The Establishment media are busily pushing fake news about Jeremy Corbyn’s amendment to the government’s Brexit bill – claiming that it represents a move toward a so-called “people’s vote” (PV).
In fact it demands that Theresa May schedule ample parliamentary time for any options needed to avoid a no-deal Brexit – which options may include an opportunity for MPs to debate and vote whether to put any strengthened deal to the public. This is all precisely in line with Labour’s stated policy agreed at its annual conference in September.
The intelligence of Corbyn’s strategy has already been revealed by the number of centrist PV-advocates who – after spending months telling anyone who’ll listen that the country must have a “people’s vote” and are now calling for Parliament to ‘take control’ – have been forced to admit that they will vote against the amendment to let MPs discuss putting a question to the people.
Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie, Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen, Mike Gapes, Sarah Wollaston and others are all either reported to have indicated, or have publicly done so on their social media feeds, that they will vote against Corbyn’s amendment, while LibDem leader Vince Cable pouted that it wasn’t good enough to call for MPs to decide democratically – he wanted Labour to call for a referendum now.
But outside such characters, Corbyn’s amendment is aimed at uniting his party behind something that respects the UK’s people – and its democracy – and in that he has resoundingly succeeded, as the entire Shadow Cabinet has agreed unanimously to back the amendment.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
These declarations mean that the amendment is unlikely to pass – but in forcing centrist MPs of all parties to admit that they will oppose a measure that would put the question of another vote to Parliament, Corbyn has deftly exposed the real motives of those shouting most loudly for another referendum, while Labour gets on with the real business of representing the many irrespective of their vote in 2016.
He has also pulled his party together, with only the predictable hold-outs – who would likely refuse to unify on anything that would strengthen Corbyn’s hand anyway – providing a dissenting voice.
The people of this country will see the wisdom of this course. Let’s help them hear about it in spite of Establishment media efforts.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Oh, but that’s superb!
I can see umunna’s, sourby’s and cable’s hepplewhite office furniture being turned into guinea-pig bedding as I type.
😀
I effing CURSE Lansman and Mcluskie for not supporting the mandatory reselection at conference , just think how very different things will/would be with that ability to deal with the right wingers that Mann and umunna are .
We have to find a way to get this through at this yrs Conf come hell or high water !!!
Yes, and look who’s afraid of democracy now!
All this political realignment. Who should be the leader of the newly formed “illiberal inverted democrats”, Cable, Umunna or Soubry?
All 3 of em ,,, they are so far up each others arses you’d be pushed to tell one from the other
Umunna and Soubry make a lovely couple.
Think it’s time for their respective CLP’s to get a grip and deselect these idiots. They’re an affront to Labour values. Time to get rid before the General Election.
STOP using the term “Centrist” when describing Right-Wing Neoliberals in the Labour Party! “Fake Centrists” at best. They call Corbyn “Hard-Left” which is equally DailyMail/Tory Party in origin! PLEASE!
They are “extreme centrists” in a political environment that has swung well to the right (pro parasitic – banking, 1%, financialised Capitalism and victim blaming culture) over the last 40 years ie. since Thatcher/Reagan.
LP under Corbyn is making some moves to the ‘left’/more fair and equal society and economy but there is a long way to go in such a corrupted, gamed system that is by now deeply entrenched in political, financial, economic, media and social systems.
This book by Tariq Ali says it all about the “extreme centre”:
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2641-the-extreme-centre
And it’s only £2.70 + p&p from Verso books until the 27th Jan!
I haven’t read it yet Tim but I don’t share his optimism, particularly regarding Scotland. The SNP aren’t left wing, they’re neoliberal nationalists in my book.
I do not believe that amendment moves towards people’s vote or new referendum, because JC has made up his mind to ‘respect’ the wishes of a minority – was it 37% of those entitled to vote (?). What about the 63% who did not vote to quit or voted to stay? What about those who were not given a voice, and what about the 16/17 year olds who were too young to vote then, but are not now? I am concerned that this decision will backfire massively.
Love JC but not Brexshit.
The turnout for the referendum vote was huge by any measure, you cannot undermine its legitimacy with remainer “what abouts”, general elections never have turnouts anywhere near 72%.
I’m sorry your not happy with what the members of the Labour party voted for as policy, Jeremy is following exactly what was set out at party conference, a vote is on the table if needed. Respecting people who didn’t vote is a no go!! it was a large turn out btw.
