Tag Archives: motion

Tories agree to tackle sewage discharges – because they think it allowed them to humiliate Labour

Flushed out: the Tories have not only agreed to carry out impact assessments on the effects of dumping raw sewage into UK waterways, but they must also set targets for such dumping to be reduced, and introduce fines against privatised water companies that fail to do so, or fail to properly monitor such discharges.

Don’t be discouraged by the Tory carping; this is a victory for anyone who is concerned about raw sewage being dumped into UK waterways.

Labour used an Opposition Day debate in the House of Commons to put forward a motion calling on the government to

  • Set a target for the reduction of sewage discharges
  • Provide for financial penalties in relation to sewage discharges and breaches of monitoring requirements, and
  • Carry out an impact assessment of sewage discharges

The motion also included a provision that would have given the Opposition the ability to take control of the Commons order paper in future and introduce legislation of its own.

Now, why would it do that? It doesn’t have any specific relevance to the sewage issue, as far as This Writer can see.

The Conservatives leaped on what they saw as an opportunity to humiliate Labour, with an amendment that removed the fourth part of the motion but supported the first three.

Because the amendment only deleted words from the motion, Parliamentary procedure meant it would be the first aspect on which MPs would vote – and the Tories’ Parliamentary majority meant it was passed by 290 votes to 188 against.

They then forced a vote on the amended motion. Labour MPs were ordered to abstain on it, because the Tories had amended it in their favour.

Had they, though? Had they really? It still demanded all the measures on sewage that Labour wanted.

And I don’t think anybody in the Labour leadership believed the Tories would allow them to introduce their own legislation.

The amended motion passed with 286 Tory votes – so the Tories pushed through the changes that Labour had demanded.

That means that the Tories are now obliged to

  • Set a target for the reduction of sewage discharges
  • Provide for financial penalties in relation to sewage discharges and breaches of monitoring requirements, and
  • Carry out an impact assessment of sewage discharges

that they weren’t willing to do before.

And they’re saying they humiliated Labour?

Well, here’s a thing:

Those of us who are concerned about water pollution don’t care.

The changes have been supported – by the Tories who originally opposed them.

So who has been humiliated, really?

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No honour in Labour: Ed Miliband backstabs the man who defended his late father

He’s got your back: Ed Miliband is pictured behind Jeremy Corbyn – presumably working out where to put his knife.

Ed Miliband, whose father was defended by Jeremy Corbyn when the Daily Mail said he “hated Britain”, has shown his true colours by stabbing Mr Corbyn in the back.

In October 2013, after the Mail ran an attack piece against the then-Labour leader (Ed Miliband) by accusing his father, Mr Corbyn appeared on BBC News to defend him – as you can see:

Note also that Mr Corbyn was the only Labour MP to defend Miliband’s father publicly.

Today (March 28, 2023), as Labour’s NEC considers a motion by current Labour leader Keir Starmer to ban Mr Corbyn from ever again standing for election as a candidate for that party, Miliband also made an appearance on the BBC – to trot out yet again his leader’s tired and ridiculous whinge about anti-Semitism.

He said:

It’s about one thing, which is about Jeremy Corbyn’s reaction to the EHRC report on antisemitism and his refusal to apologise for that reaction. That is the background of this. I don’t think there’s any mystery about that.

There’s one problem with that: Keir Starmer’s motion does not mention anti-Semitism at all.

It is, therefore, entirely inappropriate for Miliband to trot it out as a reason for denying the members of Islington North’s Constituency Labour Party their democratic right to choose their candidate for Parliament.

Remember: Keir Starmer is on the record as saying he wanted to end NEC interference in local selections of Parliamentary candidates:

The move to bar Mr Corbyn is a clear betrayal of that promise.

So we see an honourable man – Mr Corbyn – backstabbed by not just one but two betrayers who are members of the Labour Party leadership. Doesn’t that tell us that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is not worth your time? That it should be shunned, avoided, and vilified wherever possible?

