More Lies from the Labour Party

MP Debbonaire is saying Corbyn sacked her when she had cancer, and that she resigned to avoid making the party look bad.

So either;
Corbyn sacked an employee undergoing breast cancer treatment. Extremely uncharacteristic and awful if true. An MP is using her breast cancer to make another politician look bad. Extremely low and awful if true.

Neither of those scenarios are particularly edifying.

It is worth noting that the resignation is a matter of public record; she told her constituency that she was resigning to help block Article 50; and she also resigned during the mass resignations orchestrated by the Party coup. 

Interestingly there are three accounts of the LP meeting where Debbonaire announced her resignation and at which she later claimed to have been intimidated (a claim which helped certain members suspend all CLP meetings). 

This is a meeting that apparently that left writer Ruth Davies in tears. Oddly, the other two accounts of the meeting are overwhelmingly positive, and both writers stated that they had no idea why Davies felt the way she did.  

It may be important to point out that both writers were similar to Davies in age, one was a white male software developer, the other an Iranian female socialist.  

Sasha Sadjady points out that there were maybe 4 Momentum activists in the room, spread out amongst 300+ people, and she said that Debbonaire, the chair, breached party rules 7 times in order to not discuss Corbyn. Sadjady also said she felt as though she had been at a different meeting than the one described in Davies' blog post.

The other, Chris Esson, said that he heard two men being rude (out of 300 people) but that they were in a firm minority. He also stated that the meeting was in no way toxic or close to bullying.

Of course, none of that matters - because the 'pretty young white woman made to cry by evil Bolsheviks' trope trumps things like facts, accuracy, and eye witness accounts.

Just look at Johanna Baxter. I have worked in some extremely tough jobs with very unpleasant people. I confess there were times where I had to go for a walk, and cry. Once or twice I had a cry on the walk 

home.

You know what I didn't do? I didn't cry for over 4 hours on national television. 

Aggression in the workplace is utterly unacceptable. It is also not the only form of relational aggression. Tears can be just as manipulative and intimidating as yelling, and a lot harder to call a person on. 

It is simply a reality that some people will say, do and lie about the most awful things imaginable - if it gets them what they want. And worst of all, they will be mostly unaware that they are doing it. They will often sincerely believe that they are telling the truth, or that they have good reasons for their 'white lies'. That what they do and say is justifiable in the grand scheme of things. 

It might be argued that Baxter's reaction was the result of online harassment, which is entirely possible. Look at Zoe Quinn for example. She was doxxed, harassed, people spread naked pictures of her, created animated revenge porn of her, made death threats. Quinn had to involve the police and at one point the FBI.  

Baxter shared some of the 'vicious' comments made to her. One was a guy disagreeing with her. The other was a person telling her she was spineless. The other was unpleasant and sexist. 

None of them were threats. 

Asking Baxter and Channel 4 for proof of the threats saw people told that they should 'believe women' and 'wasn't C4's word enough'? Unfortunately; no, it is not enough. The media lie, all the time, with gleeful abandon and no accountability. I am not going to accept that Corbyn, a generally decent and amiable man by all appearances, is endorsing and encouraging bullying by voting for a transparent ballot, unless you actually have evidence to back that up.

Secret ballots are highly unusual, and I would argue, undemocratic when it comes to MPs and TU officials. These people are elected; knowing how they've voted is a key part of whether you are likely to elect them or not. 

Is it acceptable that being in public, especially as a woman, leads to vociferous abuse online? No.

Is the solution to subvert the democratic process, as Johanna Baxter wanted? Absolutely not.

I am deeply uncomfortable with how gendered this campaign has been. Eagle has a pink banner and keeps saying that she should be elected because she's a 'strong woman'. Debonnaire invokes the 'sexy cancer' and claims Corbyn sacked her for it, despite clear evidence to the contrary. 

NEC official Baxter and Labour Party member Ruth Davies break out the waterworks to support their claims of bullying and harassment. And because they are attractive, young, white women the public and media go gaga over it and accuse anyone who questions them, or asks for evidence, of being anti-woman and anti-feminist. 

I think they are my 'favourite' group; people who in other circumstances would use terms like 'feminazi' or 'sjw', who start using and abusing feminist rhetoric because it suits their agenda.Of course, none of this actually matters. Ruth Davies' op-ed of a Labour Meeting, where she expressed views not shared by anyone else attending the meeting, went viral because people want to believe that Momentum are a group akin to the blackshirts.

Eagle's baseless assertion that her office window was bricked by a Corbyn supporter - when she works in an area with an average of 3 acts of criminal damage a day - has been largely accepted because people want to see Corbyn supporters as thugs.

Baxter's tearful ramblings are unsubstantiated and affected, but people believe them because they want to portray Corbyn's Labour as a macho, 70s style misogynistic cave. After all, it's a handy way to try to alienate Corbyn from his younger, more radical supporters.

Funnily enough, left wing MP Diane Abbot's accounts of daily harassment - which unlike Baxter's accounts, came with evidence and incurred police involvement three times - didn't get a fraction of the sympathy or hand wringing. 

I am seriously starting to think that even a leader like Jeremy Corbyn cannot redeem the cesspool that is the Labour Party - and the British Media.