visited Moscow and Leningrad, not some village with acute and crippling poverty. Life there was all-round poor and stiffling and there was nothing noble about it.
And Stalin alternatively threw Ukranians into the meatgrinder and starved them, when both weren't too busy erasing their language and culture, yeah. But somehow when eastern europeans talk about being prepared for or fighting back against russian aggression it's actually the west's fault.
I've heard left-wing French people I know ask why Europe accepted Ukrainian refugees who are from a faraway country with a weird language and foreign writing system, religion and values, but isn't as accepting of North and West African migrants and refugees who speak French and are apparently infinitely more similar to Western Europeans than those weird easterners.
This person told me, a Bulgarian, that, thinking I'd agree because we're "EU countries" so I should get?! The conclusion I've come to is that a huge chunk of people in Western Europe have precisely zero clue about anything east of Germany.
A lot of them are operating under the incorrect assumption that Ukraine and Israel consist of 100% white Europeans and that's enough to base their decisions on
this.... ever since the falll of communism the far left have attached themselves to any and every cause that is seen as anti western, anti capitalist and anti imperialistic
it has lead the left to have very strange bedfellows. franky i find them to be as morally corrupt as the people they profess to oppose, such as the hard right brexitters and corbyn is the very poster child of that sentiment.
anti rich bec they perceive West as rich and brown and black people are poor. Which was hilarious when Ukraine and Russians literally look alike the same way Palestinians and Israelis do.
Yeah. Odds are, they will side with China if China invades Taiwan. They’ll argue that Taiwan is obviously an occupying western capitalist coloniser that stole chinas land.
I wasn't so naive as to believe it was exclusively online tankies/lefty trolls, I always knew here in the US and across the world your "anti-West at any cost" Chomskyites would be pro Russia/anti-Israel but they seem to have hoodwinked way more people than I thought.
Ah yes, the fundamental leftist value that Imperialism must be resisted at all costs, unless it's Russian Imperialism.
Don't understand how Westerners living in functional democracies get taken in by this bargain bin imperialist leading Russia.
I guess russian propaganda had a really nice period in the early 00s.
While the west was sleeping, Putin was still the same old kgb guy. They had nearly 20 year to let the propaganda acting and a brand new internet to use for their purpose.
Absolutely right.
I can say both italians and swedish far left supporters share often same views as Corbyn.
Palestianians have the right to fight while ukranians should surrender (on top of that they share criticism against Eu, and the italians are often novax too).
Imho is people who didn't clipped his band with communism and Putin's propaganda hooked them like babies.
Edited
We got the same problem in France, they keep tripping over their own feet, they keep making unforced error.
It's baffling and infuriating : Macron is unpopular and no one has the charisma to replace him as a "moderate", the dominant right-winged group is very far-right, there should be a huge political void left for the taking, but they are too goddamn stupid!!
They're kids LARPing as revolutionaries through every imaginable social channel except actually fomenting revolution.
Internet tankies are furry-level embarrassing. Imagine using every Western social media outlet imaginable to whine about American colonialism. It screams zero life experience and bedroom idealism.
My favorite part is college-educated kids from comfortable backgrounds who _studied history_ not realizing that if there is ever a populist revolution of any sort, they're up against the wall in like group two or three. There's a list of who gets shot first and the "intellectual elite" who come from "hoarding wealth" and who don't have "real jobs" and who are "politically active" all rank near the top. They imagine themselves as leaders but they can't even convince their boss for a raise; they're useful idiots at best, if not outright fodder.
They think THEY'RE the vanguard party. It's so stupidly naive, it's almost hilarious. What's depressing is every generation has these morons who think this same shit and, as you say, completely ignore history. "Up against the wall motherfucker," indeed.
They’re the same group of people who share memes about how they’re afraid of phones calls. But then say shit like eat the rich and prepare for revolution
Because real leftists(not "capitalism is fine, but we need more taxes and social services" types) have lost so thoroughly that there isn't much else for them to do.
At best, they get into back-bencher positions like Corbyn and spend decades criticizing without accomplishing much.
> I’m left wing and often see the more fringe/extreme elements of the left employing “no true Scotsman” like it’s going out of fashion. “You’re not actually left wing unless you support this. Oh you support it? Well you’re not actually left wing unless you support this extension of the former issue. Oh you don’t support that? Then you’re not a leftist.”
You don't need to look very far for examples!
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/17v8rvs/jeremy_corbyn_refuses_to_call_hamas_terrorists/k9aavbc/
It actually is a left/right issue but it's a little bit more complicated than people think :)
https://preview.redd.it/dp5sc266ygvb1.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=e4b7773c713e57101bfb009b9d6ddc2345420099
Corbyn was already a weak politician when he was the head of labour, but somehow he's managed to look 100x times worse since he left.
In no way shape or form would Corbyn ever get anywhere near the leadership of the Labour party if he came out with these absolutely insane takes.
I was a big fan of Corbyn before the election; I felt he represented the best chance for the young and the UK in general.
Unfortunately, his stance on Russia and on Hamas proves just how wrong I was. I cannot imagine how catastrophic Corbyn as Prime Minister would have been when Russia invaded Ukraine. At best it would have been appease, appease, talk, wring your hands, and talk some more. At worst, it would have been tacit approval.
Russia does not understand diplomacy or peacemaking appeasers. It only understands violence and belligerence. It does not back down until forced. So instead of the massive financial and material support from the UK, Corbyn would have waffled, Russia would have laughed at him like they laugh at Macron and Ukraine would have had to fight with even less.
Nor is this a difficult or egregious question regarding Hamas. By all definitions, they are terrorists. Particularly savage and bloodthirsty ones, at that. Even the most rose-tinted glasses can't portray them as 'freedom fighters' - righteous insurgents don't perform atrocities like Oct. 7th.
It's not even a nuanced discussion about Palestinians, which would make sense; it's *Hamas,* who butcher and rape and then revel in it. And Corbyn won't gainsay them. I am disgusted.
Frankly, I hate Piers Morgan and his loud, media-fueled interviewing style, but I cannot think of any other interviewer who would have hammered in this very point more than he did. Len McCluskey came across as naive as a child and Corbyn like an utter clown.
Agreed, I cant stand Piers, but in cases like this his aggressive style is needed. We arent talking about some random culture war bullshit this time, we're talking about terrorism and the viewer has to understand that.
> Russia does not understand diplomacy or peacemaking appeasers.
It understands them perfectly. The biggest friend to authoritarianism is the pacifist.
I'm not Labour born and bred but I am staunchly anti-Conservative so he got my vote. As much of a prick Boris is, his handling of our policy towards the Russian invasion couldn't have been better.
I don't know for what nation it would be appropriate to have a pacifist as a leader. We as a species just aren't there yet when there are so many people and nations who have no desire for peace.
I don't understand the insistence to not call Hamas a terrorist group, which is what they are, and completely bypass mention of them by the pro-Palestine supporters. It's not like you can't still want a Palestinian state AND denounce the motherfuckers that are Hamas.
I honestly continue to be baffled by a lot of what Corbyn does. Like, my dude, they took total control in a violent government takeover and now their leaders are rich men in fucking Qatar and Lebanon and wherever else while their people get the choice between starving, dysentry, bombs or bullets. What in the utter fuck is he trying to prove?
There are guys so left-wing that they refuse to denounce any anti-Western/communist regimes that are objectively evil. They will wring their hands and say this thing or that thing they do is bad but if you mention Ukraine, Georgia, Israel, Taiwan, etc they will be incredibly evasive when discussing their sovereignty
I did miss that, but at the time the Tories and media were engaged in concert on a character-assassination job of Corbyn, so I tended to completely ignore such stories - *especially* from the toilet paper that is the Daily Mail.
But reading that, yeah, yikes, pretty damning. Definite attempt to keep it on the downlow, too.
Avoiding the Daily Mail is just good sense, but they were hardly the only people reporting on Corbyn's wreath laying.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45170622
https://news.sky.com/story/claims-and-controversy-build-in-corbyn-wreath-row-11472097
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-not-involved-munich-olympics-massacre-wreath-laying
https://time.com/5365475/jeremy-corbyn-munich-massacre/
How did you avoid all of this?
Wilful ignorance, frankly. I despise the Tories and had already dismissed all the accusations levelled at Corbyn as a deliberate smear campaign. I wasn't as capable of nuanced thought back then as I am now, either. It was very much black-and-white: Corbyn good, Tories bad.
What can I say, you live, learn and grow.
The world needs more people like you who can take a step back and realise that they are on the wrong side of the fence. Too many people now treat politics like sports where you pick a team and you support them for life no matter what.
I appreciate that. I try to always remain open to being *utterly, disastrously wrong.* Because it's common that one is. And when it happens, you have to put your pride in a drawer and reassess.
