Tag Archives: whip

70,000+ demand Labour restore whip to Corbyn. Will Starmer say they’re ALL anti-Semites?

Jeremy Corbyn: no, he wasn’t signing the petition for his own reinstatement in the Parliamentary Labour Party – in fact he was writing about Jews including Roza Robota, Szmul Zygielbojm and Anne Frank, in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of remembrance. Anti-Semite? Don’t make us laugh, Starmer.

Remember This Site’s article yesterday (May 20, 2023), ridiculing Jewish Labour Movement chair Mike Katz for praising Keir Starmer’s handling of “cranks”, “racists” and “extremists”?

I quoted his comments about Jeremy Corbyn as an example of this, in which he claimed of the most committed anti-racist in Parliament: “His reluctance to show any remorse and his continual denial and downplaying of the problem makes him the author of his own demise and negates any claim he can make to actually being anti-racist.”

And yet on the same day Vox Political published its article, more than 70,000 people were revealed to have signed a petition demanding that Starmer’s Labour restore the party whip to Mr Corbyn.

It also demands that the Labour Party in the Islington North constituency be allowed to select their own candidate for the next general election, after the party’s National Executive Committee supported a Starmer motion barring Mr Corbyn from standing.

According to the Morning Star,

The Islington North MP and former Labour leader had the party whip withdrawn after saying anti-semitism within Labour had been “overstated for political reasons” and was blocked from representing Labour in the next general election earlier this year by an unrelated motion to the NEC claiming he would undermine Labour’s chances of forming a government because he led it to defeat in 2019.

LAAA national organiser Matt Willgress criticised Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer for breaching a campaign promise that local party members should select their candidates for every election.

Young Labour activist and Arise volunteer Fraser McGuire said it is clear that many Labour members and supporters want to protect party democracy and allow Islington North CLP members to select their own candidate.

He said this would “undoubtedly” be Mr Corbyn.

Campaign for Labour Party Democracy co-chairwoman Rachel Garnham said it was unsurprising that tens of thousands feel “aggrieved by Starmer’s hypocrisy and top-down approach to candidate selection.”

An Islington Friends of Corbyn spokesperson said people are “angrier than ever about the continuing injustice” against Mr Corbyn and the constituency.

This Writer feels sure that these people won’t be voting Labour in a future election, if they don’t get their way.

What will Keir Starmer do in response – brand them all as anti-Semites?

Of course, the petition makes a nonsense of Katz’s claim that Starmer had properly handled “cranks”, “racists” and “extremists” in the Labour.

Instead, it strongly suggests that Starmer has vindictively attacked honest, hard-working Labour Party members whose only crime was standing up for the positive values the party was formed to represent – rather than the perverted, narcissistic, power-for-its-own-sake policies of the current leader.

And we haven’t even touched on StarmerLabour’s anti-black racism yet. Look for that in a future article.

Source: Over 70,000 sign petition demanding Labour restore the whip to Corbyn as mass support continues to grow | Morning Star


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Labour’s suspension of Diane Abbott is unprecedented and unnecessary. Here’s why

Diane Abbott: suspended for erroneous reasons?

If you’re unaware of the situation, the UK’s first black female MP – Diane Abbott – has been deprived of Labour’s Parliamentary whip after she penned a letter that correctly pointed out that people of colour suffer racism more habitually than other ethnicities – but did it in a clumsy way.

This Site has published an article about it here.

Public reaction has been split – partly, in This Writer’s opinion, because Ms Abbott is famously the most racially abused member of Parliament. In fact, she receives more racially abusive correspondence than all other MPs put together, so it can hardly be surprising that people who themselves are lower than vermin have latched onto this.

Not only that, but she is a socialist, meaning that members of the right-wing faction that currently controls Labour, together with their supporters, also want her removed from that party. This incident has been their excuse to suspend her, pending an investigation on grounds of anti-Semitism.

There’s just one problem:

Members of their faction have been caught making far more clearly anti-Semitic comments. Like Ms Abbott, they subsequently apologised. Unlike her, their transgressions were instantly forgotten.

Here’s one example:

Claudia Webbe, a socialist MP who now sits as an Independent after being expelled from Labour, has pointed out the similarity, and others have added additional arguments to her words:

So on that level, Labour has no ground on which to continue with Ms Abbott’s suspension.

The other issue is whether her letter was anti-Semitic. Let’s consider:

If you don’t believe that, let’s hear from some Jewish people (although Keir Starmer’s right-wing mob dispute their authenticity – apparently they are the “wrong type of Jew” and you can judge for yourself what that says about the current Labour leadership.

