Tag Archives: abstain

US vetos UN ceasefire resolution for Israel/Gaza – and UK abstains

After United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, claiming that the conflict between Israel and Hamas there is a threat to world peace, the United States vetoed it.

Worse than that, the UK abstained.

The will of the minority prevailed that day. Was it because the United States is selling weapons to Israel?

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Here are a few comments on what happened:

Adding insult to injury, the United Kingdom’s representative said Israel must be “targeted and precise”, and “civilians must be protected” – ignoring all the evidence to the contrary:

And the result?

Israel is already suffering an economic downturn because of its genocidal war of extermination in Gaza. Will the United States face the same?

And at a time when the UK’s economy is particularly vulnerable, can the damnfool Conservative government really afford to attack the national interest in this damnfool way?


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Cowardly Tory MPs may abstain from vote on Boris Johnson and Partygate

Not so much fun now, is it? Whether or not this image means what the Partygate Inquiry concluded, it has helped pitch Boris Johnson out of Parliament. Will their reaction to that inquiry have the same effect on large numbers of Conservative MPs?

The measure of an MP is in how they respond when faced with difficult decisions.

By that standard, it seems most of the current crop of Tories are worse than useless.

It seems a significant number of them will not be willing either to support or oppose the findings and recommendation of the Partygate Inquiry’s report on Boris Johnson – for fear of upsetting various sections of their voter base.

The rationalisations are ridiculous.

Apparently, some are afraid that Johnson’s supporters will turn away from them if they support the report’s findings. But the report itself is extremely thorough and answers any criticisms of its methodology, meaning that its conclusions are as safe as they could possibly be. Anybody who still thinks that Boris Johnson is a pillar of integrity should therefore be considered wrong.

The job of an MP faced with voters who insist that Johnson has been mistreated is to explain that the inquiry was carried out to an extremely high standard and arguments against its findings are just wishful thinking.

And how do these MPs know what the majority of their voters are thinking, anyway? It isn’t even 24 hours since the report was published. Anything said by members of the public before that is now irrelevant; we have all seen opinion polls showing how the mood of voters fluctuates over time – and that they are especially shaped by major events.

Some MPs are upset at what they consider the harshness of the proposed punishments against Mr Johnson. But anyone who reads it will see that he brought these punishments on himself. Originally the sanction was to be a 10-day suspension from Parliament. This was extended to 80 days because of the extremely strong – and public – response that he made after he had received advance notice of the report’s findings. This was itself a serious contempt of Parliament.

Considering the facts of the matter, one is led toward the conclusion that these MPs are not so much concerned about what other people think of Johnson and the report’s findings – they simply don’t want to be part of any final decision on it.

Cowards, one and all. And that seems to include their second-choice prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who “hasn’t yet had time to fully consider the report”, according to the BBC, and has thus managed to avoid commenting on it.

This Writer is heartened to read in that same article the belief of Tory MP Tim Loughton – one of the few who have dared to put their heads over the parapet – that the result’s recommendations will “go through very easily next week”.

We’ll see.

And with a general election looming ever-nearer, the choices these Tories make will be sure to affect not just Boris Johnson’s political future, but their own.


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Labour links up with the Tories to betray democracy and make UK a police state

Sad: once again, Labour has proved this to be true.

The Labour Party has again proved how harmful it is – and not just by supporting the Tory bid to kill democracy.

But let’s start with thatanyway. On June 13, 2023, the Conservative government ended democratic government in the UK by reversing a change in its Public Order Act that had been approved by Parliament, using secondary legislation – a ‘ministerial decree’ – that is not ratified by a vote.

It means the changes imposed on new laws during their passage through Parliament may now be pointless, because the government may simply – and unilaterally – reverse them all after they gain Royal Assent.

We might as well not bother having a Parliament any more.

The Green Party’s Baroness Jenny Jones tried to safeguard democracy by tabling a ‘fatal motion’ that would have put a stop to the ‘ministerial decree’. This was the only way to force a vote on it.

But she needed support from Labour peers to win that vote – and Labour said it would not help because that would go against some old Parliamentary convention. It’s the flimsiest excuse ever.

Instead, Labour offered up a lame ‘motion of regret’, paying lip service to the idea of opposition by saying the party does not approve but actually doing nothing at all to stop the Tories from trampling all over democracy.

