A significant proportion of Labour MPs are actively seeking to cause their own party to do badly in forthcoming local elections, with the aim of damaging the leader of that party. To that end they have attacked Jeremy Corbyn relentlessly in a six week crescendo, in parliament and in the entirely neo-liberal owned corporate media, over the Skripal case, over Syria, and over crazy allegations of anti-semitism, again and again and again.
I recall reporting on an Uzbek Presidential election where the “opposition” candidate advised voters to vote for President Karimov. When you have senior Labour MPs including John Woodcock, Jess Phillips, John Mann, Luciana Berger, Mike Gapes, Wes Streeting and Ruth Smeeth carrying on a barrage of attacks on their own leader during a campaign, and openly supporting Government positions, British democracy has become completely dysfunctional. No amount of posing with leaflets in their constituencies will disguise what they are doing, and every Labour activist and trade unionist knows it.
British democracy cannot become functional again until Labour voters have a chance to vote for candidates of their party who are not supporters of the neo-liberal establishment. This can only happen by the removal as Labour candidates of a very large number of Labour MPs.
That it is “undemocratic” for party members to select their candidates freely at each election, and it is “democratic” for MP’s to have the guaranteed candidacy for forty years irrespective of their behaviour, is a nonsensical argument, but one to which the neo-liberal media fiercely clings as axiomatic. Meanwhile in the SNP, all MPs have to put themselves forward to party members equally with other candidates for selection at every election. This seems perfectly normal. Indeed every serious democratic system elects people for a fixed term. Labour members do not elect their constituency chairman for life, so why should they elect their parliamentary candidate for life? Why do we keep having general elections rather than voters elect the MP for life?
Election of parliamentary candidates for life is in fact a perfectly ludicrous proposition, but as it is currently vital to attempts to retain undisputed neo-liberal hegemony, anybody who dissents from the idea that candidacy is for life is reviled in the corporate and state media as anti-democratic, whereas the truth is of course the precise opposite.
The election of Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership was a fundamental change in the UK. Previously the choice offered to electors in England and Wales was between two parties with barely distinguishable neo-liberal domestic policies, and barely distinguishable neo-conservative foreign policies. Jeremy Corbyn then erupted onto centre stage from the deepest backbenches, and suddenly democracy appeared to offer people an actual choice. Except that at the centre of power Jeremy did not in fact command his own party, as its MPs were largely from the carefully vetted Progress camp and deeply wedded to neo-conservative foreign policy, including a deep-seated devotion to the interests of the state of Israel as defined by the Israeli settlers and nationalist wing, and almost as strongly wedded to the economic shibboleths of neo-liberalism.
These Labour MPs were, in general, prepared grudgingly to go along with a slightly more social democratic economic policy, but drew the line absolutely at abandoning the neo-conservative foreign policy of their hero Tony Blair. So pro-USA policy, support for bombings and missiles as “liberal intervention” in a Middle Eastern policy firmly aligned to the interests of Israel and against the Palestinians, and support for nuclear weapons and the promotion of arms industry interests through a new cold war against Russia, are the grounds on which they stand the most firmly against their own party leadership – and members. Over these issues, these Labour MPs will support, including with voting in parliament, the Tories any day.
I have never voted Labour. I come from a philosophical viewpoint of the liberal individualist rather than of working class solidarity. Labour support for nuclear weapons and other WMD, in the blinkered interest of the members of the General Municipal and Boilermakers’ Union, is one reason that I could not vote Labour. The other is of course that in many cases, if you vote Labour you are very likely to be sending to parliament an individual who will vote with the Tories to escalate the arms race and conduct dangerous and destructive proxy wars in the Middle East.
There is an excellent article on Another Angry Voice which lists the only 18 MPs who were brave enough to vote against Theresa May’s 2014 Immigration Act, which enshrined dogwhistle racism and the hostile environment policy.
Diane Abbott (Labour)
Jeremy Corbyn (Labour)
Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru)
Mark Lazarowicz (Labour)
John Leech (Liberal Democrat)
Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru)
Caroline Lucas (Green)
Angus MacNeil (SNP)
Fiona Mactaggart (Labour)
John McDonnell (Labour)
Angus Robertson (SNP)
Dennis Skinner (Labour)
Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat)
David Ward (Liberal Democrat)
Mike Weir (SNP)
Eilidh Whiteford (SNP)
Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru)
Pete Wishart (SNP)
5 of the 6 SNP MPs stood against this racism (the sixth was absent) and the current leadership of the Labour Party stood alone against the Blairites and Tories in doing so. The Windrush shame should inspire Labour members to deselect every single one of the Red Tories who failed to vote against that Immigration Act. It is also a measure of the appalling shame of the Liberal Democrats, of whom only three of their sixty odd MPs opposed it, and who consigned themselves to the dustbin of history through Nick Clegg’s gross careerism and right wing principles.