Ironically, Miliband’s ill-intended comment about Mr Corbyn came the morning after his victim was outside Parliament, speaking at a rally against racism:

Finally: the reason that is actually given by Keir Starmer’s motion, for wanting Mr Corbyn’s candidacy to be blocked, is the fact that Labour lost an election under his leadership.

By that standard, Ed Miliband should also be barred. He was the leader in 2015 when Labour won a much smaller share of the national vote than in 2017 or 2019, when Mr Corbyn was in charge.

But he is a member of the Shadow Cabinet.

The double-standard could not be clearer.

Miliband’s treachery has certainly provoked a strong reaction from the public. I provide a selection below, for those of you who would appreciate further depth:

The facts are clear – and they mitigate against Keir Starmer, Ed Miliband, and all the other fetid liars infesting the corpse of a once-great political organisation.

I don’t think the NEC’s decision will even matter now. The damage has been done.

Starmer, Miliband and the others have shown that Labour will betray anybody.

If that party – in its current form – gets into government, that is exactly what it will do to you.

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Tories will legalise corruption TODAY to stop a corrupt Tory being suspended from Parliament

Master and servant: Owen Paterson with his boss, Peter Fitzgerald of Randox. Funny that… wasn’t Paterson supposed to be working for the people of North Shropshire?

Here’s the story:

Former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has committed “egregious” breaches of Parliamentary rules by taking nearly three times as much cash for “paid advocacy” of private firms that employed him.

He broke official lobbying rules, and he smeared the independent commissioner who investigated these breaches.

His advocacy of one of the companies, Randox, meant faulty Covid-19 testing kits were supplied to care homes and had to be recalled. The resulting delay may have caused the deaths of 30,000 care home residents and staff.

The Independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards ruled that he must be suspended from Parliament for 30 working days. The length of time means a by-election could be called and he could be ejected from Parliament altogether. Read the full facts here.

Well, his fellow Tories aren’t having that!

They have launched a Parliamentary motion saying the investigation was flawed and that Paterson’s case should be examined by a committee of MPs – dominated by Tories. They want to sack the standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, and dissolve the cross-party Standards Committee.

The result would be that Tory MPs get to judge whether their friends should be punished for corruption.

Obviously, this means corruption will run rampant in the future. And we all know it:

The hypocrisy is overwhelming.

This is a government that won’t hold an inquiry into the mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic (of which the Paterson case is just a small part) – because it is “too busy” dealing with the ongoing crisis – but will happily change its timetable to rescue a corrupt colleague:

And look who has been recruited to help save this corrupt, rule-breaking MP:

Rob Roberts (pictured), the Tory MP who was himself suspended from Parliament for sexually harassing staff, and was only readmitted earlier this week, is one of the signatories who supports the new amendment:

(In fairness, Elphicke was convicted on three counts of sexual assault, not rape.)

And “Loathsome” Lucy Allan, Telford’s Tory, claimed that MPs should be allowed to appeal, and to take their case to a tribunal, as in other workplace disciplinary actions. This is more hypocrisy.

As Labour’s Lisa Nandy pointed out in a TV interview, the Tories have imposed a system on benefit claimants in which they are denied the right of appeal or of resorting to a tribunal.

So Loathsome Lucy in fact wants preferential treatment for MPs. Otherwise why don’t they allow the same right to benefit claimants?

This Writer’s opinion:

Owen Paterson took hundreds of thousands of pounds from private firms and there’s a strong argument that tens of thousands of people died as a result. He should be suspended from Parliament. He should face the threat of being voted out in a by-election.

But he won’t.

The Tory government is so corrupt that it wants its MPs to be able to do what they want – no matter who dies as a result – with absolutely no repercussions.

And with a massive Parliamentary majority that they secured by making fools of millions of UK voters – they will spit on democracy, due process and accountability.

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Will Starmer attack Young Labour (again) over conference motion on Palestine?

Keir Starmer is probably seething about this.

