Archive for the ‘Anti-Fascism’ Category
Anti-Internationalist ‘Lexit’ Factionalists in Labour Manoeuvre to back Brexit
Morning Star and its allies in Momentum leading Factionalist Fight in Labour Party.
Factionalists opposed to socialist internationalism are mobilising in the Labour Party to back Brexit.
They are reacting to this news:
“Almost two thirds of trade unionists support the idea of another EU referendum, rising to three quarters among 2017 Labour voters, according to a new YouGov poll of 1,813 members”
But Len Mccluskey’s Union chiefs say they has a more direct line to the opinions of members.
A Unite spokesman said: “We don’t need a poll of a handful of our members to try to tell us what we know. For the past three years, since the referendum result, we have been polling 20,000 of our members regularly. This conversation has been conducted through our transparent and democratic structures.
This process, the first as a Unite lay official I have heard of it, gave the result UNITE’s pro-Brexit leadership wanted.
We know that they are fed up with Tory chaos and are now concerned about the very real prospect of the governing party crashing us out of the EU without a deal.
So they want Brexit without really knowing it.
Poll showing support for public vote among trade unionists “not credible”, says Unite Sienna Rodgers
UNITE can read the mind of our members so much better than those crafty “pollsters”.
Now we have this
This concerted attempt to by the pro-Brexit factionalists, animated by forces hostile to socialist internationalism, is reaching a crisis point as the time comes to choose:
- Boris and a No Deal Brexit: the Red-Brown Front.
- A Tory Soft Brexit.
- A People’s Vote.
- Remain and Reform.
Will they give intellectual and moral support to the pro-Brexit forces in this country?
Boris Johnson, the “Trumpification of British Politics” and the Left.
Our Ruling Class.
Talleyrand – Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754 – 1838) – was the most famous European statesman of his day.
His house. the Hôtel de Talleyrand, was celebrated,
Into this palace, as a spider into its web, he enticed and captured, one by one, heroes, thinkers, conquerors, princes, emperors, Bonaparte, Sieyès, Mme de Stael, Chateaubriand, Benjamin Constant, Alexandre de Russie, Guillaume de Prusse, François d’Autriche, Louis XVIII, Louis Philippe, and all the gilded glittering flies which buzz through the history of these past forty years. All this glittering swarm, fascinated by the penetrating eye of this man, passed in turn under this gloomy entrance bearing on it the inscription: Hôtel Talleyrand.
In the collection of writings from which this comes Victor Hugo described the death of the man who became a by-word by cynical diplomacy.
In Choses Vues the author of Les Misérables describes his embalming, in the ancient Egyptian style.
The corpse lay in an empty chamber when a valet walked in.
He found that they had left the brain on the side-table.
The servant picked it up, and finding no other way of disposing of it, threw it into the outside sewer.
It is said that people have been looking for someone with Tallyrand’s cerebrum ever since.
Many would say that dealing Boris Johnson would be hard even for the most experienced politician.
El Pais says that “La única persona capaz de derrotar a Boris Johnson —y ya hay precedentes— sería el propio Boris Johnson.” (“the only person capable of defeating Boris Johnson – and there are precedents – is Boris Johnson himself”)
The European Press is full of such scorn for the man Le Monde calls a “buffoon” (while politely asking him to stop being one):
Le Monde, in an excoriating editorial, said Johnson had shown himself to be “a stranger to logic and convictions” in a career rich in “deceits, blunders and failures”. In the run-up to the 2016 referendum he “told lies on the side of a bus, promised the UK could have its cake and eat it, and compared the EU to the Third Reich,” it said.
As foreign secretary he “made his country an object of ridicule around the world with his amateurism, flippancy and ignorance”, France’s newspaper of record continued. Rivalling Nigel Farage for populism, Johnson’s “jingoistic rhetoric” promised Britons an unrealistic “glorious global future”.
His threat to withhold the €39bn Brexit divorce settlement would have “incalculable consequences”, damaging the international credibility of a country priding itself on being a champion of the rule of law, Le Monde said. And for the EU a Johnson premiership would mean “a mini-Trump across the Channel, dedicated to its sabotage”. Britain would become “a hostile principality, built on social, fiscal and environmental deregulation.”
Amongst the articles cited by the Guardian this stands out (Corriere della Sera)
Lord Chris Pattern says that Johnson is part of the ” una “trumpificazione” della nostra politica., the Trumpification of our politics.
