Liz Kendall: Labour must back Europe referendum and embrace business | Politics | The Guardian

Last Updated: May 16, 2015By

Another right-wing drone. Chuka couldn’t be leader – Liz Kendall mustn’t be leader either.

She’s right on one point – Labour must embrace the EU referendum, because it’s going to happen anyway. Therefore the party must concentrate on the arguments it will be making and the reasons for making those arguments.

She’s half-right on another point – Labour should embrace business… but not business leaders. Fatcat executives and rich shareholders who never do any work for a company will bleed it dry, leaving starvation wages for the wealth creators – the workers who actually make and do things. Going back to the EU referendum, one thing Labour must not say is that membership of the EU is good for businesses, because people will take that as support from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the crackdown on workers’ rights that it currently embodies.

As for not advocating high taxation – she’s wrong to suggest it is “just to make a point”. The richest people in the UK have doubled what was already a fabulous amount of wealth since 2009, while some of the people Labour should be representing have either starved or frozen to death in the street. The super-rich can afford to help out a bit more.

What we have here is another Tory quisling, it seems. Pro-business, anti-taxation. The Graun discusses her “modernising” agenda. This is hackspeak for “Conservative” or “neoliberal”. It actually means “back to the Victorian era”.

She talks about “fiscal probity” as though there was a problem with Labour’s management of the economy; she talks about “welfare” in the same terms as Iain Duncan Smith.

On the basis of this, Liz Kendall won’t be getting the VP vote.

Frontrunner for party leadership in wake of Chuka Umanna’s surprise withdrawal from contest lays out modernising agenda after election ‘catastrophe’

Source: Liz Kendall: Labour must back Europe referendum and embrace business | Politics | The Guardian

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12 Comments

  1. Nick May 16, 2015 at 11:44 pm - Reply

    i personally think it’s the end of the labour party for the very good reason most people can stand on their own two feet and get by albeit in a modest way

    If that is the case, the lower class along with the sick and disabled will have to do without despite their overall numbers reaching 5 million

    5 million out of a potential of 45 million voters 30 million who voted in this election decided that the conservative were the way forward and in a fair and decent society there not but with regret we no longer live in a decent society and the conservatives know that and just carry on as normal

    The SNP will play the poor hand for the next 5 years and the Conservative will play the rich hand, which will leave the labour party on the side lines, as they will not be able to bring anything new to the table that will be of any interest to the 15 million that didn’t vote at all

    Of course getting to understand that 15 million that did not vote would be a miracle and i do not believe in miracles

    My belief is those that don’t vote is because mp’s in general are all too close to call and don’t even understand fairness or even the people they represent as the overriding vast majority of the people are selfish what is there to vote for as you will never change the overall culture of the people that will always be impossible

    generous we may well be in certain parts of the country following a world tragedy but that’s as far as it’s goes and for that 15 million who didn’t vote I’m afraid there out and will stay out irrespective of who is leader

    • Mike Sivier May 17, 2015 at 11:44 am - Reply

      Most people won’t be able to get by, even in a modest way, if the Conservatives have their fun over the next five years. Remember, wages have suffered their longest-sustained drop since the Victorian era under Conservative-led government since 2010, and benefits have been cut to ensure that working and working-class people cannot rely on them to sustain living standards.

      I think your total number of “lower” class people, at just five million, is a gross underestimation.

      Only 11 million voters thought the Conservative Party was “the way forward” – but it was enough to allow the Conservatives to carry on.

      The SNP, it seems, will not “play the poor hand” but instead will play along with the Conservatives, earning their derisory nickname of “Tartan Tories”. This leaves the way clear for Labour to champion the man and woman on the street – but that depends on the choice of leader we get.