The disappointment – no, the disgust – is huge, especially from one Labour Lord:

He was an exception. Most Labour peers did as Lord Coaker describes in the following video clip which triggered a particularly strong response from the CWU’s Peter Stefanovic:

Peter had campaigned to make people aware of the ‘fatal motion’, and to get us to urge the Labour peers to support it, since Baroness Jones tabled it. You can feel his bitterness and anger welling up in the following tweet and as one of the signatories, This Writer shares it:

But there’s more.

This isn’t even Labour’s only betrayal of the day.

It seems that, in another attempt to claim “fiscal responsibility” from the Tories, Labour has decided to take away support for childcare from millions of parents, making it impractical for them to go out to work for a living. It’s a blow against millions of families and crippling to the UK’s struggling economy, and Keir Starmer’s party has the nerve to claim it’s a sign of responsibility.

Thank goodness Jeremy Corbyn is settling into his new role of pointing out that Keir Starmer and his people are hateful:

Of course it’s yet another u-turn for Starmer:

How many’s that, now?

Still… Out with an old promise; in with a new one. Right?

Here’s the new promise of the day – and a spot opinion on it.

In fact, I think Labour might actually stick with this one because a Labour government wouldn’t have to pay for it.

In spite of all of the above, there is one way – just one – in which Labour can still claim to be of use to the UK population at large…

… that is by flagging up the failures of the Tory government with facts and figures.

But don’t expect a Labour government under Keir Starmer to ever do anything to improve the situation because all he has to offer are missed opportunities and broken promises.


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Starmer the abstainer strikes again as Tories impose real-terms benefit cut

Labour’s shame: Keir Starmer. He was mobbed by an angry crowd who had been misled by Boris Johnson’s false allegations about him and Jimmy Savile; if the crowd had turned against him because of his tacit support for Tory benefit cuts, This Site would have applauded the act.

Boris Johnson’s hard-right-wing Conservative government has imposed a real-terms cut in payments for people with pensions and other benefits.

From April, payments will be uprated by 3.1 per cent. But inflation is likely to peak at more than twice that – 7.25 per cent is predicted – meaning vulnerable people will struggle.

The cut come on top of the 54 per cent increase in fuel bills that the Tories intend to “smooth out” with a £200 loan that will be demanded back later, even though they will not have the money.

Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak has also announced a £150 council tax rebate for people whose homes are in Bands A to D – but this does not help benefit claimants who receive Council Tax Support.

Shall I go on?

Universal Credit was slashed by £1,040 per year last September when the Tories ended an uprating that had been imposed to help people cope with the effects of Covid-19 on employment and earnings.

And a pension increase, approved around the same time, was limited to only two of the “triple lock” conditions because Tories said the third – which would have raised payments in line with the percentage rise in wages – would have led to a rise of eight per cent that they said was artificially inflated because of Covid.

Hindsight shows us that an eight per cent rise would have been appropriate to cope with the huge increases in the cost of living that the Tories have caused with their catastrophic mismanagement of the UK.

Normally one would expect Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition to do its job and oppose this oppression of vulnerable people. So, where was Keir Starmer when this cut was imposed?

He was nowhere to be seen.

Starmer had ordered his MPs to abstain and only 13 party members had the courage – and the responsibility – to rebel.

They were Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Dan Carden, Ian Lavery, Tony Lloyd, Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell, Grahame Morris, Cat Smith, Zarah Sultana, Nadia Whittome and Beth Winter.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Andy McDonald acted as tellers for the ‘Noes’, meaning they were unable to vote but it is understood that they would have done so otherwise.

Steve Walker, over on Skwawkbox, has suggested that Starmer is “addicted to absention” because he doesn’t want to stand for anything disliked by the Tory voters he is trying to steal from Boris Johnson.

Steve went on to point out that formerly-Labour voters have decided to “switch off in disgust at the lack of a real alternative” to the Tories.

But it is worse than that. Starmer is alienating a generation from voting.

With no opposition from the so-called Opposition, anybody whose politics is to the left of Mussolini’s has nobody to support and is unlikely to vote for any of the far-right candidates who’ll be paraded by the Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in future elections.