There is more to say though. This vote is testament to the great deal in common which the SNP have with the current Labour leadership (who also personally consistently opposed Trident), as opposed to with the bulk of Labour MPs. Put another way, Corbyn, Abbot and McDonnell have more in common with the SNP than the Blairites. It is also a roll-call of those MPs who have most consistently stood against the appalling slow genocide of the Palestinians. It is astonishing how often that issue is a reliable touchstone of where people stand in modern British politics.
Corbyn’s supporters have slowly gained control of major institutions within the Labour Party. The essential next move is for compulsory re-selection of parliamentary candidates at every election and an organised purge of the Blairites. If the Labour Party does not take that step, I could not in conscience urge anyone to vote for it, even in England, but rather to look very carefully at the actual individual candidates standing and decide who deserves your support.
I think we have passed peak Corbyn (and he’s not getting any younger). It is time now for Diane Abbot to step up to the leadership. Her talents are wasted as Shadow Home Secretary.
roflmao
It’s too late for genteel reform. Only a Parliamentary Interregnum will save us now, as the collapse of the British pseudo-state is only a Brexit away.
Just reveals utter gut-wrenching panic.
This country and its rulers are fascists Resident Dissident. You must have noticed.
The haven’t suspended Parliamentary democracy yet.
BTW Knowing how much Corbynistas and others here admire Cuba – let me be the first to offer my congratulations on that state’s reversion back to being a one party state from its previous state as an absolutist monarchy.
Fascists and other totalitarians are the ones who suspend Parliamentary democracy if you haven’t yet noticed.
Jonathan Cook, ex Guardian and now writing under his own steam from Nazareth (within the belly of the beasty) where he is married to a Palestinian woman, sees problems ahead for Israel.
.’Israel celebrates “Pyrrhic Victory” as it turns 70
Israel benefits from a strong military and even stronger allies, but analysts warn the state faces major challenges
by Jonathan Cook / April 18th, 2018
It appears Israelis have every reason to be in festive mood this week as they celebrate the 70th anniversary of their state’s founding.
This “Independence Day”, which Israel marks according to the Hebrew calendar, on April 19, the regional, security and diplomatic environment looks to be the most favourable Israel has faced in its short history.
The Palestinians have been crushed, and Israel faces no international pressure to concede a two-state solution. The Arab states are in disarray, with growing signs that Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states may be ready to normalise relations.
The Trump administration is little more than a cheerleader for Israel, and has pre-empted Palestinian ambitions for statehood by moving its embassy to Jerusalem next month.
/..
https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/04/israel-celebrates-pyrrhic-victory-as-it-turns-70/
1757 words but well worth a read.
Why do you have to use vulgar language Hatuey?
Bad parents maybe, what do you think?
‘Things fall apart.The centre cannot hold.’The situation with the Groko(great coalition) in Germany has many similarities with the de-facto coalition in main-sewer British politics. The speech on Syria by Sahra Wagenknecht was one that expressed very well my own feelings(and, I venture to say, those of many devotees of this blog).
http://www.sahra-wagenknecht.de/article/2746.wir-brauchen-dringend-eine-neue-entspannungs-politik.htm
In this she argues for a Germany foreign policy that is not hostile to Russia(Come back aboard Pilot Bismarck) .Meanwhile, Ursula Haverbeck,the often jailed “Nazi Grandmother’,has thrown her hat into the ring for an end of the US occupation and direction of German affairs as a leading candidate for the Right in next year’s Euro elections. She presents her reasons eloquently and persuasively .
http://www.ursula-haverbeck.info
On the Windrush affair, can anyone explain Blair’s choice of the names Windrush and Firerush investments to stash his ill-gotten gains. Some have attributed it to an alliance with the surging demonic energies of Lucifer.Others that it showed a wish to join the Cotswold set around Charles Windsor and David Cameron.Was it an allusion to the ship ?It certainly ruins my fond memories of my favorite transport-caff on the A40 into Cheltenham
I remember on this very blog there were people inciting others to pay £4 for associated membership and vote for Jeremy Corbyn as party leader
Now they have other whims, they don’t attend party meetings and it’s democracy which is dysfunctional because he doesn’t have the full backing of his party..
This is very important. If you are one of those people who thinks paying £4 or £25 to vote Corbyn in every time there’s a coup is democracy in action, think again. CLPs around the country are selecting the most bland, boring non-politicians who are not on the left. Please seek out your local CLP, see how you can get involved in local campaigning, then start turning up to local meetings. At my own I spoke to lots of left-wing members who said they’d turn up to the hustings to vote through the lefty candidate. What do you know, on the day none of them turned up. The ‘stablishment guy got through with a blasting majority after one of the most horrific smear campaigns helped him get there.
There’s no longer any excuse. Turn up to meetings. Put pressure on the local establishment. Bring about change in approximately 1/650th of the country and hope that many others think like you to do the same. That is democracy.