Here‘s Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL):

Her original letter was not antisemitic and the way some critics have rounded on her as if it were is cynical and unhelpful.

As a prominent Black Labour MP she cannot avoid discussing the way Black and Asian people are in the frontline of racist oppression – and the way the Black experience has been downplayed in the Labour Party. This was identified by Martin Forde in his report as a hierarchy of racism.  The wording of Diane’s letter was unfortunate in that it appeared to compare forms of racism. Diane has rightly apologised for this.

All racism is abhorrent – and she has always fought against it. Historically Jews have been major victims – most notoriously in the time of the Holocaust. As Diane says in her tweeted apology, “Racism takes many forms and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.”

The fight against racism today – certainly in this country – is centred on defence of Black and Asian people. This in no way discounts the experience of Jews. Jewish people in this country of course face prejudice and racism, in particular the Haredim, who in their dress are highly visible, but it is not institutional, structural racism that fundamentally affects their prospects and outcomes.

Yes, Diane’s letter should have been drafted with more care – but this is no ground for suspension from the Labour Party.

So that’s the opinion of (some) Jewish people. That would divest Labour of its other excuse to suspend Ms Abbott – except of course that Keir Starmer couldn’t give two figs about what left-wing Jews have to say.

And that leads us to one last point:

Exactly. This is now a litmus test for Labour’s electability.

If Starmer and his cronies don’t reinstate Ms Abbott, then left-wing voters who traditionally support Labour will know that they no longer have a home there and should not, under any circumstances, vote for that party while Keir Starmer and his team lead it.


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Diane Abbott loses Labour whip for making a fair point the wrong way

Diane Abbott: she has suffered more racist abuse than anybody you can name, due to the colour of her skin – and has now lost the Labour Parliamentary whip for attacking a newspaper article that apparently tried to minimise racism against people of colour.

First they came for Jeremy Corbyn…

Then they came for his grassroots supporters…

Then they came for left-wing Jews…

Now they are coming for members of the Socialist Campaign Group – and Diane Abbott is the first to be targeted.

She is an easy target because she has an unfortunate turn of phrase and often fails to think carefully before going public with her words.

This time, it has cost her the Labour whip, after the Observer published the following letter:

For those who can’t read images, here‘s the letter in full:

Racism is black and white

Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated”, Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.

It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.
Diane Abbott
House of Commons, London SW1

Anybody can see what she was trying to do: she was pointing out that people of colour suffer racism far more often in their daily lives than those who might be defined as “white/European”, because the difference is visually obvious.

(It is also misleading. I have a friend who is white and Welsh, but whose face might seem to have a Middle-Eastern look about it to those who live by stereotypes. He tans very easily, and tells me that, when he has been on holiday abroad (lucky fellow!) he is habitually picked out for a “random” bomb check on the way back into the UK, by security officials who think he looks like an Islamic terrorist.)

Nobody who knows her history could deny that she has a very strong point; if I recall correctly, Ms Abbott receives more racist hate mail than all other MPs put together.

She tried to make a distinction by saying people of colour suffer racism while Irish people, Jews and Travellers (the GRT community), suffer prejudice instead – and that’s where she went wrong.

It’s all racism. Jewish people (for example) were originally Semitic (hence the word for hate against them: anti-Semitism), and the fact that their culture, like Christianity, has been successful in absorbing people from other races does not stop hatred being directed at them because they are different.

I was going to suggest that she could have used the word “xenophobia” to describe the hatred of people of colour in this context – the so-called “dislike of the unlike”. But that does not only refer to race/skin colour but also to culture, so it might be a better umbrella title for the prejudice faced by all the groups she mentions.

The problem here is simply finding the right word for the distinction she intended, which is that the other groups can avoid abuse on occasions because their skin colour means they can blend in with what, for want of a better word, I’ll describe as the majority.

But it was enough for the usual suspects to spring to the attack – presumably secure in the knowledge that nobody is about to ask them to compare the amount of abuse those of them who present as white/European receive against Ms Abbott’s.

(Indeed, judging from the abuse that Ms Abbott has received over this letter, it seems some of them may even have perpetrated some of it.)

At the end of the day, it was a valid point made in a very clumsy way.

Ms Abbott has apologised for it, claiming that the letter published in The Observer was a draft that should not have gone out. That’s still her mistake, though – and one she should not have made. Here’s what she said:

Again, for people who can’t read images:

I am writing regarding my letter that was recently published in the Observer.

I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them.

The errors arose in an initial draft being sent. But there is no excuse, and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused.

