radiofree.asia

Category: FBPE

  • Eddie Dempsey critique is fine, but withdrawing support for workers over him is telling on yourself

    Twitter centrists have finally found a reason to justify why they won’t support something that, in truth, they were never going to support anyway. This time the ‘something’ is organised workers. The reason is the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union’s Eddie Dempsey.

    Footage of Dempsey, who serves as an assistant general secretary in the RMT, was tweeted on Wednesday 31 August. In it, Dempsey laments the takeover of working class institutions (like the Labour party) by liberals:

    I can tell you what, whatever you think about people that turn out for Tommy Robinson demos or any other march like that, the one thing that unites them people, beyond whatever other bigotry that’s going on, is their hatred of the liberal left.

    He continued:

    And they are right to hate them, they are correct. Because they are the people who’ve seen their industries taken away, who’ve captured their Labour Party, and who are now talking to them like they’re the scum of the earth.

    ‘Blatant fascist’?

    A group of centrist accounts used the footage to claim Dempsey was himself some sort of Tommy Robinson figure. One even accused him of being a “blatant fascist”:

    Another Twitter user suggested he was using tropes from the “UKIP playbook”:

    Another used the footage to attack the Enough is Enough campaign, a coalition of unions and a handful of Labour MPs fighting for better conditions for working class people:

    ‘Waitrose Twitter’ melts down

    But not everyone was convinced by the latest centrist meltdown. Many seem to think the footage is just a pretext for well-off pseudo-lefties to withdraw support for working class people, i.e., trade unions. This support, some say, never really existed anyway:

    One Twitter user called centrists out for never having any intention of backing workers, saying they should stop wasting people’s time:

    Another pointed out that pretending to be very, very sad about the ideological purity of figures on the Left was out of place among the people whose political heroes destroyed Iraq:

    The same Twitter user said he could come to his own conclusions about Eddie Dempsey without the help of “white leftists”:

    Bad faith

    Bad faith and centrist politics go hand-in-hand, and the Twitter centrist version of this is the most virulent of all.

    Eddie Dempsey is a public figure and a senior trade unionist at a moment of working class uprising. He can, will, and should be critiqued for what he says and does. However, a fair-minded interrogation is not what seems to be happening in this instance.

    As we’ve since in recent years, the support from ‘Waitrose Twitter’ for working class people is, at best, highly conditional. It’s nearly always purely about optics.

    At the slightest breeze, their support will evaporate. The working class doesn’t need friends like this. By all means question Dempsey’s views, but if you actually care about workers, the answers should have no bearing on your support for the RMT, Enough is Enough, or any similar organisation.

    Unless, that is, you never really had any solidarity – and if that’s the case, good riddance.

    Featured image via RMT Television, cropped to 770 x 403. 

    By Joe Glenton

  • Rory Stewart has centrist hearts fluttering again. So, here’s his voting record

    It’s happened again. Centrists heard a posh person speaking and immediately decided that person should be prime minister.

    And yet again their shout for PM is one Rory Stewart. Yes, the former Tory MP, ex-development secretary and deputy governor of an Iraqi province. That’s right, an arch-Tory and imperialist.

    Yes, that Rory Stewart. ‘Tory’ Rory whose voting record shows him to be to working class people what footballer Kurt Zouma is to cats. That is to say, quite vicious.

    It came after Stewart, who stepped down as an MP in 2019, criticized Boris Johnson over Partygate on GMB news. He tweeted the crux of argument here:

    The centrists are at it again

    Immediately and predictably, people with FBPE (Follow Back Pro Europe) in their bios and sundry other centrists decided Tory Rory was a shoe-in for the next PM – forgetting he is not an MP and so he can’t even run:

    Other social media users also overlooked the fact their favourite Tory literally can’t run for leader anyway. Which probably says something about the centrist grip on reality:

    Others went for the timeworn centrist trope of saying they weren’t a conservative but they were all for Rory. Backing Tories, of course, is absolutely not Tory behaviour:

    Others seem to have only recently discovered Tory Rory, despite the fact that centrists seem to fall in love with him every few months or so:

    One Twitter genius was absolutely convinced that the country would be vastly better if it was led by Stewart:

    A good little Tory

    Of course this ignores the fact that for a number of years, Rory Stewart was in office. He was literally an elected MP in government, and spent time leading the now-defunct Department for International Development.

    And he voted for some of the absolute worst Tory polices, like the good little Tory he is. Let’s take a look at Rory’s greatest hits during his time as an MP.

    Stewart voted strongly against public ownership of rail and buses; for tuition fees and against helping young people in training and further education; for harsher immigration policies and mass surveillance; for anti-trade union restrictions; and in favour of war and nuclear weapons.

    Interestingly, given his FBPE fanbase, he voted against EU integration and the right for EU citizens to stay in the UK. He virtually always voted against those on benefits, including those who are disabled or suffering from long-term illness.

    Stewart resisted an elected upper house, empowering local councils and proportional representation. He opposed laws to increase human rights and equality. And he opposed laws which would prevent climate change and for selling off publicly owned forests.

    It is bizarre that centrists, who pride themselves on being the ‘adults in the room’, still haven’t learned how to use a search engine. We can’t wait to see who they pick as their next favourite ‘nice’ Tory.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Foreign and Commonwealth Office, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CC BY 2.0.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.