During yet another dire and empty performance in today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Theresa May – whose stock tactic when her lack of substance is exposed by a question is to dredge up a smear – regurgitated the laughable smear about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed IRA talks.
She might want to have a look at this graphic, which shows the documented meetings and talks of her predecessors and their representatives – including Tory idol Thatcher – with the same organisation:
May’s non-sequiturs and evasions are a matter of record, but well done to Corbyn for nailing them explicitly during one of his questions:
Not only was Corbyn doing the right – and entirely precedented – thing in talking to try to bring peace, but he also played a key role in helping bring about the 1998 Belfast agreement, as the SKWAWKBOX exclusively revealed almost two years ago, meeting both republicans and loyalists.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Every week Theresa May is exposed as more and more bankrupt – and utterly hypocritical. It’s way past time that she called a general election so the country can elect a functioning government – and a Labour Prime Minister of substance and principle.
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Only simpletons equate talking and negotiation with endorsement.
The resort to that propaganda line demonstrates how clearly the Tories and their push for Brexit has no positive case to make.
I agree with Skwarkbox’s point on the IRA but the fact remains that Jeremy still needs to iron out what he means by “a” customs union.
Does it JUST mean the very basics – zero tariffs, zero quotas for goods between the EU and UK, coupled with the same arrangements as the EU for tariffs and quotas of goods coming from non-EU countries?
OR, does it mean in addition the EU “level playing field” arrangements which limit national sovereignty on state subsidies to industries and rule out public monopoly, rendering unlawful the sort of nationalisation of entire sectors which Labour implemented in 1945-50?
AND does it mean in addition adhesion to the common commercial policy which means that we have to accept the CETA and any TTIP style agreement with the USA or any other country, limiting the sovereignty of our governments vis-à-vis transnational corporations who invest here?
AND THEN, if (as one would hope) Labour under Jeremy’s leadership is opposed to the level playing field and privatisation provisions and is opposed to the common commercial policy, would their exclusion be a “red line” for Labour?
If the European Commission insists upon them – something which could probably be established now – by asking them now – then Jeremy’s hostility to No Deal makes no sense.
Correction : A hostility to “No Deal” is simply sense. The alternative is pure nonsense.
Interesting point , Danny. Unfortunately I strongly suspect that for “our man from the UK deep state”, Kier Starmer, and many others in the Shadow Cabinet, “a UK/EU bespoke customs union” actually means “mirroring” THE EU Customs Union EXACTLY , as a cut and paste job, with ALL its neoliberal requirements. And that other weasel expression, “staying as closely as possible to The Single Market”, actually means adopting all the four freedoms of the Single Market, and the supremacy of the ECJ. Jeremy could yet prove to be a prisoner of the Shadow Cabinet, PLP, and a large politically naïve, largely middle class, Left liberal, activist membership cohort – well funded by the Labour Mandelson/Blair Right.
We are regularly bored on Skwawkbox by constant pro EU , never justified by facts, anti Brexit, Guardianista tosh from “RH” and his handful of constant, round the clock, Remainer trolls (assuming that most of them aren’t just the ONE paid troll with multiple identities and IP addresses). But these views do represent the view of a sizable Party member cohort, the politically naïve, uncritically pro EU activist middle class members. For them ,negating the 2016 Referendum result in form or content, would be just peachy.
Unfortunately Labour supporting Remain as an Election policy, and/or abandoning Brexit after victory, OR implementing “BINO” (Brexit in name only) , with unlimited labour supply in particular continuing , of circa 300,000 plus net extra migration every year, will utterly cut Labour’s historic connection to the unskilled and semi skilled working class in particular – who will look for a much less savoury political vehicle to address their legitimate experience of unlimited labour supply on their wages, conditions , and communities. “Scaremongering” ? Nope – just the facts of what has happened across Europe over ten years, as neoliberal social democracy has continued to pursue neoliberal/Austerity objectives regardless of the acute suffering of their voter base from just these policies. The German SPD is now smaller than the Far Right AFD ! And the French Socialist Party is toast.
I feel like a real party stopper every time I express the same concerns as Danny and J Penney above. However, I continue to find Starmer’s silence on the positive advantages of his Brexit model deeply disturbing.
I note that Barnier is now saying (in so many words) that if only May would embrace a customs union as backed by Labour: “… the union would be ready immediately and open to other models of relationships which are more ambitious.”
In the short term, the LP might feel buoyed by his words. Meanwhile, I earnestly hope (just in case the LP is in the ascendant), that KS is reflecting on how to develop and adjust a strategy that arose from his lack of faith in Leave. I hope that he might develop the “ambition” to push for an agreement that accommodates the wishes of those who voted to leave – not just one that tries (and fails) to accommodates remain.
Thank you for putting this urgent question so clearly Danny.
No deal is the only sensible option,as any deal will bind Britain to EU rules and regs !
Just the minor issue of fucking the country’s economy big-time on the evidence provided by a suck on a spliff.
Explain that as the already suffering by virtue of Tory policies get even more hammered.
Yes Nobel Peace Prize for Jeremy for helping to plant a seed for peace.
And nothing for Mediocre May for her efforts in this field.
Empty vessels make the loudest sound!
‘…dire and empty performance…’
This aptly describes the performance of this Conservative government. Actually, its incompetence is now bordering on the criminal. Sometimes it’s difficult to believe that a government can be this plain incompetent. What Corbyn highlighted about Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who promised to seal 40 trade deals the moment the UK leaves the EU, and hasn’t achieved even ONE to date, is worrying to say the least. Theresa May will make Arthur Balfour shine in comparison.
But, of course, the apparent incompetence (who cares about seeming incompetence if it achieves your ends?) of the Tories is inherent in the whole Brexit scam.
Fox’s lack of achievement – along with that of numerous other of his colleagues – was built in at the start of the project to fulfil the extreme right’s wet dreams. It certainly fooled enough people. Which is all you need.
Simple.
Unlike others who did it secretly, Jeremy Corbyn spoke openly to elected Sinn Fein and loyalist officials during the war in Ireland, and has subsequently been vindicated by history.
Younger people may not be aware that the Tory regime of Ted Heath flew IRA (not Sinn Fein) leaders by RAF helicopter to London for secret negotiations in London in the summer of 1972. The meeting was held at Paul Channon’s flat at Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. 1972 was the bloodiest year of the conflict in the north of Ireland.
Also prior to that, Harold Wilson the leader of the Labour opposition held a secret meeting with the IRA, which he later made public.
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