Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project hasn’t been sitting around waiting for the world to change.
He – and they – have been working on four main projects, along with several offshoots, to make a difference in all our lives – as soon as possible.
In the video clip above, he explains what has been going on while the Tories – and his successor as Labour leader – dithered over the economy, got confused over Covid, and discussed laws to support violence against women.
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Time for real change: Jeremy Corbyn’s only crime as Labour leader was failing to remove right-wing/’centrist’ treachery and backstabbing from the party. It stopped him winning the 2017 general election and allowed the hysteria over false anti-Semitism claims that have continued to this day. The sooner party members realise this and eject the cuckoo Keir Starmer, the better.
I use “blackmail” in the headline advisedly. This may very well be a criminal offence.
For those who are unaware, blackmail occurs when a person (or several) make a demand of another person (or indeed organisation), accompanied by the threat of a particular consequence if they don’t comply.
(For example, if a group of so-called anti-Semitism “whistleblowers” threaten the Labour Party with bankruptcy either fighting or settling legal claims, unless it expels Jeremy Corbyn.)
The intent must be to make a gain for someone (not necessarily themselves) – or a loss for someone (not necessarily their victim).
(For example, if Jeremy Corbyn loses his Labour Party membership.)
The demand must have been “unwarranted” – that is, it should not be possible to justify it reasonably, and its reinforcement with menaces should not be proper in the belief of the perpetrator.
(For example, if Jeremy Corbyn has not done anything to justify expulsion from the Labour Party – and he hasn’t – and if those making the threat are able to take legal advice showing that their demand is not proper – and they are.)
So, if the Mail‘s story is true, Labour should file a complaint of blackmail, with the police, against those people taking legal action against the party.
The party’s current leader, Keir Starmer – useless though he has been on anything relating to anti-Semitism accusations so far – should be aware of this, having been a Director of Public Prosecutions (and therefore a lawyer himself) prior to being a member of Parliament.
I note that the Mail states only that “sources close to some of the ex-party staffers” made the threat, so presumably the litigants themselves will be able to deny it.
Even if blackmail could not be proved – and I think there’s a strong case for it – the threat is unwise.
I refer you to this comment on Facebook which states: “The disloyal staffers who would be claimants in this action are claiming personal insult, hurt feelings and career damage. To make an alternative offer of accepting Jeremy Corbyn’s head on a plate would damage their case by giving the impression it was politically motivated.”
And of course they are doing their best to claim that their lawsuits are not motivated by political gain but by injury to themselves. If it could be proved that they are trying to harm left-wing influence in the Labour Party instead, then their cases would fall.
“Secondly, there is no point making such an offer if it would only pacify ‘some’ of the potential claimants.”
True – the party would still face the possibility of having to pay a fortune in compensation.
“If it satisfied them all, they would look like participants in a conspiracy to engineer a right-wing coup in their party, which is surely not the impression they would want to give.”
Again, they would be showing political motivation.
“And thirdly, Corbyn would have excellent grounds for appealing his expulsion.”
He would. If Starmer expelled him in order to avoid expensive litigation/compensation payouts, without charging him under any of the party’s disciplinary procedures, holding an investigation into those charges, and hearing the evidence at an NCC hearing – the very process other (innocent) members have had to undergo – then Starmer would have broken party rules and Labour would be vulnerable to a hugely-damaging lawsuit from Corbyn himself.
The result is that Keir Starmer is now in danger, no matter what he chooses to do.
And this is the man the Labour right – sorry, ‘centrists’ – said was the brilliant leader who would make the party electable again!
Needless to say, the situation has attracted serious amounts of scorn online:
Well done Keir. By settling you've given legal weight to anybody in that leaked report to bring an action against the Party. You gave away £600K now it could be millions more. OR, you boot Corbyn out. Bankrupt the Party one way, destroy it the other.
If the Labour Party acquiesces to the rumoured financial extortion that is being publicised in the gutter press, and expels Corbyn from the Party, a movement will coalesce around him that will see the Labour Party consigned to the dustbin of history for ever more.
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) July 26, 2020
Personally, This Writer’s favourite comment on the whole issue comes from Corbyn’s long-term friend and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell:
As my friend, Jeremy Corbyn, gets on with job of being an incredibly hard working local MP & throwing himself into huge range of international, humanitarian campaigns I see the campaign of character assassination continues apace.They just don’t get it. You’ll never break this man
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) July 26, 2020
Hear, hear!
Oh, and one more thing: My own court case against Labour is still set to take place on October 2.