Good point Sad Truth.
The difficulty is that the Party establishment have a vested interest in not allowing genuine power shifting change. There is a pretence of internal Party democracy but in reality the oligarchs still basically run Labour. A lot of the organisations and power wielders are small ‘c’ conservative so they don’t really want major change to the status quo. These groups control the gateways to democratic involvement in the Party and so create conditions, environments and systems that keep broader member involvement low. This is not just a product of the members not bothering it is a direct and purposeful choice of the Party oligarchs to prevent any genuine democracy that would threaten the internal power structure.
This means that you could trigger re-selections but the process of selection would be controlled by the same Party oligarchs and a great many of them would be run so as to minimise member involvement and democracy. These power brokers include the unions and they also use their power to push candidates that will serve their interests not necessarily the best socialist, or even just the best intelligent, thoughtful and moral people available.
You might get rid of some of the worst headline neo-Libs but the overwhelming number of PPC selections will be pretty much carbon cutouts of the previous people. These people will in turn receive endorsement and support from the major unions and in a lot of cases Momentum (who also seem now more interested in securing a power role in the system than changing it). In that sense it is a bit pointless.
Craig is right if you want not just a bit of social democratic tweaking but a fundamental change in the economic and power relationships in the UK then it needs very different people to become Labour PPC’s and MP’s. As someone who went through an extremely corrupted PPC selection process I am now extremely disillusioned about this ever happening. I still back JC but I am coming to terms with the fact that the Party is not going to change enough to make a genuine long term difference.
British democracy cannot become functional again until Labour voters have a chance to vote for candidates of their party who are not supporters of the neo-liberal establishment.
You mean, the actual current leadership of the Labour party?
Because seriously, what you seem to have identified is that FPTP leads to big-tent parties, which contain within them people who disagree about some pretty major things. That is the case with the Tory party right now at least as much – if not more – as with the Labour party. If you want to end FPTP, you have my (mostly nonexistent) vote.
Of course he opposes it, it’s what the people voted for. Haven’t you realised yet that doing what the majority votes for, FPTP, the Union, Brexit, is undemocratic.
“Haven’t you realised yet that doing what the majority votes for, FPTP, ”
Well, given that the alternative was almost entirely, but not completely, FPTP, the result was hardly a rejection of PR, was it?
You will still need to cobble together a big tent to have a government that could function – personally I would prefer the cobbling to be done in public before the election, otherwise you get parties like the LibDems saying one thing before the election and doing the near opposite afterwards.
At least in a PR system the voters can influence the cobbling by voting for whichever flavour they prefer, thus giving them a greater voice. If I were a Tory voter, what can I do to stop Brexit? If I am a Labour voter, what can I do to help or hurt Corbyn? In a PR system, the answer to the equivalent question would be clear.
Join a party and participate In intra-party democracy. That’s the only way. If you don’t see it in the party that consigns most with your views (there’s only 2 parties) then campaign from within it to change it. Then if they don’t do it, speak out about what’s going wrong. If they ban you, kick up more of a fuss. We can only act within the system we exist within
…or we can advocate a change in the system.
Which is of course what I’m doing in the Party I have belonged to and supported nearly all my adult life – and which Craig who hasn’t wants me to be purged from.
And if you wanted to stop a hike in tuition fees and favoured Vince’s social democratic/Keynesian approach to managing the economy you might have voted LibDem in 2010. I’m afraid when politicians such as Clegg get the whiff of power they somehow forget why they were elected in the post election negotaitions. If there are to be coalitions of different interests/parties I’m prefer them to be spelt out to the electorate before the election. Post election coalitions are invariably little to do with democracy I’m afraid.
and collaborating with Cameron in his Health and Social Care Act 2012. Burstow was even a health minister along with Lansley SoS, Burns and Milton now FE minister! That is how OUR NHS is being privatised.
Demoralize (the staff and patients) Destabilize the whole and then Dismantle.
We were given CCGs. We now have STPs, ACOs and ICSs. None of the public have any understanding of what those acronyms stand for nor know what is going on in these many latest convulsions dating from Thatcher’s ‘market’. Nor do they care as they think there will always be an NHS. Wrong. Get your health insurance. Present your entitlement card when you go into the GPs or hospital. The NHS will have disappeared as we know it within 5-1o years. Hunt and his team have been over to Kaiser Permanente six or seven times to get the grounding. Stevens** of NHS England was I/c of United Health, the largest US health insurers, for 10 years before being put I/c of OUR NHS.
**From 2004 to 2006 he was president of UnitedHealth Europe and moved on to be chief executive officer of United Healthcare Medicare & Retirement and then president, Global Health, and UnitedHealth Group executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group. During this time he also served on the boards of various non-profits, including the King’s Fund; the Nuffield Trust; the Minnesota Historical Society; the Minnesota Opera; the Medicare Rights Center (New York); and the Commonwealth Fund (New York).