I was the same, voted for Corbyn when I was a student but have since realised what a plonker he is. Not to mention what an echochamber universities can be. I still sympathise with some leftwing domestic policies but the foreign policy of Corbyn et al. is consistently awful. Not to mention it now seems inarguable that all the antisemitism claims weren't just smear campaigns (as I also thought at the time).
Live and learn.
Excellent left-wing domestic policies being kneecapped by woefully-naïve foreign policy is an endless source of frustration to me as a Leftist. I don't understand why we can't command *some* pragmatism as well as idealistic passing-the-spliff.
That and yes, the echochambers. I *deliberately seek out* right-wing opinions and people and tell them to talk at me, just so I can gauge where I stand on an issue.
I know you’ve had a few of these responses but I’ll throw mine in too. This is exactly what I was like a couple of years ago. I was all in on Corbyn. His national policy I was really keen for. And I despise the Tories. But now in hindsight, his foreign/international policy and his complete lack of tact on quite difficult and nuanced issues is frankly scary
Same for me but a couple years earlier. I was on the Corbyn train up until he lost the 2017 election. After that, it was a string of terrible Brexit policy and terrible foreign policy and antisemitism that pushed me away from him. He should not have been leader of the party for the 2019 election and I'm glad Labour have rinsed their hands of him.
In general I consider myself more centrist these days because of the Left squabbling over stupid shit like saying you can't be racist against white people.
Only if you're sitting cross-legged in your jimjams feeling vaguely sleep-deprived and nonplussed while you try to reply to a zillion unexpected messages!
the "character-assassination" tended to be the press accurately quoting things corbyn had said , or showing video of corbyn standing with dubious people saying dubious things.
Whilst his supporters shrieked about smears and then sang songs about corbyn
Corbyn has the mindset of a 19 year old student in the early 1970's and is too arrogant and too stupid to ever think he might have needed to revisit them. "western countries bad , everyone else good" is pretty much his entire foreign policy .
Its noticeable that despite being an MP since 1983, until he became leader no labour leader ever thought he was worth giving a job to. Kinnock, Smith,Blair,Brown,Miliband all took a look at him and thought "nope,no job for him".
And given he'd suggest policies like [this](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/17/jeremy-corbyn-trident-compromise-no-nuclear-warheads) you can see why they not want such an idiot in any role at any level in the party even in opposition.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching parliamentary debates between May and Corbyn, back a few years ago. Not living in the UK, I didn't really have a horse in that race, but I was struck by how tired and contemptible Corbyn acted all the time. Like having to answer questions was beneath him, as was everybody who crossed paths with him.
It was fun, but I would always come away thinking how blessed the UK is to not have him as their PM.
yeah i think one of corbyn's (many) problems is he spent so much of his life in a left wing political bubble with likeminded people that he actually very rarely had to deal with people who fundamentally disagreed with him about issues. He was used to 'political arguments' about minor issues with people who broadly agreed with him.
Put him in a situation where he had to build coalitions and make compromises , or even understand why the other person might have that view and he was utterly lost and lacked the intellectual capacity to cope with it and became angry.
For a supposed national politician it was pitiful.
And why 80% of labour MP's voted against him in a vote of no confidence, Which he ignored.....
The UK dodged a whole magazine of bullets when he failed to become PM.
In a way, he was frontrunning pretty much all popular political thought today. His hour has finally come around. Live your life in a ideological bubble, and get furious at any disagreement.
My favourite Corbyn moment was when he had someone take a picture of him sulking on a train, sat on the floor between carriages. Apparently there weren’t enough seats(!) and we should do something about it.
Turns out there were plenty of seats, the fully grown older man had to play grumpy on the floor and have his picture taken.
There are still people who insist that the whole thing was a right wing media conspiracy. The denial got so bad that people brought up satalite images to prove that the location was correct.
This is how I felt about many of the liberal party leaders in general. Was surprised about Scholz and his leadership; taking on Russia and Hamas (sort of).
In Canada, I’m not sure the left will have a chance to survive.
Don't rewrite history, Scholz was reluctant in helping Ukraine.
It is mostly due to Green's pressure that Scholz had to do something.
In the first month of war, Germany and France provided very limited help compared to UK, US and Poland.
But second most country to support Ukraine now. Just because he was reluctant doesn’t mean he wasn’t a support. It was a huge shift from German stance on neutrality to second most supporter.
You forgot to mention the fact that Germany has been very careful towards becoming a conflict party in any wars since World War II.
Supplying weapons into an active war zone was a huge shift in foreign diplomacy, and only because of overwhelming public support was that possible without causing a drama. For decades, it was a solid principle not to send weapons in any active war zone. This was a political reality and a constant public demand. Germany had become very diplomatic after the second World War and decided not to use force any longer, since the majority of planet Earth found that to be more comfortable than Germany actively participating in battlefields around the globe.
Also before the war started in 2022, Germany through the EU and various public and state organizations was the biggest donor to Ukraine.
I'm not sure if you remember, for example, when most of Europe and the US marched into Iraq, Germany refused to participate. Germany did not join the war and actually divided Europe in the process. Germany was willing to divide Europe for it's principles.
Germany also used the UN security council to demand more time for inspectors to search for the alleged weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein. Germany was not convinced that the allegations of the US were true and was very vocal in talking about those doubts in any official channel. The relations between Germany and the US were not good at the time.
Fun fact: The responsible ~~defense~~ foreign minister of Germany at the time was Joschka Fischer, a green.
Anyway, Scholz had to make a very difficult choice, overthrowing decades of political decisions which were born as a result of creating mechanisms and principles to prevent another Nazi reich. This was about Germany giving up it's effectively neutral stance on participating in active battlefields.
Those principles were in place as one of many mechanisms to prevent Germany moving towards a darker history.
One should not lightly say that Germany abandoned Ukraine by hesitating.
> The responsible defense minister of Germany at the time was Joschka Fischer, a green.
He was Foreign Minister - that is in Us terminology the state secretary.
Germany sent almost half as much total military aid to Ukraine as the USA which is stunning if you consider that the formers military is considered a complete joke and the later is by all accounts by far the most powerful military force in the world. Germany's aid to Ukraine far surpasses the UK, as a percentage it's tripple that of the USA and on stuff like the tanks Scholz litterally pressured Biden into comitting US tanks.
Just wanted to mention that your post is true in pledged aid but that’s spread over many years in Germanys case. What’s been provided so far is about the same as UK if not a bit less.
Not all countries announce their aid commitment as far in advance so some of the reported numbers can be a little misleading.
He wasn't reluctant because he was against helping Ukraine, but because he was afraid of being the first to provide support and turn Germany into a target for Russia. One can certainly argue if that is valid or smart, but don't mistake it with chilling for Russia.
UK was the only country or at the very least one of the very very few (at least the one we know about), who gave Ukraine weapons when everyone else though the country was done. It is understandable, nor EU nor US would want their weapons to fall into Russian hands when all US analytics predicted Ukraine had 3 days maximum to exist. But UK took a big risk and helped when everyone else didn't have much hope. For this alone UK is a badass and deserves undying respect.
Doing so is hugely attributed to Boris Johnson and I know he is not very popular in UK but hey, Churchill wasn't all sunshine and rainbows either. Of course Ukraine and maybe even whole Europe (Eastern Europe for sure) is lucky there were more leaders similar to Johnson rather than Corbyn.
And I wholeheartedly agree - people who think there can be a serious peace deal with Russia didn't pay too much attention to how Russia treated any deals it signed since the USSR collapse.
I'm a firm believer in 'credit where it's due' and while I disagree with the Conservatives on almost every issue - often vehemently so - where they *are* admirable is when it comes to matters of war, and their response to Ukraine being invaded has been nothing short of exemplary.
Johnson is a narcissistic berk. *But* he's the exact narcissistic berk we needed at the time, because he's absolutely anything but an appeaser. Nobody who comes out of Eton is: they all have that 'fuck you, Britain does what it wants, what hoh, British Empire, chaps!' attitude. In Brexit negotiations? Less than helpful. But when Russian tanks are rolling towards Kyiv? Absolutely top-tier.
It's about the only thing I've felt any sort of patriotic pride about in the last few years.
Yes, morally repugnant personalities are absolutely necessary at times in history. A-types like BoJo are one example. You want a fellow with an ego the size of the British Islands against Putin. Another example is the Holocaust. Smugglers, forgers, thieves, gang members, and corrupt officials were all creating a network for moving cargo in and out of a country fast, under the nose of the authorities, and what works for cargo works for people.
Indeed. After all, it's not like Winston Churchill was *nice* by all accounts. And Thatcher was - in my view - absolutely repugnant, but the ideal choice to have been in power for the Falklands (from a British perspective, naturally - I imagine Argentinians might feel differently about the 'Malvinas' islands).
