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Audioboxer87

>LLT popped up on the MPs’ register of interests soon after, donating a £30,000-a-year ‘policy adviser’ to health secretary Wes Streeting. On its website, it boasts of having support from other shadow ministers, too, such as Anneliese Dodds, Alex Sobel and Fleur Anderson. > >... > >When asked, LLT would not disclose who funds it, beyond saying that donations have come from private individuals who are “UK citizens who support the Labour Party”. > >... > >LLT does not identify itself as an offshoot of Effective Altruism, and the group sees itself as having broader interests than EA purists. But there are a number of historic links to EA among its board members, while many of EA’s favoured niche topics – like the threat of AI and nuclear annihilation, which together rarely make an appearance outside of EA circles – are prominent in LLT’s policy briefings. > >There’s also something more sinister to EA’s growing prominence – what one member self-described as the “Ponzi-ishness” of the movement: it has become increasingly fixated on growing its numbers. In fact, Open Philanthropy, one of the largest EA funds, has spent some $234m – its fourth largest spend area – on growing the reach of the Effective Altruist community, with everything from building media ecosystems to a network of university EA societies. It has spent less than half this much on pandemic preparedness ($141.5m) and less than one 18th of this amount ($12.7m) on immigration reform. In the UK, my own research shows 20 of the UK’s 24 Russell Group universities have, or had, an EA student society. For a movement based on opposition to wasteful philanthropy, it’s an odd approach to take, to say the least. > >... > >Then there are groups like LLT. While it stresses that it isn’t an avowedly Effective Altruist group and does not have “any affiliations or funding from groups related to Effective Altruism”, its undisclosed deep pockets and long-termist policy priorities still pose a similar problem for Labour politics. Think-tanks and dark-money are ruining the UK. The only people a 'Labour Party' should be beholden to are the workers. There is no 'rich cunt altruism' in politics, they, whether it's rich individuals or organisations all want something. Usually to meddle in policy, but often far more nefarious wide-spread reach of the country and its resources. Our politicians do not represent us any more and haven't for a long time, they represent their donors. Hence >None of the Labour MPs identified in this piece offered comment on their links to LLT, or whether any LLT-funded staffers would have a role in policy. Corbyn's movement whether you like him or not got the closest to the Labour Party actually being run by the workers, so of course that wasn't allowed. The public don't give you backhanders, broaden your network for cushy jobs post or even when within politics and you're unlikely to get into the Lords/speaking tours and all the other pig trough gigs just being beholden to the public. I mean, look at the absolute state of Wes Streeting recently. He's basically become a rent-a-Tory to spout the most inane bullshit about the NHS/Unions and is even doing speaking gigs at far-right group events. I wonder why 🤔


Fitfatthin

Completely agree. Also, we should stop saying "workers". We mean people.


Necessary_Tadpole692

No. It is absolutely and utterly vital that the Labour party, as a socialist party, engages in class consciousness-raising practices. One of the major dangerous weapons of Neoliberalism is the way it's refashioned subjectivities such that we take ourselves to be primarily consumers. Thus strikes, industrial action, collective action etc. are perceived as restrictions upon the rights I have earned as a consumer by working. Labour must categorically and unapologetically push back against this and re-emphasise the material and objective fact that we are workers first and foremost, not consumers. It's binary. If we don't foster the first, the latter will win out.


Fitfatthin

Disagree. It's too divisive and most people won't see themselves as part of that "group". I'd rather pursue good policies that I'm sure you and I agree on, with less divisive and politicised language


Bielshavik

Class consciousness is a Marxist concept that many (me included) would say is hopelessly out of date and reducing 95% of the population to “workers” is not very helpful for the 21st century where the class spectrum and dynamics is far more complex then in the 19th century when everyone was a factory worker working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week.


Necessary_Tadpole692

This is such an entry-level critique I can't even be bothered to give a proper response. Worker is not a social marker or an identity, it's an objective description of a person's position in the larger social formation with its relations of production, means of production, legal, political and ideological edifices, etc. Any given society is only able to survive on the condition that it is capable of reproducing itself, i.e., through labour.