In October 2013, the speaker biography of Stevens for a health networking conference read: “His responsibilities include leading UnitedHealth’s strategy for, and engagement with, national health reform, ensuring its businesses are positioned for changes in the market and regulatory environment.” While in the USA, living in Minnesota, he continued to write articles about the NHS.’ Wikipedia.
Most personal bankruptcies in the US are related to inability to pay medical bills as they cannot afford full cover. Obama and Trump have been messing with the laughingly described Medicare.
‘The U.S. health care system is unique among advanced industrialized countries. The U.S. does not have a uniform health system, has no universal health care coverage, and only recently enacted legislation mandating healthcare coverage for almost everyone. Rather than operating a national health service, a single-payer national health insurance system, or a multi-payer universal health insurance fund, the U.S. health care system can best be described as a hybrid system. In 2014, 48% of U.S. health care spending came from private funds, with 28% coming from households and 20%% coming from private businesses. The federal government accounted for 28% of spending while state and local governments accounted for 17%. Most health care, even if publicly financed, is delivered privately.’
http://dpeaflcio.org/programs-publications/issue-fact-sheets/the-u-s-health-care-system-an-international-perspective/
Fact sheet 2016
Or, shorter, “coalitions confuse Brits”.
Yes this is right. I fear that Jeremy would not get his programme through with many of those sittng on the back benches. Angela Smith, the MP with interests in private water companies for instance – would never vote for the nationalisation of the water industry. There are many examples of them – they must go.
I wonder what would have happened if someone had said that when Jeremy Corbyn sat on the back benches, he doesn’t agree with the government so he has to go, get rid of him.
Could it conceivably be because the Labour Party was founded on political representation for the working man against the rich?
If Jeremy had been financed to connive with an eager media to undermine his own party, you might have had a point.
Yes but that was before the average working man owned his own home, drove a BMW and had shares in British Gas.
And you think that closed the gap between the working man and the rich, so that now there’s some kind of equivalence?
Fred they don’t own anything. The bank keeps the deeds until the mortgage is paid and the BMW is on HP.
Ownership is an illusion. It’s mostly debt.
My father left me enough to buy a house for cash with my partner.
I drive a tatty transit van, cost me £2000.
I am very, very lucky, I have no debts.
How many people are just a few months payslips away from nothing?
Not the average working man in leafy Surrey mate. We have food banks too, and homelessness and rough sleepers.
There are myriad brand new upmarket 4x4s rushing around (breaking the law too) being driven by company wives taking their bratz to and from private schools. . They can’t even park the things. The bratz are in the sausage machine of top grade A levels and then to university all ready to go into PR, advertising or banking. Some I hear to the FCO or charidees. Don’t hear of any wanting to be politicians but I don’t move in their circles.
Straw man. While he did mention a purge, what he means is de/reselection. If Phillips and her ilk survive and are reelected, so much the better for them.
Given Corbyn’s solid, and growing, majorities since 1983, he would have comfortably survived it if the same standard had been applied to him.
I did obviously mean deselection. But now Fred raises the matter, I can see the fun in hanging them from lampposts upside down.
T’would be a fine party!
Craig Sir,
Well, I’ve actually recommended this on Twitter, actually utilised the famous Mussolini photo that the Italian Partisans provided us with for posterity, namely his hanging with his cohorts – my Account was terminated for inciting hate, which seems a little harsh as these Partisans are considered hero’s in Italy and must of the post WWII World, well unless you happen to be a Nazi or fascist.
Due to outsourcing of maintenance, and the collapse of Carillion and the like (Surrey CC road ‘maintenance’ (a joke) is outsourced to Kier for £160m until 2020), the lampposts are not cleaned or painted and are mostly rusting around their bases. The local council have decided that the weight of hanging baskets placed on them constitute a elf and safety’ ‘issue’ and have cancelled the displays. So not likely to bear the weight of the gangsters-in-charge!
The roads and pavements are in an even worse condition. Some residents are putting plants in the potholes as a form of protest.
Potholes in Surrey: True cost of Surrey’s ‘dreadful’ roads and footways revealed as £754m needed to improve conditions
According to a Freedom of Information Act, Surrey County Council paid out £459,552 in compensation in 2017
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/potholes-surrey-true-cost-surreys-14449313
This is in deepest blue Tory Surrey. All 11 MPs are Tory. Hammond Gove Hunt Raab Grayling Blunt Beresford Gyimah Milton Lord Kwarteng. Tories will all be reelected on May 4th. It is very depressing.
BROKEN BRITAIN
What the hell’s wrong with right way up?