If I win, then Labour will be vulnerable to further court action from me.
It has been suggested that Labour is in fact extremely vulnerable because members are leaving en masse, taking their subscription money with them. I’ve seen rumours that more than 300,000 – half the membership under Corbyn – have voted with their feet. So aggressive action from a party member who has suffered genuine wrongdoing over a period of years could be crippling.
I’ll have a much stronger case than these others and I won’t be inclined to be lenient.
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‘New’ Labour and old news: Ian Austin and John Mann
Fantasists who have spent years pretending Jeremy Corbyn was an anti-Semite are wailing in protest after a fund was set up to help him fight a legal battle.
The broadcaster John Ware, who was responsible for last year’s risible Panorama ‘documentary’, Is Labour Antisemitic, is suing Corbyn over comments made by the former Labour leader and the official party line on the film at the time.
In response – and after current Labour leader Keir Starmer went against legal advice provided to the party in order to reward former Labour apparatchiks who appeared in the film, Corbyn supporter Carole Morgan has set up a GoFundMe crowdfunding web page that has raised around a quarter of a million pounds at the time of writing.
Starmer has spent around £600,000 of Labour members’ subscription money on court costs and the payout to a group of so-called “whistleblowers” who said they were libelled by the party over their part in the Panorama show. We are told legal advice to the party was that their case would not stand up in court.
Ms Morgan’s hugely-popular crowdfunder has attracted attacks from the usual suspects.
Former Labour Party cuckoo Ian Austin has attacked the initiative, saying that Corbyn should give some of the money back because some of the contributors left anti-Semitic comments.
But this is childish nonsense; it would be poetic justice to use an anti-Semite’s money to protect an anti-racist.
And did Austin complain when £250,000 was raised to help right-wing Labour MPs (as he was at the time) to remove Corbyn from his position as Labour leader?
Don't remember any centrists bleating "They should have given the money to foodbanks instead" when this happened back in 2016. Funny, that… https://t.co/8jMf9ld5FK
He was fine with you paying the expenses for a £1,000 TV/DVD, £171 worth of bed linen, a £199 hoover, £1,298 for an M&S sofa & armchair, and if you’re wondering how he sleeps at night – on a £700 bed, with side table. https://t.co/By0tTXCTcU
… as it is in the “news” paper that ran the story:
Imagine if the flagshaggers raised a quarter of a million pounds for a new Churchill statue.
The Mail would run a 16 page souvenir pull-out. The Torygraph will demand knighthoods for the organisers. And Big Ben *still* won’t bong 😁#250000ForCorbyn
In a related event, Lord John Mann – who used to be a Labour MP but joined the Tories in exchange for a peerage and unlimited opportunities to have a pop at Corbyn – has been attacking the former Labour leader over anti-Semitic tweets by a ‘grime’ performer called Wiley:
The man who is actually tasked with tackling antisemitism – and paid handsomely for it – seems to think it's Jeremy Corbyn's job to police Twitter on the offchance that someone he doesn't know has said something antisemitic… It's almost like he's just using it to have a pop…
Anti-Corbyn camp followers took up the cry, attacking Corbyn’s supporters for being silent about it. Most of us had never heard of the person in question:
So let me get this right. Jeremy Corbyn is to be held responsible for the disgusting and unacceptable comments made by someone most of us haven’t even heard of?
Weird to be accused of silence about some anti-Semitic grime performer's tweets. I'd never heard of Wiley before today. I see @jeremycorbyn is being attacked again for a polite response to a supportive tweet from a – connected? – account; it means nothing. Thin gruel, this.
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Keir Starmer: he’s no leader – not even a fake military one, as depicted in this mock-up.
It is worth pointing out, on the day Keir Starmer paid out around £600,000 and apologised to so-called anti-Semitism “whistleblowers”, that his actions are only perpetuating the saga – prolonging the agony.
Take his sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey from the Labour front bench a few weeks ago: on Monday, Labour Party members, supported by Salford TUC, made a formal complaint – I take it to the party’s National Executive Committee – about Starmer’s conduct.
The group points out that Ms Long-Bailey’s sacking on the pretext of her having shared a link to an interview with a constituent who shared an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory” is wrong, for these reasons:
Maxine Peake’s statement – that US police learned from Israeli operatives the method of killing people (like George Floyd) by exerting pressure on their necks with a knee – may well be accurate; there is evidence available to that effect.
There are unimpeachable arguments that Ms Peake’s statement was not anti-Semitic in any case.
