Monthly Archives: March 2019

Pro-Labour poll boost leads to Tory panic – and propaganda backlash?

Tom Watson: The Tories’ secret weapon?

Labour’s poll lead over the Conservatives is widening – just as This Writer said it would – and it seems part of the phenomenon is due to the splitter group Change UK (as it now wishes to be known) taking traditional Tory votes.

A version of the poll that allows voters to support the new party, Change UK, provides a hint as to the reason for the Conservatives’ fall:

A Twitter user delighting in the handle “You’re terrible, Luriel”, stated: “It *is* funny that the Tinge have done more damage to the Tories than Labour though, isn’t it? Big shoutout to , , , et al. Who knew that the greatest service you could do the Labour Party was not be in it?”

I think it tells us something we knew all along – that TINGe/Change UK/CHUK or whatever you want to call it is just another brand of Toryism. It has attracted traditional – non-neoliberal – Tories away from the Conservative Party, thereby weakening Theresa May’s increasingly feral pack of animals.

The poll ratings appear to have induced panic in the Tories’ high command, which seems to be splitting over Theresa May’s alleged offer of a general election in the event of further deadlock over her Brexit plan.

According to The Observer, MPs from all sides of the Conservative Party are saying they would block any move by Mrs May to lead them into a general election, fearing a worse wipeout than in 2017 – and who can blame them?

Meanwhile, Amber Rudd is said to have formed a party-within-the-party to stop what’s seen as a disturbing rightward drift, perhaps spearheaded by the European Research Group (ERG) of right-wing MPs; pro-Brexit ministers are threatening to resign if Mrs May agrees a permanent customs union with the EU; and other Conservatives are preparing to support a referendum on any deal eventually passed by Parliament.

In other words, the Conservatives are a mess and the only reasons they are likely to stay in government are selfish. No wonder they are plummeting in the polls.

After all, when even the Mail‘s principal ugly, Dan Hodges, is saying this –

– they know they’re deep in the doo-doo.

But all may not be lost for them!

Their secret weapon – Labour deputy leader Tom Watson – was set to appear on the BBC’s flagship politics discussion programme, The Andrew Marr Show, on Sunday morning. It is entirely possible he’ll find some piece of anti-Labour dribble that he’s been saving for a rainy day, that the pro-Tory Corporation can overhype until somebody believes it.

Watson has already said he would work with the Conservatives in a “government of national unity”, whatever that is, so we know he can’t be trusted to support a Labour government. By rights he should be drummed out of the Labour Party for suggesting the answer could be anything other than a Labour government – but of course he is a senior party representative and a member of Parliament to boot, so he remains impervious to any attempts to put him through the party’s grotesquely biased and one-sided disciplinary procedure.

The trouble is, the clocks have gone forward and most people are likely to oversleep and miss it. I’m writing this at 2.20am, so I know I will!

Who knows what else the Tories will try, if Tom doesn’t turn the tables for them?

We may find out in unintentionally (for the Tories) hilarious ways.

In a nutshell: The Conservatives are unsafe whatever they do – and it’s all their own fault.


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May is threatening a general election. Time to call her bluff

What a difference between the month of May and our soon-to-be-ex prime minister Theresa!

Mrs May currently thinks she can browbeat her fellow MPs into supporting her Brexit deal by threatening to call a general election.

The merry month of May, on the other hand, promises us the opportunity of change with an election of some kind nearly every year.

In 2019 we were led to expect only local government elections – and only in some parts of the UK.

But now, thanks to Mrs May’s inglorious Brexit cock-ups, we’ve got a lot more on our collective plate!

For a start, as Parliament absolutely won’t allow the UK to crash out of the European Union without a deal, and there’s no time to negotiate one before the current deadline of April 12 – so it seems a longer extension of the Brexit deadline will be necessary…

And that means we’ll be taking part in the European Parliament elections at the end of May.

And now, thanks to the democracy-despising Theresa May, it seems we’re getting another chance to exercise our right to vote.

Apparently government sources are briefing that she’ll make one more bid to get her hopeless Brexit deal through Parliament – probably in a run-off against whatever comes from the “indicative” votes on Monday (April 1 – April Fools’ Day – oh dear!) – but if that fails, it’ll be what we’re all waiting for: A general election.

And that will be in May as well, considering the timescales involved!

She said to MPs: “I fear we are reaching the limits of this process in this house.”