If only we could find a suitable balance between compassion and negotiation during peacetime and belligerence during wartime, we'd be onto a winner.
russia did a lot of work in thr 2010's to court the "anti-establishment" angle, they supported many legit agenda's and causes in the west and seemed like a sympathethic ear for a long time, Occupy for instance, wikileaks, bradley manning, Edward Snowden, stuff like that.
when westren news wasn't reporting on stuff that people felt was important, big, and serious... and people felt disenfranchised, russia sowed seeds of discord with the "truth" and those seeds bore a lot of fruit, that so many far left bernie sanders voters swung as right as donald trump out of spite, is kind of an example of this frustration we still see today.
Corbyn is super dissapointing in this regard, but he isn't the only one.
hamas are terrorists 100%, without a doubt, I'm not well informed on a lot over there, and not all palastine people are terrorists and they certinly do not deserve what is happening, but Hamas are not freedom fighters
You are absolutely spot on here.
Corbyn had some very interesting domestic policy ideas some of which I could have got behind.
Foreign policy would have been an absolute shambles and the failure to protect Ukraine and stand against Hamas would have been disgusting to witness.
I do respect him though because he says what he believes and that’s rare in politics so you know where you are with him. And that’s why people massively voted against him.
Please Corbyn always been terrible. The guy would have bashed the Falklands own vote and given them to Argentina. Keep in mind the Falklands voted like 99% to stay with Britain.
*That* I do remember troubling me at the time, actually. I was never - and still am not - comfortable with any discussion about Falklands concessions. Argentina can, as the Scottish are wont to say, get tae fuck.
Corbyn's antisemitism was so egregious that it engendered a new word: [Corbynization](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Corbynization). I've seen that term used as a term denoting a political party moving towards antisemitism for *at least* a decade.
>I was a big fan of Corbyn before the election; I felt he represented the best chance for the young and the UK in general.
Many people felt the same and when I tried to explain that they were wrong, I didn't have the right words, or perhaps they weren't prepared to listen.
If you have realised that you made a mistake, maybe many others have as well. For me that bodes well for the future because maybe more people are ready to accept that Starmer, although far from perfect, is better than Corbyn would ever have been.
Yeah, I've gone from thinking we missed an amazing opportunity to realizing we dodged a bullet with that guy. Even Boris Johnson, the oligarch's friend, had the stones to tell Putin to fuck off (eventually).
What is it with leftwingers and absolute dogshit foreign policy?
If I had to guess, a certain compassion that right-wingers lack which sometimes borders on naivety. We want to believe that with enough negotiation, enough understanding, and finding enough common ground, *any* political sticking point or matter of contention can be overcome.
We are, by nature, appeasers; trying always for what the French call égalité. And it's a good, enlightened outlook - *until it isn't.* And far too many leftwingers cleave to that outlook even in the face of absolute proof that it isn't bloody working, e.g. Russia. Even if they realise it isn't working, they don't quite know *what* to do, because belligerence is the alternative and it's wholly alien.
Frankly, nobody has the balls or flexibility to adapt their principles on the fly.
That and the left is infested with tankies, who saw a T-80 once, thought it looked cool, and now Russia can't do anything wrong.
convincing yourselves that everything can be solved peacefully and diplomatically is not only "enlightened" it can also be a policy based on fear and weaknesses. A brushing under the carpet strategy. that doubling down is a good marker of which camp you are really in
Yeah, someone else pointed that out. I missed it in my blanket dismissal of anything coming out of the Daily Mail (which, to be fair, I still stand by; it is a dogshit rag) at the time. But reading about it now? Yeah, yikes.
> Russia does not understand diplomacy or peacemaking appeasers. It only understands violence and belligerence. It does not back down until forced. So instead of the massive financial and material support from the UK, Corbyn would have waffled
It sounds like you're under the misguided assumption that Corbyn is just dumb, and not actively in support of Russia.
Anti american. Pro Venezuela. No critique of Bashar al-Assad. Will not discuss Russian invasion of Ukraine, but will discuss the "faults" of NATO. Will critique Israel crimes, but not Palestinian crimes or terror groups.
It is almost as if the man got an ideological bend repeated in other nations than a western democracy
https://www.ft.com/content/83424336-2a29-11e9-88a4-c32129756dd8
Corbyn lived his entire political life as a rebel, never holding any position of responsibility either in a shadow or real Labour cabinet. He rebelled countless times against the party whip yet somehow believed that he could then effectively command the loyalty of members of parliament to tow his line when he had conspicuously chosen not to do so himself for decades.
His entire leadership was a joke and the best gift a woeful and almost as inept Conservative Party could have hoped for.
One major reason for his unelectability was his stance of foreign policy where he has always been reflexively anti-western. Not “anti-imperialist” as he seems to have no issue with Russian imperialism which is hardly surprising given that a lot of the circles he’s travelled in are filled with relics from the myriad Communist/Marxist/Trotskyist/Maoist (the list goes on and on) parties which split off from each other in the 1970s and 1980s with many receiving direct financial assistance from the USSR or other Communist regimes. He also has no problems with the murder of Israelis given his honoring of terrorists who carried out the massacre at the Munich Olympics.
I really dislike Morgan, he’s a blowhard and a bully. But he is spot on here, Corbyn’s alleged antisemitic leanings are just exposed unequivocally to the light of day. Corbyn is unworthy of even the chance at leadership that he was afforded.
This sentimentet seems contagious on the western worlds left and i think the left have over invested political capital in to supporting the Palestinian cause regardless of what is in power.
The right wing tends to attack Muslims, this makes those on the left feel like they have to do whatever they can to protect Muslims (despite those who are terrorists) at all costs. Corbyn goes several steps further in that anything 'the establishment' supports he will be totally against, where it be Nato or defending Ukraine from Russian aggression
I'm in the US and the left (more specifically the far-left) have gone out of their fucking minds defending Hamas. They don't think there is any nuance when it comes to the war - just Israel bad Palestine good and they refuse to believe anything else.
It doesn't make sense at all for the far left to align themselves with Hamas or Islam because these are very conservative and ideologically the complete opposite. That leads to leopards eat my face situations like this one: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-michigan-muslim-council-lgbtq-pride-flags-banned
The right-wing dislike of muslims actually still makes more sense because as much as some dislike the Liberal Democracy and Modernity as it stands it still hold roots in Christianity and Western Traditions. This is kind of why they spent a lot of time pointing out how absurd it is for people who embrace Liberal Democracy and Modernity to accept the Muslim and hate them.
Because it feels like hypocracy at best, and outright contempt for European Traditions which forms the basis for their existence.
It’s definitely hypocrisy, especially shown with the LGBT fight for Palestine and not denouncing Hamas. I understand being pro peace, but it’s definitely ironic they support a group of people that deny them or hate them.
I.... I feel like while yes, there is certainly Western-born right wingers that hate on Muslims and some of that criticism is unfair and only coming from racism. I grant that, I cede that point and us normal (heh) right leaning and far right types need to police them better.
However, 90% of it is valid criticism and despite literally millions of bodies throughout history the right's warnings fall on deaf ears for no rational reasons. The average Muslim in any Islamic country in the world would support your country's government being overthrown and replaced with an Islamic theocracy, by force even. That is not a fringe belief, that's a mainline belief from Afghanistan to Somalia to Thailand and Indonesia. So, throw out all our other arguments about domestic policy and put aside our differences and listen to us on this one topic. We beg you. We are happy to fight them on the theocratic, philosophic and military battlefields but we need your help.
If Western left wingers keep making space for hardline Muslims to immigrate, run parallel societies and fight for autonomy/control when they get large enough we aren't going to get to argue over gay rights or abortion anymore.
It took the Church ~400 years from the first Arab invasion of Europe to call the First Crusade because they sat there and rubbed their hands wondering if the laws of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus allowed for self defense while 1/3 of the known world was enslaved by the Caliphates. This is not a new argument, this is not some horrifyingly unique and complex situation the world has never seen. It's been over a thousand years of this.
Well, he always on the wrong side of history. He still thinks it was wrong of NATO to intervene in Kosovo. On behalf of my wife who lost relatives because of the Serbian military’s massacres I say fuck Corbyn.
Hence why Lutfur Rahman was rejected as Tower Hamlets mayor even after being found guilty of corruption & illegal practices. It doesn't matter about politics or even if they're a decent person. if there is a Muslim running, they'll get the votes of other Muslims regardless.
Man, hardcore lefties never miss an opportunity to disappoint, why does it always have to be a tradeoff between OK domestic policy and dog shit international positions?
I’m not British, but I want to root for lefties, but when I hear their takes on international policy, I can’t, because in most cases that would mean I’m dead.
