#UK Labour

[enbycrip]

So given the Rowling stans crawling out of the woodwork to say they are still allies - or worse yet, community members - while still plastering Potter stuff all over their online presence by saying they “separate the art from the artist” after the latest acknowledgment that she is trying to swing Labour in an even more transphobic direction, a short primer on what “death of the author”, which is the origin for that less provocative phrase, actually means.

“Death of the author”, in extreme brief, is an academic construct that was developed at a time when the author as the sole arbiter of meaning in a text was very privileged in the discourse to help people understand that any interpretation of a work is valid *as long as it can be supported by textual evidence*. Your interpretation of a text, as the reader, is as valid as the author’s *if* you can produce just as much, or more, evidence from *within the text itself* that supports your interpretation.

This is particularly useful for students within an academic context.

It is *not* in any sense a reasonable justification to say that one is not *actively supporting* a living artist/author/creator, particularly one who has gained huge cultural influence and financial wealth, by buying and actively promoting their work.

Genuinely, I wouldn’t engage with work from a dead very bigoted artist without acknowledging their bigotry.

If I write about or produce a story set within the Cthulhu Mythos, you had better bet that I am acknowledging Lovecraft’s horrific and pervasive racism and misogyny and the effects of that within the Mythos.

If I write about or do some sketches that acknowledge Degas as an influence, you can bet that I am acknowledging his rampant racism and antisemitism and the fact that his familial wealth which allowed him to have the financial freedom to create the art he did was built on plantation slavery in the Caribbean.

If I write about or paint something with Klimt’s ethereal goldwork as an influence, you can bet I’m writing about his deeply abusive sexual relationships with the women he drew and painted, that he used sapphic eroticism in his work while sexually abusing working class sapphics he paid to model for him, and acknowledging that he had the freedom to produce that work because he got the women in his family to tend to his every whim and perform all his domestic labour for him.

That’s the basic acknowledgment you undertake while engaging with the work of someone deeply bigoted - *even* if they are not directly benefitting from your engagement with their work because they are deceased. The material conditions around how a work is produced and consumed are *always* relevant to that work, because otherwise we miss why, for example, privileged people have the time, resources and cachet to create art and have it be consumed *as* art, while other people never have the resources to do so or have the work they create relegated to categories like “domestic crafts” if it is acknowledged at all.

So just saying “I can separate art from the artist” while financially supporting a living bigot who continues to use your money and the cultural cache you are giving her by doing so to wreak genuine damage on the queer, especially trans, community - that’s basically both completely meaningless and incredibly disingenuous. Particularly when said bigot is *actively* attempting to parlay that financial and cultural influence into making an already very transphobic, racist and disableist political party who are, according to current polls, likely to be running the U.K. shortly, into supporting more actions that *will* materially harm trans people.

[somewhatvellum]

On this day in 1988, Section 28 passed into law, making it illegal to "promote homosexuality"

36 years later and the UK govt are doing everything they can to make being openly trans illegal.

It took 15 years for Section 28 to be repealed.

Trans people shouldn't have to wait until 2039 to be able to live as our authentic selves.

This election, I urge people to pay attention to what their MPs stand for - their voting records, their financial backers, and vote for people who will protect us, not just vote for whoever is gonna kick the tories out. This may well be the first election in my lifetime where we don't really need to worry about that part, so make the most of it!

It would be so great if the only Labour MPs that get in are the ones that actually give a shit about old Labour values rather than this new-new-Labour Starmer is pushing for.

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

"Rosie Duffield’s unwillingness to attend any event where she will be asked questions is entirely in keeping with my experiences of her, having worked as her constituency assistant in 2020. I found that trying to get her to commit to meetings (even those on Zoom during the pandemic) was excruciatingly difficult, as was trying to get her to attend to routine constituency work and in the six months I worked for her I think I can count the number of emails she responded to on one hand. This leads me to believe that Rosie Duffield is trying to insulate herself both from scrutiny and hard work, rather than any threat."

Context for those unaware: Rosie Duffield is a well-known TERF seeking re-election in the UK July 2024 election.

Duffield has frequently posted on her social media that because she is 'scared of her safety because of her views' she chooses to avoid any opportunity to speak with the residents of the area that she is paid to represent. She boasts about not answering her emails and when ever she is criticised, claims it is abuse.

In my opinion she should not be allowed to stand for re-election as a Labour MP.

[mspbandj]

Im gonna make a new post about this, coz there are a few people in the tags of the post about the UK Ceasefire vote pushing back against my claim that our current leaders are unelected. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Our last General Election was in 2019, when the leader of the Conservative (Tory) party was Boris Johnson and the leader of UK Labour Party (UKLP) was Jeremy Corbyn. Since then, leadership has changed hand once in the UKLP and twice in the Tories, so now in 2023 the leader of UKLP is Keir Starmer and the leader of the Tories is Rishi Sunak. As the Tory Party are currently in power, this makes Sunak the British Prime Minister.

While its perfectly normal to have leadership changes and cabinet reshuffles within government, the issue lies with the fact that no General Elections have been called alongside these changes. While its not a strict legal requirement to call a General Election when the Prime Minister changes mid-term, it has historically been considered a show of good faith and transparency within politics for new Prime Ministers to call snap elections upon being appointed.

For example, Theresa May was internally elected as leader of the Tory Party mid-term in 2016, and she called a snap General Election in 2017 as a show of good faith to the voters, to allow us to have a fair say in the changes.

Neither Lizz Truss nor Rishi Sunak, the two people who have been internally elected as leader of the Tory Party and, by extension, the Prime Minister, have called an Election. By failing to do so, they have broken the (albeit tentative) good faith previously held between the voting public and the government. Leading theories are that Sunak did not have the confidence that he would win a General Election at that time, so he opted to forego the expectation and remain in power without the consent of the voting public.

This is what I mean when I say our current officials are unelected. They were voted in as MPs for their areas in 2019, but Sunak and his cabinet hold positions of higher power without having consulted the British voting public (and for what its worth, they have been hemorrhaging popularity in recent months to boot.)

UK politics yall! shit sucks!

[bunger-royale]

keir starmer is an evil neoliberal bawbag

[sleepycatten]

🎵 How is the best case scenario Keir Starmer? 🎵

😮‍💨😞

[suprememayobros2]

Now the U.S is anything but a utopia for trans people but I'd love to know how the uks biggest progressive party became overrun by transphobes where the American Democratic party didn't.

Its the one area where I prefer the democrats over Labour. How the hell did they beat us at this?

[zmkccommonplace]

It's a bikini. What it conceals is much, much more important than what it reveals.

Peter Hitchens on the UK Labour Party's 2024 election manifesto.

[several-unidentified-creatures]

[somewhatvellum]

pfffffff not labour blaming hamas, actual hamas, for them risking not winning the west midlands mayor election because their candidate was shit about palestine

fuckin clowns, all of them

[destiel-news-network]

(Source)

[watchmakermori]

manifesting the worst tory election result in history tomorrow. like to charge reblog to cast and reply to send the tories to a shadow dimension for 3000 years

[probablyasocialecologist]

[starfishlikestoread]

From the UK's 2024 General Election, after a recount - Labour won Hendon by 15 votes. Never say your individual vote won't matter.

[suprememayobros2]

Lol farage is standing in a tory safe seat. Not a marginal seat held by labour. A tory safe seat. Hes not going to win nor will he take votes from Labour. The only thing ukip had in their policy that gained votes from working class people was brexit. What are they going to run on now?

[zmkccommonplace]

It is a general rule in life that you will sometimes have to choose between bad or worse.

Peter Hitchens on the choice at the UK General Election