The Murdoch-owned Times and the Guido Fawkes site have scored a massive own-goal in an attempt to prolong the already-discredited smear that has had Tories scrabbling to justify now-deleted tweets about Jeremy Corbyn’s meeting with a Czechoslovakian diplomat.
When the Czech smear was debunked, with even Czech intelligence archivists calling it nonsense and pointing out that all the evidence shows Corbyn was never any kind of source for them – and even Tory commentators pointing out how ridiculous and outrageous the smear is – the Establishment switched to smears about the East German ‘Stasi’.
At least until those fell flat, with German archive issuing a statement that not only said they had no record of any contact with Corbyn ever – but calling it ‘outrageous’.
But the Times and Fawkes have published an article by a former Times Prague correspondent that attempts to damn Corbyn by association with the state violence that marred Czechoslovakia’s ‘Velvet Revolution’ transition to democracy.
The Times writer recounts his experience of the state’s attempted repression of protest and his personal experience of violence at the hands of Czechoslovakian state security in 1989 – and awful it was.
However, inconveniently for the Times and Fawkes, Jeremy Corbyn was one of only four British MPs at the time who felt strongly enough about that violence to sign an Early Day Motion (EDM) supporting the protesters against the ‘Stalinist bureaucracy’:
Then-PM Margaret Thatcher was happy to lay on a lavish dinner for President Václav Havel the following year to congratulate him and the new Czech government – but a search of the Parliamentary ‘Hansard’ archive returns no record of a statement from her while the events were unfolding. The one relevant ‘hit‘ from 1989 shows that Parliament discussed the matter in December of that year, but Thatcher apparently did not participate.
Comment:
By attempting to tar Corbyn by association with the state violence of the Velvet Revolution, the Times and Fawkes just pointed to a perfect example of why the whole Czech smear has been nonsense from start to finish – and of why Corbyn, with his integrity and his willingness to stand up for the people when it’s not fashionable or easy, terrifies the Establishment.
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They are running scared. The closer Labour moves to the EU will be the death knell for Tories
No it won’t, Carol. It will be the death of the Labour Party, that is why the Blairites are using Brexit as a proxy to attack Corbyn.
The vast majority of Labour constituencies voted to leave the EU.
Any Labour MP who argues Labour should block Brexit is campaigning for the Tory party.
Nonsense, Carol is correct. Those of us on the left, apart from you obviously, should not allow the right wing of the Party to own the remain case. There is absolutely NO good Brexit, no matter who proposes or oversees it!
As someone who goes out campaigning and knocking on doors every weekend, I can tell you that Jeremy will gain even more support when he comes out for remaining in the EU!
You’re campaigning for the Tories, Jack.
The party expels people like you who support other parties.
‘Internal Affairs’ a typical response from a closet right winger who supports Farage and his band of fanatical Brexit fruitcakes. Anyone who disagrees with them is a traitor. You need to see the big picture and understand the complexities. When Brexit hits the rocks as it certainly will if it goes ahead, those who supported it will have to answer for the thousands of lost jobs attributable to their failed Little Englander pipe dream.
70% of Labour constituencies voted leave and 65% of constituencies voted leave.
By arguing Labour should ignore that mandate your arguing on favour of Labour being wiped out at the next election.
You are therefore campaigning for the Tories.
I won’t take any lectures from you Jack, you’re the person supporting Tony Blair’s racist and nationalist pro-EU arguments.
Bugger off and sabotage somebody else’s party.
But the majority of Labour members had more sense and did not vote for Brexit and neither did 67% of the electorate.
So why did so many Labour constituencies support Brexit? It’s because many of them are in poorer parts of the country and they believed the lies that Brexiters told them. Such as school places are in short supply because of immigrants and the NHS is on its knees because of immigrants and jobs are hard to get because of immigrants etc etc – all lies and simply a way for Brexiters to turn sections of our communities against each other using the right wing tactic of racism.
Added to the Brextremist’s pot of lies and garbage was the right wing press telling them that we don’t control our own laws, we are being run by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. When in fact WE helped to draw up and approve 92% of the laws which the EU introduced. It was Britain who suggested many of the laws which were implemented throughout the EU.
Fanatical Brexiters like you said we have given up our sovereignty, when in fact, we SHARED some of our sovereignty with others as they shared theirs with us for the benefit of all – it’s what communities do.
You have a simplistic and dangerous view of Brexit and when Jeremy Corbyn tells you that the Brexit of the far right won’t work, will you tell him he is a racist-nationalist and to bugger off?
