Unity pledge written by Labour members goes viral, rattles Establishment
A unity pledge written by Labour members has gone viral within hours of its publication and is being signed by increasing numbers of Labour MPs and MSPs, as well as parliamentary candidates, councillors, other officials and ordinary members.
A united Labour Party threatens elite interests – which is why so much effort is expended in trying to create or portray division – and the surest sign of how quickly this public and spontaneous show of unity has rattled the Establishment is in the rapidity of attacks against it.
On social media, comments supporting and signing up to the pledge have drawn large responses from obvious bot and troll accounts, along with dismissive reactions from some ‘mainstream’ journalists.
And in the national media, it was immediately misrepresented as a ‘Corbyn loyalty pledge’ – even though Jeremy Corbyn’s name receives no mention and the pledge is to drive Labour into government because any Labour government is better than the alternative.
On this morning’s BBC Andrew Marr Show, for example, Marr described it as a ‘loyalty pledge going viral on social media where all Labour MPs are signing up to be loyal to Jeremy Corbyn‘.
It was fortunate that Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell appeared on the programme to put him right:
SKWAWKBOX comment:
A Labour Party working as one to get into government terrifies the self-appointed ‘elites’ running (down) the country for the few. It seems that’s enough to have them scrambling to misrepresent a simple pledge to pull all wings of the party together.
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.
Excellent response there!
It’ll be fun to see who prefepl loyalty to the party.
And who is too busy washing their hair.
Sorry, that really should have been PLEDGES!
Are you sure? Ikve just polished my table with a can of prefepl and it came up lovely!
Must be a red table.
The party will never really be labour until the reintroduction of clause iv.
AFAIC these ‘pledges’ mean diddly.
I completely agree with Toffee(597) about Clause 4. We need to reintroduce it and soon. Howeve in the meantime the pledge is a good stop gap. In my opinion any person who has been elected as a Labour MP or to any other public office who cannot or will not sign the pledge should lose the whip and be deselected next time round. No ifs no buts.
I agree about Clause 4.
If we re-established an economy based on common ownership as the fundamental objective of the Labour Party, this would have a profound impact on what we mean by a “permanent customs union” with the EU.
In fact, I suspect it would mean the Party would only accept the kind of permanent customs union which the EU would never allow us – one which gives our governments complete freedom over extending public monopoly and complete freedom over determining industrial subsidies.
Ah, Danny, your comment here is measured, “complete freedom” and principled, “common ownership”; so greetings from paulo.
Yep. Thousands of right wing Labour councillors up and down the UK will be loving this opportunity to make another bogus pledge, right on the heels of their most recent pledging of their loyalty to Mr Corbyn and their unwritten, unseen, undeclared, hidden pledge to do whatever it takes to cling limpet-like to their basic, Cabinet, and committee chair £££allowances.
It is thoroughly meaningless.
Well they are not enforceable legally, merely expressing the intent of doing something. Used them in my line of work. Sadly the ain’t anything you can do if people don’t wanna honour it.
Fair comment.
But take a hypothetical example of an MP who signs the pledge, then decided to start a new party called ToryLite the following Tuesday at, say, 3pm.
Even our asinine and pathetic media would have to have a gigggle, wouldn’t they?
A giggle at how gullible the Labour Party were to be taken in by this nonsense?
I knew the Tories would be upset by this.
This isn’t the Pledge that I watched on Sky News.
Strangely enough it wasn’t the same pledge as on ‘family guy’ neither.
http://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.4vCvCT9BQviVxbbvF_lf9QHaKX
Well I never. LabourList, when not busy refusing publication to articles written by the women comrades from Jewish Voice for Labour, are now carrying a piece in favour of dumping the First Past the Post electoral system – proportional representation just in time for the founding of the beloved Dead Centre Party.
Danny 17/02/2019 at 4:42 pm
I recommend others read it first and then make their own judgement.
It makes a very good case for PR.
https://labourlist.org/2019/02/why-does-labour-like-first-past-the-post-no-other-socialist-party-supports-it/
It’s hard to argue against proportional representation. Hou could you whev make s case for first post the post?