The group wants an appropriate and thorough investigation of whether Starmer’s publicly-stated reason for sacking Ms Long-Bailey was accurate, proportionate and fair.
If it was not, then the group wants a public statement to that effect, including that the party will always challenge unfair dismissal in whatever context; an apology to Ms Long-Bailey; and her reinstatement to her former shadow cabinet post – or an appropriately-substantial such post – at the earliest opportunity.
It is doubtful that Labour under Starmer is capable of carrying out an appropriate and thorough investigation of anything. But it will be interesting to see how the party’s leaders respond.
And this is just the tip of an ever-growing iceberg. Already challenges are being prepared against the use of party members’ subscription money to pay off the group who appeared on Panorama to denounce Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership.
And concerns that Starmer is about to remove the Labour whip from Jeremy Corbyn are provoking a strong response.
Party members are already demanding to know why their membership money is being used in such a perverse way, and (so far) Starmer has been unable to come up with a response.
It seems clear that if he continues to use party money to fund unfounded attacks on members, he is likely to face a very large rebellion by grassroots members.
He came on as the blazing hope for the Labour Party when he was elected in April.
If he doesn’t want to drop out as a damp squib after only three months (and change) as leader, he’d better rethink his approach double-quick.
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The villain of the piece: Keir Starmer set Labour up to fail with a weak Brexit policy – and a new report has blamed that policy on Jeremy Corbyn. How hypocritical.
Why are the media making such a fuss about a right-wing report that blames Labour’s defeat in the last general election on the party’s then – lefty – leader?
It makes the blood boil to read the distortions in this so-called report, put together by a cabal of Starmer-supporting right-wingers with an anti-Corbyn chip on their collective shoulder who have the cheek to brand themselves “Labour Together”!
Labour backstabbers, more like!
It should be no surprise that all the major members of Labour Together now have prominent roles in the shadow cabinet of Keir Starmer: Ed Miliband, Steve Reed, Lisa Nandy and Jim McMahon. Other right-whingers writing the review included Lucy Powell.
The report claims that the biggest issue in the election was Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which had fallen in popularity. It does not correctly describe the reasons for that fall in popularity.
So for example, the report – falsely, in This Writer’s opinion – claims that the departure of backstabbers including Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna to form the unpopular and ill-fated Independent Group/Change UK/whatever-they-ended-up-calling-themselves led to a collapse in Corbyn’s approval ratings.
It does not state that this could have been because those now-former Labour MPs immediately went on media junkets trashing his leadership and spreading falsehoods about anti-Semitism.
In fact, after his success in the 2017 election, it is widely accepted that Jeremy Corbyn suffered the longest-running and most unfair hate campaign, possibly of any political leader in UK history – with a complicit media lapping up every lie.
Labour's election review cites cliff-edge drop in Corbyn's popularity after 2017 as a key factor in historic 2019 electoral defeat.
It neglects any mention of the huge simultaneous spike and slew of fake news headlines brandishing him a communist spy, a terrorist and a racist..
Labour “went into the 2019 election without a clear strategy of which voters we needed to persuade or how”, and failed to settle on a coherent message with the power of 2017’s “For the many, not the few”, the report says.
It states: “It was unclear who was in charge” of the election campaign, and relationships were soured by years of infighting which had created a “toxic culture” and “significant strategic and operational dysfunction”.
And it says: Labour was outgunned by the Tories in the digital war, with messages poorly coordinated and most of them failing to reach beyond the party’s base.
All of these three issues can be related to a single cause: treachery against the party leader. We know this because it was very clearly highlighted in the leaked report on the way the party handled anti-Semitism allegations under Corbyn.
Party officers worked hard to present Corbyn as an anti-Semite, to undermine his leadership and to ensure that Labour could not win a general election with him as leader, that report stated.
You wanna talk about why Labour lost so badly? Suspend those who:
– bullied Diane Abbott & others – diverted campaign funds – sat on AS complaints to embarrass Corbyn – were horrified by the close 2017 result – smeared their own leader
The Labour Together Analysis on 2019 GE failure seems to have no notable mention of the internal sabotage that was so clearly evidenced in the Labour Leaks report three months ago
Given the huge part this would have played in Labour's GE defeats of 17 & 19, it's a big omission🧐
Mr Starmer has launched an investigation into that leaked report, apparently with the intention of clearing those accused of treachery (and in many cases racism) and tarring the whistleblowers.
One criticism that rings true is the fact that the Conservatives’ “Get Brexit Done” message was more popular with voters than Labour’s offer of a new referendum on membership of the EU. But the report seems to forget that this particular policy was the brainchild of the current Labour leader, Keir Starmer. I wonder why?