But he has already shot his bolt with attempts to shut down Young Labour’s conference (the group shifted its events to The World Transformed instead) and to intimidate YL chair Jess Barnard.

All because the group wanted to host speakers who support the cause of Palestinians who face continuing persecution from the Israeli government.

Now YL has announced it is bringing a pro-Palestine motion to the conference that will require Starmer and his cronies to support Palestinian liberation – or face questions on their reasons not to:

The motion states: “Conference condemns the ongoing Nakba in Palestine, Israel’s militarised attack on Al Aqsa mosque, the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and the deadly bombardment of Gaza.

“Through the dispossession of Palestinian land, labour and property, the accelerating illegal settlements, and economic exploitation, Israel is working to undermine the viability of Palestinian statehood on anything other than a neo-colonial ‘bantustan’ basis.

“Conference notes the TUC 2020 Congress motion calling this ‘another significant step’ towards the UN Crime of Apartheid. The recent work of B’Tselem and the report by Human Rights Watch, ‘A Threshold Crossed’, details how Palestinians are ‘born unequal’. This is demonstrated by the recent exclusion of Palestinians from Israel’s vaccination programme.

“Conference recognises the settle-colonial character of the oppression of the Palestinian people, condemns any attempts to obfuscate this reality, and that with Israel being the world-leading exporter of weapons per capita, Palestinian liberation is the cause of all oppressed people.

“Conference resolves to be led by and support Palestinian civil society and the trade union movement in their campaign for the boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israel, and defends the right of the Palestinian people to struggle for liberation from colonial domination under UN resolution 37/43.

“Conference resolves to support the right of the Palestinian people under international law to return to their homes in a free, equal and democratic state.

“Conference resolves that the Labour Party must stand on the right side of history and abide by these resolutions in its policy, communications and political strategy.”

It is a direct challenge to some of Starmer’s most repressive (yet perhaps unwritten) policies.

Being such a great pal of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is itself an arm of the Israeli Embassy, he’ll be strongly against the BDS movement in particular.

His attitude appears to be that Israel does not harm Palestinians in any way and only ever responds in self-defence to violence initiated by Palestinians.

So factual evidence that Israelis are inflicting harm on Palestinians habitually is likely to drive him up the wall. Here’s some:

It seems Starmer wants us to think these things aren’t happening.

But you’ve just seen that they are.

This Writer is curious to see whether – and how – Starmer will try to sabotage this motion and ostracise the people responsible for it.

We already know that Jess Barnard has been subjected to terrible stress.

What next?

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Labour bid to gag website raises serious concerns about the party’s leaders

Badge of shame: if you filled a river with badges representing every Labour member expelled under false accusations of anti-Semitism, along with those representing every member who has quit in disgust at Keir Starmer’s dictatorial regime, how many miles would they stretch along it?

An attempt by the Labour Party to gag an investigative website suggests the party is undemocratic and unfit to govern.

It seems Labour’s infamous Governance and Legal unit was upset after The Electronic Intifada reported a decision by two party officials to block a debate on a motion calling for sanctions against Israel, due to the ongoing persecution of Palestinians by that nation’s government and military.

The claim was that it “would undermine the party’s ability to provide a safe and welcoming space” for Jewish members.

This attempt to protect Israel shows that the Labour Party machine is deeply anti-Semitic: it relies on a false equivalence between the decisions of the Israeli government and every Jew on Earth, regardless of their political views.

According to the definition of anti-Semitism that Labour has agreed to support, that is anti-Semitism: all Jews are not to be considered responsible for the behaviour of one group.

Worse still, Labour’s Governance and Legal unit tried to protect the party officials who tried to stop the debate – Hove & Portslade CLP chair Kim Bolton and Labour South East organiser Scott Horner – saying it was neither necessary nor in the public interest for them to be named.

It also claimed that the article had relied on private email exchanges and therefore breached data protection law.

But in fact the article had relied on minutes of a CLP meeting which The Electronic Intifada has now published in its own defence.