There are some extremely unpleasant people and attitudes at the bottom of Brexit.
Migration has in truth exacerbated joblessness, low wages and overstretched services but in many cases it’s the excuse for racism, not the cause of it.
It’s the same right across the EU but the cause of it everywhere are the wealthy rightards who wanted to suppress wages with migration and cared nothing for the societal consequences.
A truly socialist government is going to need support abroad to fight the massed forces of the Right. They’ve fought wars to stop socialism succeeding ffs.
The US population will be the last on Earth to admit any doubt about god or neoliberalism – they’re interchangeable in the minds of the supposedly christian right.
Our neighbours are more open to reasoned debate and they also see the dangers of the increasing wealth gap.
Events will convince them soon enough of the need to fight the 1% and we’ll need them on side to resist the US.
Er, as you no doubt know, 63% of Labour supporters voted to Remain:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/
JackT I have had this with you before, and to be honest you sound like Blair Campbell, Mandelson. The only way out for Labour if THEY DO TAKE OVER is A customs union and A single market, not THE.
It Was Thatcher Blair, Cameron, Libfibs over 40years that created the vote for brexit.
Austerity was under the umbrella of the EU.
People were pissed off. Yes there is a few right wing loons, but you paint everyone with the same brush.
I tell you a little secret, were not leaving Europe and there will be a deal, and if your a Corbyn supporter you should back him to deliver for the country.
Not jump on the Chuka, Leslie, Cable bandwagon who are the creators and would still be going along with Austerity if it wasn’t for Corbyn.
Whether you like or not people voted for Corbyn’s vision, not Blairs, or Blairites.
‘Masmit’ You are one very confused person. As is the case with all Brexstremists, you are grasping at straws trying to implicate the EU in Tory imposed austerity.
The simple fact is the extreme right agitators in the Tory Party who have NEVER accepted our membership of the EU, supported the extreme right anti-EU Farage to force their own Government into having a referendum. They then proceeded to concoct a catalogue of lies, supported and disseminated by he right wing media, to try and convince the general public to support them – a classic Goebbels tactic and you cannot see through it!
Instead you make childish accusations against those of us who recognise the plot and who do not support your unfounded hatred of the EU of not supporting Jeremy Corbyn – disgraceful!
Alan,
Lord Ashcroft poll, and you believe it.
12000 odd in the poll, no detail on actually what constituency’s and the breakdown of how many per constituency.
If people are falling for this crap well I say no more.
Masmit: Can you give us the source for the breakdown of constituencys etc.
And if it WASN’T 63% (of Labour supporters voted to Remain), can you tell us what it WAS, and what your source is.
And I suppose YouGov got it wrong too Masmit!
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted/
Allan,
If you actually read what I put there is no breakdown. So instead of going off on one. You provide the proof to your claims.
The YouGov link gives no breakdown.
Polls on brexit are suggesting, show me the breakdown that I said they don’t give.
I’m sick of people using this polls telling people something they cannot prove.
Just remember they would have to do a big sample in each constituency, no proof this has been done. also voting was different all over the country London remain. Polls are giving no geographical representation.
Unless you can prove me wrong. While your on ask YouGov what me and my family voted.
Polls were done June 16 after referendum.
Now I don’t want to burst your bubble, but at that time me and my family had never voted Labour, infact never voted.
In 2017 we voted labour because the first time someone Corbyn was offering something to vote for. You know for the many, and me and my family was not the only ones were we. Vote share up since 1940s. So the polls are totally wrong and people using them are totally out of touch with what actually happened.
Masmit. Given that it was yourself and Internal Affairs making the claim, then it is of course incumbent on you and he to provide your source(s).
And I couldn’t help but notice that you conveniently ommitted to respond to my initial main point (which you were so dismissive of) – ie If it WASN’T 63% (of LP supporters that voted Remain, as the Ashcroft Poll had it) and 65% (according to the YouGov poll), then what was it? And needless to say, please provide your source(s).
JackT,
Blah,blah, blah
Same old tripe off the blairites talking down to people.
Do you honestly think people haven’t lived through decline while we were in the EU.
Condescending is an understatement. People who voted for brexit will never except the way people like you, try tell them you know better than they.
Have a good day
‘Masmit’ instead of being petulant, please tell me how the EU is responsible for any decline people have suffered?
Allan, go back slowly and read what I first put, about there being no evidence to your claims.