Here’s a more accurate analysis of that part of Labour’s defeat:
Of the 54 seats that Labour lost in England and Wales at the last election, 52 voted to Leave the EU. In that election Labour promised a second referendum on EU membership.
Nobody with an ounce of knowledge about politics in the last five years has been fooled by this self-serving pack of distortions from Starmer’s new New Labour elite. See the responses for yourself:
I think the Labour Party blaming defeat on those that were actually trying to win the election, rather than those actively trying to lose it, is quite a stretch.
Public dislike for Jeremy Corbyn played 'significant' role in Labour’s historic election defeat, independent post mortem finds https://t.co/N4nLtMIEkj I wonder why with Panorama shite and , lies of being pro IRA, hostile MPs and a press that is the pits
The barely regulated tax doging media, half the Parliamentary Labour Party and others threatened by an internationalist socialist getting into power spent five years making up horrific lies and peddling disgusting distortions about a genuinely decent man and it worked shocker! https://t.co/DBLv07GrSQ
This Writer was even tempted to respond to some of the usual suspects who have trumpeted this travesty as though it were the Word of God:
Yes – it seems to have been written by people who share your political leanings. I look forward to hearing that you have voted for Keir Starmers new New Labour after the 2024 election.
But media Toryism of the last 10 years has created a generation of ignorance, with most of the public happy to be spoonfed lies rather than think for themselves about the Age of Hypocrisy into which they have voted themselves.
The Guardian all but ignored the leaked review showing that Labour's Blairite officials sabotaged Corbyn's chances at the 2017 GE. But it gives front page billing to a new Labour report suggesting the party must swing dramatically rightwards to win in 2024 https://t.co/sEfDcHIWJf
The hypocrisy is strong in this report. How sad that the same people who lapped up the “Corbyn is a racist/Corbyn is a traitor/Corbyn is the devil” bull will be happy to do the same with this.
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Un-Priti: the smirking, smug Ms Patel used Parliamentary privilege to lie that Jeremy Corbyn was a racist, and to spread falsehoods after Labour MPs complained about her own misbehaviour.
Priti Patel: what a nasty piece of work she is!
This Writer feels comfortable in calling her a racist; she supported – by which I mean she voted for – the racist legislation that created the “hostile environment” policy at the Home Office, leading to the Windrush scandal.
And of course she is a close ally of Boris Johnson, who has proved himself to be a racist on many occasions.
Perhaps, then, she was trying to deflect attention away from her party’s, her government’s, and her own racism when she smeared Jeremy Corbyn as a racist in the House of Commons. The Independentreports:
Answering questions about recent protests linked to the death of George Floyd in the US, Ms Patel turned her fire on Keir Starmer for supposedly not breaking with the policies of his predecessor.
She said: “I’m saddened that the leader of the opposition has effectively failed to depart from the divisive, hateful, racist politics of its former leader.”
Ms Patel did not make clear exactly which of Mr Corybn’s policies she regarded as racist.
She could not; Mr Corbyn is said to be the only MP in Parliament who has voted against every piece of legislation that contained even the slightest possibility of a racist application.
Tory Home Secretary just labelled Jeremy Corbyn a racist in the House of Commons.
Here, in Jeremy’s own words, is the story of how 36 years ago he was arrested for opposing Apartheid in South Africa. pic.twitter.com/FGxlAeJ0nT
And she knows her claim was a lie – otherwise she would have made it outside the Commons chamber, where she would not be protected from prosecution by Parliamentary privilege. As it is, her words come across as cowardly, craven. And she was unable to support her claims in the Commons Chamber. Here’s The Independent again:
Her allegation came in response to a question from the Conservative MP for Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan, in which he referenced a letter to Ms Patel last week from black and minority ethnic Labour MPs – including a number of members of Sir Keir’s front bench – who accused her of using her own experiences of racism to “gaslight the very real racism faced by black people and communities across the UK”.
“It must have been a very different home secretary who as a child was frequently called a Paki in the playground, a very different home secretary who was racially abused in the streets or even advised to drop her surname and use her husband’s in order to advance her career,” she told MPs. “A different home secretary recently characterised … in The Guardian newspaper as a fat cow with a ring through its nose, something that was not only racist but offensive, both culturally and religiously. So when it comes to racism, sexism, tolerance or social justice, I will not take lectures from the other side of the house.”
