Labour activist and writer Shaun Lawson has responded to the ongoing anti-Labour/anti-Corbyn smear and propaganda campaign with a Twitter thread. Quite simply, it is the best summary of the real situation that you’re ever likely to read – and the responses to it support that assessment.
So please do read – and share – a peerless cutting-through the Establishment misdirection, which is reproduced below with Shaun’s kind permission. This information needs to be out there, because you’ll never hear or see it in the Establishment media.
THREAD: I'm seeing a fair few people on my timeline – FBPEers mostly – still spouting the ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS NONSENSE that the only thing stopping a Labour government is Corbyn. So let's run through this once again, shall we?
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
1) The morning after the 2015 election, Labour looked in more trouble than at any time since the 1930s. It was hemmed in from all sides: the Tories in the south, the SNP in Scotland, UKIP in the midlands and north. Hopelessly squeezed with no way out.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
2) In the aftermath, not only the idiot commentariat but many Labour MPs insisted that the only way forward was to accept austerity, accept welfare cuts, and be Tory lite. Ludicrous. Their big idea was to abandon anything Labour stood for at all. It was a suicide wish.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
3) At the leadership election, we had three automatons, petrified of saying anything that sounded like genuine Labour. We had to be tough on welfare! We had to be tough on immigration! We'd lost the economic narrative! And all three were too chickenshit to try and reclaim it.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
4) All this was going on at a time Labour was close to bankrupt, its membership had shrivelled away, it had lost countless millions of working class voters, and Cameron wanted to end trade union funding. Labour faced a very real existential crisis.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
5) Into this breach stepped Corbyn – with Ed Miliband's fateful decision to turn leadership elections into US-style primaries changing history. Here was someone with real vision, passion, energy. Here was someone who could inspire millions. So he won: deservedly. It was a rout.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
6) Of course he's an unorthodox leader. No flash or slickness with Jeremy. He's all about the membership – and much more than that, he's all about what actually MATTERS. Not Westminster fluff – but people. Millions and millions of them. Their lives, their hardship.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
7) Unfortunately, he still had to deal with an astoundingly clueless PLP who made his life a misery and whose continued misreading of 2015 helped bring about Brexit. Which, much more than anything else, was caused by austerity (which much of the PLP had wanted to support).
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
8) So clueless are many of these MPs that not only do they continue to support such horrors as arming Saudi Arabia or Israel's treatment of Palestinians – but at last year's election, they very plainly canvassed the wrong people. Hence their shock at the result on election night.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
9) I don't know what these MPs had been doing with themselves at surgeries and so on – but their obliviousness to hideous, Dickensian levels of Tory wickedness and cruelty mirrored that of the media. It's remarkable what living in a bubble can do.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
10) But I digress. Throughout 2016 and into 2017, we were told – by the same people who didn't see 2015 coming, didn't see Brexit coming, and didn't see Trump coming either – that Corbyn was leading Labour to catastrophe. That it would be wiped out. That the end was nigh.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
12) And here's the thing. That's still the case now. There's no-one else in the Labour Party who has anything remotely akin to Corbyn's broad appeal. And I'm afraid the time for Blairite politics has been and gone. Blairism works in benign times; not savagely divided, unjust ones
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
13) Blairism, indeed, helped create the situation the UK's in now. His government broke the trust between politicians and public; massively inflated the housing bubble; ignored inequality; abandoned the working class; and failed to reform our broken electoral system.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
14) If people want to hark back to the days of triangulation, that's their look-out. But nothing could be less appealing now. THAT is why the Lib Dems are at 6%: in a country where capitalism is flat out failing, centrism DOES NOT WORK.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
15) Nor, for that matter, does it work anywhere else in Europe. "If only we had a Macron", cried the same idiot commentariat last year. How's that working out for you? "If only we had a moderate centre-left option!", cry those who haven't noticed Pasokification all over Europe.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