Carillion. NHS. cont’d
Carillion collapse: Super hospital in limbo after workers left site in January
19 April 2018
The Government’s delay in signing off on the plans has prompted fears that “high quality” patient care is being “jeopardised”.The super hospital project is predicted to cost £100m to £125m more than originally anticipated
A new super hospital left in limbo by the collapse of Carillion is up to £125m over budget and patient care is being “jeopardised” by Government indecision.
The enormous building site that is the Midland Metropolitan Hospital in Smethwick in the West Midlands has stood idle since workers left in January.
Sky News was granted exclusive access on to the site, which is currently two thirds finished.
/..
https://news.sky.com/story/carillion-collapse-super-hospital-in-limbo-after-workers-left-site-in-january-11337906
There is some hand wringing on the situation from the West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street. He was the chair of the John Lewis Partnership, the department store of choice for Cameron. LOL.
‘The mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, has written to the Cabinet Office to demand urgent action to prevent further delays and expense. Mr Street told Sky News: “We really do feel that the next month is the critical time.
“It’s really the question of what the delay will be and indeed what the cost will be and that is why I fervently believe that the swifter the decision is made the less the delay will be and the less the cost will be.”‘
So there. Over to you Theresa.
Carillion. NHS. cont’d
Carillion collapse: Super hospital in limbo after workers left site in January
19 April 2018
The Government’s delay in signing off on the plans has prompted fears that “high quality” patient care is being “jeopardised”.The super hospital project is predicted to cost £100m to £125m more than originally anticipated
A new super hospital left in limbo by the collapse of Carillion is up to £125m over budget and patient care is being “jeopardised” by Government indecision.
The enormous building site that is the Midland Metropolitan Hospital in Smethwick in the West Midlands has stood idle since workers left in January.
Sky News was granted exclusive access on to the site, which is currently two thirds finished.
/..
https://news.sky.com/story/carillion-collapse-super-hospital-in-limbo-after-workers-left-site-in-january-11337906
There is some hand wringing on the situation from the West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street. He was the chair of the John Lewis Partnership, the department store of choice for Cameron. LOL.
‘The mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, has written to the Cabinet Office to demand urgent action to prevent further delays and expense. Mr Street told Sky News: “We really do feel that the next month is the critical time.
“It’s really the question of what the delay will be and indeed what the cost will be and that is why I fervently believe that the swifter the decision is made the less the delay will be and the less the cost will be.”‘
So there. Over to you Theresa.
Street was the MD of the JLP. Sir Charlie Mayfield is the chair. ex Scots Guards. McKinsey Glaxo Smith Kline
P. Charles conferred his knighthood for ‘services to business’. Mayfield was appointed to the board of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, a creation of Brown in 2007. It was closed down last year. It got through £63.5m in 2011. What’s the odd £million between friends? One Ian Kinder, the chief executive, received £560k for the year 2016/2017. They all had pensions too. YCNMIU.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/626229/UKCES_2016-17_web.pdf
Kinder found a new niche at GES, Global Education Specialists, Education Management • Westminster, London, as Associate Director, whatever that means. I bet he’s not screwing £half a million out of them.
The usual greedy types were at the trough full of taxpayers’ money.
Are We Being Served? 🙂
Dont worry the last nationalisation program by the labour government paid the previous owners handsome compensation.
“as we might expect with Corbyn, jumping into the phone-booth of power only to change ” Based on what? What Blair was like?
Not just Blair. How far back do you want to go, Ramsay Macdonald? In the old days Ramsay Macdonald was so regarded as the personification of stab-in-the-back politics that his name became a term of abuse — i.e. he did a “Ramsay Macdonald”
Maybe it would be easier if you told us which Labour administration didn’t succumb to the temptation to be treacherous scum once they got into office — and please, don’t be tempted to jump for the Attlee as an example; one of the first things his administration did was stab the Greeks back, and countless others got the same.
One of the reasons I prefer Tories to Labour is because there’s no hypocrisy with the Tories, they more or less tell you they are going to screw you beforehand. We know that’s what they do. It’s the hypocrisy of Labour that people really hate, pretending to be these caring sharing, angels as they privatise and bomb.
I have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that Corbyn will buck the trend and be exceptional. And I have seen plenty to suggest his principles are, as usual, open to discussion. Anyone for a Trident renewal?
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
the sly and devious Chuka Umunna chickened out of running for leader (good riddance) after only three days because he said he couldn’t handle the pressure and scrutiny of being leader, so he turned his attention to undermining Jeremy Corbyn at every opportunity instead, despicable.
i would like the public to have more power to remove MP’s, and see more sackings instead of let-off-the-hook resignations from all parties.
The more dysfunctional the British state the more opportunities for the National party.
Scots should not be offering ‘defibrillation’ to this particular geriatric.
Do not resuscitate is the best on offer.
Meanwhile, the Labour party still fails to provide any realistic opposition to Brexit. And there’s a significant number of recent members who are finding that too hard to swallow.
Once the people voted for Brexit there was no realistic opposition to Brexit.
