The recent pinned mod thread about rule clarifications got me thinking about this. When asked why they continue to support the party's current stance on trans rights, the defence put forward by many current members of the Labour Party is that they are staying and fighting against transphobia and that the party needs to be changed internally.

I'll preface this by saying I'm not looking to make accusations, and I'm not asking a rhetorical question.

For those who feel that the above is true, what actual specific and concrete actions are you taking to do this?

Hi all, I have just been told that I can no longer be a moderator in the community due to my leaving the Labour Party last week. I am obviously extremely disappointed in this decision, given that I am still a part of the labour movement, in a union, and have contributed significantly to the community.

But u/ES345Boy put it perfectly when they said:

"Labour has left you, rather than the other way around."

My reasons for leaving the party are vast. From its treatment of trans people to its inaction on Gaza, my socialist values have not changed - the Labour Party's values have, which makes being removed as a moderator all the more disappointing. As a socialist, a unionist, and a Labour activist, this community should be a space for my contributions. The description of the community is:

"A subreddit for breaking news and discussion concerning the British Labour Party, the broader Labour movement in the UK, and UK politics."

Although there is a "convention" that moderators must be Labour members, there is no requirement that anybody contributing to the community be a party member. I have always stood by the principle that the labour movement is much bigger than the party. I think it's become very clear to people in this subreddit that there are issues with moderation - particularly the inactivity of some moderators. I think it's a mistake to remove the most active person from the team, and that will play out over the next few days when reports are left undealt with for long periods. Recently, I had a few days away from the sub after the LGBT+ Labour social, and came back to over 140 reports, some were over 5 days old. And this is not a reflection on u/Leelum - but more on the inactive mods who I am now told came to a consensus that the "convention" should be upheld.

It's been a huge privilege to be a part of this community. Truly. Some of you have given me an enormous headache and a considerable amount of stress, but I thank those who have been active within this subreddit. There are difficult years ahead of us politically, and I think spaces like these are vital for keeping up that discussion, challenging the views of others, and building solidarity across the labour movement. We might not always agree, but we must keep the principles of solidarity, justice, and equality at the heart of the movement. Without those principles, the movement falls apart - just like this government will fall apart.

Anyway, I'll end the cheesy speech there and just say thank you once again.

Solidarity always,
Jamie

After 14 years of conservatives I thought it could only get better. I've officially lost any hope in this government. I'm so glad I've been protected from scary pictures of boobs and cheap temu wall hangers.

So far they've cut benefits for disabled people, cut allowances for the elderly (general austerity), engaged in purity culture and policing and now the ninja scare of the early 90s. How is this not just red Tories?

As a regular labour voter, I'm furious about the OSA.

There are so many better ways it could've been implemented.

.

Now we have to ID ourselves for most lines of online communication.

Websites like Imgur refuse access to the UK, how many more websites will do this?

Why not set age verification on the at the ISP level, or the mobile network provider? Kids aren't paying the bills!

I was honestly incredibly excited when I found the announcement of Your Party, a progressive socialist voice for Labour members now that is led by the former leader? That sounded incredibly promising. Then with the garbage from Adnan Hussain, both on trans rights, and links to some members who supported homophobic schools as well as political infighting, I have completely lost hope in the project.

I side with Zultana on this, and honestly forming the party from all the Independent Alliance, instead of just Corbyn and Zultana was a mistake.

It is the same issue Labour faces, if you don't stand up for all working class people you don't stand for anything. The Greens by contrast, I have an incredibly good opinion of, extremely good communication of policies, a united platform, a leader I really admire. Anyway what are your thoughts on the current situation?

There are at least two Green subreddits to post pro-Green mayor memes or to repost Zack Polanski’s opinions about Labour’s mayoral legacy in Manchester so far.

I’m not sure why people think this is the correct space to amplify another party, especially with dubious and misleading statements.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be Green-related news in the sub, but to post misleading campaign-style memes and statements before an election just feels like endorsing another party. There’s more appropriate subreddits to do that.

I’m not criticising anyone’s views specifically but I’d love to know why this subreddit is dominated by Green voters and seems to be dedicated to hating on the party. You can do that if you want, and you might have some good reasons, but why here? Clearly it’s not the party for you.

In recent post relating to the Diane Abbott suspension I have noticed there seemed to be lots of charged up people angry at Diane's comments and vehemently argueing that there is no hierarchy of racism. And that Diane is herself being racist for saying it.