It is necessary to know who is spreading this poison in the Labour Party. There is no evidence to support fearmongering about anti-Semitism in the party as a result of a sanction against Israel and the claim that there are now concerns for the officials’ safety is extreme; it seems more likely that this was an attempt to protect them from any backlash within the party’s mechanisms against their inappropriate and undemocratic behaviour.

And this is the final – and most important point – to be made here: the Labour Party is now undemocratic. It does not allow the voice of the members to be heard and does not represent that voice. Instead, it supports the wishes of organisations outside the party.

This means Labour does not represent its own members.

And if it cannot represent its own members, then it should not be allowed to represent the UK as the party of government.

This episode shows that a Labour government – as led by Keir Starmer and following his orders – would not enact policies that are supported by a majority of the UK’s public.

It would act on its own agenda, dictated by groups that do not belong to the party, whose members probably don’t even vote for it.

And that is why nobody should support the Labour Party under Starmer’s leadership. Instead we need to be making lists of members and officials who need to be brought to book, once this vile and shameful era of the party’s history is brought to an end.

Source: Labour Party tries to intimidate The Electronic Intifada | The Electronic Intifada

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Bristol council passes motion to make reparation for slavery. Tories oppose it

Over it goes: the toppling of the Colston statue, back in June.

Here’s yet another reason for This Writer to be proud of the city of my birth.

After making controversial history during the Black Lives Matter protests last year, when citizens of Bristol tore down a statue of the slaver Edward Colston and threw it in the docks, the city council has gone a step further.

It has passed a motion to make “reparations” – not just financial but also cultural – for the slave trade in which the city participated and its enduring impact.

As former Lord Mayor Cleo Lake stated, “The contribution of African civilisation, culture and people versus how we have been treated is one of the world’s great paradoxes.”

Bristol is also calling for the UK’s Tory government to set up an all-party parliamentary inquiry to examine how such reparations might be delivered.

This might be a challenging request as although the motion was passed with 47 votes in support, 12 Tory councillors voted against it.

Believe it or not, they said the motion to make amends for an abhorrent past “risks exacerbating some divisions by presenting a binary view of the world when the reality is much more complicated”.

That sounds like doubletalk to This Writer! That is, disapproving speech that is intended to confuse an issue.

I think these Tories simply don’t want to face the reality of Bristol’s – and the UK’s – slave-trading background, with all the harm it has done, or the racism that still pervades this nation as a result.

In opposing the motion, they also opposed community wealth creation strategies to produce more sustainable and equitable growth whilst alleviating systemic poverty, which acknowledges that a just economy is the only way to achieve racial justice.

Typical Tories, you might say.

Source: ‘History is made’ as Bristol passes slavery reparations motion

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Concern over Starmer prompts Labour special conference call. Media attack ‘ruthless Corbynites’

It’s ludicrous. But people believe it – and that makes it dangerous too.

Yes, left-wingers in the Labour Party are calling for an emergency party conference – possibly to take place in June alongside the Women’s Conference.

But their reasons are perfectly rational: Keir Starmer’s lurch to the right – appealing to voters by waving the flag, wearing a suit and sporting a pretty haircut – isn’t working.

Poll results make this perfectly clear.

And this Huffington Post report spells it out:

The motion… reads: “Discussion in local Labour Party meetings has been suppressed; motions banned; scores of activists suspended; and anger and disillusionment is exploding across our lay membership across the party.

“Members are leaving in droves and many more are expressing frustration and dissatisfaction at the attack on democracy and free speech. Many members are saying it doesn’t feel like the Labour Party anymore.”

There is also frustration after several ex-officials suspended over the contents of a damning leaked report have been let back into Labour. 

Starmer faces criticism from the left over plans, reported in the Sunday Times, to woo businesses ahead of May’s local elections.

The Guardian also last week revealed a strategy document which said Labour was considering refocusing on patriotism, the Union flag and veterans’ causes to win back “Red Wall” seats captured by the Conservatives in 2019.

Reporter Rachel Wearmouth couldn’t resist claiming that Labour had seen a “massive improvement” at the polls – but this is not borne out by any evidence.