Mr Ahmad Khan said: “The home secretary and I, along with other Conservative colleagues, have been subject to torrents of hateful prejudice and frankly racist abuse from the left’s legions outside – as well as, in the case of my right honourable friend, sadly from sources on the benches opposite – as we refuse to conform to their prejudices.
Last week’s letter came after Ms Patel told the Commons she would not “take lectures” from Labour MPs about her understanding of the issue of structural racism.
“We all have our personal stories of the racism that we have faced, whether it has been being defined by the colour of our skin or the faith we choose to believe in,” [it said].
“Our shared experiences allow us to feel the pain that communities feel when they face racism, they allow us to show solidarity towards a common cause; they do not allow us to define, silence or impede on the feelings that other minority groups may face.”
The letter was coordinated by the shadow community cohesion minister, Naz Shah, and signed by senior Labour MPs including Diane Abbott, Tulip Siddiq, Kate Osamor, Chi Onwurah, Seema Malhotra, Dawn Butler and Rosena Allin-Khan.
For perspective: just one of the people who signed the Labour letter – Diane Abbott – receives more racist abuse on a regular basis than every other member of Parliament put together.
Priti Patel’s claim that she will “not take lectures” from someone like that is an insult of the grossest kind – made worse by the fact that, even though Ms Abbott’s experience of racism is so much more acute, she, along with her colleagues, had written that their experiences “do not [italics mine] allow us to define, silence or impede on the feelings that other minority groups may face” – which was exactly what Ms Patel was trying to do.
How two-faced of the smirking Ms Patel – who, let’s not forget, was forced to resign in disgrace from a previous Tory cabinet after trying to conduct her own foreign policy, contrary to that of the government of the day.
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Keir Starmer: He is systematically betraying the Labour voters who installed him as leader – and stabbing rented housing tenants in the back.
If the secret to great comedy is timing, then Keir Starmer must be one of the biggest clowns in the United Kingdom.
And the joke is on the party members who supported him.
Having won the leadership of the Labour Party on a “continuity” platform that promised to continue the work of former leader Jeremy Corbyn in restoring the organisation to its historic values, Mr Starmer has now decided to reject those policies and claim that Mr Corbyn’s leadership is the reason Labour lost dozens of northern English constituencies that voted to leave the European Union.
I mention the EU referendum because it was previously accepted that it was Mr Starmer’s policy on Brexit that confused voters and sent them to the Tories, whose own policy risks a catastrophic “no deal” Brexit but was at least clearer than Starmer’s.
It is perfectly understandable that the new Labour leader would want to shift the blame for himself – albeit transparent; obviously he doesn’t want his leadership to start in acknowledgement that the policy he forced onto Labour’s last election manifesto kept the party out of government. It makes him look a fool.
And attacking Corbyn’s leadership also gives Starmer – now known to be a ‘Red Tory’; a supporter of policies that put him at the far right of the Labour Party with the so-called Blairites – an opportunity to ditch all of Mr Corbyn’s progressive policies in favour of a return to the neoliberal consensus that led to the financial crisis of 2007/8.
So he gave an interview in the Financial Times saying Mr Corbyn’s leadership was the top topic of conversation, without acknowledging that residents of the 40 constituencies he visited (and he doesn’t mention how many were among those that abandoned Labour) might find it uncomfortable telling the architect of Labour’s disastrous Brexit policy that he was a dunce.
More believable is his assertion that people believed Labour had overloaded its manifesto with promises to re-balance power within the UK, nationalising several utilities, providing £300 billion of shares to workers and promising an extra £83 billion in tax and spending – but in fact, Labour’s policies were fully-costed and the most controversy arising from its spending policies was a plan to compensate the so-called WASPI women for pension losses triggered because the Tories had raised the state pension age without providing adequate opportunity for those affected to make plans.
Still, when you’re using a position of power to betray everyone who put you there, any excuse will do – and we’re starting to see the results of Starmer’s rightward lurch now.
He has appointed right-winger Bridget Phillipson as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who was previously known for attacking Labour’s 2017 election manifesto for offering too much to voters. The offer was hugely successful and reduced the Tory majority of the previous two years to a hung Parliament.
According to a leaked letter from Phillipson to other shadow cabinet members, all policies that involve spending will now require the approval of both Starmer and the shadow Treasury team before they are even put into the planning stages.
Clearly, Starmer wants an “out-Tory the Tories” spending policy of the kind that led to then-Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves promising to be “tougher than the Tories” on benefits, in just one particularly out-of-touch policy from the Miliband era.