Unlike some I argued against and I voted against but once the people voted for it we had to accept it and work together to make it work.
The principle of democracy has to come above principles of party politics.
Do you think that a Labour MP should be thrown out of the party for continually briefing against it?
I don’t think anyone who opposes the democratic will of the people has any place in a parliamentary democracy.
Do you think that a Labour MP should be thrown out of the party for continually briefing against it?
Not in the UK or the US they shouldn’t.
And you think the UK and the USA are perfect examples? Forgive me, but a political party is the means of expression of people of like mind. Rich bastards want to keep the working man down, working men want their own power. In order to fund their representation in politics, they finance the party. The rich, having written the rules, are able to out-fund anything the working man can come up with.
Ambitious amoral politicians with good financial backers are able to take a decision on which party to join, and having done that, mould the party to their ambitions.
Jeremy Corbyn has been a Socialist all his life and is universally known as a man of principle and honour. Anti-Semitism, which has historically been a right-wing position, is now being used by right-wing Blairite entryists to calumniate the extremely popular socialist positions Jeremy has taken.
Let me try to get an answer from you again – do you think that a parachuted Labour MP who objects to the new Socialist position of the Labour leadership and continually (with the connivance of the right-wing media) briefs against it should be thrown out of the party?
A die hard unionist such as you might have concluded that oh well Brexit it is then. But the Scottish government will fight tooth and nail to remain in the Single market.
The sooner Scotland exits this unfit union, and ditches the ball and chain of Westminster the better.
My understanding is that the decision to leave the Single Market was taken by May and a few buddies.It was not a necessary concomitant of leaving the supranational EU,which is what the majority voted for.So far the Brexit negotiations have been conducted on the UK side without any coherent strategy and in a manner seemingly designed to fail.
http://www.eurefendum.com has chronicled the process in excruciating detail,putting the MSM to shame as has Craig..You may also recall that it was the solid Conservative South that voted for remaining in the first referendum while the North and Scotland were rather opposed.The polling map inverted in the second referendum.
Otherwise Iagree with you.
The principle of democracy. Fred, haven’t you read or understood any of the texts above?
This has just appeared on RT
https://www.rt.com/uk/424589-syria-chemical-assad-jonathan-shaw/
Shaw was supposed to have told this to the Daily Mail but Incouldn’t find anything in the Mail about it.
send him round to the bbc for ‘correctional therapy’
Sorry it’s old news
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5616533/Former-head-Britains-special-forces-says-Assad-doesnt-need-use-gas.html
I wholeheartedly agree;
but oh dear, I’m gonna look bad here, because I have what is probably a silly question:
parliamentary records for 7 May 2014 : 4.23 pm note “Ayes 305, Noes 239.”
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140507/debtext/140507-0002.htm#14050791000010
That is a vote on a specific amendment from the Lords, not on the bill itself. The Hansard for the final vote is given in comments above. But not a silly question.
How odd it is that Bliar was allowed to ‘parachute’ in his preferred (Bliarite) candidates but now – by some obscure feat of new-found parliamentary wisdom – they cannot be got rid of. It is obvious that the first way to get shot of these numb-skulls is to ensure that teh constituencies have the right to select their candidate anew with each election…. Many of the Bliarites would be gone in a blink.
Corbyn should do this well before the next general election. He should have done it long ago. The red tories are – like Bliar himself – second rate tories.
Bert.
What seems obvious to me is that subscription-paying party members should interview potential candidates and democratically select their preferred person. Anyone against that?
You can’t have it both ways. You either have a big-tent party and FPTP, where both Corbyn and Blair have substantial opposition within their party, or you have something closer to PR with more ideologically homogeneous parties. Having FPTP and homogeneity is profoundly undemocratic.
Was that comment meant for me? If so, it’s seriously off-topic.
But there is a marked difference between “supports without question everything the leadership demands” and “won’t actively work to minimise the Labour party vote in elections in order to try to topple the democratically elected leader of the party”.
All I want is the latter – and to be rid of the scum for whom that is too much to ask.
I agree that the Labour Party should insist all MPs be open for selection at each election but even so, I don’t hold out much hope that parliamentary democracy, as established here, will bring about any real progressive change. After all, Parliament and its party system is a creation of the ruling class. Even Corbyn and his followers are not talking about ridding society of capitalism and its evils, but finding ways to accommodate market capitalism even with its grotesque excesses and inequalities. The old adage that if Parliament could change anything, they’d abolish it, rings true.
Of course. Corbyn *is* the ruling class. He’s a Privy Councillor for Christ’s sake.
“where both Corbyn and Blair have substantial opposition within their party”
I’d very much like to hear your examples of “Substantial” opposition to Bliar.
That would be the John Prescott wing of New Labour. It’s not Blair’s fault that he managed to build coalitions within his party, while Corbyn has only managed to argue.