That suggests that the house needs to change and a new process should be started.

The sooner, the better, I say.

Of course, she could be lying again. She does that a lot.

That’s why it is time our MPs called her bluff.

She’s right to imply that we can’t go on like this.

And even Tory MPs must be aware that another failure to make good on her word will be disastrous for them all – when a new general election does come around again.

It is in their best interests to keep her on the straight-and-narrow…

If they can.


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Lack of a minister for disabled people means Tories are AGAIN failing those who’ll be harmed by Brexit

[Image: Black Triangle Campaign].

How kind of the usually-right-wing Sky News to let an expert onto a news programme to discuss the devastating effect on people with disabilities of the Tory government’s decision not to appoint a new minister to replace Sarah Newton until after the Brexit crisis is over.

Ms Newton was a catastrophically rubbish representative of people with disabilities – really bad. On a level with all the others since the Conservatives took office in 2010, I would say. But at least she was there; someone at whom we could all aim our complaints. Now we don’t even have that.

The expert – Dr Hannah Barham-Brown – was amazingly diplomatic in what she had to say, and what she said was damning:

As a colleague on the social media stated: “Thank you to Sky News for allowing this lovely lady to speak on behalf of the disabled community… highlighting some of the policies that are destroying our lives…

“Perhaps you could invite her back again to talk about the ESA/WCA deaths? Hundreds of thousands are DEAD after corrupt assessments and subsequent removal of their survival income. #RIPtheAtosDead Never forgotten by the bereaved families and those still suffering the oppressive, corrupt assessment regime.”

If Dr Barham-Brown couldn’t make it, I can think of several candidates who would also make highly illuminating viewing.


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Compare and contrast coverage of Dominic Grieve’s ‘no confidence’ vote and similar cases in Labour

Dominic Grieve: Don’t look back in anger.

Picture the scene if you can: A newsroom in any mainstream media organisation. Reporters are clustered around a screen.

Reporter 1: Wow. Dominic Grieve just lost a vote of “no confidence” at his Conservative Association.

Reporter 2: Conservative Association. That’s a shame.

Reporter 1: Yeah. If it had been Labour, we could have had a front-page lead.

Wouldn’t you’d say that’s an accurate description of the way the most popular political parties are treated by the mainstreamers?

Rachael Swindon puts it clearly:

She was referring to this tweet:

Now, those of us who are familiar with Gabriel Pogrund had to wait until other news sources confirmed the story – Mr Pogrund is the hack who falsely accused me of Holocaust denial in a Sunday Times article last year; the paper was forced to issue a correction in January after a ruling by press regulator IPSO. I wouldn’t believe a word he wrote without corroboration.

In this instance, it seems he is accurate, according to this BBC report.

Rachael Swindon’s opinion was quickly corroborated by other left-wing commentators.

Owen Jones wrote: “If this was a Labour MP, this would be front page news with talk of bullying, abuse and creeping totalitarianism.”

And Aaron Bastani tweeted: “There will be numerous deselections of Tories. The media doesn’t think it’s an issue though, because socialists aren’t involved.”

The opinions are borne out by the evidence.

Consider the way Angela Smith attacked a “cabal of hard-left members” after she lost a “no confidence” motion in her Penistone & Stocksbridge constituency – before jumping ship to help found TINGe – sorry – Chinge UK.

Chris Leslie lost a “no confidence” vote in Nottingham North CLP before also doing a bunk to TINGe/Chinge UK. He had been quoted as having described his critics as the “intolerant hard left”.

Joan Ryan described her critics in Enfield North CLP as “Trots Stalinists Communists and assorted hard left” before tripping out of Labour to join – you guessed it – TINGe/ChingeUK.

Much was made of these events by the mainstream news media but it seems Mr Grieve’s treatment by his local Conservatives deserves hardly a blink.

In fairness, some have suggested that a situation similar to the alleged hard-left takeovers of constituency Labour parties may be unfolding.

Here‘s Ben Bradshaw, Labour (!) MP for Exeter: “Full takeover of the Tory Party by the hard right ERG sect underway tonight. Dominic Grieve is a national hero, who has done more than anyone to try to save Britain from this disaster.

Sadly, I don’t think it is any more likely that the European Research Group (ERG) is taking over the Conservatives than it is that Communists are usurping Labour.

I say “sadly” because a hard-right Tory Party with the extremist policies of the Rees-Moggs of this world would be easier to sweep out of Westminster.