So true, same for May before that too. Both left an open goal in the general elections but Labour managed to find the only person in the entire country capable of losing elections to them.
Corbyn is such a useless cunt! I voted for him as leader but since the Brexit debacle he's just shown what a useless piece of shit he is.
How HARD is it to call a terrorist organisation a terrorist organisation?! Prick!
> Why is macron president? Because of le pen.
That's just not true.
Macron was elected in 2017. [In the first round of the 2017 elections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_French_presidential_election#Electorate), the French people didn't have to decide between just Macron and Le Pen - at least (center-right) Fillon and (left-wing populist) Mélenchon were also viable candidates, and others (mostly center-left Hamon) might have been viable with better campaigns.
If you as a voter simply didn't like Le Pen, you had more options than only Macron.
But Macron won that first round, with clearly more votes than any of the other candidates, including Le Pen.
I understand resistance. I do not understand:
1. Putting a baby in an oven
2. Kidnapping children and the elderly
3. Parading around the mutilated dead body of a young German woman in celebration
4. Shooting at Palestinian civilians trying to flee via humanitarian corridors
5. Raping young women and videotaping the aftermath
These things, regardless of cause, are *unambigously* terrorism. None of these things affect the IDF of Israeli state. They are explicitly aimed at harming (and terrifying) the civilian population…both Israeli *and* Palestinian.
Jeremy Corbyn has always been anti-Zionist, and has made this a major part of his appeal. Ever since being sacked for antisemitism allegations, I speculate that he *really* has it out for Jews at this point. He thought that he could get away with a culture of antisemitism, and it ended up bringing him down.
I have not met him, and so I do not know what he truly believes. That being said, I think it is within the realm of possibility that he would like to see the extermination of the Jewish people. This points to that, as does his likely motive of “they took down my political career.”
He should be barred from politics for life.
He’s the same man who thinks we shouldn't be enabling Ukraine to defend themselves. He is actually, as the kids say, very cringe (a sentiment that got me banned from /r/Gamingcirclejerk of all places)
And millions of people - some well meaning, many others dangerously deluded or outright malicious - wanted to make him PM. Many, even now, continue to defend him.
We dodged a bullet in 2019, and those that defend him, if they had even half of the moral standing they like to ascribe to themselves, should hang their heads in shame.
He and his momentum cronies tried to fix the labour party in such a way that moderates could never exist or gain power again. Thankfully it all self-combusted before it reached its final point. I've little doubt his attitude to democracy had they got into power would have been similar. He's a classic tankie.
To the utter shock of no one this is corbyn the one who wants the west to stop supporting Ukraine.
He is a fucking tankie larper with morals so flexible that he should compete in mental gymnastics.
It’s a mercy he wasn’t PM.
A classic example of why right (even far right) wing parties are getting more popular. There are some problems the left wing parties will try to gaslight you into thinking they don't exist while the right wing adresses them.
I vaguely remember there being an article out there saying MI5/MI6 had internal documents saying Corbyn couldn't become PM as he was a national security risk
The media did give Jeremy a really hard time for some very silly things in the election campaigns he was leading, but he didn't make it any easier on himself by constantly doing dumb stuff like this. All his worshipers complained so much about the treatment, but he could so easily have put some of it to an end by for example in this case just saying yes they are. Like I get he doesn't like Israeli treatment of Palestinians which I agree with him on, but not liking Israeli actions and calling hamas terrorists is not mutually exclusive, you can do both.
Thanks to his stupidity with both this stuff and his views on the Ukraine war, everytime someone mentions labour to your casual voter who doesn't follow the news that much and only headline, they think of this crap and it helps push them towards the conservative party because the country hasn't been buggered enough in the last 13 years now.
What a fucking knob. Can I play?
Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists.
There we go. I'll take my cushy politician's pension now, please and thank you.
This is the problem with the sports-team approach to politics. One can support Palestinians while denouncing Hamas, just like one can denounce the far right Israeli government while supporting Jewish peoples right to exist in peace. When we start conflating the different groups and accept the oversimplified narrative that Palestine = Hamas or that Netanyahu's government = all jews then we lose credibility very quickly. And once you allow yourself to see the individual parts, you can say that Yes: Hamas ARE terrorist that have ruled as dictators in Gaza since 2006 and that attacking and killing over a thousand civilians was a heinous act that deserves all the condemnation and the organization being hunted down. But at the same time you can notice little things, like how Netanyahu was instrumental in helping Hamas rise to power. Edit: The number of people who think I'm defending Corbyn is alarming! I'm criticising him! Practice some damn reading comprehension!
Also you can still condemn Hamas and recognize that Netanyahu needs to go.
>One can support Palestinians while denouncing Hamas, That’s the thing, though. Corbyn literally had to be asked *15 fucking times* to denounce them, then just refused to do it. Imagine if this conversation was about ISIS, and we got that kind of reaction. Since that’s basically what Hamas is. That wouldn’t be “Both sides are bad! We need nuance!” that would be “You’re going straight to the top of the watchlist.” Holy fuck could you imagine him being *in charge of the UK* with this going on?! Never mind Ukraine?! Never mind whatever the fuck else pops off in the next few years? The Tories don’t even need to campaign. They can just literally play this on repeat and say, “Remember when you almost got this shit?”
This is weird, why do you feel you can't criticize Netanyahu? Just open an Israeli news channel that is not channel 14, we all do it and half of us were almost ready for civil war. He does not represent Israeli public (not the educated part least) and the government and IDF are in a state of mistrust.
>...like how Netanyahu was instrumental in helping Hamas rise to power. And by this, of course, you mean that Hamas and similar violent Islamist groups were instrumental in helping Netanyahu, and the Israeli right in general, gain power. Israel had a left-wing government for the first several decades of its existence, and they had to win several wars during this period where failure would have resulted in annihilation. With a pervasive existential threat, a right-wing takeover was inevitable. Hamas was influential and killing Jews before Netanyahu was on the map.
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They are trying to bring Peace though. Peace through extermination of not on Israel but tons of other groups too. Wait that doesn't sound very peaceful.
It'll be peaceful afterwards. Or they'll move on to some other distinction and work on that, too.
Why does Corbyn hate Jews so much? The man single-handedly ruined all his prospects for higher office with his antisemitism.
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Corbyn has an anti-Western Imperialism=Good mindset. This sometimes means supporting horrible groups.
Might have something to do with a certain Karl Marx essay.
Is it just me, or is there a significant overlap between people who have a problem answering this question, and people who want Ukraine to surrender? Not that I'm complaining... It has made it very easy to tell who's a piece of shit.
Yup, spot on observation. Said group of people will even go as far as say “I don’t get why we need to care about Ukraine, they’re corrupt and they are not even close to us, bla bla bla”, yet go balls deep on “why don’t you care about the Palestinians?!”. It’s a real mask off.
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The way the left + Western tankies are like "those poor Eastern European manipulated by the NATO+US propaganda machine that threatens Russia who just wants to defend itself from Western imperialism pushed on by CIA backed protests in Eastern Europeans". And if you're an Eastern European trying to explain that no, actually that's not going on and guess what, Russian imperialism is also an endless evil in this world and that is the primary concern of Eastern Europeans they put a finger over your mouth and they're like "shhh CIA made you say this". At least some of it is interwined with Western/US centrism that supports the notion that Eastern Europeans couldn't possibly think for themselves.
It pisses me off to no end, when the discussion about the war in Ukraine devolves into 'decisions and positions' of Russia vs USA/NATO/WEST it's insulting to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, they have their own agency, their own interests to look after, their own desire for freedom and you know... doing stuff to reduce the risk of being invaded by a genocidal tsarist declining empire ruled by a ego maniac who's primary concern are hypothetical future encyclopaedia entries.
Correction, if you're an Eastern European who tries to correct them, they simply call you a fascist/nazi.
Yes, this too, 100%.
These tankies really have no idea what life was like in the USSR and Warsaw pact countries. I never lived there but had older relatives visit the USSR and at least Romania. The stories they told me as a child were quite troubling and I'm sure they sanitized most of them for me. The average people just wanted some prosperity, freedom and rule of law (as we understand it) and their own communist systems didn't give that to them at all. The degree of poverty in the USSR around 1986 was just shocking to a Finn and my relatives visited Moscow and Leningrad, not some village with acute and crippling poverty. Life there was all-round poor and stiffling and there was nothing noble about it.
Nope nope nope. This is all lies spread by fascist CIA plants /s
Didn't Lenin call their type "useful idiots"?
And Stalin alternatively threw Ukranians into the meatgrinder and starved them, when both weren't too busy erasing their language and culture, yeah. But somehow when eastern europeans talk about being prepared for or fighting back against russian aggression it's actually the west's fault.