There is a problem with your proposed line of action. The problem is that we do not want to vote against Labour in a general election and yet sometimes are unhappy to support the Labur canddate for the sort of reasons you discuss. The only realistic solution is indeed for the constituencies to re-select their candidates each election – so that in effect the protest vote can be in the primaries and not in the final election.
One always relishes informed comment from accredited intellectuals…..
The only way the old shibboleth, that is Westminster can ever be reformed, is if the people of England stand up and become more militant. Right now the French are on the streets lighting flares and protesting over thd state of the transport in the country.
Meanwhile the British government point blankly refuses to investigate one of its largest party donors, over money laundering.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/uk-refused-to-raid-lycamobile-citing-its-tory-donations?utm_term=.xb1LDy3Eo#.guRPRdvar
Incessant character assassination of one of the gentlest, most caring politicians in modern British history. By rapacious war dogs and servants and mouthpieces of the super rich.
If they succeed in destroying him, they will have no opposition in finishing destroying all the pro-human achievements of the ’45 Labour government and speeding us back to the golden age of individualist English liberalism, c.1818, and the pitiless wilderness they call freedom.
” Britain wasn’t a very productive place, unless you are in the cabbage growing business.”
The standard of comment on this blog has went rapidly downhill.
“has went” lol
All very good, Craig, except that we vote – or should do – on manifestos, not on individuals. Labour’s 2017 manifesto is what England needs rather urgently at the moment. I would support the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein elsewhere.
Jess “stab him in the front” Phillips…
Enough said… I think most people have made her mind up about he… she like many of the baggage the labour party currently carries hopefully will be jettisoned at the next election.
On another note Craig, the site is incredibly slow…. not sure if GCHQ have a tap on all ip’s to/from the site 🙂
QT line up from Chesterfield tonight, surprisingly no Nigel Farage.
Liz Truss, Conservative MP and Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Emily Thornberry, Labour MP and shadow foreign secretary.
Vince Cable, leader of the LibDems.
Nesrine Malik, Guardian columnist and former private equity investor faced with deportation in 2012.
Iain Dale, LBC presenter and author.
Ros
The BBC don’t need Farage this time seeing as they’ve got plenty of right wingers on the panel.
Very true.
It should read
Iain Dale, LBC presenter and former Tory candidate and T May a**e licker
Thanks, RoS, now I know not to tune in! Obviously, no guests are on the BBC’s blacklist…
https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-hostile-environment/
Oh, boy.
With all that has been going on this week, they have put up Liz Truss?
That is going to be like watching a pack of ravenous lions tear into a wounded gazelle.
The SNP sent someone to London years ago to hear the sales pitch from Cambridge Analytica. The SNP recognised that CA were a bunch of cowboys and decided to have nothing to do with them.
Now Ruth Davidson is desperately trying to make a link between the SNP and Cambridge Analytica out of nothing. While her manky party have links galore with CA.
BBC also trying to make this non-story run for a good while.
Interesting article on CA here: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/cambridge-analytica-scandal-goes-down-the-paranoia-hole/
Most of Scotland I expect is reading this debate about the Labour party and just sort of standing whistling, waiting until it blows over. Scotland is way ahead on this and much else, and especially where the media and the BBC role in it all is concerned.
Deep down inside, most people in England know that Labour are totally untrustworthy and discredited too. The problem in England is you don’t have a meaningful and rational alternative like the SNP.
Might be worth remembering that Scotland didn’t have much of an alternative either, though, until the people created one by voting for the SNP. There’s no reason why England couldn’t do something similar and that’s got to be a better plan than putting your old wine in those rancid old bottles all over again…
Labour only get elected if they promise to sell the peasants down the river. That’s basically institutionalised, structural. If Corbyn tries to change the structures and institutions he will either lose or become part of the problem. That’s the pattern.
Hatuey.
Some good points there, maybe it’s time for a new peoples party in England.
Wakey, wakey. The SNP has showed their supporters precisely where they’re at on these Skripal and Douma false flags. Shoulder to shoulder with the most rightwing British government of modern times.
Whereas on hard Brexit, enforced Scexit, no to indyref and Catalonia Corbyn is shoulder to shoulder with the most rightwing British government of modern times.
The difference is, people know Corbyn of old and that with him the interests of ordinary people come first. ALWAYS.
Investment banker Blackford, Hillary fan Sturgeon?
Hmmmm
What about the interests of ordinary people in Catalonia?
Hmmmm
Yeh good luck to them under a neolib austerity fanatic regime that is desperate to stop contributing to the well being of people down on their luck elsewhere in spain. The workers of Catalonia are not the vanguard of its independence movement.
Everyone’s Better Together with Francoism eh?
“The difference is, people know Corbyn of old and that with him the interests of ordinary people come first. ALWAYS.”
Really?