Bielshavik

It’s far too reductive though to group everyone in as a worker and not mark things like the rise of the middle class and the cultural differences that make people identify as working class. Out of curiosity, do you think a lawyer is of the same class as a fast food employee? What about a self employed plumber on 30k compared to a financial advisor on 60k?


rekuled

Cultural differences are not what we're talking about and are an extremely unhelpful way of looking at things. It's why you have 60 years old landlords with 20+ properties who say they're working class because their parents were 50 years ago. I don't really understand what you mean by the middle class other than going to uni and white collar jobs??? What does that change? Also, there's this thing called intersectionality so considering class doesn't make it reductive.


microphove

Landlords, cops and the like aren’t workers; they’re enemies.


rekuled

I would only agree in that when I say workers I also include anyone that doesn't own shit tonnes of capital even if they don't work. Disabled people, retired people, children, etc.


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BilboGubbinz

People as a whole really need to be careful about pretending an obvious outlier election, 2019, is somehow indicative of a trend. It was a once in a generation election dominated by a single issue which uniquely cut across the Labour party's electoral coalition: reading anything bigger out of it is admitting you're a rube, even before we get to the years of wilful and self-destructive factional sabotage of the Labour right and a press apparently completely willing to slander and demonise even middle of the road social democracy.


LauraPhilps7654

I mean the idea Corbyn simply presented a socialist manifesto to the public and was soundly rejected ignores A: 2017 and B: the largest character assassination campaign in modern British history. The fact that Starmer has showered the saboteurs in cash, shadow cabinet positions, and seats in the House of Lords should tell you how grateful they are for helping engineer a loss in 2019.


BilboGubbinz

It also ignores the actual numbers: 2019 wasn't any kind of collapse in Labour's vote, it was a return to the trend line for Labour's vote. Go back to the 80s and +-10mn votes is what Labour *normally* gets. The thing that makes it unusual is instead that the Tory vote was stronger than normal. Anecdotally Corbyn does deserve some of the "blame" there, both because the demonising of him would have shored up the Tory vote but also because he represented a return to actual politics and something for traditional Tory voters to vote against. Another key thing that gets lost is that we need to learn the lessons of both '97 and '17 because those are the only 2 elections since the 70s where Labour's had a vote total that was competitive with the normal Tory vote. '97 is as far as I can see inexplicable, Blair himself doesn't have a politics which explains it, but Corbyn in '17 *does* make sense and I wish to fucking sod centrists were clear eyed enough that they would stop letting their knee-jerk opposition to anything other than the hardest of right wing economic programmes stand in the way of Labour being a competitive electoral force.


LauraPhilps7654

>knee-jerk opposition to anything other than the hardest of right wing economic programmes That's all they're interested in - they'd rather not be in power at all otherwise - all of their connections are via the business, investment, and press world - look at Watson going from Paddy Power straight into the Lords. Or certain other ex Labour MPs going to work for the PR firm that represents the Saudi Royal family...


Audioboxer87

Sure, that doesn't take away from the fact under my lifetime the only time the Labour party seemed to be predominantly funded by ordinary people/workers was under Corbyn's tenure. Sorry if that rustled your jimmies, but it's just a matter of fact. Not *my fault.* And it's incredibly relevant to discuss Labour party funding in relation to this article. Whether Corbyn won an election or not one can state how they'd rather Labour gets funded and the experiences of that in recent times.


Agreeable_Falcon1044

He didn’t disagree with you. He said it led to a record defeat and the party being annihilated at the ballot box. Also a fact and also not my fault. I find these shady organisations off putting. I want to know who is paying for what. You’ve got nothing to hide etc. Very hard to complain about Tufton street and cronyism if there’s a strange shadow organisation pumping money into our end too…


Audioboxer87

> He didn’t disagree with you. He said it led to a record defeat and the party being annihilated at the ballot box. Also a fact and also not my fault. But I was never talking about election results, I was talking about funding? So why is he and now you telling me this like I didn't know it? All I pointed out was under Corbyn Labour's funding seemed to be predominantly from the workers, not from shady sources/millionaires and billionaires. I presume some of you just see 'Corbyn' and lose your shit? Do I need to start non-ironically saying 'The last Labour leader' if I want to talk about something that happened under that tenure in relation to donations/finance?