Racism takes many forms, and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.

So she accepts that she was at fault and has apologised.

If she was a member of Keir Starmer’s gang, that would be the end of it. But she isn’t, so she has lost the whip and there will undoubtedly be attempts to push her out of the party (or at least out of ever again being able to stand for election to the Hackney Parliamentary seat).

But some good has come of the row, because alongside the screaming, some people are discussing her points in a reasonable way. And they have good points to make:

It’s possible to foresee difficulties for Keir Starmer, though, as the suspension can be seen to carry a meaning that is harmful to him:

How about this from a Jewish Twitter user?

And this is an important point about the online wolves who are currently baying for her blood:

At the end of the day:

Diane Abbott overreacted to a newspaper article and published hasty words and, while that reflects badly on her, she has apologised, and that goes in her favour. The Labour Party that has suspended her – and the critics and abusers who have lined up to pour hate on her – will need to justify any action taken against her in that context – and I don’t think they’ll be able to.

It is they who will come out of this smelling like bull manure – not Ms Abbott.


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Scott Benton suspended: isn’t this double-standards after the Led By Donkeys sting?

Scott Benton: what he offered to do was wrong, but no different from other Tory MPs. So why has he been singled out?

It seems Led By Donkeys is not the only organisation that has been trying to entrap MPs by creating fake firms for them to represent by illegal lobbying.

The Times has apparently tried to net Tory MP Scott Benton by the same means – and unlike Kwasi Kwarteng, Sir Graham Brady, Stephen Hammond and Gavin Williamson, he has been suspended by the party pending an investigation.

This seems very odd.

Benton referred himself to Parliament’s standards watchdog and had the whip removed by his party shortly afterwards. It seems The Times had filmed him saying he could table Parliamentary questions and leak a Parliamentary policy paper, if he took a job with the fake firm.

But he did not pursue the role and it seems no rules have been broken.

This seems no different from the behaviour of three of the five MPs who were approached by Led By Donkeys. They did not have apparent concerns about being used as conduits for a firm to talk to ministers. Another, who said he could not lobby directly, said there was a way around the rules.

Only one refused to have anything to do with behaviour that might be used to attempt to influence government policy.

To This Writer’s knowledge, none of them have been referred to the Parliamentary standards watchdog or been suspended from their party whip (although, in Matt Hancock’s case, this would be difficult as he has already been suspended).

Why is he being investigated and not them?


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No sooner is Gavin Williamson back in the Cabinet than he is causing trouble

Gavin Williamson: he’s in trouble for sending abusive messages to a former Tory Chief Whip.

Gavin Williamson, newly-appointed Minister Without Portfolio in Rishi Sunak’s government, has been causing trouble again.

It has been alleged that Williamson sent abusive texts to former Chief Whip Wendy Morton on September 13 – so it has taken a while to come to light, complaining that he and other colleagues had been excluded from the Queen’s funeral for political reasons.

Here are the most offending messages:

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Dowden fielded questions about it from Sky’s Sophy Ridge.

Other people have different opinions:

“If I had been told that one of my closest allies was a puerile man-child, I think I would have remembered.” Well said, Phil Moorhouse!

This one’s short and sweet:

So it looks like Rishi Sunak’s government will have Cabinet resignations sooner in its tenure than Liz Truss’s.

After Sunak put in all that work to defend Suella Braverman, Gavin Williamson has swept up from behind and turned himself into a sacrificial lamb.

With Braverman still in the firing line, and a dearth of talent on the backbenches, it seems Sunak’s steady government is already on the wobble.

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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The shabby story of Conor Burns

Conor Burns.

A Tory minister was unceremoniously sacked from his government job and suspended as a Conservative MP amid claims of misconduct that have yet to be entirely clarified – two days later.

Conor Burns, who was a friend of the late Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher in her later years, was dumped by the party on Friday.

It has since been suggested that the claims concern Burns touching another man’s thigh in a Birmingham hotel bar during the Conservative Party conference last week:

Allies of the MP claim he had injured his ribs the weekend before the party conference and was on heavy medication to manage the pain.

They suggested the prescribed medicine made the effect of the alcohol worse.

It is not disputed by the former minister’s friends that he had been drinking or that he flirted with the young man who had joined him, who, we understand, was not known to Mr Burns.

The MP was sufficiently drunk that he had to later be taken back to his hotel by a friend.

We understand that Mr Burns is strongly of the view that the flirting was consensual, but the BBC has not yet spoken to the man the former minister was with to hear his account of events.