Labour which is inpower in Wales are a joke, but Corbyn does nothing. Corbyn after yesterday is the great abstainer.
Actually, Iain, what you are seeing play out in regards to the SNP, is a grassroots backlash to their conservatism and lack of zeal. It’s an entirely healthy process – nobody has died.
Speaking of the dead, I guess you think Labour under Corbyn are to be forgiven for what they did in Iraq and elsewhere. There’s a lot of that going around — don’t mention the war.
Just one problem; you aren’t in a position to forgive those murderous scumbags. It wasn’t your country and countrymen that got decimated by them. And let’s be clear, 90% of those in the Labour Party that supported Iraq are still there to this day. So, good luck with that.
For the avoidance of doubt, the SNP were against Iraq. To date, none of their policies have resulted in any measurable deaths and instead of tacitly consenting to the privatisation of health and remorseless cuts to benefits and services (as Labour has), they have actively and vocally opposed them; in some cases they have managed to avoid them altogether using policy.
I’ve been very critical of the SNP on here. I’m not some party loyalist. My loyalty is ideas and causes, not parties or personalities. The SNP might listen to their grassroots and adapt or they might not. But until they destroy a country and a region, I will be giving them the benefit of the doubt.
No, the SNP cannot influence these events, so stay clear, don’t contra-opinion since no actual true facts are available.
Admiring Corbyn from a colony far to the west, I will say I find his intervention in the Salisbury, Ghouta, and Syria missile-strike incidents to be oddly limp. He may have reason to believe that some or all of these have been conceived in part as opportunities to lure him into traps, but this will always be the case. After his emergence, strengthened, after the Manchester bombing smears, you’d think he might have been emboldened. (Or shaken by how far the British Deep State will go–but can that be news?) People looked to him to take brave, principled stands, state them plainly, and let the chips fall where they may.
Perhaps its proximity to an actual ascent to the Prime Ministership that has him listening to counsel to chart the safe and cautious course (at which point his “difference to the others” begins to evaporate). I think we saw that with our Labour-lite party in Canada, 13 points ahead in the polls, suddenly advocating for austere, responsible economic management, and swiftly outflanked to the Left by our ragamuffin neoliberal trust-fund prat.
“Admiring Corbyn from a colony far to the west…”
Wales?
And there shouldn’t be a Welsh man alive who isn’t livid at the name of the magnificent stadium in Cardiff, called the Principality stadium.
Worse than that is the name of the stadium at Swansea – “Liberty Stadium”. I mean, what sort of happy-clappy Americanised BS is that?
I think it was renamed from the Millenium Stadium in a deal with its main current sponsor,The Principality Building Society, rather than directly belittling Wales as a princedom not a kingdom.
Canada
Canada’s a colony again – when did that happen?
I have a lot of sympathy for Corbyn on this. For millions of people in this country, we on this forum are the lunatic fringe. But a lot of people have doubts.
I think what Corbyn is trying to do is encourage those who have doubts, to let them know that it is OK to question the official line, and that doing so does not have to put you beyond the pale of mainstream thought.
And hopefully, as a result, more of those with doubts will come over to the light with us, and more of those without doubts will start to harbour doubts.
This is the truth. Where do you stand on these issues? I stand with Jeremy Corbyn’s Real Labour Socialist Party. For the many, not the few filthy rich people, who care about nobody but themselves. No matter how rich they are!
What is the parliamentary math on CFI + LFI?
And the Israeli embassy. https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/
Just an answer to the original question will do – anyone worked it out?
They both have websites where you can do some counting.
There’s quite of research online about them, including Peter Oborne’s Channel 4 programme — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lby-BP5xVRI — and his Open Democracy article — https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne-james-jones/pro-israel-lobby-in-britain-full-text
Re Craig’s comment – “British democracy has become completely dysfunctional” – I think we need a constitutional rethink. Tinkering around the edges will not be enough.
Certainly we don’t have a genuine liberal democracy. Does anybody seriously believe that the decisions of government reflect the wishes of the people rather than those of the “deep state” when the interests of the people and the establishment are in conflict?
The absence of the rule of law in my own well witnessed (and I repeat “well witnessed”) case is simply another example of this hijacking of the democratic process. Without the rule of law there is no democracy. What we have is a sort of a fake democracy — that some have called a managed democracy (or inverted totalitarianism) — where the rule of law and our pseudo-democratic institutions are easily overridden by the London establishment.
The present constitution in Britain, and in Canada (where I live), was developed in an era of much smaller government where the undemocratic elements within it didn’t matter so much, if only because government itself was small. This is not the case today where the functions of government in all countries are much larger and more centralized than in Victorian or Georgian times.
These considerable changes in the size and role of government are the same everywhere. What is unique in Britain is that though the franchise has changed, the basic structure of government has not changed in 300 years and is entirely inappropriate for the modern age..
What is needed is a complete constitutional rethink along more democratic lines.