These parties are now so closely-aligned that you couldn’t get a Diner’s Club card between their policies.

There is an alternative – so of course it is being played down by the Tory media.

New left-wing organisations have sprung up and aligned together in what’s being called the People’s Alliance of the Left.

Member organisations include the Breakthrough Party, Northern Independence Party, Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) and Left Unity – all of whom, This Writer understands, have enjoyed large increases in membership since linking together.

This Site encourages readers who want to support a genuine alternative to research the PAL member organisations and either join or support whichever seems likely to gather the most support in your local area.

Information on PAL is available here.

You can find out about the Breakthrough Party here.

The Northern Independence Party sets out its stall here.

This is the website for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).

And Left Unity’s website is here.

PAL’s first Parliamentary candidate is Dave Nellist, who will be standing as the TUSC representative in the Birmingham Erdington by-election on March 3.

If you live in that constituency – or you want to support the candidate and political views that genuinely oppose the current hard-right consensus – please sign up to support Dave.

Source: Byrne one of only 13 to rebel vs Starmer’s abstention addiction as Labour hides from vote on benefits cut – SKWAWKBOX

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Starmer’s farcical Telegraph column actually tries to attack Tories for fence-sitting

Keir Starmer: what you can’t see is that he’s actually sitting on a fence. He’s just been there so long that he’s had a back rest installed.

How did Labour’s (remaining) membership ever elect as leader a man with such a staggering lack of self-awareness?

It’s bad enough that Keir Starmer thinks writing a column in the Torygraph is a good way to build support for his policy-free political party.

But to accuse the Conservatives of “sitting on the fence”, after he spent almost his entire tenure as Labour leader doing just that, is an act of colossal ignorance.

Worse even than that: the issue he raised – flammable cladding on tower blocks after the Grenfell Tower inferno – is not an example of Tory fence-sitting. It’s an example of Tory buck-passing because they’re making us pay to make these homes safe, rather than their landlords.

Starmer is trying to shame the Tories for abstaining on Labour proposals that would – rightly – get the unsafe cladding off threatened buildings and pursue those who should be paying for it, for the costs.

It would be a reasonable course of action – if Starmer hadn’t earned his own nickname “the abstainer” so well over nearly a year.

“Is this satire?” reads one comment on Facebook. “Of all the people to talk about abstentions it’s definitely funniest coming from [Starmer].”

Another stated: “Starmer is permanently sitting on the fence. You know what they say: ‘You will get splinters in your backside’.”

A further commenter resorted to verse: “The ‘Sir’ sat on the fence all day,
“Had nothing to do and nothing to say,
“Now give him a flag and he’ll wave it forever,
“But an honest socialist – Never, Ever, Never!”

But possibly the most biting referred to the fact that Starmer had published his article behind the Torygraph‘s paywall.

It reads, simply: “Sorry but I haven’t worked since the first lockdown and can’t afford to read your article.”

If Starmer hadn’t whipped Labour to abstain, new Covid tier plan would have been defeated

Keir Starmer: yet another own goal.

Fans of Keir Starmer must be so proud.

He wouldn’t actively oppose Boris Johnson’s revised plan to put England into tiered Covid-19 rules because he said the country needs to have some form of protection against the disease.

And he said he couldn’t support it because it includes measures that would harm the hospitality industry, and the £1,000 support package isn’t enough.

So he whipped Labour to abstain, and the revised tiers – with the pathetic support for pubs – are now law.

But here’s the catch:

With Labour MPs whipped by the leadership to abstain on the vote, 291 MPs in total voted in favour and 78 against the new rules.

Even taking into account the 15 Labour MPs who broke the party whip to oppose the plan, plus Jeremy Corbyn who is still awaiting the restoration of the whip, if Labour’s MPs had opposed Johnson’s plan, it would have been defeated.

Then Parliament would have been able to debate a better plan, that might actually do some good. God forbid, though, that Starmer would ever put his name to that!

Source: Johnson suffers large Tory rebellion as England returns to tiered Covid rules – LabourList

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Keir the Abstainer strikes again: he’ll ensure new Covid tiers happen despite threatened Tory rebellion

Johnson and Starmer: sadly, a more appropriate image would have them both facing in the same direction.