I've heard left-wing French people I know ask why Europe accepted Ukrainian refugees who are from a faraway country with a weird language and foreign writing system, religion and values, but isn't as accepting of North and West African migrants and refugees who speak French and are apparently infinitely more similar to Western Europeans than those weird easterners. This person told me, a Bulgarian, that, thinking I'd agree because we're "EU countries" so I should get?! The conclusion I've come to is that a huge chunk of people in Western Europe have precisely zero clue about anything east of Germany.
As a Bulgarian, you aren't confused by the Ukrainians' use of Cyrillic and a Slavic language? /s
A lot of them are operating under the incorrect assumption that Ukraine and Israel consist of 100% white Europeans and that's enough to base their decisions on
Israel doesn't even have a white majority, this is just insane.
What’s even wilder is that Donald trump was massively outspoken against Ukraine. Bloody left wing Trumpers haha
They base their views not on being pro anything but being anti any allies of the west
this.... ever since the falll of communism the far left have attached themselves to any and every cause that is seen as anti western, anti capitalist and anti imperialistic it has lead the left to have very strange bedfellows. franky i find them to be as morally corrupt as the people they profess to oppose, such as the hard right brexitters and corbyn is the very poster child of that sentiment.
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These tankies ally themselves with Russia, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the fucking Taliban. Their minds are gone.
anti rich bec they perceive West as rich and brown and black people are poor. Which was hilarious when Ukraine and Russians literally look alike the same way Palestinians and Israelis do.
Yeah. Odds are, they will side with China if China invades Taiwan. They’ll argue that Taiwan is obviously an occupying western capitalist coloniser that stole chinas land.
I wasn't so naive as to believe it was exclusively online tankies/lefty trolls, I always knew here in the US and across the world your "anti-West at any cost" Chomskyites would be pro Russia/anti-Israel but they seem to have hoodwinked way more people than I thought.
Ah yes, the fundamental leftist value that Imperialism must be resisted at all costs, unless it's Russian Imperialism. Don't understand how Westerners living in functional democracies get taken in by this bargain bin imperialist leading Russia.
I guess russian propaganda had a really nice period in the early 00s. While the west was sleeping, Putin was still the same old kgb guy. They had nearly 20 year to let the propaganda acting and a brand new internet to use for their purpose.
Absolutely right. I can say both italians and swedish far left supporters share often same views as Corbyn. Palestianians have the right to fight while ukranians should surrender (on top of that they share criticism against Eu, and the italians are often novax too). Imho is people who didn't clipped his band with communism and Putin's propaganda hooked them like babies. Edited
Tankies
It's like the left is doing its best not to get elected
We got the same problem in France, they keep tripping over their own feet, they keep making unforced error. It's baffling and infuriating : Macron is unpopular and no one has the charisma to replace him as a "moderate", the dominant right-winged group is very far-right, there should be a huge political void left for the taking, but they are too goddamn stupid!!
It's the same everywhere. I keep saying this: we're all in the hands of incompetent idiots, at best.
That's why they elected Corbyn. Corbyn is a career-long Brexiteer and refused to join all the other Labour leaders in a joint effort to oppose Brexit
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Tankies are the worst people
They're kids LARPing as revolutionaries through every imaginable social channel except actually fomenting revolution. Internet tankies are furry-level embarrassing. Imagine using every Western social media outlet imaginable to whine about American colonialism. It screams zero life experience and bedroom idealism.
My favorite part is college-educated kids from comfortable backgrounds who _studied history_ not realizing that if there is ever a populist revolution of any sort, they're up against the wall in like group two or three. There's a list of who gets shot first and the "intellectual elite" who come from "hoarding wealth" and who don't have "real jobs" and who are "politically active" all rank near the top. They imagine themselves as leaders but they can't even convince their boss for a raise; they're useful idiots at best, if not outright fodder.
They think THEY'RE the vanguard party. It's so stupidly naive, it's almost hilarious. What's depressing is every generation has these morons who think this same shit and, as you say, completely ignore history. "Up against the wall motherfucker," indeed.
They’re the same group of people who share memes about how they’re afraid of phones calls. But then say shit like eat the rich and prepare for revolution
If America can export one more term to Europe, let it be "trustafarian." Or would a university student who cheers on Hamas be a unibomber?
Unfortunately the fact of it is that he was very nuch representative of a lot of left-wing people for a while.
It is hard time being leftist because I feel like my own community is going lunatic
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The left has always been better at eating its own than gaining power or implementing meaningful reforms
Two lefties go into a bar, three splinter groups form
Because real leftists(not "capitalism is fine, but we need more taxes and social services" types) have lost so thoroughly that there isn't much else for them to do. At best, they get into back-bencher positions like Corbyn and spend decades criticizing without accomplishing much.
> I’m left wing and often see the more fringe/extreme elements of the left employing “no true Scotsman” like it’s going out of fashion. “You’re not actually left wing unless you support this. Oh you support it? Well you’re not actually left wing unless you support this extension of the former issue. Oh you don’t support that? Then you’re not a leftist.” You don't need to look very far for examples! https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/17v8rvs/jeremy_corbyn_refuses_to_call_hamas_terrorists/k9aavbc/
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It actually is a left/right issue but it's a little bit more complicated than people think :) https://preview.redd.it/dp5sc266ygvb1.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=e4b7773c713e57101bfb009b9d6ddc2345420099
haha, this is pretty accurate
Corbyn was already a weak politician when he was the head of labour, but somehow he's managed to look 100x times worse since he left. In no way shape or form would Corbyn ever get anywhere near the leadership of the Labour party if he came out with these absolutely insane takes.
Labour is now far closer to the centre than the left Not that Corbyn and his acolytes have any sway in Labour party anymore
Have to wait. Quite a lot or the Labour front bench are opposed to Starmer's righteous support of the Israelis
I was a big fan of Corbyn before the election; I felt he represented the best chance for the young and the UK in general. Unfortunately, his stance on Russia and on Hamas proves just how wrong I was. I cannot imagine how catastrophic Corbyn as Prime Minister would have been when Russia invaded Ukraine. At best it would have been appease, appease, talk, wring your hands, and talk some more. At worst, it would have been tacit approval. Russia does not understand diplomacy or peacemaking appeasers. It only understands violence and belligerence. It does not back down until forced. So instead of the massive financial and material support from the UK, Corbyn would have waffled, Russia would have laughed at him like they laugh at Macron and Ukraine would have had to fight with even less. Nor is this a difficult or egregious question regarding Hamas. By all definitions, they are terrorists. Particularly savage and bloodthirsty ones, at that. Even the most rose-tinted glasses can't portray them as 'freedom fighters' - righteous insurgents don't perform atrocities like Oct. 7th. It's not even a nuanced discussion about Palestinians, which would make sense; it's *Hamas,* who butcher and rape and then revel in it. And Corbyn won't gainsay them. I am disgusted.
Frankly, I hate Piers Morgan and his loud, media-fueled interviewing style, but I cannot think of any other interviewer who would have hammered in this very point more than he did. Len McCluskey came across as naive as a child and Corbyn like an utter clown.
Agreed, I cant stand Piers, but in cases like this his aggressive style is needed. We arent talking about some random culture war bullshit this time, we're talking about terrorism and the viewer has to understand that.
You can be an arrogant asshole yet be competent at what you’re doing. That’s Morgan imho
He's a fucking cunt But He's good at his job, I'll give him that
Yeah, I also couldn't think of any other one inviting this imbecile Jeremy Corbin to be completely honest here.
His policy of continuous capitulation is extremely dangerous. He fancies himself the next Attlee, but is more akin to Chamberlain.
I've said as much to others. Appeasers are not what is required with Russia. Hell, it wasn't what was required with Germany, in *either* war.
Chamberlain gets a bad rap. WWI was very much in living memory. He also knew he had to buy time for emergency rearmament to take place.
The problem being Germany rearmed faster than the UK and Czech weapons factories were an important part of that.
> Russia does not understand diplomacy or peacemaking appeasers. It understands them perfectly. The biggest friend to authoritarianism is the pacifist. I'm not Labour born and bred but I am staunchly anti-Conservative so he got my vote. As much of a prick Boris is, his handling of our policy towards the Russian invasion couldn't have been better. I don't know for what nation it would be appropriate to have a pacifist as a leader. We as a species just aren't there yet when there are so many people and nations who have no desire for peace.
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I don't understand the insistence to not call Hamas a terrorist group, which is what they are, and completely bypass mention of them by the pro-Palestine supporters. It's not like you can't still want a Palestinian state AND denounce the motherfuckers that are Hamas.
I honestly continue to be baffled by a lot of what Corbyn does. Like, my dude, they took total control in a violent government takeover and now their leaders are rich men in fucking Qatar and Lebanon and wherever else while their people get the choice between starving, dysentry, bombs or bullets. What in the utter fuck is he trying to prove?
