Posts Tagged ‘Brexit’
John McDonnell, Moving “Towards a People’s Vote” on Brexit.
McDonnell sticks to his Principles.
EXCLUSIVE: John McDonnell speaks about Labour shift on Brexit and calls for ‘fiercer’ action against anti-Semitism
He gave his strongest indication yet that Labour is close to backing a second public vote and said he would campaign for Remain if one is held.
“On the people’s vote, we’ve kept it on the table and we’re moving towards that,” he said.
He said an amendment calling for a public vote which is being tabled for debate next week by Labour MPs Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson “could be a solution”.
The amendment, which was reportedly endorsed by shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer at a planning meeting this week, would offer Theresa May’s deal an easy ride in the Commons if she put it to a binding yes-no vote of the public.
Mr McDonnell revealed the two backbenchers had been asked to redraft the amendment. And he said that if the Prime Minister’s deal was rejected by the public, Britain would remain in the EU by default.
“If we were going on a people’s vote based on a deal that has gone through Parliament in some form, if that got voted down then you’d have status quo, and that would be Remain,” he said.
….
Mr McDonnell said Remain should be an option in a referendum and said Labour was “moving into implementation stages around our conference decision, around the People’s Vote”.
Asked how would he vote, he said firmly: “I’ve said all along if there was another one I’d campaign for Remain and I’d vote for Remain.”
This is a genuine step forward for the internationalist left.
Comrade McDonnell also responded to chagres of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in a way which will resonate with many activists,
In the same interview, Mr McDonnell criticised his party for moving too slowly and softly against anti-Semitism. “We’ve got to be quicker, and we’ve got to be fiercer,” he said. “I think there’s been a lot of listening but not enough action. That’s the problem.”
I cannot underline too much how more comfortable I and many feel with McDonnell’s way of dealing with these issues then the official line so far.
That’s without the kind of recoil many of us feel at the hyper ‘anti Zionist’ reaction.
The story has echoed widely in the media:
The Evening Standard notes that Len McCluskey, leader of UNITE, is opposed to any such vote.
No doubt influenced by the charge that, with company after company announcing shifts in car production, decisions generally said to be influenced by Brexit, that McCluskey he has let his members working in the auto industry down, the UNITE chief is now squirming:
Cormade McDonnell has won praise:
Labour Split: Brexit and Beyond.
” possibility that they have nothing to offer but anti-Corbynism and vacuous centrism..” (Labour List)
Labour split: Jeremy Corbyn faces major crisis as deputy leader warns more MPs are ready to quit party
Jeremy Corbyn faces a historic Labour rupture after being warned that more MPs are ready to follow the seven who dramatically quit his party on Monday.
The leader publicly appealed for unity while his supporters launched savage attacks on the MPs, branding them “cowards”, “traitors” and “splitters” and demanding they give up their seats.
But as the crisis deepened, deputy leader Tom Watson said other MPs are also considering leaving Labour, a party he admitted he sometimes no longer recognises, amid visceral anger over antisemitism, Brexit and Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
The first response to the 7 resignations and the creation of the Independent Group in Parliament should – this comes in the realm of the bleeding obvious – be temperate.
In this vein, “We at Open Labour view the split from the Labour Party as a step backwards for open politics within Labour, and for the communities our party represents. Many of those splitting away have served Labour for years, so we thank them for their work and wish them well, though we disagree with their decision.”
By contrast, the response to the resignations shows some of the left at their worst.
Screams of ‘traitors’, as the Independent reports, are likely to be welcomed by the new Parliamentary group.
They confirm their charge of intolerance and hatred.
The Napoleon of Counterfire, John Rees, writes,
Good that the splitters have gone, but this is a dangerous moment for the left, argues John Rees
What all this means is that the Labour left is faced with a choice: do you want a genuine left-wing workers’ party, or do you want to continue the losing battle to hold together a traditional Social Democratic party which contains right-wing, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, MPs?
No, NO!
This should be the moment when the entire Labour left, including the leadership around Jeremy Corbyn, decisively strikeout to recreate Labour as a genuine socialist party.
Perhaps Rees, experienced in creating a genuine workers’ parties, from the SWP to George Galloway’s Respect, should be appointed an adviser to Corbyn.