He is equally,
Trump’s poodle: a liar who does not pay attention to the detail of reality, tells people what they want to hear and relies on their ignorance”.
Patten said Johnson exemplified the “collapse of rationality, of the relationship between the facts and what we believe” in present-day politics. “What he is offering is impossible.
All this looks as if it implies some serious thinking about changing Labour’s strategy.
A bounder in his own bailiwick is going to be hard to dislodge.
The Trumpification of British politics has begun; it does not look if a hasty declaration of an “insurgency” against Johnson is going to thwart it.
To begin with there is the impact of start-up political business, The Brexit Party. Helped by the ‘red-brown’ front, not to mention the support of former leftists, it has become a political player, and how to fight it. The Brexit Party is part of a broader trend towards national populism, which has helped dislodge the left from its historic bases of support in Italy and France. Left-wing populisms – in France and Spain – have been unable to counter the nationalist call to fight ‘oligarchies’ and ‘elites’ on behalf of the Nation.
The Brexit Party is not about to vanish:
Is an appeal to our own ‘identity politics’ of the people, the left-behind, the self-identifying native working class better than trying to build alliances on universal, internationalist, fights for rights and interests?
Then there Johnson’s strategy: will Farage assist the disintegration of the Tory party, or will the Brexit Party pave the way for his victory as part of a new “great moving right show” that can resonate deeply into the country’s electorate and culture ? Johnson hopes to rebuild the electoral support that got May- just – elected and to extent it. How can an alternative be created from shards from the same ideology, which, the experience of European left populism indicates, is a sure way to strengthen the carnival of reaction, not to challenge it?
All these issues boil down to one: the Brexit project. Will Labour let Johnson pursue the goal – however much he twists and turns over the details – of a Hard Right Brexit, the only actually existing Brexit.
Apparently the Lexit left has the answer: it needs to back their version of Brexit.
The Morning Star editorialises.
..the trade union movement and the left has to make a decisions it to remain stuck in an increasingly sterile and immobilising debate for and against the EU? Or is it to shift the ground to the kind of withdrawal from the EU that must be secured to protect working people and to advance a progressive agenda that can beat the Tories?
…
Only class politics can defeat Johnson in Labour’s working-class heartlands. The dangers of not preparing are too serious to be contemplated.
The beginnings of a different approach are there, and have strong support on the left.
This is an excellent reply to such views:
Labour must re-energise the Corbyn project by opposing Brexit
witnessing the party’s continued ambiguity and evasion, many of the members who resolutely defended Corbyn as leader in the face of an establishment onslaught are asking themselves whether the values of straight-talking honest politics only apply if you agree with the leader. Going into a general election with the current policy on Brexit would be disastrous. By bringing its policy back into line with the democratic will of its members, and anchoring its support for Remain in a programme of cross-border resistance, Labour can clearly differentiate itself from the pro-business globalism of the Lib Dems and the utopian optimism of the Greens to win back disillusioned supporters.
With a vision aimed at defending the interests of all workers, British or not, Labour can win here and lead a Europe-wide offensive against capitalist exploitation. Co-ordinating this cross-border coalition will require conferences and organising events attracting activists with shared goals from across Europe. Labour can be the force to convene such events on a mass scale, to begin the fight for a democratic, socialist Europe.
Labour Against the Witch-hunt – the Return of Monster Raving Greenstein.
The Return of the Monster Raving Greenstein Party.
Labour Against the Witch-hunt has a pubic face:
Labour Against the Witchhunt was founded in October 2017 to oppose the purge of pro-Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party.
LAW’s honorary presidents are Professor Moshé Machover and Ken Livingstone.
LAW’s sponsors include:
- Ken Livingstone
- Alexei Sayle, comedian
- Professor Moshé Machover, Israeli socialist and founder of Matzpen
- Ian Hodson, president of the Bakers Union
- Ken Loach, film director
- Noam Chomsky, author and activist
The group is probably best known for its defence of Jackie Walker.
Apart from the Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), the CPGB-PCC, more widely known as the Weekly Worker, who run the show, its leading figure is one Tony Greenstein.
Nobody should be any doubt that very few people on the left will have any truck with that lot in any campaign that involves the words ‘Zionism’ and Israel.