Burns has protested his innocence – but this produced an unexpected knock-on effect:

Professor Tim Wilson has vlogged about this, and raises an interesting question: is this just a ‘dead cat’ to distract attention from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng?

He provides further analysis here:

I think we can all agree with his final sentiment.

We should all be truly ashamed of the Conservative Party.

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Why are Tory MPs supporting Johnson when the public overwhelmingly HATE him?

It probably isn’t him but it gets the message across: in a national poll, Boris Johnson has been described as an “utter anus” by at least one respondent. And he’s whipping his MPs to pretend there’s no reason for an inquiry into whether he was dishonest to them…

The Labour Party has secured a vote to decide whether a Commons committee should investigate if criminal prime minister Boris Johnson misled Parliament when he said he adhered to all Covid-19 laws despite attending at least one lockdown-busting party.

Sadly, it seems unlikely to achieve anything as all Conservative MPs are likely to be placed under a three-line whip, ordering them to reject the move in a clearly corrupt attempt to avoid evidence revealing that Johnson deliberately lied.

Ironically, the public have already made up their collective mind: the overwhelming majority of us know a lying criminal when we see one, and that’s how we describe the despicable habitual lawbreaker Boris Johnson.

poll by JLPartners found that just 16 per cent of people would use positive language to describe the prime minister with more than 70 per cent characterising him in negative terms.

Voters were asked to describe the prime minister, with the most frequent description being that he is a ‘liar’ – followed by ‘incompetent’ and ‘untrustworthy’.

Other words used regularly by voters to describe the PM include “idiot” and “buffoon”, while one voter described him as an “utter anus”.

Let’s hope that catches on; I certainly would like to see Johnson described as an “utter anus” wherever he goes.

Amazingly, according to the BBC a majority of Conservative MPs haven’t yet caught on that the rest of us think their leader is an “utter anus”, and are set to support him on Thursday’s vote, as they did during Tuesday’s debate.

One gets the feeling that, by then, Johnson may need the three-line whip he is inflicting on them – otherwise they may act on information received between now and then and vote to dump him.

Doesn’t it say everything about this corrupt criminal liar, “idiot”, “buffoon” and, indeed, “utter anus” that he needs to coerce his own MPs into standing by him?

Russians rise to condemn #Ukraine war; #KeirStarmer puts down Labour MPs who do the same

Keir Starmer: Putin down his people (sorry – I couldn’t resist the pun).

People across Russia who have stood up in protest against their country’s invasion of Ukraine are winning praise from politicians in the UK and across the world.

What a stark contrast with the reaction of – for example – UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, who has forced 11 of his MPs to withdraw their protest against the war under threat of losing the party whip!

Here is video evidence of some of the protests in Russia, as citizens there exercised their right to free speech:

All of these protests if they took place in the UK, would soon be illegal under the Tory government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts legislation that is currently working its way through Parliament.

And it seems Labour’s current leadership tacitly supports such suppression; here’s how Starmer reacted to his MPs’ exercise of their right to free speech:

Yes, it seems he demanded that they withdraw their signatures from a statement by the Stop the War Coalition, condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The statement itself is straightforward:

“This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.

“The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.

“The British government has played a provocative role in the present crisis, talking up war, decrying diplomacy as appeasement and escalating arms supplies and military deployments to Eastern Europe.

“If there is to be a return to diplomacy, as there should be, the British government should pledge to oppose any further eastward expansion of NATO and should encourage a return to the Minsk-2 agreement, already signed by both sides, by all parties as a basis for ending the crisis in relations between Ukraine and Russia.

“Beyond that, there now needs to be a unified effort to develop pan-European security arrangements which meet the needs of all states, something that should have been done when the Warsaw Pact was wound up at the end of the Cold War. The alternative is endless great power conflict with all the attendant waste of resources and danger of bloodshed and destruction.

“We send our solidarity to all those campaigning for an end to the war, often under very difficult conditions, in Russia and Ukraine. Stop the War can best support them by demanding a change in Britain’s own policy, which can be seen to have failed.”

Stop the War expanded on this in a message to followers:

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine overnight is a massive escalation in the conflict there. Stop the War is calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops and for an immediate ceasefire. Our statement is here and our resolution for union branches/CLPs here.

“The danger of war involving nuclear weapons is more real than previously and must be opposed. The real losers will be the ordinary people of Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of Europe.

“We should, however, take no lessons in peacemaking from our own government and its allies. They have brought us decades of escalating wars, each of which has been a failure. They have encouraged a growing arms race internationally. And they have set on a path of Nato expansion which has brought the military alliance to the borders of Russia, in contravention of agreements made at the end of the Cold War.