The next issue is to focus on the most important aspect: this break-away weakens efforts to stop the Tory Brexit.
Not only by grabbing attention for the split.
Concern at the influence of forces hostile to left-wing internationalism, that is, the pro-Brexit wing in Labour, can hardly have an effect outside the Party.
The damage caused by the looming threat of Brexit is already major:
Finally, is the controversy about anti-Semitism going to disappear?
The respected Mayor of London commented yesterday,
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said he is deeply distressed by the Labour split, but admitted the party has been “shockingly poor” at dealing with anti-Semitism.
But he said he believed the Labour divide will make it more difficult for the party to be elected to govern.
It beggars belief that the Chair of Luciana Berger’s CLP was capable of this without being caught out.
The chair of the Liverpool Wavertree Labour Party – which is facing claims of antisemitic bullying by local members against MP Luciana Berger – made repeated appearances on a current affairs show broadcast by conspiracy theorist David Icke.
Dr Alex Scott-Samuel, who is a member of the pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice For Labour group, has been a regular guest on the Richie Allen on David Icke.com show since 2015.
Chair of CLP accused of bullying Luciana Berger appeared on show broadcast by David Icke
At the moment most minds are going to be focused on the potential of the group in elections.
The Spectator states,
When asked in the survey who they would vote for if there was a general election tomorrow, 8 per cent of the respondents opted for ‘A new centrist party opposed to Brexit’ if one existed. If these results materialised in a general election, this would make the Independence Group the third largest party, behind the Conservatives on 39 per cent and Labour on 34 per cent. Revealingly, the majority of the new party’s vote share has come from Labour, causing the party to fall into second place, five points behind the Conservative Party.
The capacity of the group to keep in the headlines is underlined by speculation over new defections,
Will more MPs leave Labour and the Conservatives to join the Independent Group?
Stephen Bush
John McDonnell makes a suggestion to deal with the difficulties Labour faces:
McDonnell: Labour needs “mammoth, massive listening exercise.
Statements:
“IT IS THE LABOUR PARTY OR NOTHING” – OPEN LABOUR STATEMENT
We at Open Labour view the split from the Labour Party as a step backwards for open politics within Labour, and for the communities our party represents. Many of those splitting away have served Labour for years, so we thank them for their work and wish them well, though we disagree with their decision.
As as a principle of democracy, we believe that those MPs splitting from the party no longer represent the people who voted for them as Labour candidates on our 2017 manifesto. They should stand down and face by-elections.
We stand by Labour’s direction of travel on the economy and austerity, which alongside Brexit are the most important issues facing the country. Labour is the only party serious about fighting for a transformation of our broken economy, and all indications are that it will remain the only party offering such a platform.
We have sympathy with some of these MP’s concerns raised around party culture, particularly with regards to the long failure of Labour to tackle anti-Semitic abuse and a culture of bad faith or exclusionary rhetoric which grips some CLPs – these criticisms cannot be dismissed. But the cure offered does not remedy the problem. We firmly believe that leaving the party offers no way to improve Labour, to ease the suffering in our communities, or prevent even greater suffering as a result of Brexit.
Open Labour will continue to fight for a left which encourages pluralism and tolerates a range of traditions and groups in their right to exist and campaign. Without it, there can be no vibrancy in the party, splits become inevitable, and our democracy loses its purpose.
The path to making our ideas a reality is through Labour and its allies in the trade union movement.
We are sorry to see this happen and thank our leaving MPs for their service, but we look forward to campaigning for Labour candidates in the seats affected.
Labour for a People’s Vote:
Today seven Labour MPs have resigned from the Labour Party and announced that they will form a new “independent grouping”.
We understand that these MPs have had concerns over the way that the party has handled Brexit, and over the way that antisemitism has been dealt with.
Antisemitism is a serious issue. We are committed to rooting it out of the party and hope all Jewish members will stay to help us do this. Racism of any kind has no place in our party or our country. Labour has always been against discrimination of any kind. Antisemitism must be no exception.
We understand too that Brexit is a national crisis, made by the Tories and designed only to create division and harm in our society. Labour is the only party able to stop the Tories achieving their ends – which is why we are so clear on the need for a public vote, and for Labour to campaign for our EU membership in that campaign. Anything else would let down the people of Britain who put their trust in us at the last election.