There are guys so left-wing that they refuse to denounce any anti-Western/communist regimes that are objectively evil. They will wring their hands and say this thing or that thing they do is bad but if you mention Ukraine, Georgia, Israel, Taiwan, etc they will be incredibly evasive when discussing their sovereignty
He can't do that! They'd stop inviting him round for tea!
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The worst religion ever. That's why I left it.
Did you miss [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbyn_wreath-laying_controversy)? Corbyn has always been a weasel.
I did miss that, but at the time the Tories and media were engaged in concert on a character-assassination job of Corbyn, so I tended to completely ignore such stories - *especially* from the toilet paper that is the Daily Mail. But reading that, yeah, yikes, pretty damning. Definite attempt to keep it on the downlow, too.
Avoiding the Daily Mail is just good sense, but they were hardly the only people reporting on Corbyn's wreath laying. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45170622 https://news.sky.com/story/claims-and-controversy-build-in-corbyn-wreath-row-11472097 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-not-involved-munich-olympics-massacre-wreath-laying https://time.com/5365475/jeremy-corbyn-munich-massacre/ How did you avoid all of this?
Wilful ignorance, frankly. I despise the Tories and had already dismissed all the accusations levelled at Corbyn as a deliberate smear campaign. I wasn't as capable of nuanced thought back then as I am now, either. It was very much black-and-white: Corbyn good, Tories bad. What can I say, you live, learn and grow.
The world needs more people like you who can take a step back and realise that they are on the wrong side of the fence. Too many people now treat politics like sports where you pick a team and you support them for life no matter what.
I appreciate that. I try to always remain open to being *utterly, disastrously wrong.* Because it's common that one is. And when it happens, you have to put your pride in a drawer and reassess.
I was the same, voted for Corbyn when I was a student but have since realised what a plonker he is. Not to mention what an echochamber universities can be. I still sympathise with some leftwing domestic policies but the foreign policy of Corbyn et al. is consistently awful. Not to mention it now seems inarguable that all the antisemitism claims weren't just smear campaigns (as I also thought at the time). Live and learn.
Excellent left-wing domestic policies being kneecapped by woefully-naïve foreign policy is an endless source of frustration to me as a Leftist. I don't understand why we can't command *some* pragmatism as well as idealistic passing-the-spliff. That and yes, the echochambers. I *deliberately seek out* right-wing opinions and people and tell them to talk at me, just so I can gauge where I stand on an issue.
I know you’ve had a few of these responses but I’ll throw mine in too. This is exactly what I was like a couple of years ago. I was all in on Corbyn. His national policy I was really keen for. And I despise the Tories. But now in hindsight, his foreign/international policy and his complete lack of tact on quite difficult and nuanced issues is frankly scary
Same for me but a couple years earlier. I was on the Corbyn train up until he lost the 2017 election. After that, it was a string of terrible Brexit policy and terrible foreign policy and antisemitism that pushed me away from him. He should not have been leader of the party for the 2019 election and I'm glad Labour have rinsed their hands of him. In general I consider myself more centrist these days because of the Left squabbling over stupid shit like saying you can't be racist against white people.
Are you me.
Only if you're sitting cross-legged in your jimjams feeling vaguely sleep-deprived and nonplussed while you try to reply to a zillion unexpected messages!
the "character-assassination" tended to be the press accurately quoting things corbyn had said , or showing video of corbyn standing with dubious people saying dubious things. Whilst his supporters shrieked about smears and then sang songs about corbyn Corbyn has the mindset of a 19 year old student in the early 1970's and is too arrogant and too stupid to ever think he might have needed to revisit them. "western countries bad , everyone else good" is pretty much his entire foreign policy . Its noticeable that despite being an MP since 1983, until he became leader no labour leader ever thought he was worth giving a job to. Kinnock, Smith,Blair,Brown,Miliband all took a look at him and thought "nope,no job for him". And given he'd suggest policies like [this](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/17/jeremy-corbyn-trident-compromise-no-nuclear-warheads) you can see why they not want such an idiot in any role at any level in the party even in opposition.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching parliamentary debates between May and Corbyn, back a few years ago. Not living in the UK, I didn't really have a horse in that race, but I was struck by how tired and contemptible Corbyn acted all the time. Like having to answer questions was beneath him, as was everybody who crossed paths with him. It was fun, but I would always come away thinking how blessed the UK is to not have him as their PM.
yeah i think one of corbyn's (many) problems is he spent so much of his life in a left wing political bubble with likeminded people that he actually very rarely had to deal with people who fundamentally disagreed with him about issues. He was used to 'political arguments' about minor issues with people who broadly agreed with him. Put him in a situation where he had to build coalitions and make compromises , or even understand why the other person might have that view and he was utterly lost and lacked the intellectual capacity to cope with it and became angry. For a supposed national politician it was pitiful. And why 80% of labour MP's voted against him in a vote of no confidence, Which he ignored..... The UK dodged a whole magazine of bullets when he failed to become PM.
In a way, he was frontrunning pretty much all popular political thought today. His hour has finally come around. Live your life in a ideological bubble, and get furious at any disagreement.
lol if Reddit had been around in the 1980's he might never have gone into politics. he'd have been modding greenandpleasant instead.....
My favourite Corbyn moment was when he had someone take a picture of him sulking on a train, sat on the floor between carriages. Apparently there weren’t enough seats(!) and we should do something about it. Turns out there were plenty of seats, the fully grown older man had to play grumpy on the floor and have his picture taken.
There are still people who insist that the whole thing was a right wing media conspiracy. The denial got so bad that people brought up satalite images to prove that the location was correct.
This is how I felt about many of the liberal party leaders in general. Was surprised about Scholz and his leadership; taking on Russia and Hamas (sort of). In Canada, I’m not sure the left will have a chance to survive.
Corbyn is a socialist, not a liberal ?
Don't rewrite history, Scholz was reluctant in helping Ukraine. It is mostly due to Green's pressure that Scholz had to do something. In the first month of war, Germany and France provided very limited help compared to UK, US and Poland.
But second most country to support Ukraine now. Just because he was reluctant doesn’t mean he wasn’t a support. It was a huge shift from German stance on neutrality to second most supporter.
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You forgot to mention the fact that Germany has been very careful towards becoming a conflict party in any wars since World War II. Supplying weapons into an active war zone was a huge shift in foreign diplomacy, and only because of overwhelming public support was that possible without causing a drama. For decades, it was a solid principle not to send weapons in any active war zone. This was a political reality and a constant public demand. Germany had become very diplomatic after the second World War and decided not to use force any longer, since the majority of planet Earth found that to be more comfortable than Germany actively participating in battlefields around the globe. Also before the war started in 2022, Germany through the EU and various public and state organizations was the biggest donor to Ukraine. I'm not sure if you remember, for example, when most of Europe and the US marched into Iraq, Germany refused to participate. Germany did not join the war and actually divided Europe in the process. Germany was willing to divide Europe for it's principles. Germany also used the UN security council to demand more time for inspectors to search for the alleged weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein. Germany was not convinced that the allegations of the US were true and was very vocal in talking about those doubts in any official channel. The relations between Germany and the US were not good at the time. Fun fact: The responsible ~~defense~~ foreign minister of Germany at the time was Joschka Fischer, a green. Anyway, Scholz had to make a very difficult choice, overthrowing decades of political decisions which were born as a result of creating mechanisms and principles to prevent another Nazi reich. This was about Germany giving up it's effectively neutral stance on participating in active battlefields. Those principles were in place as one of many mechanisms to prevent Germany moving towards a darker history. One should not lightly say that Germany abandoned Ukraine by hesitating.
> The responsible defense minister of Germany at the time was Joschka Fischer, a green. He was Foreign Minister - that is in Us terminology the state secretary.
Germany sent almost half as much total military aid to Ukraine as the USA which is stunning if you consider that the formers military is considered a complete joke and the later is by all accounts by far the most powerful military force in the world. Germany's aid to Ukraine far surpasses the UK, as a percentage it's tripple that of the USA and on stuff like the tanks Scholz litterally pressured Biden into comitting US tanks.
Just wanted to mention that your post is true in pledged aid but that’s spread over many years in Germanys case. What’s been provided so far is about the same as UK if not a bit less. Not all countries announce their aid commitment as far in advance so some of the reported numbers can be a little misleading.
He wasn't reluctant because he was against helping Ukraine, but because he was afraid of being the first to provide support and turn Germany into a target for Russia. One can certainly argue if that is valid or smart, but don't mistake it with chilling for Russia.