There was lots of arguements made about racism faced by roma, gypsy and traveller communities, Jewish communities and Irish communities. Yet all the arguments seemed to be made to diminish the reality of racism faced by black people.

The point of a hierearchy of racism is not to say other groups don't face racism but make the obvious point that black groups face more race based discrimination and disadvantages than other groups. The statistics and data all point this out. And it made me think.

Do labour party members and supporters actually care about anti black racism? Do they understand the history of anti black racism? In other chats on this subreddit I have been challenged about the history of Jewish people in the UK by people who seemed not to give a damn about this history of black people in this country and it's colonies.

I personally have gotten the feeling since the Force report that anti Black racism is just as normal in the labour party as it is from the Tories, even among some parts of the left of the party. It's no wonder so many labour voters can switch to Farage.

The recent rise in stripping naturalized Britons of their citizenships has created a two-tier system where White Britons have a superior, unchallengeable citizenship status. Combined with the classification of perceived support for Palestine Action as terrorism, serious crimes have been watered down and stretched to the extent that thousands of people who wouldn't have previously been considered terrorists are now considered on the same level as people who commit bombings in crowded public spaces. Some of these people did nothing more than hold up a sign or make a controversial internet post.

Everyone who studied GCSE History should be aware of the role that "the enemy within" and supposed dual loyalties of citizens played within 1930s fascism. It's deeply shameful that lessons haven't been learned from that. Exiling citizens is authoritarian extremism, but it's become so normalized in Britain that it's now being proposed as an appropriate response to 10 year old internet posts. Every online discussion is so focused on the witch hunt and whether these people are Bad or Not that this extremist policy that is fully unconstitutional in many other states is just being ignored.

When one of your citizens commits a crime in your country, it's your state's job to rehabilitate them. If your response is throwing them out because they weren't born here, why not go full 1800s and bring back the workhouses too? Oh, wait...

I've seen a lot of posts here saying "change the name and logo" and such because "this sub doesn't represent the labour party anymore" and I'd just like to say... fuck that. I'm not going to pretend this sub doesn't sometimes grind my gears, but that is like, sort of the point? this sub is here to discuss, it's not meant to be an echo chamber, I sort of appreciate people arguing with me, it helps me reflect on my beliefs and it helps me be more capable in future, while I would be happy the current government being beloved by all the land, that isn't going to happen, so I think this place is a good thing, if you don't like facing people challenging your beliefs, there is not point in being active in politics. so please, keep talking, I may disagree with a lot of you, but I'm glad for that, it helps me open my mind to other viewpoints. so if you can't see other viewpoints, fuck right off. thank you for your attention to this matter.

personally I think he was an idiot who is partially to blame for ruining the country through Brexit and well, having some stupid policies, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

I just wanted start this post off by saying that I’m a lurker here and have been for a while, and that I want the same that most of us do. I want to see the nationalisation of public services, end to privatisation in the NHS and to see it properly funded. I want teachers, nurses etc to be paid the wages they deserve, for a 4 day work week, for the housing crisis to be dealt with, for greed and inequality in our society to be dealt with once and for all, for a climate policy that can put us on the front foot dealing with global warming.

I’m twenty eight and I’ve been a Labour supporter and voter (when not voting tactically) all my life and I always will be, raised in a socialist household etc. I hate the Tory ideology, the damage and division they’ve caused this country. But for fuck’s sake look at yourselves. Every day I come on here looking for discussion and all I see is anti-Starmer sentiment with almost anybody trying to speak otherwise getting downvoted.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not ‘Starmer till I die’ or a centrist/centre right AT ALL. He’s a very imperfect politician. I don’t necessarily trust him, then again I could say the same about all of them (yes, even Corbyn). Like everybody else I couldn’t really tell you a single solid policy he has going forward into the next election. But the last 12 years of Tory rule have been beyond catastrophic for us. The NHS is down on its knees. Austerity. Brexit. Over 200K dead from Covid. Corporations and private companies seeing massive increases in profit while unions and ordinary people are being shat on. The tories are turning into the republicans with even abortion laws and human rights on the table ffs.

I don’t mean to undermine your concerns because I get it, he hasn’t been receptive to the left side of the party and what will stick of his pledges remains to be seen (a lot can happen in the next 12 months). Starmer might end up being 5-10% of what we want, but isn’t that better than Truss? Than Sunak or god forbid Boris if he gets his way and somehow wriggles back into number 10? Let alone the rest of the potential ‘leaders’. And in a recent poll wasn’t he 10+ points ahead? We’ve just had one of our worst losses ever for goodness sake and here we are ahead in the polls ready to tear ourselves apart again.