We believe however that this fight is best fought within the Labour Party. Only Labour can win a General Election and keep the Tories out of power. Only Labour can stop the Tories’ Brexit getting through Parliament, and win a parliamentary vote to get a new referendum on Brexit. And only Labour has the reach and authority to lead and win the remain campaign.
We believe that Labour has the answers to the problems Britain faces. Britain needs a radical Labour Government, able to sweep away years of Tory misrule and austerity, and restore fairness and justice to our country. This agenda is not served by splits or resignations.
People’s Assembly leader John Rees urges Corbyn to “face down” anti-Brexit Labour membership and MPs
Happier Days: John Rees, Experienced Campaigner and Strategist.
In a multi-pronged strategy for reviving Labour’s fortunes, John Rees, a leading figure in the People’s Assembly and the influential groupuscule Counterfire launched this broadside yesterday:
Waiting for the Tories to fail is a losing strategy, argues John Rees
Jeremy Corbyn, who has historically held an anti-EU position only altered under pressure from the right wing in the first days of his leadership, and now aware that Labour would lose the next general election if Labour deserts the very large number of Leave voters, is embattled at the head of his party.
One way of improving Labour’s prospects would be to face down the remainers and second referendumers. All the placatory talk of Labour being a broad church which can accommodate diametrically opposed views is doing nothing to quell the determination on the part of the remain right-wingers to see the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
The pro-Brexit Rees, who sees leaving the European Union as the basis for a “new economic settlement that works for the many”, a “People’s Brexit” urges Corbyn to come out forcefully for….. Brexit,
Worse still, placating these forces in Labour sends a signal to Leave voters that Labour is not serious about respecting the outcome of the 2016 referendum. The secret of the Tories continued relative success in the opinion polls is that they look like the only party seriously committed to delivering Brexit. If Labour allows this to continue it makes the next general election a much more close run thing than it ever need be.
Rees, on the strength of the 3,000 strong (some say, 2,000) People’s Assembly March last month, which ended in fisticuffs about who has the patent to be the “real” British Yellow Jackets, urges action.
Now!
Labour’s campaigning is not up to scratch.
In the midst of an unprecedented political crisis Labour’s response has been wholly Parliamentary. Remainers take to the streets. Leavers take to the streets. The far right take to the streets. But the Labour left? Even Momentum, which used to pride itself on being a social movement, is in entirely passive in respect of any large-scale extra Parliamentary movement.
What we need is action!
Now!
Call the rallies now. Send left leaders of the movement out to address them. Call a mass national demonstration now. Call on every Labour movement organisation to build for it. Break the bounds of the Parliamentary deadlock and give ordinary people the chance to shift the political spectrum to the left, open up the path to a general election, and win a left Labour victory.
In a heartfelt plea Rees ends his Philippic,
The whole left, but crucially the Labour left, will allow their best opportunity yet to create a left Labour government pass by if they remain passive for much longer.
Guardian:
Most Labour members believe Corbyn should back second Brexit vote
Labour members are significantly more opposed to Brexit than Jeremy Corbyn is, with 72% of them thinking their leader should fully support a second referendum, according to a study of attitudes in the party.
The polling, part of an ongoing wider academic study into attitudes in various parties, found that only 18% opposed Labour campaigning for a second referendum, while 88% would then opt for remain if such a vote was held.
Love Socialism, Hate Brexit – MPs and Meeting Make Waves.
Anti-Brexit Left.
On Wednesday night a Union boss told the world his pro-Brexit policy.
Len McCluskey has said that remaining in the EU would “not be the best option” for the UK – but called on Prime Minister Theresa May to accept that a soft version of Brexit is the only one achievable.
Talking to ITV’s Robert Peston on Wednesday night, the General Secretary of Unite, which represents 1.2 million British workers across a wide range of sectors, said that he prefers a softer Brexit with membership of a customs union and tariff-free access to the single market.
He told Mr Peston that he was “vehemently in favour of a people’s vote, it’s called a general election” but said that he was against any efforts that could reverse the Brexit process as a whole.