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Parliament has voted against Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement AGAIN. Will she resign?

MPs have voted against Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, with 286 votes in favour and 344 votes against it.

The zombie prime minister has been defeated yet again.

Mrs May says the legal default is that the UK leaves the EU on April 12 – not enough time to ratify a deal, and Parliament will not countenance leaving without a deal.

The UK will now most likely go into a longer extension of Article 50, and be required to take part in European Parliament elections in May.

The inertia dogging the UK will continue to hold us in its grip for many months to come, it seems.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Opposition, has demanded Mrs May’s immediate resignation and a general election to break the deadlock. He has been supported in this call by Ian Blackford, leader of the SNP in the House of Commons.

She won’t do it, because as a Tory she would never accept the possibility of losing power. But until she does, the UK will not have a functioning government.

The conclusion is obvious:

The problem is Theresa May. No progress will be made as long as she stays in Downing Street and denies democracy.


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Zombie Brexit: ‘It’s like the living dead in here’

Theresa May: Dead woman walking [Art: Dave Brown].

It’s hardly encouraging, in the run-up to the vote on Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, that her own cabinet ministers were allegedly saying her government is “like the living dead”.

Some of us have been criticising her as a zombie prime minister for many months, of course.

While she dithered and delayed on Brexit, the important issues of the day – the increasing impoverishment of working people, the years-long and genocidal attack on benefit claimants (in particular the sick and disabled), the assault on pensioners, the starvation of school pupils (deprived of school meals and of the funds to support their education), the privatisation of the National Health Service, the continued sale of national assets to the private sector so they fall into the hands of large and foreign-owned businesses, the continuing lack of a government in Northern Ireland, and others (no doubt you can name several yourself) – have gone unanswered.

Now Mrs May has announced she will resign as prime minister before the next stage of Brexit, meaning the huge distraction of another Tory leadership contest. And will a future Tory prime minister feel the need to gain a mandate by holding a general election? It’s unlikely as Tories don’t like democracy at the moment, but you never know.

We are being ruled by zombies. I suppose we should just be glad they haven’t actually tried to eat our brains – yet.


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TINGe group to register as formal political party. Does this mean we can find out who funds it?

Party girls: Heidi Allen (left), interim leader of “Change UK”, with fellow members Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston. You can read about their decision to register as a formal political party here.

The INdependent Group of elitist MPs – colloquially known by its critics as TINGe after a racist comment by member Angela Smith – is to register as a political party on the advice of the Electoral Commission and will be known as Change UK.

Small Change UK? Or Short-Change UK? One has to ask.

What I want to know is, does this mean we will finally be able to see who is actually funding this shadowy organisation that has, until now, hidden its finances by registering itself only as a private company?

That information would be worth knowing.

TINGe – sorry, CHINGe – claims it is registering as a party in order to take part in the upcoming European Parliament elections – so it seems clear that MPs like Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen, Chuka Umunna and Luciana Berger are nailing their flags to the mast and saying Theresa May’s third attempt to get her withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons today will end in defeat.

If it doesn’t, and the UK leaves the EU without having to participate in the elections, will they go through with registering as a party, or will they go back to hiding behind their shroud of commercial secrecy?

Participation in the EU elections would also provide us with a way to gauge whether the independent MPs and their organisation have gained any real traction among the electorate.

What do you think of this latest development?


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By expelling Jackie Walker, Labour has sealed its reputation – as a supporter of prejudice and racism

Protest: Labour Against the Witch-hunt was set up to defend party members – including Jews – who have been falsely accused of anti-Semitism by people and organisations with an agenda.

It will be a long time before Labour lives down the shame.

Socialist Voice puts the decision to expel Jackie Walker from the Labour Party into context:

That’s about the size of it. Thanks to its hugely prejudicial and politically-motivated “disciplinary” (if you can call it that) procedure, Labour has positioned itself as the party that persecutes left-wing Jews who support a peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine question.

You can reverse-engineer that statement to work out Labour’s definition of anti-Semitism – any statement that might be said (you can’t put it any more strongly than that) to offend a right-wing, Zionist/pro-Israeli-government Jew.

Ms Walker was expelled after a panel of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee said she had committed “prejudicial and grossly detrimental behaviour against the party” – by being secretly recorded taking part in a training session on anti-Semitism run by the Jewish Labour Movement.

