Anti-Brexit OFOC’s (Our Future Our Choice) Tess Milligan appeared on the BBC’s Daily Politics today in a debate with Novara’s Aaron Bastani about the company’s – or ‘grassroots movement’, depending on your viewpoint . – demonstration at last Saturday’s LabourLive event.
The show’s presenter accepted uncritically OFOC’s claim that its people were thrown out of the event – in spite of easily available evidence suggesting otherwise – and suggested that Bastani’s criticism of the group was misrepresentation.
However, the most interesting feature of the debate was the performance of Milligan who claimed to have voted for Jeremy Corbyn in both leadership elections and – twice – that,
I admire him greatly.
But that claim is not without its problems:
Her denial that OFOC has a Millbank office, instantly followed by a claim that it’s only small, is also noteworthy.
Ms Mills might well have voted for Corbyn both times in spite of Corbyn’s clear statement in the second leadership election that he would honour the referendum result.
But if so then her opinion appears to have rapidly changed after the second contest – as she wrote an excoriating article for the Huffington Post a few months later, just after Theresa May’s ‘snap’ election call, predicting an electoral ‘car-crash’ for the Labour leader:
The article was no less emphatic for being completely misguided – and it suggested anything but admiration:
Ms Milligan went on to dismiss Corbyn as:
- slow
- wrong
- a ‘sham’
- only able to appeal to existing supporters
- not interested in winning the election
Nor was her lack of admiration was not limited to the Huffington Post or the specific Brexit issue, rather it appeared to extend to his politics and person:
Corbyn, of course, went on to conduct one of the all-time great election campaigns, destroying Theresa May’s majority, driving the biggest surge in electoral support in over seventy years and coming within a whisker of being able to form a government, in spite of eighteen months of constantly negative media.
If Ms Milligan has turned that dismissiveness back into admiration, it didn’t prevent her critical tweets continuing after the general election result.
Interestingly, hard-core centrists have been leaping to her defence or support:
Ms Milligan was contacted for her input but has not yet responded.
Comment:
OFOC’s links to organisations run by anti-Labour figures are beyond dispute – it shares a space with them in Millbank Tower jokingly referred to as ‘GCHQ’. Its apparent inability to put up an unimpeachable Corbyn supporter as a spokesperson cannot be considered irrelevant to any judgments about its nature.
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SKWAWKBOX: “Corbyn’s clear statement in the second leadership election that he would honour the referendum result.”
I’m not saying you’re wrong but please could you show me where he said this?
Jack, the commitment is in the Labour manifesto.
If you don’t like it bugger off to the Lib Dems.
In case you hadn’t noticed, that manifesto in which Labour said we accept the result of the referendum, was for an election that we did not win. I might also remind you that the ONLY reason the referendum was called was to keep the Tory Party from falling apart because of Cameron’s cowardice in failing to confront the far right of his Party. It was not for the good of the country.
Labour’s position was that leaving the EU would be a disaster for the UK and our economy, it was right then and it is even more right now. Sensible people do not continue on a course of disaster with the hope they can minimise the damage, they change course. If you are too cowardly to face up to the far right of the Tory Party, it’s you who should bugger off.
Lets stop wasting time with these Neolib Blairites and get on with discussing and reporting something more positive . It is beyond any reasonable doubt that OFOC and Labour First are nothing more than Blairite front cod pieces and anything they or their membership have to say is just a load of tripe , like the shite that Bradshaw spouted about a ” future Labour Star Tessy Mills “.
Try NEW LABOOUR Bradshaw that maybe a more accurate description ,,,, but she ain’t Labour
I’m really tired of these Right Wing Labour “Crumbs for working people” poorly read Pro-EC bores.
We need to perhaps consider 2 initially unconnected historical developments. Firstly what was to become the EC was initially set up by social democrats (those accepting crumbs for working people whilst accepting capitalism) and initially it was to counter the then perceived threat of the USSR, to promote capitalism in Europe, and to give Europe a greater voice on the World stage.
De Gaulle of France was originally against the UK joining because he felt it would act as a Trojan Horse for the US (which eventually happened) and the dollar was soon to dominate, and hence I would argue the desire from some for the Euro.
And secondly it took 20 years for Neo-Liberalism to capture the Tories (Thatcher was sat in a room by Keith Joseph and others and taught it) and it was Reaganism in the US then in the UK the bonus prize was New Labour and then the EC.
If we followed the advice of the Right Wing political imbeciles in Labour for a second referendum then Labour would be wiped out in its heartlands and although probably doing moderately well in London Labour would end up like PASOK in Greece.
But I was never a passionate Leaver or Remainer, I started from the simple premise: How can we build a left wing democratic socialist society for diverse working people in the UK which I want for every country in the World?