He said: “My view is that having had a 2016 referendum where the people have voted to come out of the EU, to try and deflect away from that threatens the whole democratic fabric on which we operate… I’m saying that in reality, it is not the best option for our nation.”
Yesterday Clive Lewis spoke at “Love Socialism, Hate Brexit” with other Labour MPs to express a different view.
Love socialism, hate Brexit? Labour’s position is crumbling
Independent.
This is a man who resigned from Labour’s front bench in order to vote against triggering Article 50, but has now returned, and claims he has only done so because part of Labour’s Brexit policy involves the possibility of a second referendum, which now looks unlikely to happen.
Clive Lewis warned the Love Socialism, Hate Brexit crowd that the Liberal Democrats were “utterly, comprehensively destroyed for facilitating austerity,” and that the Labour Party risked the same fate by “facilitating a Tory Brexit”.
He told them a new Tory leader would come in, after Theresa May. “And they will say ‘you know what, she was a disaster for this country, she betrayed this country, but so too was the leader of the opposition. He was part of this sorry debacle and I’m now going to move forward to try resolve this situation in the best way I can.’
“And I tell you what, the Tory right-wing mainstream media will get behind that narrative and it is us, the Labour Party, that will pick up a lot of the flack for what happens.”
The Guardian also reports:
Shadow minister says party would never be forgiven as calls for second referendum grow
Labour tensions over Brexit threatened to boil over on Thursday as two shadow ministers broke ranks to call for a second referendum, and others hinted they could quit the party unless Jeremy Corbyn’s position changed over the next fortnight.
Clive Lewis, a shadow Treasury minister, warned Corbyn that Labour might never be forgiven and could disappear from UK politics if MPs voted to facilitate a Conservative Brexit deal.
Another shadow minister, Paul Sweeney, also backed a second referendum on the final Brexit deal for the first time on Thursday.
The high-profile pro-EU backbencher Chris Leslie said he was “clinging to hope” that the Conservatives would back a fresh poll in the next fortnight, suggesting that he had lost faith in his own party.
Leslie accused Corbyn of “regressing” from the party’s conference policy to pursue a public vote when other options had been exhausted. “I certainly feel we are being played for fools by the leadership of the Labour party on this particular issue. By now we should have reached the stage of a public vote. Nobody can explain to me seriously … why we are not at that particular stage right now.”
Leslie is among several backbench MPs rumoured to be considering quitting the party in the coming weeks, as concerns mount not only over the party’s Brexit policy but also how it has dealt with cases of antisemitism.
The shadow minister, a prominent supporter of Corbyn, made his comments at a Love Socialism, Hate Brexit rally promoted by the pro-referendum group Another Europe is Possible.
Lewis, who resigned from the shadow cabinet in 2017 to vote against triggering article 50 but returned to the frontbench last year, said Labour could face electoral annihilation similar to that of the Liberal Democrats after the party entered a coalition with the Tories.
The Socialist Workers Party makes a bold counter call:
The left should put forward an anti-austerity, anti-racist vision of Brexit that rejects the neoliberal single market and defends freedom of movement.
Labour Party Marxists (Weekly Worker, Communist Party of Great Britain Provisional Central Committee) , ignores the issue of Europe altogether,
Heading to a Split?
Amazingly, there are still people ostensibly on the Labour left appealing for ‘party unity’. But the last few weeks will have done wonders to convince most Jeremy Corbyn supporters that, in fact, there can be no unity with the right in the party. Corbyn and his allies have certainly launched plenty of appeals for ‘unity’ in the past three and a half years – trying to appease the right by bending over backwards to accept most of their demands. But we are seeing signs that, perhaps, the policy of appeasement pursued by Corbyn’s office might finally be coming to an end.
Instead,
the campaign to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is very much part and parcel of the slow coup against Jeremy Corbyn and the left.
Meanwhile back on the internationalist left:
National Populism. Roger Eatwell, Matthew Goodwin. Review: A Feast of Gammon.
A Feast of Gammon.
National Populism. The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin. Pelican. 2018.
Gammon: This word probably derives from the same original as ‘game’ and gamble, but in Victorian and later slang it meant to impose upon, delude, cheat, or play the game on.”
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Millennium Edition.