I didn’t want to leave the EU, but if a peoples vote is what you want the Lib Dems offer exactly that, not that people rushed to vote for them at the last GE, which by the way was run on the same principles as now.
The referendum was run on lies and financial cheating, so was the last GE both the liers won, so best chance any remainer & brexiter have of getting anything near like they want is not from the Tories. If there was another referendum now the Tories wouldn’t budge an inch, they won’t allow another referendum btw I wonder why?
……….& what about the 15/16 year olds or the 14/15 year olds who are affected but couldn’t vote? We had better have a referendum every year!
Like
Sabine Ebert-Forbes – whose knowledge of the EU (its politics not its ski resorts) is on a par with her knowledge of what ERG stood for in a recent post. Strange that every young svelt, manicured, “love Jeremy, hate Brexit” wearer I saw at Conference was an obviously over-privileged upper middle class stooge of Mandelson and Blair. Anyone arguing that nonsense about those who didn’t vote as somehow automatically part of the “anti Brexit” camp, is just reading off a Mandelson script for trolls.
What should they be called? (Yes, I know we can all think of some colourful terms of abuse, but I don’t mean that sort of thing!)
I think it’s time to say bluntly that those who are trying to dismiss the result of the referendum – the Real Referendum, as opposed to the one they want – are anti-democratic extremists, not ‘centrists’.
Though hugely vocal, well organised and well funded, they are fewer that they would like us to believe. 82% of those who voted in 2017 voted for parties who promised to respect the Real Referendum, and voters who chose to support other parties were perfectly entitled to do so, they were expressing their choices in the time-honoured democratic fashion. It is the Few who refuse to accept the votes of the Many, who are trying to de-legitimise a democratic choice, who count as extremists, and I agree that it is misleading to term them ‘centrists’. It makes them sound like part of the political mainstream, which is what they want.
Like
“the votes of the Many” = 37% of the electorate!
One thing we have been largely spared during these fractious and difficult 2 years is the almighty gob that is Jess Phillips. Thanks for small mercies.
Sorry to tell you but the gobshite is back. Claiming ‘it’s the feminist thing to vote for PV’ 😞
Funny but not heard a dickie out of the Gobshite Phillips over the BBCs appalling treatment of fellow female comrade in arms
Diane Abbott , then again maybe Diane is the wrong sort of feminist ,,,, eh Jess , helloooooo anything …. tumble weed .
And, pray, how does she work that one out?
Basically she’s saying that anything she wants is, by definition, feminist!
Please say it ain’t so…
https://media.giphy.com/media/wZnTihiCagVjy/giphy.gif
Hmmm so according to JP feminists are an homogenous group?
I loved a piece in the recent New Left Review by anti-capitalist socialist militant strike feminists which asked where is the progress in some Labour Women MPs voting to bomb their brown and black sisters?
Meanwhile Dyson, one of the prominent advocates for Brexit, has just announced that he is moving his company’s HQ to Singapore
Dearie me. The twisted logic of a desperate troll. None of us supporting Labour’s actual Brexit policy on here are fans of opportunist capitalists like Dyson, or Fox, Johnson, or any of the globalist neoliberal crew who want to push the UK to arrive at the neoliberal offshore tax haven , deregulated , financialised nightmare, destination, that is actually the same one as the EU is travelling on, much arriving sooner. Because we , unlike you, are SOCIALISTS, SteveH, and support a Brexit run by a Left Labour Government , free of the EU’s neoliberal straightjacket, – and able to take our economy and society on a very different path to that of either the neoliberal EU, or the crazed US Big Business/hedge fund speculator puppet Tory globalist Brexiters.
jpenney 22/01/2019 at 4:40 pm
What makes you think that the USA would allow the UK to be transformed into your version of a socialist utopia.
SteveH , are you not now a Socialist then ?
Rob 22/01/2019 at 5:17 pm
You really shouldn’t make stuff up, it’s not a good look. But as you’ve asked I am quite happy to confirm that I am a Democratic Socialist who believes in a mixed economy, how about you?
Gasp…….SteveH isn’t a Socialist you say! Splutter ****! Next you’ll be telling me that RH is a LibDem!!!
OMFG! Thanks SteveH. I’m going to support REMAIN from now on and buy my household appliances from Germany.
lundiel 22/01/2019 at 5:56 pm
You’re welcome, although I do think your reaction a bit OTT
At around £400 for a bleedin’ vacuum cleaner; plus his views on worker’s rights, dyson can’t sod off quickly enough, for me.