Well there is this chap:
Since Greenstein has stopped his, reported, visits to noted Nerve Specialist Sir Roderick Glossop the tweet (above, heading) promises to be the first of many in this vein…
Left Media Review, Labour, Brexit, Tories and the aftermath of the Peterborough By-Election.
Brexit Can’t Be Wished Away by Calls for Labour ‘Unity’ around pro-Brexit Policy.
The Morning Star was one of the first off the block to respond to the Peterborough result.
Labour unity around their pro-Brexit policy was, their Editorial on Saturday asserted, the only basis for electoral victory.
Tory disunity is Labour’s opportunity. But it must take it
Jeremy Corbyn’s determination that the party must stand for working-class unity and move beyond the referendum’s divisions stands vindicated.
….
… Labour’s chances of forming the next government rest on finding a principled basis for uniting the labour movement with and within the party that best represents its diversity.
The only credible basis for such unity lies in convincing a decisive majority of voters, most particularly Labour’s core constituency of skilled and lesser skilled workers, that Corbyn meant it when he said Labour would respect the referendum result.
A wide spectrum of opinion in the party understands this simple truth. It needs to become a decisive majority.
Socialist Appeal , which now poses as a leading voice on the Labour left, told everybody who dissented to shut up:
Labour victory in Peterborough silences the cynics
The began with the spotlight on the ‘Blairites’ and the Jewish Labour Movement’s “plan”.
The plan was that Corbyn was to take the blame for allowing a hard-right, hard-Brexiteer MP to enter Westminster, having already overseen a tepid performance in the recent local elections and a poor one in the Euros.
Yet,
The Blairites, for their part, were more bitterly disappointed than anyone. Labour’s temerity to win in Peterborough represented a major setback for all their hard work to sabotage the party and finally get rid of Corbyn.
They went onto say this,
Brexit was supposed to be the ultimate expression of this cultural divide, with people culturally identifying with their stance on the EU to a far greater degree than any social class. The Euro elections were seen to confirm this, with the Brexit Party and strongly-remain Lib Dems gaining at the Tories’ and Labour’s expense.
Many on the left of the Labour Party (including so-called socialists like Owen Jones and Paul Mason) bought into this propaganda.
Despairing at the rise of the Brexit Party, which had apparently lulled the working class under the spell of racism and nationalism, these pessimists and sceptics concluded that Leave constituencies like Peterborough were a lost cause, and that Corbyn had to embrace a second referendum to at least hold onto his middle-class Remainers.
Who cares what the “middle class” think and vote, surely the sturdy working class would see the wool being pulled over their eyes.
As apparently they could
However, the 2017 general election and the Peterborough by-election both show that class-based demands can bridge the Brexit gulf. The by-election also proves that the European election results are not a good measure of Labour’s potential for success in a general election. The party’s vote share in the by-election was up 14 percent compared to the EU elections last month.
That is, when Labour came behind the Liberal Democrats…
This demonstrates that plenty of people who voted for other parties over Europe would return to Labour in a general election – as long as it runs on a bold, anti-austerity programme.
Apparently,
It has also vindicated Corbyn’s refusal to back a second referendum. It is very possible the result might have been different had the party gone down this route. Between this victory, Corbyn’s address at the Trump demo, and the newly launched tour of public rallies (‘Labour Roots’), there is the potential to take the initiative back to the grassroots.
After the Peterborough result, Corbyn challenged the Tories to “bring on” a general election. “We’re ready”, he said.
It is imperative this is accomplished as soon as possible, taking full advantage of the Tories’ internal crisis, and in order to avoid being bogged in the Brexit myre.
John Rees from the revolutionary socialist Counterfire is less sure.
He observes that, “concerns about a new coup” against Corbyn, “have persisted”
Writing yesterday the leader of a successful, several thousand strong march to demand a general election earlier this year he says,
the issue of remaining in the European Union and of a second referendum which may prove even more consequential.
He has this stark warning against plotters,
the danger in this comes less from increasingly discredited figures like Tom Watson and those who support him in this argument such as former revolutionary socialist Paul Mason, who now calls for the sacking of Seamus Milne, Corbyn’s trusted head of communications and strategy.
It comes rather from members of the shadow cabinet who, although they were not part of the original Corbyn left, and although they share little of Corbyn’s radicalism, have been seen as loyal to Corbyn because they have observed the discipline of being Shadow Cabinet members.
