Tom Watson’s Future Britain ‘party within a party’ launch document leaked within minutes of its first meeting on Monday evening – a stellar start. But it has huge gaping hole – and what is included speaks volumes
Comment
Tom Watson’s first meeting of his Future Britain group garnered attention primarily for the fact that he gave away his full contact information on a piece of paper to a group of MPs that weren’t entirely supportive of his vanity project – at least one of whom promptly leaked it to the media and social media.
But there was a more serious aspect to the leaked sign-up form, which invited interested MPs to sign up for groups aligned with any of nine policy areas.
The move was criticised as an attempt by Watson to ‘completely circumvent Labour’s constitutional policy mechanisms – but it was what the form did not include that shouted loudly about the nature of Watson’s limp project:
The document makes no mention at all of the Tory/centrist austerity that is ruining the lives of millions – including millions of children – and ending the lives of many tens of thoursands.
It contains not a word about social security reform to undo the disaster of the Tories’ Universal Credit system that is piling misery on top of misery onto those already stricken with poverty or struggling against the government’s utter, callous disregard for the dignity of the disabled.
But it does contain – on its very first line – a nod to the deluded and discredited notion of Britain as a global player in foreign policy. After all, many of those who might be considering signing up for Watson’s group have probably demonstrated a persistent fondness for foreign wars that cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.
And its last line – “Campaigning and incumbency” – might as well say “How to stop ourselves suffering deselection by Labour members”.
In other words, ‘dropping bombs on foreigners and protecting our seats’ are big items for Watson’s putative new group – attended primarily by dinosaur Blairites and assorted right-wingers.
But the suffering of millions of adults and children under the predations of the Tories seems not to have figured in Watson’s thinking enough to even appear on his piece of paper.
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.
Check out the latest poll result!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
I prefer Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales.
I assume you were referring to the poll result Andrew? If so, could you elaborate.
The thing is that it’s generally accepted on the left that Survation is the most reliable – and trustworthy – of the pollsters, and they did in fact have the Tories four points ahead in their last poll. We know of course to completely disregard the yougov polls, but even leaving THEM out of the equation, it’s a big turn-around.
This is totally bizaare. I just clicked on the link in the second column of the wikipedia list of poll results – ie the latest one they’ve posted – and THIS is what it says:
Survation’s latest voting intention poll, conducted online between 7th – 8th March, shows that Labour have extended their lead over the Conservatives to seven points.
UK Voting Intention – 7th-8th March 2018
What is going on?!!
I just checked the wikipedia list of poll results to confirm that the Survation Poll that’s just been listed IS the one from 2018, and it’s the same as the one just listed in every respect, except for the sample size, which is 1,038 in the 2018 listing, and 1,029 in the one just added.
It gets curiouser AND curiouser!
The poll results are far from clear or trustworthy. Like you, I look at the compilation – single results don’t indicate much.
The first thing to do is to take out the individual recent YouGov polls, which look highly suspicious (whether intentionally or as a result of sampling, I’m not going to argue). Nor am I going to argue about all polls being rubbish – they’re probably better than no information at all or finger-in-the-wind-what I-hope-and-what-my-mates-say. What can be said is that they did, indeed, accurately reflect the known surge in Labour’s popularity around the time of the GE.
The most striking thing currently is that both the Tories and Labour have taken a hit as the pointlessness of Brexit has taken its toll over the last two years and the PLP has assisted the opposition. Third parties have skimmed the cream off the milk – the LibDems,Greens and UKIP. Probably the drift has been a bit worse for Labour.
Even given the discounting of the YouGov polls, the overall trend hasn’t been good for Labour – which would not be surprising given the intensification of MSM propaganda, even when the electorate may also have largely discounted the over-the-top nonsense that has been circulated. But propaganda has only to affect a small proportion to work.
It’s too soon to say whether the latest Survation poll is significant or not, much as we might hope so. But basically, the two main parties are largely within error distance of each other.