And she also claimed that Labour feared a “vaccine bounce” in the polls for the Tories, in the belief that the UK’s rollout of injections is one of the best in the world.

The problem is, the Tories are leaving the job half-done for most people, with only one of the two jabs they must have actually being administered and the second being delayed until up to 12 weeks after the first.

Pfizer, creator of one of the vaccines, has stated categorically that the second injection should happen no later than six weeks after the first. Otherwise there is no point having either.

It all adds up to another attack on the Labour Left – that could be accurately described as victim-blaming.

Left-wingers have been ruthlessly targeted by Starmer and his cronies – the most prominent being his immediate forerunner as party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

And of course no mention is made in the media to the years of backstabbing from centrists when Corbyn was in charge.

Will the call for a recall conference succeed? I doubt it.

The Parliamentary Labour Party is stuffed with “centrists” (read: right-wingers). It was a policy of the Blair/Brown years and Corbyn was unable to reverse it, despite a long-running debate over whether constituency parties should have the power to choose their own candidates rather than having people parachuted in by head office.

With so many “centrists” at the top of the party, it seems extremely unlikely that a poll of the entire membership that may lead to the removal of a “centrist” leader will be allowed.

See if I’m wrong.

Source: Exclusive: Demand For Special Labour Conference As Pressure Mounts On Starmer From Left | HuffPost UK

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Is Whittome Labour’s latest hypocrite in the Corbyn/suspension/free speech controversy?

Nadia Whittome: her behaviour is all the more vexing because she has no reason to be loyal to Keir Starmer – he sacked her as a Parliamentary Private Secretary because she voted against a Bill that would have protected soldiers from prosecution if they participated in acts of torture overseas, and briefed the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog about the sacking BEFORE telling her.

A Labour MP who had been considered to be on the left of the party and who said Jeremy Corbyn should be reinstated when his membership was suspended has become a turncoat, it seems.

Despite her own comments about Corbyn, it seems Nadia Whittome does not believe that her peers in the party should have the same right, as she stated in a Tweet following a meeting of Nottingham East Labour Party (she is MP for that constituency but not a member of the CLP):

It seems the agenda of last Friday’s CLP meeting included a motion that called for Corbyn’s reinstatement, the lifting of disciplinary measures from others for discussing the issues as well as for the removal of David Evans, General Secretary of the Labour Party, who imposed Corbyn’s suspension and the ban on discussing it that led to the suspensions of other party members.

Ms Whittome objected to the motion, despite having spoken against Corbyn’s suspension herself, it seems.

What are we to make of that? That she considers herself to be above her party colleagues? That she agrees that, while she may discuss such matters with impunity, it is right that rank-and-file party members be suspended for daring to do so? That she thinks party members should not be allowed to register their opposition when party officers flout rules and regulations?

That’s how it looks to This Writer.

Worse, Ms Whittome passed comment on an incident in which a Jewish CLP member left the meeting, claiming they did not feel safe there.

It appears that all was not as she led people to believe. Here‘s a statement from the CLP itself:

“There was only one interruption during the meeting. This arose when one member stated that in his personal experience he had never witnessed any antisemitism in any of our meetings. As he continued with his personal view, another member shouted out – in a manner that some found to be aggressive – that he himself had suffered personal, antisemitic abuse from the person speaking, who was taken aback and stated that this wasn’t true; the Chair intervened and tried to calm things down. At this point the member who had interrupted declared that he no longer felt safe at the meeting and left.

“The member who left has changed his narrative on social media to stating that the member he accused had ‘witnessed an anti-Semitic attack’ on him rather than had attacked him personally.”

Ms Whittome also mentioned the possibility that disciplinary proceedings had been launched against a member of the CLP. This appears to be CLP chair Louise Regan, a former NUT president and (I really hope this has nothing to do with it) vice-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

It seems Ms Regan’s party membership was, in fact, suspended:

This can only be for allowing the motion to be heard (it was passed by 23 votes to 10). Ms Regan’s conduct during the meeting was described in the CLP statement as “exemplary” and Ms Whittome is said to have joined in thanking her for the way she chaired it.