Gammon: term used to describe a particular type of Brexit-voting, europhobic, middle-aged white male, whose meat-faced complexion suggests they are perilously close to a stroke.
The term ‘gammon’ is linked to the unhealthy pink skin tone of such stout yeomen, probably because of high blood pressure caused by decades of ‘PC gone mad’, being defeated in arguments about the non-existent merits of Brexit and women getting the vote.
Gammon often make their appearance on BBC’s Question Time jabbing their porcine fingers at the camera while demanding immediate nuclear strikes against Remain-voting areas, people who eat vegetables and/or cyclists.
When gammon appears en masse it is often referred to as a “wall of gammon”.
The first known usage of the term ‘gammon’ to describe the complexion of men of an overly-jingoistic fashion dates from as far back as 1838 in a description of Mr Gregsbury, a Member of Parliament, in Charles Dickens’ novel, Nicholas Nickleby.
In George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman novels the word gammon crops up. As Tom Brown’s bully bluffs and wriggles through life, his career is gammon itself. A red-faced liar, and cowardly racialist, the ardent Imperialist is the forebear of today’s British cured ham populists and patriots.
National Populism refers to, in Eatwell and Goodwin’s view, movements that “prioritise the culture and interests of the nation, and promise to give voice to a people who feel that they have been neglected, even held in contempt, by distant and often corrupt elites.” (Page ix) The authors consider what national supporters “feel” about “corrupt elites”, and movements that promote these themes, have to be taken at face value. They are not going to be called out as gammon, dismissed as irrational, uneducated, racists. They “see their own arguments as moral.” (Page 171)
From UKIP (which has never held direct political power, The French Front National (now Rassemblement National) – also never in government – to President Trump, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Matteo Salvini’s La Lega, in power in Italy with the ‘populist’ , Movimento 5 Stelle, the Freedom parties in the Netherlands and Austria, and others, there are common traits. They are populists in the sense that they wish to “make the popular will heard and acted on”, defend the interests of “plain, ordinary people” and wish to replace “corrupt and distant elites”. To these vague, not to say vacuous, words – thin enough – national populism adds one strong term, nationalism. National populists stand out with a “strong emphasis on immigration and ethnic change” (Page 80). Behind this diversity there is a “fairly broad alliance of people without degrees who share traditional values and a cluster of core concerns about their lack of voice, the position of their group relative to others, and in particularly immigration and ethnic change.”(Page 39)
Distrust of politicians, “rapid ethnic change” a fear of relative deprivation, under the effects of “neoliberal globalisation” (whose economics are left hanging in the air) feed national populism. But the perception of a threat of “ethnic destruction” is the pillar of the demand for “national independence and identity”. Concerned to demolish “misleading myths” Eatwell and Goodwin give legitimacy to fears about “hyper-ethnic change”, or in the words of famous polemicist they do not refer to, Renaud Camus, “le Grand Remplacement” (Révoltez-vous! 2015). This is not the biological racism of the 1930s far right or modern race-war fascism. It is more cultural. To use a word already taken into English, it is “identitarian”; “We do not think the term “racism” should be applied solely because people seek to retain the broad parameters of the ethnic base of country and its national identity, even though this can involve discriminating against outside groups. “(Page 75)
Angry White Men.
There is a history to be written about the writers and academics with a taste for the pink meat, the Gammon left and right. Eatwell and Goodwin began by refusing to scorn national populists as “crude bigots and old white men”, far -from-well-off, uneducated, and marginalised from society. They point out that many of these parties have a degree of backing from the respectable middle-class, women indeed vote for them, as well as workers. France indeed has a whole array of intellectuals on the national populist side, some of whom, like Michel Onfray, Emmanuel Todd, and Jean-Claude Michéa, still claiming a wavering leftist thread, even a belief in ‘common decency’ for their sovereigntist dreams, others, Éric Zemmour at their head, clearly on the nationalist right.