The first sign of right-wing betrayal arrived over the weekend, with Starmer’s decision to betray tenants of rented properties:
Starmer’s policy comes in response to a current Tory promise to help tenants and may be summed up as follows:
Extend the three-month ban on evictions to nine months; introduce no-fault eviction ban now; protect tenants from being made bankrupt by their landlords for non-payment of rent; grant renters at least two years to pay back any arrears accrued during this period; speed up and improve the provision of Universal Credit and consider a temporary increase to the Local Housing Allowance to help prevent risk of homelessness.
Joe Halewood, in his excellent SpeyeJoe blog, shreds just two of these proposals. He states:
In the simplest terms the rented properties that are ordinarily available will now NOT be available and we have a chronic shortage of rented housing supply being the direct and inevitable consequence of any ban period. We also see a huge increase in demand for rented properties… The ban creates a massively adverse systemic problem for all forms of rented housing on the day a ban ends and the longer the ban the greater the s**t [that] hits the fan.
For example:
Let’s assume the current 3-month ban is not extended for the purpose of illustration as to what it will mean from 26 June 2020 and the day after the ban ends.
I begin with domestic violence and abuse (DVA) and the 3-month ban on housing moves also means that:
Those who have already fled DVA to a refuge have been unable to move out of refuges as there is no supply;
Those who wanted to flee DVA in the 3-month period have not been able to flee as refuges are full and nobody is allowing sofa surfing in the COVID19 period which is also government guidance;
The 3-month ban period that coincides with lockdown has created even more DVA cases than in any ordinary 3-month period; and
Government has announced that all DVA cases will be treated as priority need for homeless persons which infers a safe and settled rehousing will be found and will lead to more DVA cases coming forward in that expectation
26 June will see a huge increase in DVA cases requiring rehousing either in a refuge or directly in safe and settled accommodation which is the phrase government use to sell this priority need change. There will be no refuge provision available nor will there be any form of accommodation never mind safe and settled other than temporary and often dingy unsuitable B&B type provision. DVA survivors will also have to stay longer in this dingy unsuitable B&B type provision as the 3-month eviction ban has massively reduced supply of all forms of accommodation.
Those fleeing the horrors of domestic violence and abuse will be warehoused more and for longer than they were prior to the 3-month eviction ban and it will take years, literally, for the already appalling position we had for DVA immediately prior to the 3-month ban.
On the proposed no-fault eviction ban, he states:
The number of single person homeless in England is not less than 140,000 each year yet just 13,000 are rehoused by social landlords to escape homelessness. 130,000 and 90%+ single homeless persons are rehoused by private landlords and who operate Assured Shorthold Tenancies that can be ended by the so-called no fault eviction (NFE) which is the landlord not needing to give a reason to end the tenancy.
The private landlord rehouses the perceived high risk single homeless tenant because if the tenant is a problem they can get rid easily and without the need for a reason. Yet take that ease of NFE away and you have the same high risk homeless tenant whom the private landlord is unable to get rid of easily. Such a tenant becomes an unacceptable too high a risk tenant so private landlords as an obvious and correct business decision do not rehouse the single homeless person.
Crunch the numbers. IF the private landlord takes just 10% flight from the much higher risk single homeless tenant they rehouse 13,000 fewer per year. These 13,000 will need to be rehoused by the social landlord and see their numbers have to go from 13,000 to 26,000 per year. To wit, just 10% PRS flight means SRS landlords have to DOUBLE the number of properties they now give to single homeless persons.
It’s an unsustainable position.
Joe goes on to say that the social media are already full of how right-wing Starmer’s new policy is, and that it “ignores context, fact and any notion of commonsense or efficacy”.
Let’s take a look:
Terrible policy.
63% of private tenants have no savings.
In London, single tenants are spending up to 85% of their monthly salaries on rent.
If their income collapses, a two year rent deferral means pushing them into debt – and stops them spending, which is bad for the economy https://t.co/ebL3ZsbbKQ
I am surprised at the people who are surprised that New-New Labour won't support tenants. Don't you remember the expenses scandal? Do you really think it was only Tory MPs who were implicated? Did you forget a Labour MP going to prison? Patience, comrades. Our time will come. 🌹
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) May 9, 2020
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Gove: apparently he’s Rupert Murdoch’s choice of replacement for a disgraced Boris Johnson. This is hardly surprising as he’s a former Murdoch employee and would almost certainly be in the newspaper magnate’s pocket.
It’s a stupid premise for a leadership challenge but people seem to be getting behind it (because they’re easily-led) so let’s do the same.