Rees wants Labour to demand a People’s Brexit,
It would be better if Labour did not break faith with working-class Leave voters, and returned to the policy of a People’s Brexit, silently and stupidly retired before it had the chance to pull together both those who voted Remain but respected the referendum result and those who voted Leave.
A contrasting approach is taken by Socialist Resistance.
Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Emily Thornberry are correct on Brexit
The article, which is important and should be read in full, begins,
The Corbyn project is in crisis, writes Alan Davies. The EU elections results were a disaster for Labour, brought about by a major failure by the Corbyn leadership. It was an election that Labour could have won and within the terms of the policy agreed by conference last year, but this policy was repeatedly watered down by the front bench.
This is a crisis that is a direct threat to the most important development ever on the left in Britain in modern times; the Corbyn leadership of the Labour Party, which has opened up a real prospect of a left anti-austerity government at a time when world politics is moving to the right. That prospect is still there but the Labour leadership’s stance on Brexit, the issue that defines politics in Britain at the present time, is going to have to change.
..
Had Labour placed itself at the head of the growing anti-Brexit movement the result could have been very different. Overall, the European election vote was pro-remain with pro-remain at 40.3%. and hard Brexit at 34.9%. The Brexit party result was no surprise. It is not a new party as Farage claims but UKIP mark 2. UKIP polled 28%in the last EU election and this transferred to Brexit with some additional votes mostly from the Tories.
Although Labour went on to win the Peterborough by-election – which was important in that it denied momentum to the Brexit Party at this point – it did so on a reduced vote and because the Brexit vote was split (equally according to John Curtice) between the Brexit party and the Tories and reflected the same underlying situation. The Labour candidate, Lisa Forbes, who beat the Brexit party by just 683 votes, argued that her campaign had been successful because it had ignored Brexit and concentrated on local issues. This is a seriously wrong analysis that has been widely accepted on the Labour left and in particular by Momentum.
Davis continues,
The danger with this fence sitting is that it is based on avoiding crucial issues. On the one hand, the further away we get from what was already an undemocratic referendum – in that EU citizens and under 18’s were denied a vote – and as material circumstances changed, the less legitimacy the 2016 result has. This has never been challenged by the Labour leadership. Even worse was the idea that it would be possible to leave the EU without reducing the living standards of the vast majority in the process, or that there could be a Brexit that protected jobs. Ironically those areas where the majority voted leave which may well suffer most if Brexit goes ahead.
There is another very important reason as well to have a second referendum, and actually the most important, that is because it has become a democratic right at this stage of the Brexit shambles to have another vote. A second vote is itself a democratic right as circumstances change. Democracy can’t be a once off event that must be imposed despite the consequences and impact on peoples’ lives. The government has failed to implement what was promised in the referendum and crashing out without a deal cannot be remotely seen as what people voted for then the natural process must be to go back to the voters.
In the Clarion Martin Thomas is equally direct on the Peterborough result.
Labour won essentially because the Tory vote held up better than in the 23 May Euro-elections. Enough Tory voters thought that they will soon have Boris Johnson or another hard-Brexiter as leader, and so no longer have to protest by voting Farage.
Labour still lost many votes to Lib-Dems and to abstention.
The easing of pressure to oust the 3 Ms, the Milne-Murray-Murphy group who run the Leader’s Office, is not good. Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray are longstanding Stalinists, and responsible for shaping Labour’s shameful evasions on Brexit and antisemitism.
Those evasions affront most members, and demoralise and lose members. They affront most Labour voters, and lose votes.
They have ruined Jeremy Corbyn’s personal standing with the broad electorate. The latest poll (YouGov, 5-6 June) had Theresa May, at 29%, scoring much better as “best prime minister” than Corbyn, at 17% – even after May had resigned!
To all appearances, Corbyn is demoralised.
There is another aspect to take up , the depth of the fight against National Populism, something which the internationalist left and this Blog, have had underlined.
Mike Phipps puts this clearly in Labour Hub
The Big Debate II: Alternative Perspectives on Brexit
In Europe and beyond, the rise of rightwing economic and political nationalism is producing a polarisation into two distinct camps. On the one hand, there are those that support rational, tolerant, liberal, humanitarian, internationalist values and on the other, those that support irrational, intolerant, illiberal, anti-humanitarian, nationalist values. We must be the most consistent part of the first camp.