Reviewing National Populism for – inevitably – Spiked, Jon Holbrook misses that point and rejoices at a counterblast against “the elite’s dismissive response” to “angry white men”. (Populism is a struggle for democracy. January 2019). Gammonry’s French cousin, the Beauf, the American Jacobin might add, is equally the much-maligned target of loaded put downs. Populism is a fight for democracy against “supra-nationalism”, the “transfer of power to transnational organisations”. Gérard Bras talks of the contempt expressed by liberal opponents of populism. For them it expresses the irrationality of the people, their ignorance and their characteristic whims. (“ exprime l’irrationalité du peuple, son ignorance et son caractère velléitaire”) Citing Jacques Rancière he asserts that the charge of “populism” expresses the contempt that, the ruling “politically correct hold for the ruled, (“le politiquement correct dominant tient les dominés”). As Holbrook puts it, “political correctness empowered liberalism to double down on its traditional fear of majority opinion….” (1)
There is widespread awareness of what National Populism calls the “dealignment” of politics, the drift away from life-long political loyalties, and the decline of social democratic and left support in Europe. No doubt with this in mind the rival ‘left populist’ Chantal Mouffe has protested against the “demonising of the enemies of the “bipartisan consensus. They express opposition to this globalised neoliberal “oligarchy”, to what she dubs, “post-democracy”, and a push for popular sovereignty – whose limits and shapes remain to be defined. Inheriting strategic thinking about populism begun by her late partner Ernesto Laclau the interlocutor of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and some of the leaders of the (presently splintered) Podemos, proposes a political response. The red-faced masses’ “Xenophobic language”, writes Chantal Mouffe, “could be formulated in a different vocabulary and directed towards another adversary”. (2)
“Critics of the neo-liberal order” welcomed the UK leave vote, the “rising of the North” from the anti-EU “rust belt regions”. This was an authentic working class that turned it back on the Trade Union majority and the Labour Party’s official position. That is the ‘Lexit’, pro-Brexit, lament against internationalists, the “cosmopolitans’ from nowhere. But this book should give food for thought for those crying over the fate of the left-behind.
The message of National Populism, is that, taking this into account, “we need to talk about immigration”. How can, Éric Fassin has commented, the same “affects”, the emotions that fuel this conversation amongst supporters of national populism be retranslated into a left-wing populism? The chances are slim. I would say close to zero. What is their demand? Ending migration would come, if not at the top, at least close to it. National ‘preference’? Putting our ‘ain folk’ first, and, above all the Nation’s Sovereignty,. above class and ‘elites’. But then I have met national populists. They were, are, and will be, gammon. And who is leading them? Flashman Farrage, Flashman Rees Mogg and Ultra-Flashman, Boris Johnson. (3)
***
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Populisme: une enquête philosophique sur un concept insaisissable Review and synopsis of Les Voies du peuple (2018)
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Page 23. For a Left Populism. Chantal Mouffe. Verso. 2018.
- Page 73 Populisme. Le grand ressentiment. Éric Fassin Textuel. 2017 The term ‘affects’, emotions, an abomination in both English and French, comes from a reading of Spinoza (a small part of his writings) on the emotions in Frédéric Lordon, La société des affects. 2013. In this context, “By affect I understand affections of the body by which the body’s power of acting is increased or diminished, aided or restrained, and at the same time, the ideas of these affections.” Affect (philosophy).
Case for Brexit Boosted as Defence Secretary says it “can enhance UK’s lethality”.
‘Defence Secretary” Makes Strong Case of Brexit Benefits.
With all that talk about Dunkirk and valiant little Britain Battling Brussels Bullies it’s a wonder the military side of Brexit has not gotmuch of an airing.
Today that’s all changed.
Brexit ‘can enhance UK’s lethality’, says defence secretary
Brexit represents an opportunity for Britain to boost its global military standing and “enhance our lethality” in response to the threats posed by Russia and China, the defence secretary will say in a notably combative address at a defence thinktank.
Gavin Williamson intends to argue in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute on Monday that a post-Brexit UK should redefine its role as a global power prepared to intervene against countries that “flout international law”, backed up by new military technologies and capabilities.
The cabinet minister, who is increasingly keen to talk up Brexit at a time when a deal is elusive, is expected to say leaving the EU will allow the UK “to consider how we not only project but maximise our influence around the world in the months and years to come”.
Williamson is expected to conclude: “Brexit has brought us to a great moment in our history. A moment when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass.”