And as a Labour member, I have no doubt that we’d benefit at the Tories expense.
”It makes a very good case for PR.”
Really? So did clegg.
And, guess what? The alternative voting system was rejected in a public vote too. Give it up, eh?
Clegg betrayed everyone by not holding out for a vote on PR.
The electorate rejected AV because it isn’t PR.
Rejecting something on the basis that Nick Clegg supported it is a fairly feeble argument, isn’t it?
The
Whatever – it’s still a change to FPTP, and obvious to even the lowest forms of intelligence it’s no more than a stepping stone to PR.
The Toffee (597) 17/02/2019 at 5:18
If we had adopted AV (which is a crap system) then there is every likelihood that we would have been lumbered with it for at least a couple of generations so I think the public were right to reject the sop of an inferior system.
I suggest you take a few minutes out to actually read the article on LabourList and then if you still feel the need address the points raised by the author
I’ve read it, thank you. The first paragraph says as much as you need to know. But there’s not a dicky-bird about someone with less than 1% of the vote potentially having the balance of power…
Nope. FPTP is the same for all. It might not be perfect but when the alternative could be the above scenario it gets a massive no-no from me.
One ballot paper – ONE box to tick.
Oh, and you’re very hard work about the referendum result, how barely tolerable would you be with all those potential hung parliaments that you’d get under PR, Steve?
Think about that, then think about how hamstrung a socialist hung parliament would be than a majority government. Because even by the author’s best guesses, that’s what we’d be getting.
The Toffee (597) 17/02/2019 at 5:49
The contents of your post indicate that the first paragraph was as far as you got. Plus unless there is a dramatic change of Labour’s fortunes in Scotland then the most likely outcome of the next GE is a hung parliament
To quote the last paragraph
“Hung parliaments are something shared by the world’s most equal societies, which all use PR. Neither Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Iceland, Finland, Sweden or even Germany or the Netherlands has ever had a socialist majority government – and they all wipe the floor with Canada, the UK and the US in terms of economic equality. Indeed, the relationship is so strong that political scientists suggest a causal relationship between PR and reduced inequality and poverty.
”The contents of your post indicate that the first paragraph was as far as you got. ”
Well it’s as far as I ought to have got in your post, that’s for certain.
Comprehension’s obviously your weak link because in the very next sentence I wrote: ‘But there’s not a dicky-bird about someone with less than 1% of the vote potentially having the balance of power…’
Which ought to indicate I did, indeed, read the article in full.
I’d also prefer that the author referred to a definitive link between ‘reduced inequality & poverty, and PR systems.’
‘Suggestions’ just don’t cut it, for me.
@Andrew Heenan.
Not really. Steve H throws out all the same tired old arguments and complaints over brexit as clegg and now we learn he’s a fan of AV. too…
The Toffee (597) 17/02/2019 at 5:22 pm
Or you could do something really novel and actually try reading it first and then addressing the points raised
https://labourlist.org/2019/02/why-does-labour-like-first-past-the-post-no-other-socialist-party-supports-it/
Pledges are meaningless when sworn by people who lie for a living. The liars being the thousands of right wing Labour politicians, local and central, determined to monetise their careers and who are going absolutely nowhere until somebody finds the guts to jettison them.
Sure. But for an MP planning to jump ship, they are good for thought. And what’s to lose?
I wanted to sign this pledge: I couldn’t find it anywhere. Does anyone know where I can download it? Thanks.
labrebisgalloise 17/02/2019 at 5:33 pm
Why?
You could always type one out yourself if you really feel the need.
It’s so so sad. Many people want to Labour in the government under PM Jeremy Corbyn. He is a man who succeeded to have increased so many members of LP. I wonder what some Labour MPs are dreaming of? Are they all un-realist and narcissit?
Not ALL, Kumiko-san, but a lot of them are narcissists; in love with the sound of their own voices.
What a dickhead Marr is.