Internationalism should guide our approach to Brexit too. If leaving the EU were right for Britain, it would presumably be right for all member states, and logically we should call for the destruction of the EU and all its institutions. In practice, few argue for this. Internationally, all other significant socialist currents want to Reform the EU, which implies Remaining.
..
It’s time for a change of strategy. We are not economic nationalists, but nor are we content with the neoliberal European order. Above all, Labour is more credible when it is clearly advocating what it believes in, putting forward real solutions to problems, rather than trying to tack between different interests within the movement. Let’s press the reset button and commit to a distinctive socialist policy towards Europe – radically overhauling its institutions to make them work in the interests of the many, not the elites.
Comrade Mike may well be right in stating the following, but we have to do everything we can to promote the following stand,
In the unlikely event of a new referendum, we should seek to break out of the binary choice of Leave or Remain and focus on Reform, which obviously entails Remaining. But it separates us from the passive Remain camp of the Lib Dems and Change UK. Our message is radically different: the EU is not fit for purpose and must be radically restructured.
The polarisation of poltiics, the evidence of those who support “irrational, intolerant, illiberal, anti-humanitarian, nationalist values.” could be seen in the previous post on this Blog, from the identity politics of Spiked.
For all their bombast about ‘Blairites’ the Lexit left are remarkably complacent about their allies in the Brexit camp.
The intellectual centre of this camp is the Full Brexit.
Its “mission” is “to reshape Britain for the better” – with Brexit. The “left’s proper role is to be the architect of a better, more democratic future and, second, that a clean break with the EU is needed to realise that potential”
This brings together supporters of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and Counterfire (such as Feyzi Ismail), Blue Labour ( Lord Maurice Glasman, ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ Paul Embery) , prominent New Left Review contributor, Wolfgang Streeck, the Somewhere versus Nowhere People David Goodhart, Edouard Husson (for a French right-wing for everybody, “. Une droite de la France pour tous), Labour Leave, the self-identifying ‘left-wing’ national sovereigntist, Thomas Fazi, and Spiked supporters and other Brexit Party members and supporters.
It published this piece in the run up to the European Elections,
Why I’m standing for the Brexit Party
James Heartfield
“A signatory of The Full Brexit’s founding statement explains his decision to stand for The Brexit Party. All of Britain’s major political parties are committed to a feeble Brexit in name only, or cancelling Brexit altogether. TBP is the only major force fighting to defend democracy by carrying through the referendum result, and deserves the support of everyone committed to a Full Brexit.”
As good as The Full Brexit has been at marking out the left-wing case for Brexit, it has not been able to give those ideas a clear organisational expression. There is no Full Brexit Party in a shape to challenge Tory and Labour Parties at the election.
I have joined with the Brexit Party to put myself forward as candidate in Yorkshire and the Humber. I am working with some great people, like Lucy Harris who organised the Leavers of Britain Group, and the libertarian Andrew Allison.
To say we disagree on many things is putting it mildly. But every one of the Brexit Party candidates is committed to Leaving the EU and to democracy. No other party with any prospect of a hearing is even standing on a Leave platform.
This should focus people’s minds when thinking about why fighting Brexit is part of a wider battle against National Populism and our own Red-Brown Front.
Perhaps this is a good sign..
News from the Red Brown Front: Brexit Party Backer Brendan O’Neill attacks “nauseating” Gay Rights Campaigners, as Claire Fox Lives in Lap of EU Luxury.
“Moral panic over homophobia” says Brexit Party Pillar, Brendan O’Neill.
“Once, there were moral panics over homosexuality. Now there’s a moral panic over homophobia.” writes Brexit Party support Brendan O’Neill.
“There is something nauseating about the way in which gay-rights groups and political observers held up this crime as typical, as an ordinary event in a society like ours that is apparently riddled with homophobia” he continues, commenting on the attack on Lesbians on an all-night London Bus route in Camden.
In an outburst of emotionalism the Spiked editor pictures attempts to “depict society as a hotbed of rough, unenlightened beasts whose backward attitudes – in this case on homosexuality – threaten to tear apart the social fabric itself.” Drawing on the work of Cultural studies (Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. , and the classic studies of “moral panics” he claims,
In all these instances, crime has been overblown in order to construct an elitist, moralistic message about the vulnerability of certain identity groups and the wickedness of the uneducated, un-PC, dangerous throng. Identitarian groups might benefit from inflating their claims to victimhood – because that is increasingly the way in which people win moral recognition and social resources – but the broader social impact of this new, left-leaning crime construction is likely to be dire.