The claim is that Boris Johnson should not be the prime minister of the UK because he missed a few meetings that happened to take place in Cabinet Office Briefing Room ‘A’.
He wasn’t required to attend them. It would have been advisable for him to accept the advice that came from them, but it seems that he may have been given bad advice by those who did attend. And it is likely that he ignored any advice that didn’t fit his narrow-minded plans.
In fairness, also, he seems to have spent less time actually being the prime minister than he did campaigning to be Tory leader. First he was on summer recess, then he called an unlawful prorogation that was reversed by the courts, then Parliament was dissolved for an election, then it was Christmas, then he ran away from dealing with the floods, and then he had the coronavirus (we’re told). It’s an appalling record and he should be booted out of Downing Street for that alone.
The problem here is that a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch appears to be angling for a Murdoch man to be prime minister instead of Johnson: Michael Gove.
But why can’t we widen up the debate a bit?
The Tories have done a downright cruddy job of governing since the general election. They left thousands upon thousands to fend for themselves in the floods and they condemned millions to catch the coronavirus. They have failed in their duty of care for the UK’s people.
So perhaps we should have another election? Bring in a Labour leader, perhaps? Keir Starmer, anybody?
Alternatively, considering the way Starmer is turning out, perhaps we should turn the clock back and ask Jeremy Corbyn to come in (although he’d have to be supported by people who aren’t trying to backstab him at every opportunity).
Which would you prefer?
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No Labour leader: Instead of taking action to identify and expel the wrongdoers in the leaked Labour report on anti-Semitism, Keir Starmer seems to be trying to protect them.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has issued a statement on the leaked Labour report that shows evidence that right-wing party staff members actively campaigned to undermine previous leader Jeremy Corbyn – by promising to protect the members implicated in wrongdoing, and investigate how the public got to find out about them.
Or so it seems to me.
In a joint statement with deputy leader Angela Rayner, he said the following. I’ll comment on his words [in bold] as we go through it:
“We have seen a copy of an apparently [apparently? It is an official Labour document on anti-Semitism and as such he is certain to have known about it. Isn’t he? Skwawkbox reckons he had a copy of the report shortly after his election as leader was announced yet he was completely relaxed about it until it was leaked] internal report about the work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism. The content and the release of the report into the public domain raise a number of matters of serious concern.
“We will therefore commission an urgent independent investigation into this matter. This investigation will be instructed to look at three areas. First, the background and circumstances in which the report was commissioned and the process involved [which, as leader, he should already know. In any case, it is made explicitly clear in the text of the report]. Second, the contents and wider culture and practices referred to in the report [which suggests an attempt to deny the findings and whitewash the wrongdoers]. Third, the circumstances in which the report was put into the public domain [which suggests he would have preferred it to remain secret and the wrongdoers to go unquestioned, let alone punished].
“We have also asked for immediate sight of any legal advice the Labour Party has already received about the report.
“In the meantime, we ask everyone concerned to refrain from drawing conclusions before the investigation is complete [why? The report is complete and its conclusions are clear] and we will be asking the General Secretary to put measures in place to protect the welfare of party members and party staff who are concerned or affected by this report [but not party members and former party members who were clearly victimised by those party members he is trying to protect].”
I would not want to see anyone face unreasonable abuse – either verbal or physical – for having taken part in the activities mentioned in the report.
But the behaviour it describes is utterly vile and, if true, anybody who was involved in it should – no, must – be expelled from the Labour Party forever.
If anyone thinks a lifetime expulsion is too much, bear in mind that these senior Labour staff used language that was considerably more abusive and inappropriate than that cited as justification for suspending many Labour members who supported Jeremy Corbyn in 2016.
Labour members past and present are lining up to demand action.
But it seems Mr Starmer is more interested in protecting the perpetrators of these offences.
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Bringing racism back to the Labour Party? Actress Frances Barber (here as the villainous Madame Kovarian in Doctor Who) has applied to rejoin the Labour Party. She has been accused of murderous prejudice against Muslims.
Keir Starmer’s hard line on anti-Semitism could make him the most unpopular leader in Labour Party history, haemorrhaging members from his first full day.
He has written a letter to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, following up on his pledge to “tear out this poison by its roots”, offering a meeting with groups representing the select group of British Jews who claim there is a problem:
He offers a video conference with the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust and the Jewish Labour Movement. Note that Jewish Voice for Labour, Jewdas and the Jewish Socialists’ Group are excluded. Why?
