“No Holding Back” (Ian Lavery) argues in favour of Hardwiring “Thatcherite economics into Britain’s permanent relationship with the EU.”
Argued for a vote in favour of the deal,
The Hard Brexiteers of the Morning Star have published this extraordinary editorial this morning.
The road to socialism is not paved with corporate treaties between capitalist states.
After registering the Johnny-come-very-late Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to the Brexit deal they note that this,
grim assessment is shared by the authors of the No Holding Back report, Ian Lavery, Jon Trickett and Laura Smith, who state that it “hardwires Thatcherite economics into Britain’s permanent relationship with the EU.”
Like Corbyn, they note that protections against “regression” on workers’ rights are heavily qualified.
Their analysis highlights parts of the deal which point to potential Tory plans to privatise the NHS and the maintenance of EU competition and state aid laws that prohibit strategic economic planning and many forms of public ownership. It also points to threats to British manufacturing hidden in the “rules of origin” details.
They nonetheless argue for a vote in favour of the deal, on the grounds that the consequences of opposing it would be even worse.
Worse than what?
We shall not know but they backed the Thatcherite deal.
Here is their ‘analysis’
But the future is yet unwritten. There is much in the Agreement which remains untested and as we have seen there are provisions for review, challenge and amendment. The task facing the whole Labour Movement is both to create a post-Brexit vision which can lead us out of the multiple crises which our country faces, and then to fight like never before for a different world.
The rest of the Morning Star’s piffle outlines why everybody is wrong unless they oppose the EU.
They conclude,
The road to socialism is not paved with corporate treaties between capitalist states.
Quite right comrades!
The anti-monopoly alliance, a massive movement for popular sovereignty, that’s the way forward.
Already popular committees are being organised on the Ipswich estates.
Watch this space!
Tendance Coatesy 
And the Absolute Boy is being spared from possible recriminations over his rather wayward voting too; “Given the common ground in Corbyn’s and the No Holding Back team’s criticisms, and the inevitability of its passage in a parliament with a big government majority, it hardly seems worth debating whether Corbyn’s vote against or their recommendation of a vote for was correct. What is important is the issues they raise”
david walsh
December 31, 2020 at 12:15 pm
“I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome.” Clement Attlee, letter to Harold Laski, chairman of the Labour Party, 1946.
Andrew Coates
December 31, 2020 at 12:30 pm
Comrade Dale Street emailed me:
Today’s stage in the deciphering of runic inscriptions, from today’s “Morning Star” editorial, which has the task of simultaneously arguing: Corbyn is a still a saint despite voting against the deal; Starmer is not a saint, despite voting for the deal, which was probably the right thing to do; none of this really matters.
“Understanding the deal is important not because it could have been stopped but because it identifies the areas in which the left needs to mount a political challenge to it in order to free Britain from endless Thatcherism.
Votes against the deal from the Lib Dems, Scottish National Party and Greens did not do this because they were votes against leaving at all, and therefore endorse the EU’s neoliberal structures.
A vote for it from Sir Keir Starmer did not do this either, since its logic was simply that any deal was preferable to a no-deal departure.
Starmer’s manoeuvres to ensure Labour voted against every Brexit agreement put to Parliament when Corbyn led the party lie exposed now as more about sabotaging Corbyn’s leadership than deep principle.
Nonetheless, his instinct that an exasperated electorate would see a Labour vote against the deal as a continued refusal to accept the 2016 referendum result is probably accurate.
Given the common ground in Corbyn’s and the No Holding Back team’s criticisms, and the inevitability of its passage in a parliament with a big government majority, it hardly seems worth debating whether Corbyn’s vote against or their recommendation of a vote for was correct. What is important is the issues they raise.”
Unless it is in the print edition but not the online edition, the “Morning Star” also has nothing to say about the fact that Labour MSPs voted against the deal in yesterday’s vote in Holyrood (albeit on the Jesuitical grounds that Westminster Labour MPs “voted reluctantly for the deal because the alternative would be chaos, but members in Scotland were more free to express dissatisfaction with the process”).
Jim Denham
December 31, 2020 at 4:13 pm
The report concludes that the deal “is a very poor deal for working people, for public services and for our regions and nations. Whilst imposing some economically damaging barriers on trade between the UK and the EU, it enhances the power of big business, continues the process of market dominance over all aspects of our society, and does little to build a more cohesive society. Even the NHS may be under threat in the medium term.”
“Notwithstanding the deal’s inadequacies, the authors on balance advocated a vote for it.”
No Holding Back MPs critique deal
By Mike Phipps
https://labourhub.org.uk/2020/12/31/no-holding-back-mps-critique-deal/
Andrew Coates
December 31, 2020 at 5:26 pm
Having just voted in favour of Johnson’s ‘deal’, comrade Lavery writes in the Morning Star today (Jan 1):
“The focus on competence without tackling the failed approach of the government is worst of all.
While clearly the government is incompetent, if we don’t tackle the politics behind its approach it gives tacit support to the strategy.”
Jim Denham
January 1, 2021 at 1:23 pm
“is a very poor deal for working people, for public services and for our regions and nations. Whilst imposing some economically damaging barriers on trade between the UK and the EU, it enhances the power of big business, continues the process of market dominance over all aspects of our society, and does little to build a more cohesive society. Even the NHS may be under threat in the medium term.”
Sorry, ‘which economically damaging barriers’ do they refer to ? and their other comments, what did they expect after Brexit ?.
UK left is so narcicistic.
ngbchristensengmailcom
January 3, 2021 at 12:22 am
I would have thought, for example, knowing some people who work in factories that assembling things which need parts from Europe, the whole production timeline, supplies and distribution, which for decades operated within the UK, are disrupted. That is just for a start.
Then there is already stuff like this,
“British residents flying home to Spain were prevented from boarding a joint BA/Iberia flight to Madrid on Saturday night after airline staff said their pre-Brexit residency papers were no longer valid.
A total of nine people weren’t allowed to board at Heathrow, among them journalist and photographer Max Duncan, who was told his green residency paper was no longer valid, even though both the Spanish and British governments have said both the old Foreign National Identification (NIE) document and the new Foreign ID Card (TIE) remain valid.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/03/britons-living-in-spain-barred-from-madrid-flight-in-post-brexit-travel-row
Andrew Coates
January 3, 2021 at 10:24 am
As far as I know the whole industrial trading will continue as usual. Not so for the service sector.Whch will be UKs loss. It is stupid that they didn’t made at transistion period for residents, but I guess that the people who did the deal isn’t stupid, and they have concluded that no matter what term there was, there will be people who don’t understand what has happened. I think there is transition period for some Erasmus students. My point is ‘where is the examples that this is a poor deal for working people ?, and what did the left that argued for Brexit expect. EU of course takes care of it’s own interest. The fishing deal is an example. If the deal has been a 100 % british victory here. Thousands of workers in has been put in a critical situation.Now we have 5 years to adjust. In Denmark we know about it. The sudden stop of Mink production due to corona has put thousands of families in a catastrophic situation. It has smashed a few municipalities.But our reemployment system will sure help. It’s good to have a social democratic government, even if it most of british Labour will look at them as a right wing government.
ngbchristensengmailcom
January 3, 2021 at 5:50 pm