Your as bad a JackT, a little tip your not always right, and my response is about nobody honestly knows. The polls are done to manipulate, I will say no more.
Have a good day
And Masmit, what did you mean specifically when you said:
‘I’m sick of people using this polls telling people something they cannot prove.’
I assume you weren’t referring to the 63% and 65% of Labour supporters that the Ashcroft and Yougov polls said voted Remain? And if NOT, what exactly WERE you referring to?
And since WHEN did asking someone a straight forward question amount to ‘going off on one’? Seems to me you are using bluster so as to try and hide the fact (from anyone reading through these comments) that you are avoiding answering the questions I put to you. An old propaganda technique!
Masmit said (in a post that came up whilst I was typing out my previous response to him):
‘Allan, go back slowly and read what I first put, about there being no evidence to your claims.’
It wasn’t a ‘claim’, it was information from two polls, one of which found that 63% of Labour supporters voted to Remain (Ashcroft), and the other which found that 65% of LP supporters voted to Remain (YouGov).
But the irony of it all is that Masmit was going along with Internal Affairs argument, which was based on his claim that 70% of Labour constituencies voted Leave, and Masmit was then criticising ME by saying that the polls I sighted don’t give a breakdown by constituency, which of course was a strawman.
As you know Masmit, Internal Affairs made the claim, so WHY haven’t you at any point asked him/her for their source(s)?
Ah, but I see that you have conveniently exited from the discussion (and wished us a Good Day). Yerse, probably a good move on your part as you’re just digging yourself deeper and deeper. Hasta
As for the “decline” (under the EU) that you mention, would you care to elaborate. If you’re referring to the global recession of 2007/8 which led to the ‘program’ of Austerity, THAT of course was sparked off by the subprime mortgage crisis in the US c/o the big banks. So the only people responsible for the ‘decline’ – and the program of Austerity – are the Tories and their bankster buddies (who they then bailed out with OUR money…….you know, the ones that were too big to fail).
And isn’t it odd how during this period of austerity the top 100 richest families in Britain have seen their wealth increase by £55.5 billion:
http://jeremycorbyn.org.uk/articles/jeremy-corbyn-the-100-richest-families-in-britain-have-seen-their-wealth-increase-by-55-5-billion-since-2010/
Correction: Cited, not sighted.
And can I just say one last thing (hopefully) re the little tete a tete above:
During the past twenty/twenty-five years, the right-wing press has been vilifying and misrepresenting the EU on a weekly basis (and that’s not to say that it doesn’t have its faults) and, as such, I have no doubt whatsoever that if someone were to conduct a poll of Brexit voters and ask them what daily and/or weekly newspaper they read, the vast majority of them would be either Sun or Mail or Express or Telegraph readers, whose collective circulation was about 41/4 million at the time (and had been 5 million and higher in the years prior to the referendum).
And THEY – the right-wing corporate press – certainly got the result they wanted!
Allan, you make an excellent point. Just like Pavlov’s dogs, the public have for years been conditioned by the right wing media into being against the EU so that when the bell was rung they would do as was expected of them. Cameron rang the bell and the Brextremists dribbled.
However, in my local area, partly because we have banned the S*n we voted to remain.
A double portion of egg on face for Guido Fawkes, the Bill O’Reilly of British politics.
What a pinhead!
They’re just not very bright, are they?
They’ve moved on to El Salvador and Cuba now. Keep up!
Is there any orchestration evident of the story across outlets?, the kind of fake news operation Breitbart News/ Steve Bannon was involved in for Trump’s campaign. To them the facts aren’t the issue and so the ‘own goal’ story isn’t valid – rather, the point is to cast doubt. The smears leave a smell with a follow on question: ‘can Corbyn be trusted’ (e.g. posed by dreary Matthew d’Ancona in the Guardian). Surely, uncovering the orchestration would have more weight than ‘disproving the lies’?
The Canary posted the following yesterday:
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/02/23/czechmate-real-story-behind-jeremy-corbyn-spy-hoax/?__s=ijazy8fefak19h76edsx
Hasn’t nobody realized what Brexit is really all about it’s got nothing to do with leaving the E.U. It’s all about controlling the the masses which they can’t do while we have the backing of Europe wake up for gods sake and stop arguing among yourselves this it what they want it’s called divide and conquor the same tack ticks Hitler used to fool the Germans. We need to stay in the E.U FOR THE SAKE OF THE NHS OUR JOBS OUR RIGHTS AND MOST OF ALL FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR CHILDREN.