Wigan MP’s speech to Unite North-West gathering needs to be heard and understood by Labour’s remain-obsessed MPs and commentators
Comment
The political differences between Wigan Labour MP Lisa Nandy and the SKWAWKBOX are numerous and not hard to identify. But in at least one vital area, Ms Nandy has a grasp of the issues that many Labour MPs, commentators and activists desperately need to learn from.
Nandy was speaking this week at the north-west launch of Unite’s outstanding ad campaign for tomorrow’s European Parliament elections – and she talked passionately of her experiences in Wigan, demonstrating a perspective and understanding that puts many on the high-profile left to shame:
Ms Nandy clearly despises right-wing extremist ‘Tommy Robinson’ – but she does not despise her working-class constituents who are furious about attempts to dismiss or discount their democratic choice in the 2016 election and who are the target of Robinson’s and Farage’s attempted exploitation.
Not only that, but she does not consider them bigots, nor consider their leave vote as driven by hatred of foreigners.
On the contrary, she is well aware that the internationalism and solidarity that have characterised them for decades has not diminished – but that they are angry at an out-of-touch political class in which many of the most prominent voices are constantly denigrating their moral sense, insulting their intelligence and attempting to disenfranchise them.
She also understands that Brexit is essentially a sideshow being exploited by elites to sow division and suspicion among the many to divert our attention from the far greater issues we face in a country in which poverty has been intentionally made endemic by Tory governments and in which figures like ‘Robinson’ do want to stir up hate.
Those Labour figures who, like the recklessly damaging Tom Watson this morning, write off working-class leave supporters as ‘fascists’ – or as stupid, or primitive, or unworthy of the vote – need to take a fistful of leaves from Lisa Nandy’s book.
And the party needs to discard even the suggestion of any vote that will amplify the sense of outraged disenfranchisement among its working-class supporters – and to do it urgently.
A failure to do so will not only guarantee the hardest of Brexits, but risk far, far worse.
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Normally Skwawky would dismiss Nandy’s comments as being anti-Corbyn from a Blairite babe, but because they chime with his own pro Brexit views he gives them credibility.
Nandy is yet another of those Labour MPs out to save their own skin by letting her leave constituents call the shots instead of being honest with them about the aims of the far right proponents of Brexit and the consequences if it goes ahead.
If wind-up merchants like Jack T stand to lose from Brexit, it can’t come soon enough for me. They’ll deserve everything they get.
Jack, you’re an idiot!
Barely clever enough to be an idiot.
Jack, you’re generally right on the exaggerated antisemitism issue.
You’re most definitely wrong on the EU.
There – I’ve given credit where due. Skwwky’s done the same with Nandy (Who I generally can’t stomach).
Yeah, fair point.
I think your wrong she is by no stretch of the imagination a “Blairite babe” she is my MP and on a couple occasions i have emailed her suggesting she could consider her position and consider resiging due to a couple of decisions she has made in the past. But she is one of the not enough remain voting MPs that are respecting the wishes of their constituants and trying to leave, without damaging the future prospects of those constituants. Its a shame there are not more MPs like her. I have seen first hand the hard work she puts in locally when she could like many do, sit on their arse at home doing nothing.
Boatnumbersix, Nandy does not support Corbyn and was part of the failed chicken coup.
When were True BLeavers ever in touch with the facts?
But so what? – A Wigan MP voicing her opinion in contradiction to many others. It isn’t Farage that’s doing damage to Labour as it struggles with credible opposition.
JackT, you are unwilling to compromise. As such you are part of the problem, not the solution.
This issue will be resolved by moderates in the party and country, not by Farage no deal extremists and remain no deal extremists like you.
I disagree that “Brexit is essentially a sideshow”. It entirely depends on how radical one is. If one believes that the Labour Party should be a democratic socialist party aiming to replace capitalism with a classless society, and which prioritises a fundamental shift in wealth and power in favour of working people, then withdrawal from the EU is an absolute prerequisite. We cannot change the ownership of this country in any profound way without leaving the EU, the entrenched marketization of its Single Market and its neoliberal Four Freedoms.
After 40 years of neoliberal domination, however, democratic socialists are in short supply in the Labour Party having largely been supplanted by left liberals. The latter mistakenly hold that durable anti-austerity can be achieved within the capitalist framework. Accordingly belief in reorganising society in the interests of working class people has largely been jettisoned in favour of faith in conventional (and deeply ‘small-c’ conservative) middle class measures such as support for supranational organisations such as the EU, judge-protected rights and universal income. In this regard the common ground between the Blairites and Corbynistas is actually rather striking. The Party is likely to reap a bitter harvest from its abandonment of the working class interest.
Humm perhaps she knows that she’d be out on her ear if she didn’t actually toe the line on this .
I haven’t heard her speech so can’t really make an informed comment , only based on what her past performances were like ( Blairite ) , but there is IMO only one objective today and that’s STOP FARRAGE AND HIS FASCIST MATE Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka TOMMY ROBINSON
Do your part today end the Tories and vote Strictly Labour
Tory brexit failed because there is an inherent division between the Nationalist Tories and the Business Tories.
Corbyn exploited this by REFUSING TO TAKE SIDES, by doing so the Tories did not have an enemy to fight, as they need an enemy to coalesce against, thus they ended up fighting themselves instead. In marshal arts it is called being like water.
Any one with any intelligence at all in the party could see what Corbyn was doing, and so the vast majority of intelligent people in the party let him get on with employing the strategy; much to the annoyance of various fringe elements in the Labour party, who lack the intelligence to think in depth and strategically instead the scream about sitting on the fence when in reality it is the broad village green in the middle of British politics.