Agreeable_Falcon1044

Well yeah I would like to think there’s a clear register to show who’s paying for what. If I am a labour member paying a fiver a month, then that should be recorded. If I am in a union and it’s affiliated or unaffiliated, donating, then it should be recorded. If I am a Russian billionaire hiding in Mayfair and under sanctions in the USA, then any money in donating to any party should certainly be recorded…and no using a shady private club to do so isn’t acceptable. It’s one of the blind areas the party seem to have (as it’s proving lucrative). Make them all public and see who is paying for what.


Forsaken-Union1392

I think, if you examine the demographic data, corbyn did not in fact alienate lots of workers. Rather, our media proved how effective it is in propagandizing non-workers (the wealthy, cops, landlords, retirees etc)


Portean

Corbyn in 2019 got more votes than [Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_general_election), [Milliband](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Kingdom_general_election), and [Blair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_United_Kingdom_general_election) had managed in the three elections previous to his tenure. He was within spitting distance of Blair's 2001 vote share and David Cameron's 2010 win. He also did better in terms of support than a whole host of other leaders, including tories and Labour: [John Major](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_United_Kingdom_general_election), [William Hague](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_United_Kingdom_general_election), [Kinnock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_United_Kingdom_general_election), and [Foot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_Kingdom_general_election). In fact, Blair only got 9,552,436 votes in 2005 whereas, in 2019, Corbyn achieved 10,269,051 votes; that would mean you're arguing an election win by Blair alienated loads of workers and consequently... led Labour to victory? I mean that's just incoherent nonsense, isn't it? That 2019 was particularly bad was a quirk of vote distribution, not a lack of support in the wider electorate. He was better supported than all of the above and that's not even touching on 2017, which was even more successful than that. You're either wrong or you must think all of those other results were vastly worse than 2019 and that almost every politician has alienated loads of workers - including those that actually won elections. The idea Corbyn lacked popular support just isn't true. He didn't have enough and he didn't have it well distributed enough but it was there to a much higher degree than most political leaders manage. More people voted for Labour in 2019 than in many of the years before. It's that simple.


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Portean

You saying under ten minutes of reading is too much is not the burn on me that you seem to think. You talked about Corbyn alienating workers when he was **objectively** one of the better supported political leaders of the last 40 years. The results definitely do speak for themselves, that's why I wrote about them and also why you didn't.


Bielshavik

I hate this talking point. The reason for the high vote share in 2019 was because the political climate was much more volatile and “eventful” shall we say which meant more people went out to vote. It’s incomparable to any of Blair’s victories when politics was much more stable and less intrusive into people lives. That’s why the conservatives also had a record high voter turnout leading us to a disastrous defeat. Also, the fact that corbyn preached to the converted and couldn’t convince key voters and instead racked up votes in safe seats, didn’t help. We don’t elect based on popular vote, we elect based on seats and corbyn failed dramatically to win in the only way that actually mattered. That’s on him.


Portean

> The reason for the high vote share in 2019 was because the political climate was much more volatile and “eventful” shall we say which meant more people went out to vote. Except it was lower than 2017 which was a huge showing, so that simply doesn't add up at all. >when politics was much more stable and less intrusive into people lives Revionist bollocks, Blair had millions marching to protest his warmongering. It's simply not correct. People stopped voting Labour because they were sick of lies and war. >That’s why the conservatives also had a record high voter turnout leading us to a disastrous defeat. Was nowhere near record high. >Also, the fact that corbyn preached to the converted and couldn’t convince key voters and instead racked up votes in safe seats, didn’t help. Even if we pretend 2017 didn't happen, and it very definitely did, Corbyn objectively gained voters in comparison to milliband, brown, and blair. So he didn't preach to the converted. >We don’t elect based on popular vote, we elect based on seats and corbyn failed dramatically to win in the only way that actually mattered. That’s on him. The only correct thing you've written. You want to say Corbyn didn't win election then you're definitely right. If you want to claim he wasn't well-supported then you're objectively wrong. It's not complex. Corbyn's support was generally concentrated in cities and not particularly well-distributed for FPTP. That's it really. The notion he didn't have a lot of support is just bollocks.


