iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

*I've always remembered it being the last one, but looking at the text it's more likely to have been the first. I expect it was the last one that I cared to watch, though.

000

When I was five the BBC broadcast a reading of the Snow Queen on Jackanory over five nights. One of the readings* ended with the storyteller warning that tiny, tiny pieces of the Snow Queen's mirror were still flying through the air, all over the world! Scared the bejesus out of me.

Yes, I think that's right; if I were a member I'm pretty sure I would have voted for the amendment. I think the argument against was mostly "no distractions, we're not here to talk about membership/discipline, just get it through", but if so it was a miscalculation.

020

I just think the motion's a mess. AFAICS the 2SS *is* dead, but repudiating it is wading into a live argument within the Palestine solidarity movement & should have been avoided.

130

as well as people who have already convinced themselves that anti-Zionism *is* antisemitism, from which it follows that "the antisemites have won".

010

I guess the case for alarm is that the motion could be the first step in a process that would ultimately lead to a change in the rules. But there's a lot of "yelling about a big change to get a small change reversed" going on –

Ooh, lots of notifications. I hope they're nice!

000

In short, can we please calm down a bit? It's all looking a bit 2018-19 at the moment, which isn't a period I recall fondly.

5. Political people aren't that different. Scratch a Wilmslow Tory, find a Wilmslow Rotarian; scratch a Chorlton Labour member, find a Chorlton vegan with kids in the Woodcraft Folk. There's never any reason to assume people are 'cranks' or bigots – even people with beliefs you don't share.

4a. One of the best way to achieve a small change is to demand a very big one very loudly. 4b. One of the best way to get a small change rolled back is... you're ahead of me 4c. This only works if you can convince yourself and others that the very big change is really needed/has really happened.

1. Organised people get things done. 2. People vote for stuff for big vague reasons (this is open to exploitation; see 1). 3a. People really hate their political enemies; really, really hate them. 3b. But so what? It's not *personal*. Life goes on.

It's possible that the vile antisemites who I never met when I hung out with anti-Zionists and Palestine solidarity campaigners in the 1990s, or when I joined the Labour Party in the 2010s, have materialised in the GPEW. But it's also possible that we're just dealing with some old political truisms:

But there's no reason to assume the people pushing the motion were motivated by antisemitism, let alone the people voting for it – or that the motion will be used to push Zionists out of the party, let alone Jews more generally.

Yes, it's possible to read the "treated as any other form of racism" clause as being intended to make life in the GPEW hard for Zionists specifically, and even for Jews more generally. And yes, some people who voted for it will be glad to see Zionists leave the party as a result.

100

The fact that the motion passed tells us even less about the people who voted for it; for a lot of people it will just have been "the Palestine motion", and they'll have voted for or against it on that basis.

People organised to get the motion through. (They'd already organised to try and get it through back in March. It wasn't going to go away, and its opponents – including the GPEW leadership – should have been ready.) That doesn't tell us anything about those people, except that they oppose Zionism.

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The "Zionism is racism" line should have been dropped. It's either a rhetorical flourish or an attempt at grounding the motion in a logical argument; either way it's poorly argued, and the clause that's causing all the trouble ("...treated as any other form of racism") is positively perfunctory.

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In short: It's not a good motion. The body of the motion is mostly about Israel and Palestine; it says some challenging things, but things which are fairly widely accepted in the Palestine solidarity movement.

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But it is a blank - a logical implication can't be binding on the party, and in reality the entire party leadership has publicly committed to not filling it in that way.

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If you say "Zionism is to be treated as a form of racism" (which the motion does say) and leave blank the question of what to do about members who associate with Zionists, a logical way to fill in the blank would be "tell them not to" - hence the defeated amendment.

Another thing I know to be true is that the motion in question makes no reference to barring members of the GPEW from associating with Zionists or Zionist organisations. The defeated amendment said it shouldn't be used that way, but the motion never said it should.