Last week Spiked defended this lot:
Esther McVey is right about the Birmingham schools row
Joanna Williams,
Five-year-olds are on the frontline of the culture war in Birmingham. At school, they are taught about lesbian, gay and bisexual relationships and about gender and transgender issues. Meanwhile, mainly Muslim protesters argue that these lessons are inappropriate for such young children and run counter to the religious beliefs of their parents. They have taken to demonstrating outside local schools. ‘You say we are homophobic, we say you are Islamophobic’, said one, neatly summing up the state of identity politics today.
…
The Birmingham parents are right to be angry that the state, via schools and teachers, should try to dictate how people should behave in the most intimate sphere of their lives. Demonstrating outside primary schools is ugly and shows children the divisions between the adults in their lives. But the last thing Birmingham families need right now is High Court interference. They need schools to stop teaching children about relationships once and for all.
Spiked defends on set of identity politics, the “Birmingham families”, but not another, the stirrers up of a “Moral panic” about homophobia.
A cultural conservative would say that the former RCP are well on the way to ..cultural conservatism. The politics of emotion, anger at “the state” telling people “how to Behave”.
In short a classic identity politics of the natural, the indigenous, “the people” of National populism, hard done by folk misled by “elites”.
In the meantime his comrade in the Brexit Party is free to enjoy her emotive Zombie politics, subsidised by the EU.
Someone’s living the Life of Riley.
Here.
The Limpet Leninists, Corbyn, his Advisers and Brexit.
CLPD and Brexit Bolsheviks Try to Fight off Internationalist Challenge to Labour Fence-sitting.
It looks like Boris Johnson and the Hard Brexiteers will soon be running the country.
There is lot of discussion on the left as to whether Corbyn will change the walking disaster that is his Brexit Policy.
There are those who suggest that this is not the best we can hope for.
The problem is that this lot truly believe in Brexit.
Corbyn supporters can waffle all they like, propose motions like the CLPB for “unity” around the pro-Brexit forces in Labour, and go on for ever about other Tory policies, but Brexit is the issue that runs through every single political debate in the country.
The prospect of Brexit making “austerity”, smashing and churning up people’s lives and rights, eroding collectivist politics in a frantic rush to trade on WTO rules, is what counts.
But that’s not what the inner circle really believe.
Comrade Jim Denham has a piece in Shiraz – for the CPB read an important influence on the thinking of Corbyn’s team.
Is Brexit really a “working class” cause?
Communist Party of Britain (CPB) general secretary Robert Griffiths had a piece in the Morning Star of 31 May entitled “Time for Labour to stand unequivocally by the working class”. He claims that the way to do that is for Labour to back Brexit. Brexit is a working-class cause.
..
The editor of the newly-revived Tribune, (Note by TC, owned by US Jacobin publisher, pro-Brexit Bhaskar Sunkara) Ronan Burtenshaw, goes some distance in the same direction as the Morning Star. His piece in the latest Tribune is entitled “Hold the Line”. A “negotiated Customs Union and further developing a Norway model” will provide Labour with “grounds on which some form of renewed social democracy might be won in Britain.”
Ignoring left-wing campaigns like Labour for a Socialist Europe and Another Europe is Possible, Burtenshaw tries to make out that “People’s Vote is a movement for the restoration of the ancient regime” (i.e. for “the years of social liberalism before the financial crisis”). Burtenshaw advocates a form of “soft” Brexit that will satisfy no one and disparages Remainers on the spurious basis that they support “progressive social views” rather than what he defines as “class politics” (i.e. nationalist reformism).
The limpet Leninists can still be defeated:
After Backing anti-Gay Protests is Roger Godsiff Labour MP for the Chop?
Bigots still Demonstrating last week against Equality Teaching.
The row over gender equality teaching continues to grow.
The campaign is supported by Islamists, some parents, and the far-right StopRSE campaign against ‘sexual liberation’ and “cultural Marxism”.
This is the mixture of extreme right wing and Islamists latest statement (June the 7th).
Muslims against LGBT which we all know it isn’t ….