Who was it greeted Starmer’s election as Labour leader by saying, “Finally, a real opposition”?

Those words ring hollow now.

Once again, Starmer is supporting the worst Conservative government, possibly in UK history.

And this time, he’s doing it when even Tories are threatening to rebel.

Here’s the Guardian:

The prime minister is to announce new one-off discretionary funding paid to councils for “wet” pubs and bars which cannot open under the strictest new tier restrictions for England, the Guardian understands.

Starmer will tell his MPs he does not believe Labour should directly oppose the measures because of the need to keep control of the virus. But he will say that, by abstaining, the party can signal that the financial support for hospitality businesses is inadequate.

Coronavirus measures … have become deeply unpopular with [Johnson’s] MPs. On Monday, the environment secretary, George Eustice, acknowledged that up to 100 MPs could rebel.

So, by abstaining, Starmer is showing more support for Boris Johnson than that terrible Tory PM’s own MPs. He has even said he wants to support Johnson…

… But he is refraining from doing so because he wants to curry favour among the hospitality sector and with those who support it.

Nonsense. If he wanted to support the hospitality industry, he’d be joining Tory rebels in voting down the new system in favour of one that provides proper relief.

Twitter knows what’s going on:

Starmer’s latest PR campaign states, “Labour is standing up for Britain.”

How? By lying down and letting Johnson walk all over him?

Source: Labour to abstain in vote on Covid tiers as Tories threaten to rebel | World news | The Guardian

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‘Spycops’ law will be used to spy on Labour, its MPs and trade unions. Why did 167 Labour MPs support it?

Another blunder: Keir Starmer’s insistence on allowing a law that would allow the government to undermine his party has created a rift between him and an ever-increasing number of his MPs.

It is already being labelled as a major rebellion against Keir Starmer’s leadership: 34 Labour MPs defying the party whip to vote against the controversial so-called ‘Spycops’ Bill that would allow government agents to commit crimes.

The real question about it, though, is: why so few?

Labour has been targeted by the so-called Establishment in the UK – probably from its beginnings as a political party. This includes espionage by the nation’s intelligence agencies.

We all know about famous incidents such as the Zinoviev Letter, which contributed to the fall of Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour government. It was a forged communique allegedly between the government and the Communist government of Russia, written by people whose identities remain uncertain…

… but it was published by the Conservative Daily Mail, and it is widely believed that this was on the urging of the SIS – the intelligence service of the day.

Another famous issue is the MI5 file on Harold Wilson, which was opened when he first entered Parliament in 1945 and recorded his contacts with communists, KGB officers and other Russians.

It was opened because of concerns about his relationships with Eastern European businessmen. Can you imagine MI5 opening a file on Boris Johnson, over his relationships with oligarches from Russia?

Ultimately, none of the information in the file can have amounted to anything because MI5 never tried to use it to undermine him – despite his own paranoia about this in his later years.

Clearly there is a precedent for the security services – which are predominantly staffed by right-wingers – using every resource within their power to find ways of undermining the Labour Party.

And by abstaining on a Bill that allows government agents to commit crimes in order to achieve their aims, 167 Labour MPs including the party’s leader, Keir Starmer, have just handed them another such resource.

It’s undemocratic and dangerous – the kind of legislation created by a dictatorship in order to ensure, by fair means or foul, that no rival organisation can ever topple it.

But some good may come of it accidentally – the possible removal of Starmer as party leader.

Around 20 of his MPs rebelled against his demand to abstain on the Bill’s second reading. Yesterday (October 15), 34 defied his whip – including eight who resigned from front bench roles to do so:

 

Much of this can be attributed to Starmer’s own attitude, which suggests that he actually supports the Bill’s demand that government agents be allowed to commit any crime without fear of prosecution for it later – any crime at all, including the murder of the Tories’ political opponents:

Discontent with his lack of opposition to the worst Tory government in history is growing, and already there are rumours of a leadership challenge in 2021:

Political developments are strange; they don’t happen the way anybody expects – unless that person is very far-sighted indeed.

The Zinoviev Letter led to the fall of a Labour government – but only in a roundabout way. Labour’s vote increased in the general election; it was the collapse of the Liberal vote that allowed the Conservatives their victory.