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I also know it to be true that many people on the Left are smart and organised, so that if a group of people who share a particular belief are strongly committed to getting a motion through a conference, they can act surprisingly effectively.

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My starting point wrt this one is that I know it to be true that much Palestine solidarity activism - in fact all the Palestine solidarity activism I've ever encountered - is motivated by... well, by solidarity with Palestine, and not e.g. by antisemitism.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 8h

The single most sensible comment I've seen on the topic.

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I believe it was Salt'n'Pepa who said youtu.be/Z0v4Hd431Gg?...

youtu.be

Whatta Man

YouTube video by Salt-N-Pepa - Topic

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 19h

My reaction to this new technology may not have been typical. But was anybody's reaction "A technology that people can use to express themselves in any form, and share what they create instantaneously with anyone else in the world? What would I want *that* for?"? I think not.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 19h

One month in 1996 I discovered (in rapid succession) mailing lists, the WWW, online pr0n, music fan sites, USENET in general, soc.history.what-if in particular and alt.folklore.urban in very particular. All in work time, in fact on work dialup. It was a good month (and somehow I didn't get sacked).

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 19h

Always nice to run across another member of the Sekrit Kabal (TINSK).

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"Beatle boys, all snowy white" always makes me tear up. I have no idea why - I don't even know what it means!

I'd agree that some anti-Zionists regard Zionists as political enemies to be defeated (I mean, the clue's in the name), which doesn't make for a conciliatory approach. Beyond that, though, nope.

000

Never met any of these people you're talking about, though, not least b/c most of the anti-Zionists I've known over the years have been Jewish. (Although see above re: Asian students, some of whom had strong views on the state of Israel even back in the 2010s.)

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Samantha Asumadu @samanthaasumadu.substack.com · 04/10/2026

I've been on the Left since the mid-70s and taken a particular interest in Israel & Palestine since the end of that decade (when I had a Zionist period); I've also spent several years teaching on the topic of extremism at a HEI with a large British Asian enrolment.

100

Reposted by Phil Edwards

The government is keeping a list of people who question their policies The Home Office fought for more than a year not to disclose their ‘database’ of critical X and Reddit posts. metro.co.uk/2026/09/25/s...

metro.co.uk

The government is keeping a list of people who question their policies

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Reposted by Phil Edwards

Politics UK @politicsuk.com · 03/10/2026

🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham has officially scrapped Keir Starmer’s plans to limit the use of jury trials [@Independent]

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I saw a Braque painting of some woods today, and yes, that’s exactly how it feels - “maybe some day we’ll be able to create paintings like that”.

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Reading that I always think, heaven’s sake, George, did it have to be *unvisited* tombs? Did you need to go quite that hard?

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Reposted by Phil Edwards

Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The fact is, male culture IS rape culture, and we need to call it out where we see it, even if ‘where we see it’ just appears to be off-colour comments or ‘banter’. This is actually happening and it’s not ok. bsky.app/profile/dela...

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Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

While you do not under any circumstances etc, I suspect Reeves took an awful lot of flak from her own side just for being a successful woman. (They're a classy crowd.) That, plus not actually being much of an improvement on Starmer, probably did for her.

020

Reposted by Phil Edwards

ALL men benefit from male violence, because it allows you to think you’re a good person because you haven’t assaulted a woman. That does not make you a good person, but you have collectively put that bar in hell.

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Rachel Reeves was clearly meant to be PM by now, unless that was just Marr freelancing. Odd that.

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"You have the right to remain tenor, but any head notes you do attempt may be taken down in evidence"

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Thinking about it now, if the underlying argument was "you will have heard CT by now unless your Spotify algo has been specifically instructed to avoid playing you C&W", the story stops being irritating and becomes creepy. "What's the algorithm saying about *you*, citizen?"

Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I wonder what Rolling Stone considers to be the best album by Broken Bells or Beirut, and where it stands on Anthony Moore's solo work, or on the merits of David Bowie's pre-Deram output.