Without challenging the premise of this rabid rant this was Labour response:
Labour’s Nia Griffith, the shadow defence secretary, said Williamson’s rhetoric was undermined by cuts to the defence budget of £9bn in real terms since 2010.
“Instead of simply engaging in yet more sabre-rattling, Gavin Williamson should get to grips with the crisis in defence funding that is happening on his watch,” she said.
It is hard to deny that the concerns of the Leave voting, ‘left-behind’, ‘people-from-somewhere’, and their wish to “enhance our lethality” have to taken seriously.
Corbyn Plans “Bringing the Country Together” Behind His Brexit.
Alice Meets Corbyn’s Brexit, “I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too.”
The pro-Brexit Morning Star (Editorial today) summarises Corbyn’s move:
Labour’s five proposals are a compromise. They do not represent what Labour would negotiate if it had the opportunity: this is no doubt why the list is far less ambitious than the Brexit vision outlined by Corbyn in Coventry nearly a year ago, when he pledged to “negotiate protections, clarifications or exemptions … in relation to privatisation and public service competition directives, state aid and procurement rules” and vowed that “we cannot be held back inside or outside the EU from taking the steps we need to support cutting-edge industries and local business [and] stop the tide of privatisation and outsourcing.”
Until a general election changes the game, Brexit is not Labour’s to negotiate. On the other hand, articulating a positive and ambitious vision of our future outside the EU, and how Labour would approach that differently from the Conservatives, is essential both to general election success and to transforming an economy broken by neoliberalism and auster
Here is Corbyn’s letter to Labour members:
I have written to the Prime Minister laying out Labour’s alternative plan so we can move beyond the mess the Tories have made of Brexit.
The Tory failure has left the country deeply divided and facing the threat of a disastrous No Deal outcome. Labour can and must take a lead in bringing our country together.
We are convinced that our sensible alternative, set out in the five demands in my letter, could both win the support of parliament and bring together those who voted Leave and Remain.
More than any other party, Labour represents the hopes and ambitions of millions of people across all parts of our country.
Whether people live in Tottenham or Mansfield, they face the same problems of austerity, the injustice of Universal Credit and insecure work. The real divide in our country is not between Leave and Remain, but between the many and the few.
I believe our alternative plan – which includes a permanent customs union, staying close to the single market, and full guarantees on workers’ rights, consumer standards and environmental protections – can help move us beyond divisions over Brexit and lay the ground for the transformation of our country that only a Labour government can deliver.
Theresa May is unable to reach a sensible deal because it would split the Tories – and we will never vote for a bad Tory deal.
If Parliament is deadlocked, then the best outcome would be a general election. Without it, we will keep all options on the table, as agreed in our party conference motion, including the option of a public vote.
Thank you,
Jeremy Corbyn
Leader of the Labour Party
This all looks, as some have commented, a strategy for either negotiating some agreement with Theresa May, or for many, many years, of future negotiating should Labour win an election.
The Guardian has commented that, “It is far from clear whether Labour’s five demands for UK withdrawal are achievable”.
The Guardian lists the 5 points and looks at them.
- A permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union, an agreement on commercial policy that includes a UK say on future EU trade deals.
The problem here is that on present evidence, “The British government would have no say over new trade deals if it was in a customs union with the European Union, a former head of the World Trade Organisation has said. ” (Guardian 21st of January 2018). Nor is obvious how a sudden lurch back into a Customs Union is going to be re-worked out from scratch.
- Close alignment with the single market, underpinned by shared institutions and obligations, with clear arrangements for dispute resolution.
The Guardian notes on this, “This part of the proposal sounds strikingly similar to May’s Chequers plan, but the EU rejected that as “cherry-picking” parts of the indivisible four freedoms. If Labour decides it wishes to be fully in the single market, the EU will insist it signs up to EU state-aid rules. “Corbyn will have to come out of the closet and say we accept single market rules,” says one senior EU official. If Labour wants to be in the single market, it will also have to accept continued freedom of movement, though senior Labour figures have sounded more warm towards that prospect in recent weeks.
This could equally be described as a pious intention, open to Labour to ‘negotiate’ as it sees fit. As noted on Labour List, (Sienna Rodgers)”“single market alignment” doesn’t amount to the “full participation” prescribed by the composite motion. (of the Labour Party Conference).