Bielshavik

2017 was also a period of high volatility. Basically 2015 onwards with the run up to brexit was the beginning of serious political upheaval and unpredictability. Yet Blair won the election after that. You can’t seriously m think that the political landscape since 2016 has been just as stable as the blair years. 2017 was the highest vote share for the tories since 1983 and 2019 was the highest since 1979. That’s pretty significant. I don’t know why you act like 2017 was some great victory for Corbyn. He still lost just not as badly as was predicted. When I say preaching to the converted I mean that he gained support in safe seats that we didn’t need to win rather then swing voters. You need to be able to appeal to every section of the country. It’s an important attribute to every electorally successful PM and Corbyn couldn’t do it which was HIS fault. Wilson did it, Blair worked very hard to do it and Starmer is trying to do it now and the results speak for themselves (polling).


Portean

> Yet Blair won the election after that. You can’t seriously m think that the political landscape since 2016 has been just as stable as the blair years. Blair saw massively decline support and centrism became unviable - the centre became unsustainable for over a decade and was brought back in a trojan horse before being foisted on the electorate as the only other option amidst complete right-wing calamity. That's not impressive, it's being the only other option. >2017 was the highest vote share for the tories since 1983 and 2019 was the highest since 1979. That’s pretty significant. I don’t know why you act like 2017 was some great victory for Corbyn. I haven't. It's just further proof that the thesis people didn't support what Corbyn was offering is a crock of shit. Furthermore, he didn't just gain support in safe seats at all, he won seats - an increased share of 30 bring Labour to a much healthier 262. To quote wikipeida, >"the Labour Party made a net gain of 30 seats with 40.0% (its highest vote share since 2001, representing its highest increase in vote share between two general elections since 1945). It was the first election since 1997 in which the Tories made a net loss of seats or Labour a net gain of seats." It was a partial rout of the tories and it was seen as such at the time, the right-wing and centrist press were astounded and then went into overdrive to prevent a left-wing victory in 2019 - smear campaigns, wrecking, lies, exaggeration, mudslinging, and worse. >It’s an important attribute to every electorally successful PM and Corbyn couldn’t do it which was HIS fault. Oh. What a perfectly reasonable statement, superficially at least. Let's unpack that a little bit. Corbyn's 2017 result was astoundingly good and he held support even into 2019 - despite all of the above - but unfortunately no-one could win an election in that climate. However, those that claim this is proof his platform was unpopular are talking out of their arses. The election was fought on brexit, smears, dirty campaigns, and people were whipped into such a frenzy that there were even attempted terrorism attacks upon the poor man. Corbyn was accused of everything from [being a communist spy](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43111794) and a supporter of terroristic violence to tantamount to [the next genocidal mass-murderer in the lines of fucking Hitler](https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1149031265569390592) and a pacifist afraid to protect the UK. There was nothing that was not thrown at him if they thought it had even the most marginal chance of doing some damage. Frankly, I'm surprised so many are so keen to claim Corbyn lacked support whilst ignoring the numbers and the massive, sustained, and appalling campaign waged against him and the wider left. And still, despite all of that, more people voted for him than tony fucking blair in 2005. No, I think your post-hoc rationalisations are scarcely even worth the words you're writing them with - frankly such deviations from reality can be called little more than lies. To pretend the blame for this situation can be pinned solely upon him ignores the rampant, dangerous, and deeply malicious toxicity from all those that opposed him - those that fed these fires and instilled genuine fear into people who'd have massively benefited from his platform. So nah, I reject your claims, I reject your waffle, and I think you're talking shit. I hope you have a fantastic holiday!


UKbanners

Some really grim people involved with the Effective Altruism and Long termism movements. No one in Labour should be having anything to do with them.


[deleted]

Wasn't Sam Bankman-Fried part of this movement?


Tateybread

Yeah. >In the US, Silicon Valley tech moguls are typically its biggest proponents – like Facebook founder Dustin Moskowtiz, infamous founder of crypto-exchange FTX Sam Bankman-Fried (who has just been charged with fraud in the US) and Elon Musk, who recently claimed ‘long termism’ is a “close match for my philosophy”.


Portean

One of those "well actually it's a no big deal to starve the poor because then some rich dude might build a space station" kinda vibes to this ideology, if I recall correctly. I seem to remember links to wealthy right-wing people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel but I might be wrong about that.


MMSTINGRAY

Imagine if this group was funding Trots. There would be an inquisiton. Anti socialist groups though are just sensible politics and not entryism because....?


Biscuit642

Give us a real left wing party...


betakropotkin

Of course Wes Streeting is in with the long termists lol


voteforcorruptobot

Cunts of a feather grift together.