That’s right – she was asking perfectly reasonable (in context) questions about how the organisers defined anti-Semitism; about the genocides commemorated by Holocaust Memorial Day; and about the necessity for security at Jewish schools. Her crime, it seems, was in not knowing that somebody was recording her, intending to use her words to set her up as an anti-Semite herself.

Labour has said the finding against her also took account of a pattern of behaviour in the two-and-a-half years or so since her membership of the party was suspended – but I think it’s clear that this is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to justify the unacceptable.

A previous attempt to frame her – by hacking into her Facebook account and sending the most prejudicial material to be found (a claim – accurate – that Jews were among the financiers of the Caribbean slave trade) to a Jewish-orientated newspaper that turned it into a smear piece – had failed.

Members and supporters of the Labour Party, who know the history of this squalid smear, have been tweeting their support for Ms Walker since the verdict was revealed:

https://twitter.com/LabLeftVoice/status/1110937633239302144

“The subtext being that if you are Left and you have any opinions at all, then consider the trapdoor open anyway. The NCC are cowards. The system at the top, as regards these glorified back-room office drones, really needs an overhaul,” added Michael Clarke.

Hear, hear. This is an assault on people who have been termed “the wrong kind of Jew” – and is therefore racist in itself.

In stark contrast to the public response is the coverage by the (ha ha) mainstream news media and those who claim to represent British Jews. Consider:

Tom Clark of Another Angry Voice is right – there isn’t a single mention of Ms Walker’s own ethnicity in the article. Is someone ashamed of the fact that this crusade against anti-Semitism actually targets Jews?

It does mention the fact that her words were secretly recorded – but fails to question this unethical behaviour or why it should stand as evidence against her.

Apparently the Jewish Chronicle couldn’t bring itself to admit that immoral methods were used to frame Ms Walker – it couldn’t even get the charge right:

LabourList carried a hideously one-sided piece that would put a professional news organisation in danger of legal action for failing to be fair or accurate. It carried no comments in support of Ms Walker – had reporter Sienna Rodgers even sought any?

But it did feature several paragraphs of hate speech from the Jewish Labour Movement in which it accused her and others (who, me? I would hope not, after I forced that … organ to retract its smear piece against me) of “perpetuating a culture of denial and obfuscation”, whatever that is supposed to mean.

“She was free to make a mockery of the Party’s processes because she was a political ally of the leadership, NEC members and had support from MPs.” Such as the 38 members of Labour Tribune who signed a letter to Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary, less than a month before Ms Walker’s hearing, describing her as “…someone who has been thrown out of the party for making antisemitic comments” in the certain knowledge that it would prejudice the panel at her hearing?

Or like our old friend (ha ha) Margaret Hodge, who “welcomed” Ms Walker’s expulsion, according to the JC report?

The JLM statement concluded: “Despite warm words, very little action has followed in truly addressing the scale and impact of antisemitism within the Labour Party.” That is a bold statement to make after a verdict based on the unethical secret recording of honest, innocent questions at a session where it is reasonable to expect such questions to be addressed!

A joint statement from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust stated: “Nobody wins in this latest ugly case of disreputable behaviour.” Certainly not the facts, it seems; the “disreputable behaviour” to which the statement referred was not that of the JLM in recording Ms Walker.

As for the Campaign Against Antisemitism – a right-wing fringe group masquerading as a charity that has been using trumped-up, falsified claims of anti-Semitism to attack left-wingers in the Labour Party for years – well, see for yourself:

“What do they want? A public stoning?”

I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

I can mock these clowns – The Guardian, The Jewish ChronicleLabourList, The Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust, the Jewish Labour Movement, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Margaret Hodge and all the others – for as long as you like. Let’s face it – they provide plenty of material.

But the simple fact is that Ms Walker’s expulsion is mortifying – for everybody who thinks members of the Labour Party deserve better from their leaders.

Look at the charge – Prejudicial and grossly detrimental behaviour against the party. It’s a nonsense. It can be made to mean anything Labour’s highly-prejudiced and right-wing disciplinary team want it to mean – as Martin Odoni points out in this revealing article.

Look at the way Labour ignored the definition of anti-Semitic behaviour it adopted in such a high-profile way only last summer, in favour of a claim that Ms Walker would be guilty if an “ordinary person hearing or reading the comments might reasonably perceive them to be antisemitic”. Claptrap!