As Muslims or people of faith we do not need to justify that we are not homophobic – because we are not – in the same way that as Muslims we do not have to apologise for terror attacks – because we are not terrorists…. don’t fall into this trap of apologising for something you haven’t done as it deflects the conversation away from what needs to be discussed …
We are against RSE because it is a clear erosion of parental rights and a state take over of the parenting role which is one of the first steps of a totalitarian regime
We are against RSE because it is open to abuse by nefarious Lobby groups who will use it to push their own sexual ideologies into the classroom
Schools should be about education and that’s all …. ideology must not be allowed through the school gate
The sexual ideologues however are using RSE as a back door in to schools
Do not be fooled by the terms ‘inclusion, diversity, tolerance, equality etc – they have very specific definitions to those who use them than to the way in which the rest of us interpret them …
People are thankfully starting to wake up to the political machinations being played but we have to stay awake and not be lulled back into the warm water 🐸
StopRSE
The protests are continuing now with the backing of right-wing Labour MP Roger Godsiff.
Roger Godsiff reported to chief whip for telling campaigners protesting against LGBT lessons ‘you’re right’
A Labour MP has been reported to the chief whip for telling campaigners protesting against LGBT teaching at a Birmingham primary school “you’re right”.
Roger Godsiff, the MP for the city’s Hall Green constituency, which includes Anderton Park Primary school, also told protesters they had a “just cause” and criticised the headteacher.
The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said she had reported the “discriminatory and irresponsible” comments to the chief whip, Nick Brown.
Parents have staged weeks of protests outside the school against the teaching of LGBT rights, claiming the lessons were “overemphasising a gay ethos” and contradicting Islam.
The demonstrations, which were described last week as “homophobic” by the West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, led the council to apply for a high court interim injunction, which banned rallies outside the gates from Friday.
Godsiff, who has previously said the equality lessons were not “age appropriate”, was seen telling the protesters they were “right” in a video that emerged this weekend.
The veteran MP, who is seen with Shakeel Afsar, the lead organiser of the protests, said: “I think you have a just cause and I regret the fact that it hasn’t been reciprocated by the headteacher.”
He asked demonstrators to consider calling off the protest as he said they had made their point, but added it would be their choice to do so. He then said: “I will continue to try and fight your corner because you’re right. Nothing more, nothing less. You’re right.”
Wes Streeting, the Labour MP for Ilford North, said he would be tabling a formal complaint to the party about Godsiff. He said: “This made me feel sick to my stomach. One of my own Labour colleagues stood with people who have peddled hatred and bigotry on school gates, intimidating pupils, teachers and parents.”
The Labour LGBT group also called for the whip to be removed and condemned Godsiff’s remarks “unreservedly and unequivocally”.
Birmingham LGBT row: MP reported after backing school protest
BBC.
The MP for a primary school facing protests over LGBT teaching has been reported to the chief whip after telling campaigners “you’re right”.
In a video circulated on social media, Birmingham Hall Green MP Roger Godsiff told the Anderton Park Primary School protesters they had a “just cause”.
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said she had reported the comments to the chief whip.
Mr Godsiff previously said the equality lessons were not “age appropriate”.
A High Court injunction is in place banning protests, which have been going on for months, outside the school.
Parents started to gather at the gates over concerns children were “too young” to learn about LGBT relationships. They also said the lessons contradicted Islam.
In the video, Mr Godsiff, who is seen with Shakeel Afsar, the lead organiser of the protests, said: “If I had the opportunity of rolling the clock back I would do exactly the same thing again.
“Because I think you have a just cause and I regret the fact that it hasn’t been reciprocated by the head teacher.”
In the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum Godsiff supported the Leave campaign,[8] although his constituency voted by 66.4% to remain in the European Union.[1] Unusually for a Brexit-supporting MP, he abstained from the vote to invoke Article 50, to commence the UK’s process of withdrawal from the EU, on the grounds that he was respecting his constituents’ pro-Remain vote.
..
In 2011, The Guardian declared that based on his participation in votes, Godsiff was “Britain’s laziest MP”, being absent from 88% of votes at the start of that year. He has attended less than 50% of parliamentary debates during his whole time in office and refuses to take any part in hustings meetings.[14] He responded to the Birmingham Mail about his participation, saying “when you are in opposition and the government has a substantial majority, you know perfectly well that you aren’t going to be able to have an effect on every vote”.[15]
Godsiff opposed marriage equality in 2013, saying that he did not want to “[redefine] the current definition of marriage.”