It would be ironic if now, nearly a century after that attempt to end a socialist government, a piece of legislation that legalises espionage against the party that formed that government actually led to its re-founding as a socialist organisation once again.

That is the only comforting thought I can raise from what is, in all other respects, a disaster for democracy.

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Starmer’s whip cracks and his MPs start walking away from legalisation of crimes like rape by government agents

Bungler: perhaps Keir Starmer thought his decision to support a law that allows government agents to murder, torture and rape people with no fear of prosecution was a show of power. All it will do is turn more people away from the hollow shell he has made of the Labour Party.

Keir Starmer has gone too far and Labour MPs know it.

That’s how This Writer reads the groundbreaking resignation from the party’s frontbench team of rising star Dan Carden.

The now-former shadow chief secretary to the Treasury has only just distinguished himself in Parliament with this speech attacking Tory corruption and cronyism, taking advantage of the Covid-19 crisis to award themselves and their businesses huge wodges of public money in return for – well, nothing:

Now, after being told that Starmer is whipping Labour to abstain on the heinous Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, he has announced that he will vote with his conscience – and resigned his post as a shadow minister.

He is quite right to do so. Starmer has lied repeatedly about this – or he has been wildly mistaken about what he could achieve.

First he told Labour MPs to abstain on the second reading of the Bill – allowing it to progress through Parliament when a concerted effort by all Labour MPs could have stopped it on the spot.

He told his MPs that there would be a chance to change the Bill, tightening up controls on the kind of crimes that could be committed and the circumstances in which they would be allowed. That has not happened.

And he told his MPs that they would be able to vote against the Bill if attempts to amend it failed. We see now that he is not going to allow this after all.

So Mr Carden did the honourable thing:

Take note of the words in his letter. He states that Starmer has “settled” on his position on “legislation that sets dangerous new precedents on the rule of law and civil liberties in this country”.

He’s saying that, in effect, Starmer is supporting a law that will harm our freedom.

The letter also states that in supporting the harm that will be done to us, Starmer’s position is at odds with the vast majority of his party: “I share the deep concerns about this legislation from across the Labour Movement, human rights organisations, and so many who have suffered the abuse of state power, from blacklisted workers to the Hillsborough families and survivors.”

Mention of the Hillsborough tragedy is particularly telling: in supporting this Bill, then, Starmer is setting himself against the Hillsborough families and survivors – and everybody who supports them and their struggle for justice.

That is not a good look for a lawyer!

The Third Reading vote on the CHIS Bill is this evening (October 15).

Labour-voting members of the public will judge their MPs by whether they support Starmer, or if they choose to support justice instead.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Fury as Starmer asks Labour to abstain on Bill allowing government agents to commit crimes like murder, torture and rape

Keir Starmer: he’s not left-wing but he’s definitely sinister.

Why is a former human rights lawyer like Keir Starmer asking Labour MPs to let the Tories pass a law that will allow their agents to commit crimes that trample all over our human rights?

The crimes that will be allowed are bad enough – the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill is also known as the ‘Licence to Kill’ Bill. Also allowed would be torture and sex crimes including rape.

But it will also be impossible to mitigate the worst aspects of the Bill with the Human Rights Act, because the Tories stated 11 months ago that, as the state would not be the “instigator” of the crimes, it could not be held responsible for them.

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has reportedly convinced some Labour MPs that this is not the case. He must know that this isn’t true.

So why does he want to give government agents – including people from the Environment Agency and the Financial Conduct Authority – a licence for torture, rape and murder?

As This Site documented last week, Starmer already whipped Labour to abstain on the second reading of the Bill.

We were told this was in order to create a chance to modify the legislation, tightening restrictions on using the powers it creates.

This no longer seems to be the case: he is now suggesting that Labour should abstain once again – and let the Bill pass without opposition – if no amendments are made.

As you may imagine, there has been more than a little opposition to this:

But on the same day this information was released, Starmer called a press conference in which he changed his policy on Covid-19 and demanded a “circuit-break” lockdown, across England, for two or three weeks – creating a huge amount of fuss among the media and the public.

Do you think he was trying to hide something?

Source: Keir Starmer facing major rebellion after saying Labour should abstain on ‘Licence to Kill’ bill even if unamended | Evolve Politics

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
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