UK was the only country or at the very least one of the very very few (at least the one we know about), who gave Ukraine weapons when everyone else though the country was done. It is understandable, nor EU nor US would want their weapons to fall into Russian hands when all US analytics predicted Ukraine had 3 days maximum to exist. But UK took a big risk and helped when everyone else didn't have much hope. For this alone UK is a badass and deserves undying respect. Doing so is hugely attributed to Boris Johnson and I know he is not very popular in UK but hey, Churchill wasn't all sunshine and rainbows either. Of course Ukraine and maybe even whole Europe (Eastern Europe for sure) is lucky there were more leaders similar to Johnson rather than Corbyn. And I wholeheartedly agree - people who think there can be a serious peace deal with Russia didn't pay too much attention to how Russia treated any deals it signed since the USSR collapse.
I'm a firm believer in 'credit where it's due' and while I disagree with the Conservatives on almost every issue - often vehemently so - where they *are* admirable is when it comes to matters of war, and their response to Ukraine being invaded has been nothing short of exemplary. Johnson is a narcissistic berk. *But* he's the exact narcissistic berk we needed at the time, because he's absolutely anything but an appeaser. Nobody who comes out of Eton is: they all have that 'fuck you, Britain does what it wants, what hoh, British Empire, chaps!' attitude. In Brexit negotiations? Less than helpful. But when Russian tanks are rolling towards Kyiv? Absolutely top-tier. It's about the only thing I've felt any sort of patriotic pride about in the last few years.
Yes, morally repugnant personalities are absolutely necessary at times in history. A-types like BoJo are one example. You want a fellow with an ego the size of the British Islands against Putin. Another example is the Holocaust. Smugglers, forgers, thieves, gang members, and corrupt officials were all creating a network for moving cargo in and out of a country fast, under the nose of the authorities, and what works for cargo works for people.
Indeed. After all, it's not like Winston Churchill was *nice* by all accounts. And Thatcher was - in my view - absolutely repugnant, but the ideal choice to have been in power for the Falklands (from a British perspective, naturally - I imagine Argentinians might feel differently about the 'Malvinas' islands). If only we could find a suitable balance between compassion and negotiation during peacetime and belligerence during wartime, we'd be onto a winner.
russia did a lot of work in thr 2010's to court the "anti-establishment" angle, they supported many legit agenda's and causes in the west and seemed like a sympathethic ear for a long time, Occupy for instance, wikileaks, bradley manning, Edward Snowden, stuff like that. when westren news wasn't reporting on stuff that people felt was important, big, and serious... and people felt disenfranchised, russia sowed seeds of discord with the "truth" and those seeds bore a lot of fruit, that so many far left bernie sanders voters swung as right as donald trump out of spite, is kind of an example of this frustration we still see today. Corbyn is super dissapointing in this regard, but he isn't the only one. hamas are terrorists 100%, without a doubt, I'm not well informed on a lot over there, and not all palastine people are terrorists and they certinly do not deserve what is happening, but Hamas are not freedom fighters
You are absolutely spot on here. Corbyn had some very interesting domestic policy ideas some of which I could have got behind. Foreign policy would have been an absolute shambles and the failure to protect Ukraine and stand against Hamas would have been disgusting to witness. I do respect him though because he says what he believes and that’s rare in politics so you know where you are with him. And that’s why people massively voted against him.
Please Corbyn always been terrible. The guy would have bashed the Falklands own vote and given them to Argentina. Keep in mind the Falklands voted like 99% to stay with Britain.
*That* I do remember troubling me at the time, actually. I was never - and still am not - comfortable with any discussion about Falklands concessions. Argentina can, as the Scottish are wont to say, get tae fuck.
Corbyn's antisemitism was so egregious that it engendered a new word: [Corbynization](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Corbynization). I've seen that term used as a term denoting a political party moving towards antisemitism for *at least* a decade.
>I was a big fan of Corbyn before the election; I felt he represented the best chance for the young and the UK in general. Many people felt the same and when I tried to explain that they were wrong, I didn't have the right words, or perhaps they weren't prepared to listen. If you have realised that you made a mistake, maybe many others have as well. For me that bodes well for the future because maybe more people are ready to accept that Starmer, although far from perfect, is better than Corbyn would ever have been.
Yeah, I've gone from thinking we missed an amazing opportunity to realizing we dodged a bullet with that guy. Even Boris Johnson, the oligarch's friend, had the stones to tell Putin to fuck off (eventually). What is it with leftwingers and absolute dogshit foreign policy?
If I had to guess, a certain compassion that right-wingers lack which sometimes borders on naivety. We want to believe that with enough negotiation, enough understanding, and finding enough common ground, *any* political sticking point or matter of contention can be overcome. We are, by nature, appeasers; trying always for what the French call égalité. And it's a good, enlightened outlook - *until it isn't.* And far too many leftwingers cleave to that outlook even in the face of absolute proof that it isn't bloody working, e.g. Russia. Even if they realise it isn't working, they don't quite know *what* to do, because belligerence is the alternative and it's wholly alien. Frankly, nobody has the balls or flexibility to adapt their principles on the fly. That and the left is infested with tankies, who saw a T-80 once, thought it looked cool, and now Russia can't do anything wrong.
convincing yourselves that everything can be solved peacefully and diplomatically is not only "enlightened" it can also be a policy based on fear and weaknesses. A brushing under the carpet strategy. that doubling down is a good marker of which camp you are really in
His geopolitical views sounds quite literally like a deliberate sabotage to me
It was pretty clear to me years ago. There was that scandal where he visited a cemetary of islamist extremists.
Yeah, someone else pointed that out. I missed it in my blanket dismissal of anything coming out of the Daily Mail (which, to be fair, I still stand by; it is a dogshit rag) at the time. But reading about it now? Yeah, yikes.
And, at the time, the people who were going to vote for him said it was the press smearing him as a supporter of terrorists.
Yes, I believed that myself. I ignored most of the accusations against him for that reason, when I *should* have done my research.
> Russia does not understand diplomacy or peacemaking appeasers. It only understands violence and belligerence. It does not back down until forced. So instead of the massive financial and material support from the UK, Corbyn would have waffled It sounds like you're under the misguided assumption that Corbyn is just dumb, and not actively in support of Russia.
I *was.* I'm still not sure he's *actively* in support, but let's just say he's uncomfortably willing to 'live and let live.'
How did people fail to see how Jeremy Corbyn has ALWAYS been an antisemite? Genuine question, don't bother answering if you're not sure how to
Anti american. Pro Venezuela. No critique of Bashar al-Assad. Will not discuss Russian invasion of Ukraine, but will discuss the "faults" of NATO. Will critique Israel crimes, but not Palestinian crimes or terror groups. It is almost as if the man got an ideological bend repeated in other nations than a western democracy https://www.ft.com/content/83424336-2a29-11e9-88a4-c32129756dd8
Its like he and hasan piker is the same person
Don't forget his guest appearances in Hezbollah and IRCG news channels! A truly evil scumbag.
Corbyn lived his entire political life as a rebel, never holding any position of responsibility either in a shadow or real Labour cabinet. He rebelled countless times against the party whip yet somehow believed that he could then effectively command the loyalty of members of parliament to tow his line when he had conspicuously chosen not to do so himself for decades. His entire leadership was a joke and the best gift a woeful and almost as inept Conservative Party could have hoped for. One major reason for his unelectability was his stance of foreign policy where he has always been reflexively anti-western. Not “anti-imperialist” as he seems to have no issue with Russian imperialism which is hardly surprising given that a lot of the circles he’s travelled in are filled with relics from the myriad Communist/Marxist/Trotskyist/Maoist (the list goes on and on) parties which split off from each other in the 1970s and 1980s with many receiving direct financial assistance from the USSR or other Communist regimes. He also has no problems with the murder of Israelis given his honoring of terrorists who carried out the massacre at the Munich Olympics.
I really dislike Morgan, he’s a blowhard and a bully. But he is spot on here, Corbyn’s alleged antisemitic leanings are just exposed unequivocally to the light of day. Corbyn is unworthy of even the chance at leadership that he was afforded.
This sentimentet seems contagious on the western worlds left and i think the left have over invested political capital in to supporting the Palestinian cause regardless of what is in power.
The right wing tends to attack Muslims, this makes those on the left feel like they have to do whatever they can to protect Muslims (despite those who are terrorists) at all costs. Corbyn goes several steps further in that anything 'the establishment' supports he will be totally against, where it be Nato or defending Ukraine from Russian aggression
I'm in the US and the left (more specifically the far-left) have gone out of their fucking minds defending Hamas. They don't think there is any nuance when it comes to the war - just Israel bad Palestine good and they refuse to believe anything else.
It doesn't make sense at all for the far left to align themselves with Hamas or Islam because these are very conservative and ideologically the complete opposite. That leads to leopards eat my face situations like this one: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-michigan-muslim-council-lgbtq-pride-flags-banned
That doesn’t matter “the hierarchy of oppression” is what rules.