There were perhaps two possible options: via our international socialist partners and trade unions in the EC or via independent left wing democratic socialist countries cooperating, and we have to recognise that the historical moment for the first option was lost and has passed.
I would argue we need to pursue option 2 and should control labour supply (people needing job offers) and capital supply (the democratic powers countries had before Neo-Liberalism), bring back migration adjustment funds for councils (scrapped by the Tories/Lib Dems), and thirdly let’s try and trade unionise migrant workers (to stop unscrupulous employers undercutting wages and to build community solidarity).
We should be trying to build a left wing democratic socialist world for diverse working people and then (unlike the Right in Labour) history will know that we existed. Solidarity!
More fake news from the bbc…
The Biased Broadcasting Corporation love Labour’s 5th column!
Isn’t it a bit odd that OFOC should put Tess Milligan on the BBC to talk about what happened at JezzFest when she quite clearly stated she wasn’t there.
Tess Milligan’s twitter feed says that she’s an actress… makes sense.
Tess Milligan is clearly NOT a Corbyn supporter but a fifth columnist. I am strongly pro -Remain because anything else is financial disaster for the country and the working people and the poorest. I also called the 2017 election wrongly (and no one was more delighted that I was wrong), but am disciplined enough to toe the line – particularly on Parliament being the final arbiter on the kind of deal we might get. This Milligan disloyalist thinks it is OK to bad mouth Corbyn to the BBC. She is what she does. .The MSM, particularly the hugely anti Corbyn BBC delights in honing in on potential ‘peak Corbyn’ stories -such as Labour Live and she knows it. By the way, Labour Live will be a big hit next year believe me. It was bad timing this year. Yes we are in an enthusiasm dip, the novelty stage of Labur’s metamorphosis has mutated into the hard slog chrysalis stage. Hard realities are sinking in to ideologically visionary and hopeful newbies. The naivete and knockbacks the perpetual attacks sucking energy & resilience. This is about a Party that is split and taking back that Party for socialists -(not been a real socialist Party since Foot remember!) and single issue politics and Brexit is of course impacting (i.e.the impact of the gross manufactured and inflated anti Semitism campaign , and the current Woman’s Place trans-gender legislation issue neither of which are particularly relevant at all to vast majority of people’s lives and divert attention away.) But heh, our weakness is also our strength. Labour is undisciplined, democratic and washes its dirty linen in public, but my God it is engaged! Politics has not been so lively for decades. Whoever said the road to parliamentary socialism was going to be a long haul was right. New MPs are finding it harsh in the spotlight. The right wingers in the PLP would rather see a Tory Government than Corbyn in Downing Street. Meanwhile, the establishment elites truly believe that only elites can rule. It all translates into utterly vile behaviour by the old guard in the once moribund, centralist controlled CLPs, stoked by Sadiq Khan, Chukka Ummuna, Ian Austin, Caroline Flint , and the appalling John Mann ( who will rid us of this turbulent lying bastard), like- all career politicians with no vision for anything but self serving power. The last thing people like that are able to do is look in the mirror and see what they have become. They are a virus in our body politic. We are the medicine.
It’s still the case that one or two socialist countries acting alone can’t win against a neoliberal rest-of-the-world motivated by self-preservation to crush socialism at all costs.
The Anti Tax Avoidance Directive won’t be 100% effective but even a few successes will show populations everywhere how the rich exploit us.
In or out I think we’ll thank the EU for that if for nothing else.
For me the sad part is that AB didn’t come across well. It was an opportunity lost. Really he could and should have taken her to the cleaners. Unfortunately he came over as quite condescending. A pity because geherally I like what he has to say.
What could he say? It was a trap. If someone is prepared to tell untruth after untruth, and furthermore is colluded with by the BBC, there was very little that he could do. The RW employing these very young women to appear on television, makes it even more difficult because calling them out can easily be portrayed as bullying sexism.
The real problem lies with our journalists who collude with this nonsense…. and give credence to the patent lies.
These Mandelbrats appear to be social marketeers hired to un-trend Corbyn with the youth.
Young people are the future – but they can’t be trusted with deciding it until their brains shed the puppy fat that causes them to obsess over selfies, fashion, Love Island, rap and the rest of youth culture that I’m only dimly aware of.
I’m not even convinced under-twenty-fives should have the vote tbh.
I suspect most adults would admit that the worst decisions of their lives were taken before they were thirty.
Clearly not a Corbyn supporter or admirer:
Her Huffpost column goes on to say:
“If we’re being honest, Theresa May’s refusal to take part in the televised debates leading up to the election gives Corbyn an easy way out. Hardly one with media instinct, he would be ripped to shreds in a debate where he is the obvious target. If he’s got any sense, he’ll give the debates a miss too.”