Archive for the ‘Anti-Fascism’ Category
Momentum for Electoral Reform Grows as Andy Burnham Backs Proportional Representation.

Andy Burnham says Labour must ‘seize moment’ and back proportional representation.
Labour should back proportional representation for Westminster elections to allow more cooperation between political parties on a programme of urgently needed social reform, says Andy Burnham.
Writing for the Observer in the aftermath of two byelection defeats for the Tories, brought about in part by tactical voting by Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters, the mayor of Greater Manchester says PR should be at the heart of an entirely new approach to politics and policymaking.”
A key body pushing for this is the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform.
Chartist Magazine has been one of the forums on the left which had promoted electoral reform:

In the UK PR has been the only system, through the European elections, which has given a big voice to the national populist far-right. Notably, UKIP 2014, (27.5%) of any British party, 24 MEPs, Brexit Party, 2019, (30.52%) 29 seats.
Although this Blog is in principle in favour of PR (see articles above) it is also hard not to recall that Jean-Marie Le Pen gained his first foothold in French national politics when François Mitterrand introduced a proportional voting system, the “party list” method, for the French legislative elections in 1986.
The intention, as the far right Front National (FN) led by Le Pen was bubbling support out in the country, and some tentative alliances with the classical right were in the air, was to divide the Socialist Party President’s opponents. Despite some who warmed to the FN anti-immigration theme, the Gaullists (Rassemblement pour la République RPR) and centre-Right (Union pour la démocratie française, UDF) had many reasons to be wary of the FN not least those who recalled Le Pen’s own fight for Algérie Française against the General. The measure, equally transparently, was intended to shore up left support, easier to express nationally than through constituency battles.
In elections the RPR/UDF coalition obtained 43,9 % and were the largest group. Consequently, for the first time of the history of the Fifth Republic, the parliamentary majority was opposed to the President. Thus began a period of “cohabitation”, between the Right, led by PM Jacques Chirac, and Mitterrand, a division of power which the founder, in 1959, of the constitutional framework Charles de Gaulle, did not foresee. (La cohabitation de 1986-1988, une première sous la Ve République.)
The FN was able to form a parliamentary group with its 35 elected members (9,65% of the vote). It marked their entry onto the national political scene, and helped give them, a previously fringe movement with origins in ‘national revolutionary’ tendencies, legitimacy.
PR for Parliamentary elections was abolished by Prime Minister Chirac. Reelected in 1988 Mitterrand did not re-introduce the system for the legislative elections held in the same year.
Nevertheless, “Since their creation in 1986, France’s regional councils were first elected according to a proportional system (used three times between 1986 and 1998) and then, since 2003, through a mixed system which combines proportional distribution and majority bonus in a two-round ballot.
This “tailor-made” election method, which is different than what is used for the National Assembly and departmental councils (two-round binominal system), as well as the European Parliament (single-round proportional election) is similar to that which is used by town councils of cities over 1,000 inhabitants where the majority bonus is greater (50%).”
“
Chris Williamson labelled by Twitter as “Iran state-affiliated media.”

Former UK MP and Host of Press TV’s Palestine Declassified Chris Williamson.
For the last few years Chris Williamson has posed a champion of the left. He even set up his own micro-party, RESIST: Movement for a People’s Party (trademarked no less, “based on Festival of Resistance Ltd, the RESIST: Movement for a People’s Party trademark is used in the following business: Political advice; Political advisory services; Political information services; Political lobbying services; Political research and analysis; Political services; Organisation of political meetings. .”). Little has been heard of this movement, whose main attempt at “political meetings” was a venture into a national festival as sad and sparse as a plate of the celebrated Vegan’s left-overs.
Yet all is not going too badly.
The anti-Labour alt-news site Skwawkbox carried a puff piece for the alliance Williamson is involved in.
Rebuilding socialism outside of Labour Phil Bevin (described as former ‘Corbyn LOTO Staffer’: Note: Phil Bevin was a 2022 Workers Party of Britain candidate in Brandwood & King’s Heath in the Birmingham local election. They received 111 votes.)
Now this type has written this:
new shoots of change are growing. An informal coalition is building around the RMT Union via the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) and collaborating groups. TUSC links together the RMT, Socialist Party and Resist. In recent weeks, the Workers’ Party of Britain (aka: George Galloway’s red-brown front with the CPGB (Marxist-Leninist)) has also gained observer status with TUSC. This grouping may presently represent the best hope of a political movement that may one day rival Labour.
The comrade of small businessman Steve Walker gives vent to this interesting speculation,
through informal relationships, initially tentative ties between a Peace and Justice Party, TUSC and other groups may grow into a powerful electoral alliance.
The Grayzone’s revelation of Paul Mason’s alleged email correspondence with an MI6 agent appears to show the former journalist and would-be Labour MP raising fears about the emergence of an anti-imperialist left outside of Labour. The establishment should be worried, because it is from a loose alliance of anti-imperialist groups, as described in this article, that a meaningful challenge to the status quo will emerge.
Bevin has, to put it mildly, a ‘thing’ about some issues, “the 2018 “antisemitism crisis”, when the left capitulated to the right’s demands that the party adopt the deeply flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism, leading to a campaign, which activists justifiably describe as “the witch hunt”.”
He has a lot of other ‘theories’,
Just this week, the Grayzone published a report alleging “a plot by pro-Leave elites to sabotage Theresa May’s Brexit deal, infiltrate government, spy on campaign groups, and replace May with Boris Johnson”, which was in play as early as 2018. Former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove, whom emails revealed to have been involved, apparently believed Johnson represented the best chance of “seeing off” Corbyn and “accommodating the Farage Threat.”
The forces working behind the scenes in the pro-Leave camp apparently saw ousting May and a hard Brexit delivered by a Johnson premiership as key to defeating Corbyn.
It looks as if another chap with lots of theories in this vein is in the line of fire:
This is the duo worrying the ‘Establishment’….