If that was everything, it would be bad enough, but it seems even worse than that, as evidence has come to light claiming that Ms Whittome actually participated in a smear campaign against Ms Regan. Read:

Maybe Mr Kazmi has his own axe to grind (although, considering the number of Tweets by other people linking Ms Whittome with this AWL group, this seems doubtful). In any case, This Writer will be happy to hear what the MP has to say about all this.

At the moment, it seems likely she has fatally wounded her reputation among the very people on whom she would have to rely in order to be re-elected in any future Parliamentary poll.

And at the very least, it seems likely that she should expect a flood of complaints to Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit, that her comments have brought the party into disrepute – the very charge which, when used against her colleagues, she supported.

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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Starmer’s authority crumbles further as shadow minister’s CLP demands Corbyn’s reinstatement

“We are many, they are few”: they being, it seems, the pro-Starmer faction of the wider Labour Party membership. And the longer Jeremy Corbyn remains suspended as a party member, the fewer they will become.

Days after Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership repeated a demand for rank-and-file Labour members not to discuss Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension or demand its reversal, CLPs are using his own hypocrisy to attack him.

This Site pointed out the double-standard in an article two days ago.

The day after it appeared, Bristol West CLP supported a motion that highlighted the hypocritical demand. It said, in part:

A number of public figures, including but not limited to the leader of the party, the deputy leader of the party, and the Socialist Campaign Group have issued public statements on the suspension, and that the SCG has called for re-instatement, yet the general secretary has nevertheless ordered that CLPs cannot do the same.

The CLP, political home of shadow housing secretary Thangam Debbonaire, added:

This CLP resolves:

To condemn Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension and demand his reinstatement to the party.

To oppose any and all politically motivated disciplinary actions against the left by the leadership.

According to Skwawbox, right-wingers in the Bristol West Labour Party tried to pack the meeting in order to defeat the motion – or at least amend it – in what can clearly be interpreted as an attack on democracy by supporters of Keir Starmer.

It failed.

But Starmer – and his people – need to answer for their actions.

Source: Exclusive: full wording of motion passed on Monday by Shadow Cabinet minister’s CLP, condemning ‘political’ Corbyn suspension – SKWAWKBOX

‘Thicky’ Nicky Morgan spells it out: Tories denied poor children free school meals out of spite

‘We starve children’: Rishi Sunak’s slogan was a little different when he published it, but a member of the public has corrected it for him.

There’s a reason we call her “Thicky” Nicky. Tory High Command will be fuming this morning.

The reason? Former education secretary Nicky Morgan admitted on the BBC’s Question Time that she and her Conservative colleagues voted down a motion to give poverty-stricken children free school meals during the holidays – not for any practical reason, but because a Labour MP insulted one of them during the debate.

Angela Rayner has apologised for using that word during a speech by Christopher Clarkson. Considering the content of his speech, one is moved more to sympathy with her point of view than his.

So it is doubly hard to accept “Thicky” Nicky’s excuse as she peddled it out on Question Time – more so because she backpedalled in the face of criticism and tried to say the Labour Party was wrong to introduce the debate as an Opposition Day motion.

And she was still saying the Tories were reacting petulantly to the way the debate was being carried out, rather than to its content – the necessity of helping to feed children in England.

Those children are now set to starve, because Tories like Nicky Morgan made up excuses to be upset.

Here’s her outburst, as televised:

And here’s some of the outrage it sparked:

(There are more than 322 Tories but that’s the number of their MPs who voted down the motion to feed starving children.)

There are now moves to shame all the Tories who voted against this motion online, simply by pointing out what they did to their electorate.

This Writer notes that my own MP – Fay Jones – voted against it. She represents a Welsh constituency – and I don’t think it’s a good look for a Welsh Tory to be voting to starve English children.

Do you?

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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