Me: Lol Daniel Goh got expelled from wp
A: yep
WP is going into the shitter for a party that is selling themselves as the good guys
Me: I guess they'll just content themselves with the hardcore anti pap vote
B: i think they're moving further and further left
A: i thought they stopped after RK blew up
when RK was there they were running a steady drumbeat of race/religion issues
using her to spearhead fault lines in these issues
after she left they went quiet on woke
i think Pritam's strategy then was to capture minority vote and swing marginal seats, never mind the damage WP race baiting does to our social fabric
RK was to spearhead this
Daniel wasn't the only one to be expelled, earlier on both of RK's aides who testified at the COP also resigned soon after it ended
people are not stupid, they can read between the lines
those who cause problems for Pritam will go
they didn't lie for the party and cover up for Pritam, so out they had to go
Me: I was arguing with someone once who pretended not to understand that often when people resign they're really fired
A: Pritam did a lot of unwoke things to save his skin after he decided to let her burn
so hard to run on woke ticket
Me: Like putting down "minorities"?
A: like revealing details alleging she had mental illness... etc
actually it's weird, after RK saga some of my zoomer acquaintances became less woke
there will always be the crazies of course, but some of them seem to be asking if this wokeshit is what we really want for sg
B: it was a serious blow to the political woke movement in SG
It took the wind out of their sails
A: the saga has made me suspicious of WP and their grassroots activists
because I know they are not batting for Singapore but the party
if they are ever put in the position where they have to choose between public interest or party interest
they will sell us out so Pritam can retain a position he clearly doesn't deserve.
the right thing to do was for Pritam to resign along with RK, and hand leadership over to the next in command
one can argue if the other 2 needs to be punished for deceiving everyone but Pritam clearly had the full hand in this
they did the two cadre members dirty, and Daniel as well
Daniel did a lot of shit for the party in forming the policy framework that gave them more credibility in the eyes of the public
Loh Peiying served for over a decade and served under Pritam as well
this is how they are repaid
A: you get the sense PAP's interests are more aligned with Singapore's
currently anyway
can't say the same for PE2017
but in general, the broad strokes
WP... under Pritam it seems he is doing whatever is expedient for himself
pick at racial and religious fault lines to capture minority votes
lie repeatedly to the public and even his own party when he fucked up with Rak
he is helping to make a case for PAP supermajority, he has so little integrity I can't trust him not to veto stuff that will help Singaporeans if he stands to benefit from it
C: Did I ever tell u guys the story of how I used to help out at PS' meet the people session? Hahaha
It was 2011. I was an opposition supporter. Went for WP rally, felt strongly for their cause.
When the dust settled and WP won Aljunied, PS reached out to a lawyer friend of mine saying he needed lawyers at his MPS. I thought ok I'll go
So I did.
Very quickly realised it was a shitshow. PS (and I felt WP by extension) was more about optics than actual work.
They didn't bother to research and find out what G schemes are available. Or how to qualify residents under those schemes.
Their appeal letters are just:
My resident X came to see me. He has this [issue].
Please assist.
Wtf might as well don't write?
Then when the appeals invariably fail? The WP folks will say, "Yah see how the G and the civil service all bully us. Just because the letter is on WP letterhead."
It's like the North Koreans saying on the radio that, "The capitalist American devil's are bombing us again" whenever their shit infrastructure fails and they have blackouts.
But they genuinely believe it. They genuinely believe its not a lack of effort on their part.
I cleaned up their system. Tried to help them draft some template letters, with placeholders for info that needs to be obtained from residents. Not sure if they bothered to use it.
I left after about 6 months. Disillusioned
***
"My retirement from politics is complete. I am still away on the work trip, and video-calling home, my older boy was excited about a registered mail and asked to open it, and then exclaimed with some amusement, Daddy you are expelled from the Workers’ Party! My first thought, good job understanding the letter! Well he did accompany me a lot on my WP work for a good part of his early childhood and was my bastion of moral support. Then, he took photos and sent them to me.
Since the Central Executive Committee requested nicely that I not disclose the correspondence due to information about the “inner workings” of the party, I won’t. Though ironically that is the very reason given for the expulsion. Such is the closed loop in the lack of accountability. With this closure, I can now focus on serving my country in my responsibilities in NUS. Gotta update my CV to say I was expelled from WP for calling out the leadership. Anyways, my dear friends, thanks for all the support and concern all these years, they were really important for me during this fruitful political journey! "
"One evening a decade ago, in a void deck in Sengkang, as we were typing away appeal letters at Lee Li Lian’s Meet-the-People Session, Daniel PS Goh turned to me and asked me whether I’d be interested to come on board the Workers’ Party policy team to work on environmental issues. I asked him if he was sure that an 18 year-old who hadn’t set foot into university yet and hadn’t – to use a contemporary term – “adulted” yet could be of much help. He gave me a reassuring nod in a way perhaps a teacher would give a student.
Indeed, without Daniel’s almost academic approach to policy, the WP probably wouldn’t have had a robust manifesto in GE2015, relevant for modern times. Current WP MPs would do well to remember that it was this manifesto which formed the basis of the one they campaigned and got elected on in 2020.
What the public also probably doesn’t know is that Daniel Goh helped modernise much of the WP’s media outreach efforts through his leadership of the party’s media team. It was a team where it didn’t matter if you were a MP or the newest volunteer – anyone in the team could pitch ideas, could criticise the approach. With Daniel’s encouragement, we dared to try new things on social media to set us apart from the PAP. From day-to-day challenges to contentious Parliamentary debates, we were all on alert to respond. We learnt our limits as a team in GE2015, and spent years thereafter learning from our mistakes. By GE2020, although Daniel was out of the picture by then, those of us involved in the media effort knew how to get things up and running for the campaign thanks to our experience under his able leadership in the years before.
Daniel’s expulsion from the WP is but symptomatic of much bigger problems in the country’s largest Opposition party in Parliament today.
But on a more personal note, I look back fondly on our shared experiences since our days together in the Punggol East Constituency Committee all those years ago. Perhaps with sorrow, for the WP we joined - that rational, progressive force built up in many ways by Mr Low Thia Khiang - was not the WP we left."
Earlier:
"In his Facebook post, Assoc Prof Goh also said that he had asked those questions as a “concerned citizen” and as a party member who believes that “public accountability and integrity are non-negotiable values demanded of our political leaders”.
In issues of grave public interest, he said that questions must be asked about the inner workings of any organisation.
“If asking those questions carry a price, I am willing to pay it, and count it inexpensive,” he wrote...
“I spent nearly 10 years working alongside many colleagues, building WP up as a credible political party, with the core values of integrity, service, and public accountability,” he said.
“In the same spirit of public accountability, I would ask that the party leaders make public the grounds of their decision and explain any disciplinary sanctions they would impose on me.”
He also said that he disagreed with seeing the Government or any political party as “political opponents”.
“As opposition politicians working to advance public interest in a field dominated by the ruling party, it is too easy to fall into a cycle of pride and irresponsibility driven by a persecution complex,” he wrote as he concluded his post.
“The Workers’ Party had placed men and women in Parliament because we believed in looking beyond ourselves and the party itself to build a better and more just Singapore. The party must serve Singapore responsibly.”
In April 2020, Assoc Prof Goh stepped down from the WP central executive committee (CEC), citing health reasons."