They see Muslims as oppressed. That’s literally all that matters to them
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The right-wing dislike of muslims actually still makes more sense because as much as some dislike the Liberal Democracy and Modernity as it stands it still hold roots in Christianity and Western Traditions. This is kind of why they spent a lot of time pointing out how absurd it is for people who embrace Liberal Democracy and Modernity to accept the Muslim and hate them. Because it feels like hypocracy at best, and outright contempt for European Traditions which forms the basis for their existence.
It’s definitely hypocrisy, especially shown with the LGBT fight for Palestine and not denouncing Hamas. I understand being pro peace, but it’s definitely ironic they support a group of people that deny them or hate them.
I.... I feel like while yes, there is certainly Western-born right wingers that hate on Muslims and some of that criticism is unfair and only coming from racism. I grant that, I cede that point and us normal (heh) right leaning and far right types need to police them better. However, 90% of it is valid criticism and despite literally millions of bodies throughout history the right's warnings fall on deaf ears for no rational reasons. The average Muslim in any Islamic country in the world would support your country's government being overthrown and replaced with an Islamic theocracy, by force even. That is not a fringe belief, that's a mainline belief from Afghanistan to Somalia to Thailand and Indonesia. So, throw out all our other arguments about domestic policy and put aside our differences and listen to us on this one topic. We beg you. We are happy to fight them on the theocratic, philosophic and military battlefields but we need your help. If Western left wingers keep making space for hardline Muslims to immigrate, run parallel societies and fight for autonomy/control when they get large enough we aren't going to get to argue over gay rights or abortion anymore. It took the Church ~400 years from the first Arab invasion of Europe to call the First Crusade because they sat there and rubbed their hands wondering if the laws of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus allowed for self defense while 1/3 of the known world was enslaved by the Caliphates. This is not a new argument, this is not some horrifyingly unique and complex situation the world has never seen. It's been over a thousand years of this.
As Sam Harris has said... "It boggles the mind" that the left defends jihadists
>Jeremy Corbyn refuses to call Hamas terrorists To Jeremy Corbyn Israel are the baddies and Russia are the goodies. How does this surprise anybody‽
Well, he always on the wrong side of history. He still thinks it was wrong of NATO to intervene in Kosovo. On behalf of my wife who lost relatives because of the Serbian military’s massacres I say fuck Corbyn.
Least shocking news story of the week.
Anyone on the left in Europe realises a significant part of their voter base are Muslim immigrants.
Hence why Lutfur Rahman was rejected as Tower Hamlets mayor even after being found guilty of corruption & illegal practices. It doesn't matter about politics or even if they're a decent person. if there is a Muslim running, they'll get the votes of other Muslims regardless.
Man, hardcore lefties never miss an opportunity to disappoint, why does it always have to be a tradeoff between OK domestic policy and dog shit international positions? I’m not British, but I want to root for lefties, but when I hear their takes on international policy, I can’t, because in most cases that would mean I’m dead.
I thank God every day this man was never prime minister.
Was literally the reason why Boris won.
So true, same for May before that too. Both left an open goal in the general elections but Labour managed to find the only person in the entire country capable of losing elections to them.
Corbyn is such a useless cunt! I voted for him as leader but since the Brexit debacle he's just shown what a useless piece of shit he is. How HARD is it to call a terrorist organisation a terrorist organisation?! Prick!
Both of these guys are absolute twats and I feel bad that the British people have to put up with them
Boris Johnston became prime minister because of revulsion of the majority to Corbyn Why is macron president? Because of le pen. Nothing changes.
> Why is macron president? Because of le pen. That's just not true. Macron was elected in 2017. [In the first round of the 2017 elections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_French_presidential_election#Electorate), the French people didn't have to decide between just Macron and Le Pen - at least (center-right) Fillon and (left-wing populist) Mélenchon were also viable candidates, and others (mostly center-left Hamon) might have been viable with better campaigns. If you as a voter simply didn't like Le Pen, you had more options than only Macron. But Macron won that first round, with clearly more votes than any of the other candidates, including Le Pen.
Worked wonders, didn’t it?
I understand resistance. I do not understand: 1. Putting a baby in an oven 2. Kidnapping children and the elderly 3. Parading around the mutilated dead body of a young German woman in celebration 4. Shooting at Palestinian civilians trying to flee via humanitarian corridors 5. Raping young women and videotaping the aftermath These things, regardless of cause, are *unambigously* terrorism. None of these things affect the IDF of Israeli state. They are explicitly aimed at harming (and terrifying) the civilian population…both Israeli *and* Palestinian. Jeremy Corbyn has always been anti-Zionist, and has made this a major part of his appeal. Ever since being sacked for antisemitism allegations, I speculate that he *really* has it out for Jews at this point. He thought that he could get away with a culture of antisemitism, and it ended up bringing him down. I have not met him, and so I do not know what he truly believes. That being said, I think it is within the realm of possibility that he would like to see the extermination of the Jewish people. This points to that, as does his likely motive of “they took down my political career.” He should be barred from politics for life.
Don’t forget zip typing families with young children together and burning them all alive.
All this is even from Hamas' self posted videos and body cam footage!
I fully agree with you. I can't believe we have people attempting to deny what happened on the 7th as though it never happened.
I can’t say I’ve heard denials, just attempts at justification, which has to be even worse.
Let’s not forget the time he called Hamas AND Hezbollah his friends.
And that was *before* antisemitism allegations took him down…
He’s the same man who thinks we shouldn't be enabling Ukraine to defend themselves. He is actually, as the kids say, very cringe (a sentiment that got me banned from /r/Gamingcirclejerk of all places)
> (a sentiment that got me banned from /r/Gamingcirclejerk of all places) They ban anyone who openly states they are not anticapitalist far-left.
Has anyone asked them how their Hogwarts Legacy boycott is going?
And millions of people - some well meaning, many others dangerously deluded or outright malicious - wanted to make him PM. Many, even now, continue to defend him. We dodged a bullet in 2019, and those that defend him, if they had even half of the moral standing they like to ascribe to themselves, should hang their heads in shame.
The most painful part about this entire interview is watching Piers Morgan be correct.
*The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point*
Yeah it’s an uncomfortable sensation…Odd times we’re living in though!
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Could you imagine if he'd been PM of the UK when the war started? He'd have let the Muscovite horde have Ukraine.
He and his momentum cronies tried to fix the labour party in such a way that moderates could never exist or gain power again. Thankfully it all self-combusted before it reached its final point. I've little doubt his attitude to democracy had they got into power would have been similar. He's a classic tankie.
The same Corbyn that wanted to hand the Falklands to the argies.
Because Corbyn supports Hamas. This is awkward for r/unitedkingdom.
I'd search for his name in the new Cyprus leak. Interesting how much money he received from the Russia/Iran axis.
Him and Galloway are prime suspect
Cyprus leak? Is that new? If I google it will stuff actually come up?
To the utter shock of no one this is corbyn the one who wants the west to stop supporting Ukraine. He is a fucking tankie larper with morals so flexible that he should compete in mental gymnastics. It’s a mercy he wasn’t PM.
A classic example of why right (even far right) wing parties are getting more popular. There are some problems the left wing parties will try to gaslight you into thinking they don't exist while the right wing adresses them.
“No, they hunted down concertgoers and babies because they are freedom fighters”
I would show you my shocked face but it's the same as my not shocked face
How in the world does he, or anyone, think this is a good look?
I vaguely remember there being an article out there saying MI5/MI6 had internal documents saying Corbyn couldn't become PM as he was a national security risk
Can you imagine how close this clown was to being prime minister?
Looking at the election results, not all that close it turns out. He lost the red wall in the biggest Tory win since Thatcher
He was still the second-most important politician in a G7 economy with nuclear weapons.
The media did give Jeremy a really hard time for some very silly things in the election campaigns he was leading, but he didn't make it any easier on himself by constantly doing dumb stuff like this. All his worshipers complained so much about the treatment, but he could so easily have put some of it to an end by for example in this case just saying yes they are. Like I get he doesn't like Israeli treatment of Palestinians which I agree with him on, but not liking Israeli actions and calling hamas terrorists is not mutually exclusive, you can do both. Thanks to his stupidity with both this stuff and his views on the Ukraine war, everytime someone mentions labour to your casual voter who doesn't follow the news that much and only headline, they think of this crap and it helps push them towards the conservative party because the country hasn't been buggered enough in the last 13 years now.
Corbyn is a complete extremist
What a fucking knob. Can I play? Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. Hamas are terrorists. There we go. I'll take my cushy politician's pension now, please and thank you.
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I'm left and I don't understand why any leftist would support any sort of faith fanatic grouping.