Speaking of Dyson, didn’t he stop making mains vacuum cleaners because the EU demanded we “save energy” by using batteries that consume huge amounts of energy to make?
@SteveH it was a straight question in response to your somewhat derisory comment regarding a ” socialist utopia ” , as I wished to ascertain your stance on socialism. Thank you for your answer.
I for one being a DS and ardent supporter of a socialist Labour party and its drive to achieve a socialist Govt would be quite content with such a socialist solution whether you call it a “utopia” or not is your opinion.
PS nothing is made up and I couldn’t careless about what the ” look ” is .
SteveH is a socialist to the same degree Cherie Blair is ! Another individual who liked to claim this soubriquet when convenient back in the day. A Blairite troll is the accurate description.
jpenney 22/01/2019 at 8:56 pm
FFS grow up, all this juvenile name calling is a bit pathetic and it is difficult to see what you hope to achieve by doing it.
Nothing to do with ‘achieving’ Steve.
What it is to do with, given the detachment from the reality of the Labour Party, I’m not sure. Particularly strange is this alignment with the playbook of the ERG and the wilting Tory faithful.
… but it isn’t political life as most members know it. Seems more a sort of religious cult, with its particular tablets of stone and pantheon of heretics to be cast out and damned with spells.
Chris Williamson said again on Radio 4, that he is a democrat & stands by the original referendum (are you reading Jack T?)
The BBC are holding workshops in schools to help school children spot ‘Fake News’, the BBC already has so much material of their own!
Finally, Corbyn has called the ‘Centrist’s’ bluff! It’s now up to their CLP members to do the necessary. Let us support their CLP’s in any way necessary to accomplish the task: organizing, running workshops, leafletting, social media campaign, setting-up websites, manning phone banks, the works!. It is blatantly clear that their call for PV was done in bad faith – to undermine the leadership. Time is of essence now. So much for characters we are supposed to respectfully call Honourable or Right Honourable – RH… (no pun intended).
The Labour Pro-Neo-Liberal EC MPs (crumbs for working people and nice careers for themselves) probably want an extension to the 29th of March not to give more time to find a good Brexit Deal for working people but probably in the hope of allowing enough time for a Another PV (we have had a Peoples Vote and it was not the wrong people).
if Labour supports another PV in my view it snatches defeat from the jaws of victory!
And as John Lennon sang (for all those who support JC) “The dream is over.”
I hope this is fake news https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/22/labour-frontbenchers-warn-of-opposition-to-second-brexit-referendum?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
For clarification :
Interesting slap on the wrist for the ‘No Deal’ Lexit dreamers as the Shadow Chancellor, in a very coherent defence of the Party, was quite clear this evening that ‘No Deal’ would be ‘catastrophic’ for the well-being of the country and its workers, and suggesting that Cooper’s amendment to press for a delay in the timescale of Article 50 is a good idea.
“We cannot allow her [May] to crash our economy – and that’s what a ‘No deal’ would do.”
Absolutely. Well said, John.
Agreed, but some on here will continue to dogmatically deny the reality that John McDonnell laid out so clearly.
As I said – the wonders of religious dogma are something to behold.
Pity this is the real world – it tends to screw up the purity of true belief.
Neo-Liberal technocrats like Cooper, Benn, Creasy are probably arguing for additional time instead of 29 March (up to December 2019) probably because they really want time for Another Peoples Vote?
Perhaps another 30 days may be fine as a last resort but we need to halt the Rights cunning plan.
If we could get a customs union that meant we didn’t have to accept Neo-Liberal single market rules then that would be fine but all I can think of is one that allows UK small businesses and larger companies to trade with Europe tariff free but Govt collectively pays a fee to the EC annually which may be £10b for this but this would eliminate the need for a border in Ireland.
Imagine a lot of groups join a club to use their facilities and each group pays a fee but some seem to want one group to still use the facilities for free – but a fee would still have to be paid but not necessarily by individual members (companies) but by Govt?
Respect the referendum result and Labour could try to set the agenda for working people:
* Democratic control labour and capital supply.
* Migration adjustment funds for councils.
* Trade unionise migrant workers to build community solidarity.
* Tarrif free trade with Europe for individual companies.
* Protections for workers, the environment, and security.
Just some food for thought.
Whatever. In most sane people’s book, it’s just obvious that the Article 50 deadline is the work of defective Tory brains.
I agree with John McDonnell – and I guess both he and I have had our issues with Yvette Cooper (and husband).