However, a review of results since 2017 do suggest a consistent advantage to the Tories. Certainly enough to worry me.
Then we have the latest up-turn in the ‘antisemitism’ campaign that suggests a stronger possibility of a snap election as Brexit plumbs the ultimate depths of disillusion. The EHRC situation will be ‘interesting’ as the other rubbish runs out of steam.
Just found this, which only adds to the mystery re the wikipedia polling results. Here’s a couple of clips from it:
March 11th
There were two polls in the Sunday papers. ComRes had a poll conducted for BrexitExpress (a pro-Brexit pressure group) prominently but poorly reported in the Sunday Telegraph. The voting intention question included The Independent Group as an option, producing topline figures of CON 36%(-2), LAB 34%(-3), LDEM 8%(-2), TIG 8%(+8), UKIP 6%(nc). Most polling companies are not, at present, including the Independent Group in polls – something that will presumably change as they take steps towards actually forming a party and clarifying their future intentions.
As well as the ComRes poll there was a BMG poll hidden away in the Independent. The figures were unusually reported without excluding don’t knows or won’t votes, with the Conservatives on 31%, Labour on 27% and 8% for the Liberal Democrats. According to the Independent the Conservative lead is five points once don’t knows are excluded – that implies something along the lines of Con 40%, Lab 35% and Lib Dem 10% – though the full figures are yet to appear on the BMG website.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
How many MPs attended?
Reported to be 130 It is not known how many were loyal labour going along just to watch ‘A Lean and Hungry Man – Cassius Plots – Act 1 Sc 2
Your Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. SUCH MEN ARE DANGEROUS ( my emphasis)
Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (Act 1 Scene2)
Yond! (Damn auto-spell bollocks!)
‘But the suffering of millions of adults and children under the predations of the Tories seems not to have figured in Watson’s thinking enough to even appear on his piece of paper.’
He’s so busy plotting and planning (with his chums) to sabotage Jeremy and the left that he forgot to include anything to that effect. Mind you, it would have been nothing but rhetoric even if he HAD (and why would a Blairite Tory want to bring such to the attention of the general public anyway, and especially when his buddies in the MSM have been keeping mum about it all!).
‘Jewish Labour Movement was refounded to fight Corbyn’
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/jewish-labour-movement-was-refounded-fight-corbyn
Mainstream Media Finally Admit Venezuela Aid Trucks Torched by Protesters—NOT Maduro’s People
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/venezuela-aid-torched-protesters/?utm_source=getresponse&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rssfeednewsletter&utm_content=The+Free+Thought+Project+Newsletter
Please sign and share. Thanks:
https://mailchi.mp/viva.org.uk/end-the-cage-age?e=ff1054a1d3
‘Desperate Netanyahu openly embraces Jewish extremists’
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2019-03-11/desperate-netanyahu-openly-embraces-jewish-extremists/
Sorry about this….. I know I’ve posted lots already, but I just came across the following video by chance (thanks to a video Snowy linked to yesterday on another thread). I haven’t watched it yet, but it sounds like the real deal. I ALWAYS had VERY serious doubts that Thomas Mair killed Jo Cox, and for very good reason (which I’ll explain another time), and if he DIDN’T kill her AND was set up, then who DID kill her AND set Thomas Mair up?!
This is what it says (on youtube) in relation to the video (which has had over 30,000 views):
Richard D Hall investigates the Jo Cox assassination which occurred in June 2016. Many questions were raised over the veracity of the official version of events. Some say the trial was staged and the outcome preordained by mainstream media. Richard has met with first hand witnesses to the events and has met with friends of the alleged perpetrator Tommy Mair. In this lecture Richard presents the findings of his independent investigation to date. He is appealing for viewers to go to their MP and show them his lecture on Jo Cox’s murder. Richard clearly demonstrates that the trial was at the very least a farce, and quite possibly 100% fraudulent. The mainstream media (as usual) were used to sell to the public an entirely false motive for the murder.