It is also open to the Morning Star Brexiteers and the “4 Ms” to “negotiate protections, clarifications or exemptions. That is, a merry game over many years, until they decide to break away completely and try for the WTO rule based trade. It is a recipe for endless rows, dramatic turnarounds, and a continuous diversion from any Labour government’s legislative programme.
- Dynamic alignment on rights and protections so that UK standards keep pace with evolving standards across Europe as a minimum, allowing the UK to lead the way.
The word “dynamic” cannot hide that this is always open to a Tory government to renege on. One of the obvious attractions of common European standards is that they were made in common not “aligned” with.
- Clear commitments on participation in EU agencies and funding programmes, including in areas such as the environment, education, and industrial regulation.
A commitment – no more. And, the Guardian states, “The political declaration – the non-binding part of the Brexit deal that May has proposed – already states that the EU and the UK will “explore the possibility of cooperation” involving agencies such as the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and the European Aviation Safety Agency.
- Unambiguous agreements on the detail of future security arrangements, including access to the European arrest warrant and vital shared databases.
Something that remains open. The Guardian says, “Brussels has said it is difficult for the UK to have the same access to EU police organisations and databases without being a member state, including taking on EU data-protection rules and accepting the remit of the European court of justice. It is unclear if Labour would be prepared to accept this.”
On Labour List Sienna Rogers also observes:
Corbyn’s list makes no mention of the backstop or of free movement.
It remains that Corbyn and his inner circle want Labour Party members to accept Brexit.
The present strategy may well involve a compromise to bring “our country together” – for yet more, and yet more, negotiations.
Corbyn allies in the influential groupuscule Counterfire do not relish such a consensus.
John Rees writes,
But now the entirety of the British political establishment, and the mass media, are pushing the Labour leadership to “save the nation” by joining in a Tory-inspired unity campaign aimed at achieving the seemingly politically impossible task of passing Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
He, like the Morning Star, backs Brexit.
Brexit, in this compromise form is still Brexit.
Many people in the Labour Party simply do not accept Brexit in the first place.
Shiraz describes the move as “Corbyn’s Brexit betrayal.”
Socialist Resistance writes on the forces, hostile to left-wing internationalism, who are driving the Corbyn stategy.
The British Road to Brexit
Milne and Murray haven’t changed their minds on that in forty-five years. That’s fine. The EU is a bosses’ club. What’s different now is that the push for Brexit is coming from the right of British politics and has galvanised every racist in the country. The 2016 referendum result wasn’t a rejection of a bosses’ club, it was a rejection of freedom of movement within the EU. Milne and Murray are in the Labour Party now and they are very definitely in a minority on this issue. The most recent evidence for that is the report commissioned by Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association which says:
“Labour would especially lose the support of people below the age of 35, which could make this issue comparable to the impact the tuition fees and involvement in the coalition had on Lib Dem support….
… “If there is an election in 2019, Labour will get a lower share of the vote in every seat in the country if it has a pro-Brexit policy than if it has an anti-Brexit position.”
Corbyn knows this already and yet he is risking electoral defeat. His letter to Theresa May setting out the terms under which Labour would support a Brexit deal makes no reference to the party’s conference vote calling for a new referendum. It doesn’t even mention delaying the exit date until a deal which meets his conditions for a soft Brexit are negotiated.
This is a big victory for those of his advisors who want Brexit to happen because they think it might set Labour on a road to socialism in one country. And it’s not just Milne and Murrary. Len McCluskey of Unite is dead set against a new referendum and so is Karie Murphy, Corbyn’s chief of staff who accompanied Corbyn and Milne to the recent meeting with Theresa May.
The only people this will give comfort to are those Tories who back May’s plan to run down the clock to a hard Brexit and the DUP. It will not win over a single Brexit supporting voter and it will demoralise the hundreds of thousands of Labour members the party will need to win the next general election.
As we learned a couple of weeks ago during the immigration debate, the Corbyn leadership is responsive to pressure from its left. Anti-Brexit members need to be kicking up a fuss about this capitulation to the idea of socialism in a single country across social media and in their wards, GCs and CLPs. And if you haven’t already done so get this resolution supporting a new referendum through your local party and affiliated unions.