Today will see the Tory party all but wiped out from the European election map of Great Britain. As they were in the recent council elections.
The Tory party have already sown the division of the United Kingdom by their Tory Backstop Treaty that they signed in secret in December 2017 and that now the DUP realizes means the Tories have betrayed them and descided to cede sovereignty over Norther Ireland to the EU because that treaty is already signed and applies in both a hard brexit or a crash out no deal brexit, because a crash out no deal brexit was always the purpose of the Tory Backstop Treaty of December 2017 as is made clear in Pargraph 4
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/761852/05_December-_EU_Exit_Attorney_General_s_legal_advice_to_Cabinet_on_the_Withdrawal_Agreement_and_the_Protocol_on_Ireland-Northern_Ireland.pdf
The Tory party is imploding.
It is why we point out the Corbyn has played a BLINDER!
Do your part today end the Tories and vote Strictly Labour
The hard reality is that Labour could do with the line-graph gradient that the LibDems have currently got in the moving average of polls. Add that of the Greens to it, and it would be even better. That’s ‘playing a blinder’? I think not.
As we know from Blair, shadowing Tory policy with a bit of amelioration isn’t ultimately a great strategy.
Ian Walker. Yes, it’s true that the Tory Party has torn itself apart over Brexit as they always do over Europe but if their split results in us having a worse PM than May if that’s possible, where has it got us – Brexit still needs to be sorted. Are we any more likely to get a confirmatory vote with Boris if he suceeds May, than we were with May?
Labour cannot just be bystanders, at some point we need to promote a positive (Labour) way forward and not let events dictate to us.
I have a problem….well actually more than one. I’m one of those elderly people who voted Brexit, if for no other reason, but because I am old & I dislike foreigners…….well actually I don’t dislike foreigners, but I must do because I voted Brexit.
Well maybe I do have a problem with foreigners, not because they were born in a different country, but because they are used by organisations such as the NHS as an excuse not to have to educate & train young British kids to become doctors &/or nurses. Guardian readers can then claim how liberal they are by employing doctors & nurses from emerging countries who need them as much as we do, but without the expense. I wonder why social mobility among the working classes is so low?
So maybe I do have another problem with foreigners……..I used to work as a lecturer in FE; primarily access students who needed a little more help to enter university (predominantly working class kids) who lacked the ‘research skills’ to survive the rigours of the elite Russell Group. Over 35% of staff & 40% students @ University are not British. Foreign staff are often cheaper & foreign students pay more. Working class British students are actively discouraged from applying to elite universities, not just by fear of debt but because of the clash of culture. To quote John Lennon’s Working Class hero ” They hate you if you’re clever & they despise you if you’re a fool”. Universities are big business & need to make money to pay for the Vice Chancellor’s average wage of £500K.
I was born in St.Pauls Bristol (Stapleton Road) & became a foreigner in my own country. Now I live close to Liverpool where they think I’m a Cockney, but I’m an immigrant from the South. The football team I support is Bristol Rovers; some of you may have heard of it, although seldom mentioned on elite BBC. Much of the team comprises of local kids, although some others are recruited from other areas of Britain. The team is British.
The last time I watched Liverpool live was @ Hillsborough. I have never been to a Premier League match & yes, it’s because of the foreigners (I don’t count Ian Rush). I have lived on Merseyside since 1975 & during that time ran school & youth club football teams. I shared their belief that one day they too could play, not only for their local club, but also for England. So very few, if any, will fulfil their dreams of playing; they can only watch. 70% elite Premiership players are foreign imports.
The Guardian could be right?
Great post. Made me laugh several times.
Good to the scousers still have their sense of humour too. Cockney lol
“.I used to work as a lecturer in FE”
You mean you’re one of the middle class/bourgeoisie trolls here???!!!
Shock, horror!!! 🙂 🙂
”Now I live close to Liverpool where they think I’m a Cockney, but I’m an immigrant from the South.”
Neston?
It’s gotta be Neston. There, they think anyone south of Chester is a ‘cocker-knee.
1933 just called. They want to know when you’re coming home. There’s a very important job waiting for you apparently.
Sorry, the caller was looking for somebody using the name Steve Richards. Duh. Sounded foreign.
Hark gordon broon, here^^^
(We all know what happened to him after his ‘bigot’ comment, don’t we, david?)
The problem for Skwawkkbox is that as long as it uses juvenile yah-boo stuff like “LABOUR’S REMAIN-OBSESSED FACTION”
to typify the majority of members, it’s never going to be taken seriously within the Labour vote and Party at large.
But RH at least we have something for the Lefties to counter balance the MSM tripe, it may not be perfect but it’s way better than what was in existence before, which was little more than nowt.
This is a serious suggestion and not meant as antagonistic, but how about you perhaps start a complimentary Blog juxtapositioning along side of SB and add into the mix of the other LW Blogs like The Canary, Unity News, or Novara Media
Life’s too short for that.
My scorn is directed at simple-minded sloganising such as that I quoted, not the holding of contradictory opinions.
OK – including Toffee’s extreme and fevered imaginative distortions, a Blog needs to have a spectrum of opinion if it is to have any connection to the real Labour Party and its support. Otherwise it just becomes what so much ‘social’ media is – an echo chamber.
”The problem for Skwawkkbox is that as long as it uses juvenile yah-boo stuff like “LABOUR’S REMAIN-OBSESSED FACTION””
Yet the only other time you post is if someone makes reference to the working class…And even then your condescending to the point of snide about them.
I guess a vivid imagination and the writing of fiction can be an asset. But not in this context.