“Nato is not a defensive alliance but an aggressive one, centrally involved in wars in Afghanistan, Libya and Yugoslavia, and engaged in more and more ‘out of area operations’ including in the Indo-Pacific.

“Our government wants to hide its domestic problems behind its belligerent statements, and we can be certain that this will continue, at the same time that it will provide unlimited money for war but increase student loan repayments and cut the NHS.

“There is a surge or argument in favour of greater sanctions, including from those who purport to be anti war. But sanctions are not an alternative to war – they are economic warfare and therefore a prelude to war. We have seen this in Iraq where all they did was bring war closer, at the same time as bringing real suffering to the people of Iraq.

“As an anti-war and peace movement, our first priority is to stop war. This conflict has not developed in the last few weeks alone, but reflects a society where war is being turned to increasingly to solve other problems. However, we are also aware that this is a different situation from previous wars where our government has been directly involved in military action, and we need to do as much as we can to explain and discuss the issues with those around us.

“We are asking our members, supporters, groups and affiliates to do the following:

  1. Make sure our statement and resolution are disseminated as widely as possible.
  2.  Do everything to publicise and support our international meeting on Saturday 26th February and our in person rally on Wednesday 2nd March in Conway Hall, London.
  3. Hold urgent meetings in all localities – in person where possible – calling for withdrawal of Russian troops, ceasefire now and against Nato expansion.
  4. Attend the demos and actions in support of the NHS with placards linking cuts in public spending with money for war- you can download and print our new placard design from our website.
  5. Prepare for a day of action (tba) where we hold protests and vigils against the war.

“Please contact the office for materials and more information, and for speakers.

“Due to the high volume of traffic we are currently experiencing, we apologise for any difficulties you may encounter whilst trying to access our website today; please keep refreshing or try again later.”

This Writer leans toward the belief that Starmer – who only recently and loudly announced his support for Nato as Labour’s current policy (not that it ever changed from that) – has been incensed by the support of opposition to the organisation by Labour backbenchers.

So he did what bullies do – he threatened them with reprisals.

And to their shame, they caved in:

At a time of blatant hypocrisy by many western leaders, this is extraordinary – for reasons that seem clear:

And he drew comparisons between himself and Russian president Vladimir Putin in an ironic but entirely appropriate unintended consequence:

Damo expands on this in a well-argued ‘rant’ that critics of the Stop the War 11 should consider with care:

And what of Starmer himself? Having signalled a direction of travel, will he follow it through?

And how will this play out in the United Kingdom at large?

Well, with a by-election set to take place in Erdington, Birmingham on March 3, we shouldn’t have long to wait. And people are already making their wishes clear:

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Karma for Coyle: Labour suspends the whip after allegedly racist remarks

Caught: Neil Coyle has admitted making racist remarks.

Keir Starmer may have spent months delaying any investigation of anti-Semitism by Neil Coyle but he has acted faster over a second allegation of racism against the far-right Labour MP.

It only took Starmer’s party a week to suspend its whip from Coyle after two claims were made about him.

British-Chinese journalist Henry Dyer has reported Sinophobic remarks by Coyle to Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle after a meeting in the Strangers’ Bar on the Parliamentary estate on the evening of February 1.

Mr Dyer claimed he had also witnessed Coyle “angrily shouting at a Labour staffer” in the bar the previous evening.

It is understood that after the Speaker became aware of Mr Dyer’s allegations, he convened a meeting with the Serjeant at Arms who ordered that Coyle should be suspended from bars in the Commons for six months. Authorities in the House of Lords are believed to have taken similar action.

Labour has said that the party’s chief whip, Alan Campbell, has suspended Coyle from membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party, pending an investigation.

Coyle has released a statement apologising for his comments (so he has admitted making them). He said he had apologised to all those involved and would be co-operating fully with the inquiry.

It is good that Starmer has acted at last over his out-of-control right-winger.

But it is strange that it took a week for his party to suspend the whip and start an investigation; contrast it with his immediate suspension of the whip from Jeremy Corbyn on the basis of a false interpretation of that MP’s words about anti-Semitism.

And Coyle is the subject of anti-Semitism claims on which Labour has been sitting for more than six months.

So karma has struck; if Coyle got away with anti-Semitism, he has still been caught for racism.

But the incident highlights prejudice in Starmer’s Labour – unless they fall foul of outside authorities, his right-wing supporters enjoy privileged exemption from the rules.

Source: Labour MP Neil Coyle has party whip suspended following alleged racist remarks

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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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

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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