Owen Jones Quotes

It will be very hard indeed, and those who wish the Corbyn movement well need to prepare for it now. At stake is the future of the left in this country, and outside Britain’s shores: so no pressure. But as hard as it will prove – and it will be formidably difficult – the challenges are not insurmountable with enough creativity and commitment.

The more leftwing opponents of the EU come out, the more momentum will gather pace and gain critical mass. For those of us on the left who have always been critical of the EU, it has felt like a lonely crusade. But left support for withdrawal – “Lexit”, if you like – is not new. If anything, this new wave of left represents a reawakening.

I am part of the left; I feel loyal. I don't want to do things that will be damaging to what I believe in.

But the test of the Corbyn campaign, for me, is the extent to which it can rebuild a left with popular appeal that offers a coherent, viable, attractive alternative to the status quo.

It remains the case that the most interesting ideas are bubbling away on the left: banishing them from Labour's future is an act of self-harm. If a meek Starmer administration disappoints, a now cowed left may find an audience willing to listen. Starmer's team is buoyant now, and understandably so: but history tell us where hubris leads.

Labour is now permanently transformed. Its policy programme is unchallengeable. It is now the party's consensus. It cannot and will not be taken away. Those who claimed it could not win the support of millions were simply wrong. No, Labour didn't win, but from where it started, that was never going to happen.

When Jones was later asked why he is so sceptical about the multiple reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women – indeed, reports that they were specifically instructed to rape Jewish girls and women - he replied with a quote from a Washington Post article: "It's unclear whether authorities have accounts directly from rape survivors." That quote does indeed exist in that article, but it also makes clear that this is because Hamas almost certainly killed all the women they raped yet accidentally left many witnesses, including one who said a Hamas terrorist killed a woman while still raping her and a morgue worker who described female bodies so brutally assaulted they had shattered pelvises. But I guess he missed those details.

He [Corbyn] enjoys the support of a mass grass-roots movement of the kind that almost no politician ever has but no professionalised apparatus – and he will now meet one of the most aggressive media on earth.

But if the Corbyn-led Labour party is to be successful, its supporters have to communicate. It is difficult, with relentless hostility raining down on your head, but that means adopting an inclusive, cheerful, positive approach: love-bombing opponents, even.

BDS is an entirely peaceful strategy and yet it is still dismissed as beyond the pale, raising the question: what exactly is a legitimate form of Palestinian resistance?

Some relatives chose not to share footage, as the screening was told. But if Jones had seen even one such withheld clip — of a girl being gang-raped and murdered, then Hamas pissing on her corpse — maybe he'd still dispute details that chip away at the whole, parse dead women’s ripped knickers to propagate doubt.
Such a simpleton cheerleader cannot compute believing Jewish women since it would cast moral shadows on "his" side.

Jones was its foremost advocate and proponent. He was thrilled by Corbyn’s against the odds victory. He predicted and then witnessed at first hand the cruel ferocity of the assault upon Corbyn from within and outside the Labour party and defended him to the hilt. Now he faces the political crisis of a lifetime. The leader whom he defends will lose the battle that matters. What if his staying silent about this means, if only by default, that Owen Jones helps the Tories turn the country into "a jingoistic, foreigner-hating free market colony"?

A snap election is entirely plausible, and – as things stands, thanks to the actions of all sides of the Labour party – Labour faces electoral oblivion.

This week in Manchester, [Nigel] Farage strode around the conference like a hungry crocodile, sizing up his prey. The rock-star reception he attracted suggests the faithful would quite like to be eaten.

Corbyn would inject the substance so disastrously missing from the current contest.