Errrr ….ummmm …. the venality of the MSM doesn’t validate the truth of alternative conspiracies.
No, of course RH, apart from a full-on black op against Jeremy and the left during the past three years, the Estabishment and their propaganda machine, the MSM, are all wonderful, decent, upstanding people…….
Get Real!
Make that 130,000 views!
I haven’t watched the video but have read of the forensic evidence found on Mair and on the weapons found in the holdall he was carrying.
Not wasting my time on it.
(Comments below it suspicious about how the police all got there so fast – I once had twenty-odd breathlessly panting coppers banging on the back door of the bank where I worked, they having run up (steep) Guildford High Street thinking a robbery was in progress – because it was a Saturday afternoon and a jobsworth car park attendant who saw me every weekday morning neglected to mention that fact when he reported my and my colleagues’ “suspicious activity.”)
Isn’t the Establishment’s gigantic, all-pervading, centuries-old conspiracy to hang on to power enough for you Allan? 🙂
Tom Watson is now leading another Coup against Jeremy Corbyn and some of those who voted no confidence or resigned in 2016 will once again be sniping from the sidelines. This time they can’t claim that he lacks leadership skills and is unelectable – he proved himself in these areas- so instead they have portrayed him as a Jew hater – a disgusting racist.
Its shows the malevolence of the PLP and the power of the MSM that many people now believe that Jeremy, the most anti racist of MPs, is a racist. The support he showed for Jewish people over the years has been ignored by all except by Jews themselves- the Orthodox Rabbis representing 100 congregations, the 200 prominent Jewish citizens who sent an open letter of support , the members of Jewish Voice for Labour and the various socialist Jewish groups – all support Jeremy wholeheartedly.
Obviously Jews who are not Socialists do not support him any more than right wing/ Conservative Anglicans, Roman Catholics or Muslims do, yet the views of non Socialist Jews are wrongly portrayed by the media as the opinion of the ” Jewish Community”
So what happens next? If Tom is foolish enough to mount a leadership challenge he will lose as the members know exactly what is going on and don’t like it one bit. The party might split and that might be a good thing in the long term – save us having to deselect certain MPs- or more likely Tom will be challenged for the Deputy leadership and he will almost certainly be defeated.
But this is about more than who leads our party- it is about the need for a Labour government in order to put an end to the terrible conditions of the poor and vulnerable in this country. As pointed out by Skwawkbox Tom Watson’s email does not even mention this – clearly it is not one of his priorities . All I can say is Shame on him and the MPs who support him.
Just noticed a lovely (?) example of Groan bias. Reporting on Watson’s ‘MeMeMeToo’ campaign, they use the phrase :
“the party membership is dominated by his [Corbyn’s] supporters”
… rather than ‘the grass roots elected Corbyn twice with large majorities’.
Or … equally truthful ..
“the PLP is dominated by flaky Blairite parachutists favoured by the Groan’
Exactly, and this is what old snake eyes is doing………..cutting out the members in regards to voices and policy making. The PLP have their weekly meeting where only Parliamentary members are allowed. Apart from our CLP’s, we, grass roots members are unable to join our voices together to be heard, just like they do at Jeremy week in week out in the PLP meetings.
We, non parliamentary, non Local Gov members need a ‘non PLP/ non Local Gov grass roots members only mass association’. We are the many. they are the few !
We have one.
It’s called the Labour Party.
And we’ll still have it after Watson has gone.
We’ll still have it after the MPs who don’t support Party Policy have gone.
Don’t let distractions get you down; achieving the Labour Manifestos aims is more important than faint hearted fair weather friends.
Just hold on to the fact that, without a grass roots organisation, these tossers are just blowin’ in the wind (or are just wind). If they want to f. off from the Labour Party to where they feel more at home – so be it.
The main thing is for the real members not to lose interest so that we end up with a manipulable shell organisation similar to that which gave the Blair right a free pass.
Keep up your membership.