[Tubby Isaacs]

Jez begins legal action. If he wins, Starmer shrugs and says, "Well, I tried".

[crabcakes_windermere]

So the announcement is, essentially, nothing.

Makes me suspect that a deal wasn’t done, but either (a) Jeremy’s court fund needs a top up, (b) he’s been out of the limelight for a day or two and wants to remind people he exists, or (c) his team would very much like a deal and hope being a continued nuisance might make Starmer inclined to arrange one.

The latter, in particular, would fail spectacularly I reckon.

[Timbo]

The latter, in particular, would fail spectacularly I reckon.

... what with former DPPs being famous for folding in the face of courtroom histrionics

The particularly irksome thing about this whole approach is that it doesn't even pretend he's innocent of what he was suspended for (minimising the impact of anti-Semitism within the party), but "Starmer promised I could come back anyway then changed his mind". He truly has the self-awareness of a toddler.

[davidjay]

If the people in charge of an organisation I was a member of went to such lengths to kick me out, I'd have taken the hint by now.

[Tubby Isaacs]

A learned jurist replies to David Allen Green.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I've been wondering about this point. Is there any reason why the courts should get involved in who a political party takes the whip off? Could this be the Starmer trump card?

[Timbo]

The only route I can imagine getting any kind of traction would be breach of contract, but that would involve stating under oath that a quid pro quo existed, and all the details. Even then he's arguably only entitled to compensation for quantifiable damages (hard to see what those would be, given that he's still an MP on a salary). Impotent flailing rage dressed up as dignified standing-up-to-the-system. What a crock.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Again, I'm no expert, but is "you said if I did X, you'd give me the whip back" even a contract? I'm used to thinking of contracts as having "consideration", usually some sort of monetary value. What we're talking about here is a promise. Can you enforce that in a court?

Starmer would certainly look shit if it was shown that he'd broken a promise in court, mind.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This bloke's a lawyer. Can Corbyn even get the court to make Labour release these documents that he says will prove a deal?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Benjamin Gray in another post referred to this passage from the EHRC.

We welcome the Party’s acceptance, in its representations, that the leadership
must have no role in determining disciplinary outcomes.
We agree that the leadership and the Chief Whip have a role in matters relating
to the conduct of MPs. However, neither LOTO nor the Chief Whip has the power
to suspend or expel an individual from the Party: that power is reserved to the
NEC and National Constitutional Committee (NCC), based on work done, in
practice, by the GLU. It is therefore not legitimate for LOTO to interfere in the
handling of a complaint against an MP that has been made under the Party
rules.

Isn't that saying that whipping of MPs is distinct from party membership? So Starmer hasn't broken any EHRC rule by "interfering", it seems to me.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Admittedly, Simon Myerson is very anti-Corbyn at the best of times, but this sounds persuasive.

[davidjay]

What on earth does he hope to achieve by this? He's a backbench MP, and that's all he's going to stay. Surely even one as deluded as he knows that his time has gone and even if he has the whip restored he'll have no more influence than he does whipless.

[Boiler]

See also: Donald J. Trump.

[mattomac]

Yeah this is very much an isolated version of what seems to be taking place in the states.

[The Weeping Angel]

People who complain about this need to get a life.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... nomTSxoO6I

The BBC has defended a comedian’s comments about Jeremy Corbyn on Have I Got News For You, in the latest instance of the broadcaster having to deal with complaints from the public about jokes mocking politicians.

On last week’s episode of the satirical current affairs programme, Fin Taylor compared the former Labour leader to Bob Dylan, “in that I only hate him so much because of his fans”.

He said: “People think that Bob Dylan’s the greatest musician that ever lived, and you listen to some of it and it’s awful. But then people are so dogmatic and say he’s the greatest musician. People who like Corbyn, it’s what, 200,000 people in the Labour party that are fanatics? So all you’ve got to do next year is bomb Glastonbury. Hopefully Dylan’s headlining: two birds, one stone.”