Why did Starmer even mention Antisemitism in his acceptance speech? He's just spewing out hostages to fortune. I believe this is nothing other than a statement of intent to expel large numbers of members that support the Palestinian people or critics of Netanyahu.
The letter was seized by other organisations, such as the hysterical Campaign Against Antisemitism, which has put Mr Starmer in a very difficult position:
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) April 4, 2020
Starmer is now caught between a rock and a hard place – knowing that he put himself there.
Jeremy Corbyn – and the socialist vision of the Labour Party that he represented – attracted more than 300,000 people to join (or rejoin) that organisation.
If Starmer decides to launch disciplinary procedures against Corbyn – especially on the basis of the scanty evidence put forward by the CAA or any of the other witch-hunt groups – the party will haemorrhage members.
It will be reduced to the status of a minority interest fringe group with outlandish ideas about the way Jews are (and should be) treated.
But if he doesn’t, the BoD, the JLC, the CST, the JLM and the CAA will accuse him of anti-Semitism – just as they accused Corbyn – and the right-wing mass media will seize upon the claim.
And there’s a further question about the quality of Starmer’s leadership.
He fell into this obvious trap like a complete and utter muppet. How can anybody expect him to be any use as Leader of the Opposition?
We should not also that this development has been accompanied by a sudden inrush, back into Labour, of all the “anti-Semitism!” screamers who so publicly flounced out over the last five years of Corbyn’s leadership.
It is probably safe to suggest that they have done this in order to flounce out again if Starmer fails to do what he’s told.
So let’s put a little perspective on that.
One of these candidates for Labour membership is an actress called Frances Barber (pictured above). She spent much of yesterday (April 4) in a row with left-wing journalist Owen Jones over claims that she is frothing with racism against Muslims:
Labour must do far more to tackle racism within its own ranks.
It can start by rejecting the application of Frances Barber, whose behaviour is self-evidently incompatible with Labour membership, including this *gratuitously* racist tweet which she then lies about sending. pic.twitter.com/zEcKg1Axst
“Please stop killing us” as a response to Muslims denouncing the actions of killers and saying true members of their faith have nothing to do with such actions? Clearly prejudicial against Islam, and it could be argued that there’s a racial motive.
In fairness to Ms Barber (which is more than she ever gave me – she sided with Rachel Riley and Tracy-Ann Oberman when they falsely accused me of libelling them) she has claimed that she did not send the offending tweet… by sending another offensive tweet, as you can see, above.
So Mr Jones provided some more evidence. I present this with no comment:
She has a history of sending horrendous tweets, like this one which is rampantly transphobic with an Islamophobic dogwhistle thrown in for good measure. Her application to the Labour party is now being celebrated by prominent people. This is just not acceptable. pic.twitter.com/XYTAuVrye6
There is such an abundance of examples, I'm not going to add anymore. But suffice it to say here is a test case: here is an actor who has said utterly disgusting things, and is currently being welcomed into the Labour fold by high profile individuals. This must not happen.
Mr Jones’s comments have been roundly condemned by supporters of Ms Barber – who seem to have made ad hominem attacks (against him personally) rather than addressing the issue he raised. Others have offered evidence in support, or simply expressed their horror at the thought that this person might be allowed back into the party:
Might just be me, but I don't think having Frances Barber back in the Labour Party is a particularly wise move.
— Chris Henry #TimeForAntiFascism (@Socialist_Chris) April 4, 2020
she’s a disgraceful person, who has a well-established and lengthy track record for this sort of indefensible statement. certainly ought to exclude her from party membership – difficult to believe there’s anyone thinking she is a suitable sort of person to become a member.
— Dr Adrian Harrop 🏳️🌈🩺 (@AdrianHarrop) April 4, 2020
I swear to God, if anyone ever again tries to claim that these people were motivated by a sincere concern over racism I will die from hysterical laughter. pic.twitter.com/7ESTbXMMHL
As the person who Frances Barber alleged mocked up the racist tweet that she then denied sending, I heartily endorse this from Owen Jones. https://t.co/pUuJSzyM4P
As I say, I’m not going to offer an opinion on Ms Barber and her behaviour. I merely present the information and it is for you, dear reader, to decide whether the claims about her are true or false.
But if you decide they are true – and you’re a member of the Labour Party – you need to decide whether you want to share your party with somebody like that. Labour may be a “broad church” but I’m sure it has never offered open support for racism and the kind of people who offer violence to party leaders past or present.
And you need to decide whether you want to stay in an organisation whose leader allows that kind of person to join while perversely claiming it is a blow against racism.
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