16) Labour's huge resurgence – in members, money, appeal, and votes: thirteen million of them – bucks a global trend. It is colossally to Corbyn's credit. If the left does not stand for something truly bold and radical, it will lose its core support to the nativist right.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
17) That's the reality in a Europe riven by austerity and neoliberalism. In a Europe where capitalism no longer works because so few people can access capital. In a Europe where a whole generation of young people have been sold down the river, and jobs are ever more insecure.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
18) Not only that – but in Britain, no Labour leader except Blair has won a proper majority since, get this, 1966. So give over with your "Labour should be 20 points ahead" nonsense. That it's polling 40% under a real left wing leader is a remarkable achievement.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
19) The battle ahead remains tough. All Britain's most powerful vested interests are lined up with the Tories – the party of wealth, oligarchies, with most of the media in its pocket. But that battle can and will be won: and with it, the chance to truly remake the UK at last.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
20) Most of the smears – and yes, they have mostly been smears – are because the British establishment, so entrenched for so long, so breathtakingly corrupt with it – is petrified. Shit scared of a genuinely fair country which treats all its people with respect and dignity.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
21) As for Brexit: well, I'm a Remainer and hope we remain. But Corbyn's strategy remains correct. This is the Tories' mess, it's their Waterloo. And while 70% of Labour voters voted Remain, the other 30% are packed into the seats Labour needs to win. That's electoral reality.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
22) Be in no doubt: Labour will do everything in their power to stop No Deal, which I cannot see Parliament allowing (however complicated not allowing it will be). But at the heart of FBPEers' fury at Corbyn is a profound misconception.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
23) Remainers argue: "How can Labour claim to represent the poor when Brexit is going to make them even poorer?" This whole thesis is based on austerity continuing and the Tories remaining in government. Tory Brexit will be terrible, yes; Labour Brexit won't.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
24) The gap between the two parties is wider now than at any time since the early 1980s. They represent opposing economic orthodoxies: one of which entrenches wealth and inequality and punishes the poor and weak; the other of which is redistributive and utilitarian.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
25) If the argument – as it seems to be – is that one of the richest countries on the planet will somehow miraculously not be able to redistribute wealth from rich to poor if its economy is 4% smaller by 2030 than it otherwise would've been… well, that is utterly ridiculous.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
26) Portugal is a massively smaller economy than the UK. Its socialist government is doing a fantastic job rebuilding it and redistributing wealth. Uruguay is a tiny economy. Its leftist government has done a fantastic job rebuilding it and redistributing wealth since 2004.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
27) Not only that – but while you won't get any argument from me about probable economic shock after Brexit, even the forecasts themselves are based on Tory economic orthodoxy. We've got so used to it for the last 40 years that we assume there's no other way! But there is.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
28) Can Labour build a post-Brexit Britain fit for everyone: with fairness and social justice at its core, which ends the housing and homelessness crisis, tackles economic and inter-generational inequality and gives everyone a stake in prosperity and success? OF COURSE IT CAN.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
29) Alternatively, what would happen if Corbyn stood down now? CRASH: that would be the sound of his electoral coalition collapsing, members deserting in their droves, working class Leavers reacting in rage, and the Tories making hay in our ridiculous electoral system.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
30) Many centrists clearly don't understand this new zeitgeist. But that's how it is. And no, Corbyn's not perfect. He's very far from it. I have plenty of criticisms of his leadership too. But he's not only Britain and the left's best hope. He's the only hope.
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) January 1, 2019
Yes,all in all a good summary of where we are,where we have been, and where we need to go.
The best summary of the state of affairs in this troubled country I have seen. I cannot understand why the centrists do not see the damage they are causing with their smears, fake news and damning of the only Labour MP fit to lead the party and hence the country.
Yes, as Shaun notes, Jeremy Corbyn is not perfect nor would he profess to be BUT he has chosen a shadow cabinet who can balance out some of the manifesto ideas which will be difficult to apply. What he does have is a true caring for the people, especially those so badly hurt by the Tory austerity policies.