Look at the way Labour ignored its own disciplinary procedures – most notably in presenting Ms Walker with details of the evidence against her only days before her hearing. This runs contrary to the rules in that any evidence produced at such a late stage cannot be introduced into a case unless both parties agree to it, and time must be allowed for a response to be prepared and submitted. That is just one example among many.

We are left to contemplate – not a disgraced anti-Semite who has finally been made to face justice, but an honourable campaigner,  falsely-accused, falsely-expelled, and wrongly vilified by a disgraced, debased and corrupted political machine.

If Jeremy Corbyn ever gets to read these words – and he should – it is to be hoped that he burns with shame at the travesty committed by his subordinates, not in his name, but in an underhanded and foul-spirited campaign to remove him from the party leadership.

He has been able to beat the false accusations against him – possibly because of his position. So his enemies have attacked his high-profile supporters instead. And he has let it happen.

But he can’t stop this persecution alone. Labour’s ruling organisation is the National Executive Committee, whose members have failed to lift a single finger in the cause of justice. In fact, they have cheered on the persecution carried out by the compliance unit and the NCC.

Labour needs root-and-branch reform of all three organisations. And it needs it yesterday.

Or the party will never be fit to govern.


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Theresa May has promised to quit after she gets a Brexit deal passed. So that’s never, then

Theresa May: She has offered to quit in an orderly manner but after the failure of the ‘indicative votes’ it seems MPs are clamouring for her to go immediately.

I honestly thought this was going to be a piece about Theresa May’s offer to quit as prime minister if her backbenchers help her get her bad Brexit deal through Parliament.

That would have been too easy.

Her offer has already been superseded, it seems, by events in the House of Commons:

It might seem counter-intuitive. Surely, if the “indicative” votes failed to produce an option that a majority of MPs can support, then the initiative passes back to Mrs May and her deal, right?

Wrong.

For a start, two of the options MPs considered gained more support than Mrs May’s Brexit deal – Margaret Beckett’s proposal of a second referendum on any proposed terms for withdrawal had 268 votes in favour – and 295 against; and Kenneth Clarke’s call for the UK to go into a customs union with the European Union had 264 votes supporting it, with 272 against.

And then there’s the fact that, even after Mrs May offered to quit as prime minister, she still couldn’t get enough Tory backbenchers to support her deal. The Parliamentary arithmetic means it would still fail to earn enough support.

Or, as I put it earlier in the day (and others took up)…

Diane Furminger contributed: “Personally I wouldn’t believe her. She’s not exactly a woman of her word.” And that’s true too, as would-be Tory rebels found out when they came back into line on a previous Brexit vote and then Mrs May reneged on the deal.

That’s probably why people like Rachael Swindon have been creating memes like this:

She has to go.

But she has made it clear that she’ll only go if Parliament passes her Brexit deal – hers and no other.

And that isn’t going to happen.

So, are we stuck with her?

Or is a new general election looking more likely?


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How can the Tories expect to fight Islamophobia? James Cleverly doesn’t even know what it is!

Grand wizards: On Monday, BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted that Tories who had an emergency meeting with Theresa May over the weekend had taken to calling themselves “grand wizards” – a term used by the racist Ku Klux Klan. Now James Cleverly has refused to accept a new definition of Islamophobia, using the hard-right claim that ‘Islam isn’t a race’. Clearly the Conservatives have a racism problem.

This was a new low for Mr Not-Very-Cleverly.

In the wake of Labour’s adoption of a definition of Islamophobia, and after 15 Tory Party members were quietly re-admitted to the party despite having been found to have made Islamophobic comments, BBC Politics Live presenter Jo Coburn challenged Tory deputy chairman James Cleverly to explain why his party would not adopt the definition.

In responses, he flew to pieces on live television. See for yourself:

The Twitterati had a lot of fun with this one. Aaron Bastani tweeted: “The Tories. The party of allusions to the KKK, repeating white supremacist memes and, now, musing that islamophobia doesn’t exist because ‘Islam isn’t a race’.”

And Dan Lewis wrote: “Cleverly stutters around why his party won’t accept the definition of Islamophobia & @LauraPidcockMP explains exactly why. ‘The idea that you cannot accept this is nonsensical but it is symbolic of the racism that is endemic within your party.'”

And has the Conservative Party adopted the new definition of Islamophobia yet?

At the time of writing: No.


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