      • Nick May 17, 2015 at 6:19 pm - Reply

        Yes my error mike the overall poor and working poor along with the sick and disabled stands at around 12 million these are those living at the living wage and below

        It should have been enough to get labour into power but there were 15 million who did not vote at all also that’s 27 million votes lost from labour

        As a retired diplomat there is no other country in the world that i know of with so many working poor in support of a conservative government

        There are many parts of the world in which you would be killed just by it being known you were a conservative

        that’s hardly surprising when you get to understand that the breakdown of a country any country always involves conservatives

        they don’t seem to grasp the fact that your country is for everyone to enjoy as best as possible with good leadership so that it is inviting for the world to see and witness and enjoy

        You only have to look at countries like Egypt and Tunisia and all of the terrible political turmoil that they have been under the past few years yet today still being widely supported by the Russians/Italians /Germany and the British and that my friend is what the world is all about getting to understand what real friendship is all about and that for that hard core who support those countries will never dim

        I know from the many visits i have made there over the past 40 years that i hit gold from the off and am proud to say that those countries made me the man i am today and that is one of extreme passion about others and never myself hence my marriage to a wonderful Ethiopian 25 years ago

        You have heard of David Bowie will his wife is from Somalia i’m like David myself very weird but wonderful (lol)

        The massage here i’m trying to get across is that when you put others first they will automatically put you forward at a later date of whatever it may be

        I have looked after the estates i have lived in since 1974 and even today despite my long term illnesses i still put others first and am proud to do so and for free i must add

        with regret i no longer can run this estate owing to illness and everyone knows about it as the costs are sky high so there again it’s all about the individual and the same with politics we need to find that odd person that is out there and am sure one day that person will step forward hopefully in my lifetime

        • Mike Sivier May 17, 2015 at 7:00 pm - Reply

          Yes – I’d have said around 12 million. We don’t know that all disabled people etc didn’t vote for Labour, mind.

  2. paulmac49 May 17, 2015 at 12:12 am - Reply

    She won’t be getting my vote either.

  3. Guy Ropes May 17, 2015 at 6:42 am - Reply

    Will ANYONE be getting the VP vote? Seems that ‘Labour’ is newspeak for ‘Tory’. Thanks for the heads-up.

    • Mike Sivier May 17, 2015 at 11:52 am - Reply

      SOMEONE will have to have it!
      I won’t be voting for any plastic Tories, though.

  4. Guy Ropes May 17, 2015 at 5:57 pm - Reply

    Blimey! Mr Burnham (or should that be burn ’em) seems to have ceded the immigration argument to UKIP. (Another leadership candidate without the “correct” opinions). “Cameron must produce a credible package of reforms on immigration or we’ll be walking out of the EU, and I don’t want that”. I would suggest that that is all that UKIP are seeking. The way the left have treated UKIP’s position suggests that concentration camps are to be erected and anyone with a trace of an accent is to be ‘disappeared’. There’s a clear choice: amend the immigration rules or weight of numbers will change for ever this green and pleasant land. It’s not a question of hate, it’s a case of not being able to fit a quart into a pint pot. Every socialist near where I live is moaning nimby-like about the three new proposed housing developments under consideration. They’re not the only ones. Guess where Labour went wrong. They can’t see the wood for the trees. But they will be able to if unlimited immigration chunders on. No trees. Does Labour think that it might be wise to keep the population of the UK below a particular level ? If you read The Observer letters column last Sunday you would realise that there are many on the left who have woken up to the problem of overpopulation.

    • Mike Sivier May 17, 2015 at 6:47 pm - Reply

      That’s an interesting twist on Andy Burnham’s position. I’m not sure he’d agree with you, though!

      • Guy Ropes May 17, 2015 at 7:45 pm - Reply

        I’ve met him. He might do. He’s a realist. Interesting that no mention whatever of his comments appeared on the BBC’s teletext service either under ‘News’ or ‘Politics’. Even more interesting to see what the MSM make of it tomorrow (if anything at all – we wouldn’t want to frighten the horses)

  5. Ian May 17, 2015 at 6:20 pm - Reply

    These people need weeding out.

    What is the process for electing the party leader and deputy? Who has the biggest say or is it OMOV?

    • Mike Sivier May 17, 2015 at 7:00 pm - Reply

      I think Labour has laid out this process elsewhere.

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