Other than Dennis Skinner, John Macdonald and Angela Raynor I cannot think of any other Labour MP who has this genuine affection for ‘the many, not the few’ and who is prepared and able to close his ears and mind to the hostility coming from, not only the Tories,(expected) and many of his own backbenchers,(traitors, in my mind, who should be sacked).
My only hope for the New Year is that Theresa May(‘She’s a liar, liar’, now proven several times over) and her Brexit plans will be totally defeated in the upcoming Parliamentary vote and that she will be forced to call a General Election sooner rather than later so that the Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn and his Cabinet, can begin to repair the damage caused by those who only have their own self interest at heart. JC4PM ASAP, please.
Mint!
Excellent resume of the past few yrs , my only disagreement with Shaun is in the very last para ” Many centrists clearly don’t understand this new zeitgeist” . No I think they clearly understand EXACTLY the new state of things in Labour and are doing all they can to destroy it .
Mandatory re-selection , its the only way and we KNOW it .There has to be some way to get this back on the agenda for this yrs conf come hell or high water , and this time Lansman/Murry you don’t get to pull the carpet out .
The membership has to have a mechanism to force accountability , not irrelevant votes of no confidence , as Jess (foul-mouth stab Corbyn in the front and back ) Phillips said ” it means nothing” and so true it is . Leaving these quislings on place is a time bomb for the future.
Give us the tools to do the job and we’ll do it !
The history is pretty well spot on.
The analysis of the current situation isn’t – with it’s dreamy dismissal of ‘economic shock’. Pure flatulence; with little real regard for consequences on those already sucked dry by Tory policies.
The majority of the Party (and Corbyn when he’s talking about the Tories and not trying to square a referendumb circle) is correct in its analysis of Brexit as an unholy mess. The membership called it correctly when they rejected another right-wing leadership, but simultaneously judged Brexit a nonsense.
The current fence-sitting tactical stance, and the total bollocks of ‘respecting the referendum’ is unsustainable in logical, political and electoral terms.
Pace the current Night of the Living Dead fad for ‘ists’ and ‘isms’, the minority Leftoryist position (hard-line Tory policy donning a pseudo-left garb) is the road to a little england nowhere, not a resurgent democratic society.
Here’s the News (for some) : Brexit was conceived as an extreme right-wing poison, and a love-in with Johnson and Redwood’s febrile imaginings – re-imagined as imaginary ‘working class’ insight – isn’t going to change any of that.
‘The current fence-sitting tactical stance, and the total bollocks of ‘respecting the referendum’ is unsustainable in logical, political and electoral terms.’
Don’t you think that it makes sense when you consider that – to quote from Tom Kibasi’s article in today’s Guardian:
‘While it is true that many Labour constituencies voted to leave, for many of these voters Brexit is a far less important issue than stagnant wages, large class sizes and lengthening NHS waiting times. Moreover, many of these areas are strongly tribally Labour, and what has changed since 2016 is that Brexit is now “owned” by the Tory party. Crudely, many of these voters hate Tories more than they want Brexit…’
The key word here is ‘Constituencies’. Let us work towards winning enough constituencies to put Labour in government. And we are convinced that’s what you also want, RH. It’s difficult to see our super-majorities in strong Remain Labour constituencies abandoning the party. Some of us are convinced that they have their sights on the prize – putting Labour in government to address our dire socio-economic circumstances.
Lastly, our current ‘fence-sitting tactical stance’ as you call it did better for us the last time around – and currently – compared with the LibDems who came out clearly in support of Remain: apparently they are currently polling their lowest in 11-months.
You just aren’t getting it, RH.
17.4 million people and 65% of constituencies voted leave in the largest democratic exercise in the UK’s history.
If Labour defies that mandate not only would we be wiped we would also be acting undemocratically.
People like think you are very clever but you are in fact nothing more than a useful idiot for the Tories. You are a Tory enabler.
Bugger off to the Lib Dems and sabotage their party. People like you are a liability to the Labour Party.
I’m quite happy with fighting for the Labour Party’s Brexit Policy that was agreed at this year’s conference, are you?
” You are a Tory enabler.”