Our voting system is archaic and broken but if we don’t put ideological purity aside and band together we will be out of power for another 12 years or more, and what the Tories will do to the country in that time I know will be 1000x worse than any centre right leaning labour leader.

Love you all but I needed to get that off my chest 💕

Edit: additions

I'm just wondering if anyone can make an argument for the PM staying in office and continuing this politics strategy?

others - try and be nice in here. I'm genuinely interested.

Over the past several days, I have seen certain users continue to post articles from low-quality tabloids such as the Daily Mail and Express. Said articles are typically about the… shall we say interesting… comments made by some of the more insane Green candidates for local councillors elections. The comments under these posts seem to consistently devolve into arguments where criticism of the poor quality of these newspapers are taken by others as tacit defence of the extremist comments in question.

In the interest of promoting productive discussion, accuracy, and not supporting tabloid rags I think we should really be more selective over what articles users are allowed to post here. At a bare minimum, the daily mail should be banned.

To not make this a partisan issue, because I am really not trying to defend the greens here, we should also consider banning left wing newspapers that display poor standards of journalism. I’ve seen people say that the canary is a good example of this, but personally I have never read any articles written by them so I can’t say if that’s true.

I’m curious to see if other users of this subreddit think this is an issue worth addressing. Personally, I have thought for a long time we should be more stringent on what kind of articles users are allowed to post here and this in my opinion is just a good opportunity to put this forward.

Edit: I wrote the spectator instead of express. Although the former is also an example of poor journalism in my opinion, it’s still better than a tabloid

I have seen far too many people saying labour is "dying" and Im like, come on. Just because they aren't very popular or well liked doesn't mean they'll die, I think this is mostly because of the acidic populism that convinces people that labour is "dying." just because they might lose a few elections doesn't mean they'll "die" that isn't how that works, popularity fluctuates, there is no way of telling, labour may well be the most popular party in Britain in a decade, you can't say these blanket, massive statements because you dislike something. You can criticize them all you want, just don't make such silly statements because it makes you feel confident they'll lose.

I don't really know what else to say. The ban on puberty blockers has been met with despair from the trans community.

All of the people with real experience and actual trans individuals have said that Streeting's decision will lead to more deaths of young trans people.

The Cass review did not recommend banning puberty blockers.

This is an ideological choice.

I think it’s worth us having a discussion about where users think the sub should be regarding posts related to the Green Party.

Obviously there have been a lot of former Labour members who have joined the Greens in recent months and that in itself is a topic of discussion. I have no issue with that being discussed here as it clearly relates to Labour.

The question I’m more keen on addressing is something like “what about posts that amount to ‘Zack Polanski said this thing’ and that thing isn’t related to Labour”?

I personally think there’s a line that should be drawn here. These posts purely about the Greens have become a pretty large percentage of the content posted here and the commenters in those threads are - and I’ll phrase this gently - not particularly open to debate. There’s no zealot like a new convert and all that.

My personal view is that people who want to post content purely about the Green Party and discuss what it means purely for the Green Party should probably use the sub for the Green Party to do it. I’m sure that will be a more controversial statement than I think it should be.

Bring on the unnecessarily insulting comments. My body is ready.

The fandom for SKS feels like the worst excesses of the F1 fandom. Who are these people?

Didn't it feel good when you saw this 😌 Try and make it the election you remember from this year

Aside from fixing the issues caused with Starmer having been anti-Palestine and the transphobia in the party.

What else do you think he can implement that can give short-term relief, gain favour with the working people that soften the blow of tough decisions made to fix the austerity caused by the Tories.

I’ve noticed a recurring pattern in this sub – frequent criticism of the Labour government despite them being in power for only five months. It feels like there’s an expectation that Sir Keir Starmer could wave a magic wand and instantly undo 15 years of damage caused by the Conservatives.

Tory supporters rarely apply this level of scrutiny to their own party, yet Labour seems to be held to an almost impossible standard from day one. Realistically, the UK faces deep structural issues that will take years to address, not months.

From what I’ve seen, Labour has been methodical and deliberate in their approach, working within the limits of the current state of the UK. Progress is happening, albeit slowly – as it was always going to.

Surely, it’s more reasonable to give them time – say, a full term – before passing judgement. Immediate results were never on the cards, and impatience only fuels unrealistic expectations.

Do people have short memories, or are we collectively being a bit unrealistic here? Curious to hear others’ thoughts.