Hardly. That accolade lies with the Leftoryists who have adopted the ‘Britannia Unchained’/ Tory propaganda press policy of ‘Brexit’.
I’m actually opposed to Tory policy.
My great fear is that the next election is not going to be like the last one. The Tory party is literally on the edge of implosion. Sounds good but I think not. There is a very serious reality of the Tory party splitting into a far right party (called the conservative party) and a breakaway majority party called something else. That party will attract some 50+% of labour MP’s. We will now have a very different political landscape. I think a Corbyn led labour party can still win but the establishment is also working overtime to undermine facebook’s and other online media’s ability to be used as an election vehicle which will seriously damage our election prospects. These two facts together could keep Corbyn labour out – yet again.
Yes,the “Party of National Unity” scenario lurks at the back of my mind too.They have to convince those Labour MPs that it would retain their seats for them,but it must be a real possibility.It would be another uncomfortable parallel with the 1930s.They would have all the corporate media behind them.
I might take issue with #13 – the 1997 Blair/Brown government did a lot of very important things for the working class, including minimum wage and tax credits. It’s important not to confuse that with the corporate abuse of those systems that then followed (the gaming of rules; the deliberate holding down of wages etc.) And there was the first stirrings of modern constitutional reform then too, with some devolution.
Sure, pretty much everything after 2000 was a shitstorm, and it’s going to take a generation or more to recover from 2008 given that we haven’t even started, and Brexit isn’t helping. But I do think there were good things for wider society from the Blair era, and they haven’t been completely obliterated in the austerity interim.
As for the “Labour should be 20 points ahead” line referred to in the tweets, but for the constant smearing and demonisation of JC and the left it undoubtedly would be polling much, much higher than it is, and those who disseminate the line know it of course. THAT is the sole objective of the smearers – ie to do everything they can to prevent Labour winning a GE and Jeremy forming a government.
PS I hadn’t checked Craig Murray’s website for several weeks, but it occured to me earlier this evening that he has probably written some stuff about the Integrity Initiative recently, so I checked, and he HAS:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/12/british-security-service-infiltration-the-integrity-initiative-and-the-institute-for-statecraft/
People think that this crisis and the attacks on working people only started after the great financial crash of 2008, but it goes back much further than that and has been in the making ever since Hayek lost the political and economic arguments to Keynes.
The establishment have carefully reformed strategies that have reimposed their will from the top down, they have imposed conditions on every institution from our education system to laws which enshrines capitalist dogma in every aspect of our lives.
So nothing that has happened since has been by accident, just like this manufactured chaos in the so called Brexit negotiations – whilst we have our attention diverted away from the real issues facing all of us, they are quietly dismantling the state and setting it up for the great Neo-Liberal takeover by American corporations who are behind the whole project in the first place. Just Google Atlantic Bridge under Thatcher and Liam Fox, and look who’s at the centre of dealing with Trump now.
This is just an introduction to a wealth of evidence that is there to be found for those discerning enough to find out what is actually going on in the whole world. Jeremy and and Bernie Sanders know only too well what is going on, Bernie stated back in 2011 that the 1% were at war with its own people, and that is precisely what we are up against.
People need to understand that they create all the wealth there is, the rich merely exploit and accumulate that wealth for their own ends. Look back to how we survived the second world war, we did not have to balance the books then, but through the combined efforts of people everywhere, created whatever was necessary to win the war. In Tony Benn’s words, paraphrased; if we can do it in war time we can do it in peace time too.
” if we can do it in war time we can do it in peace time too”
Without getting too Brexity faux-nostalgic, it might be worthwhile looking at Attlee’s role and position as a leader both during and after the war (his role during it is often forgotten). He certainly didn’t have much time for empty posturing when push came to shove.
Re: Attlee, best Prime Minister we ever had~ just think about it…Could anyone have done better?..I think not..
The only thing stopping a Labour Government is the voters , They need to think long and hard about who they want if they still think the Tory’s are there for them then they deserve everything that is coming at them .