Labour confirms intention to abolish undemocratic second chamber
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed Labour’s intention to abolish the House of Lords, the unelected ‘second chamber’ of Parliament.
The announcement comes as a small group of barons and earls have publicly rejected Labour democracy by attacking Corbyn, who has confirmed his mandate no fewer than three times – in the 2015 and 2016 leadership elections and during the ‘Corbyn surge’ of the 2017 general election.
Today Lord Harris called for Corbyn to resign, presumably considering his opinion more important than the hundreds of thousands of Labour members who cheered the Labour leader at the Durham Miners’ Gala just last weekend – and more important than the millions who voted for his leadership in 2017. This is elitism at its most blatant.
Jeremy Corbyn has a 42-year record of fighting antisemitism in at least 50 occasions and a catalogue of firm evidence to prove it. Hundreds of prominent Jewish citizens have testified in print to it – along with a group of leading rabbis.
Today the SKWAWKBOX revealed that former general secretary Lord McNicol was responsible for the so-called ‘gagging orders’ on staff that Blairites and the media have attempted to blame on his successor Jennie Formby. While McNicol signed off on non-disclosure orders and his staff was allowing antisemitism cases to pile up – and even destroying evidence – Formby has been putting in place new systems to make Labour’s processes to fight bigotry the strongest of any political party.
Jennie Formby has done more to tackle antisemitism in one year than Lord McNicol of Kilbride did in eight:
Antisemitism exists in the Labour party among its membership and its supporters, just as it exists in society. Labour will crush the evil of antisemitism in the party and in society. Under Jennie Formby, the party is working ceaselessly to update its mechanisms and further measures will be announced will soon to take Labour’s processes even further ahead of any party or charity in the country.
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More anti-Semitism from Jeremy, does the man have no shame? 🙂 🙂
Liked 🙂
Thank you SkwawkB – well put together and your clearest statement yet about the criminal disgrace that McNicol has initiated and presided over
Absolutely oh and to save money Lords want to scrap free bus travel for pensioners!
Have a elected senate by CLP (same time MPs elected) and have 50/50 gender rule so if MP male Senator female and vice versa so ends need middle class liberal Harman et al’s middle class all women shortlists.
I agree the Lords is not as it should be, but there are some very worthwhile leaders in their field selected for their knowledge, of course I disagree with the ex MPs and those who pay into parties receiving entrance, having an elected chamber will see the same system producing the same morons to legislate on a party basis creating the same mess, I think that is the reason it has always been kicked into the long grass, I wish I had the answer as to how to get the best brains in there without the political appointees. We need a second chamber to regulate in a none biased way and an elected chamber will not bring that
Hiring the best experts in their own fields on an ad hoc basis would be far cheaper – and they’d be better qualified than the Loafers in Ermine.
Using ‘expertise’ as a justification for a second chamber is a crock – it’s just another old toffs’ network and should have been abolished aeons ago.
I’ve no deep objection to gongs for merit if there’s no cost to the public. Nothing hereditary though.
My personal view is when you die the state should inherit rather than Milord’s wastrel sprogs.
Eventually there should be no ownership of land.
Oh shit, did I just say that out loud?
“Eventually there should be no ownership of land”
You’ve put your finger on what is probably the most neglected area needing reform. Land ‘ownership’ on the large scale is most often historical theft, and an incredibly important basis of inherited power and capital. Yet compare the energy put into the illusory Brexit cause of ‘regaining control’ with tackling this far more significant issue of real control and power.
I suggest a read of Guy Shrubsole’s recent “Who Owns England/” for an up-to-date review of the subject.
David MacNivan…..definate like especially the royal land….maybe we can use the royal prerogative to grab our land and country back for the people!
David McNiven 17/719 0704 With you until you got to the gongs . Disagree on that . A symbolic reinforcement of the superiors and serfs system . Abolish that too .
Fancy my finger accidentally falling on that – clever old me.
Dan B, my idea of ‘merit’ is very different to the establishment’s – and the ‘gongs’ I’d allow are more bus pass than knighthood.
To abolish the House of Lords in favour of an elected chamber elected by a different, undemocratic voting system such as Proportional Representation or AV would be a shift to the right not to the left.
It is a liberal reform which would be used ruthlessly to block socialist policies.
It represents the sort of ‘strong’ bicameralism which has blocked radical progressive change in the USA, hence their healthcare mess.
Here, one can easily predict an elected second chamber, emboldened by elective legitimacy, vetoing economic plans such as an extension of public ownership.
The fact that this comes from the ‘left’ leadership of the Party is more evidence of the contemporary domination of left-liberalism over democratic socialism, on all fours with the EU sell-out to Watson and Blairites. LIberalism rules OK. Nor rather, not OK.
Why bicameralism anyway? Why not just abolish the House of Lords in favour of an accountable House of Commons? Democratic improvements could be made by leaving the EU with no deal, and thereby making governments and MPs accountable for ALL policies; and in the Labour Party by introducing mandatory reselection/open selections.
We managed without a House of Lords during the Commonwealth.
I would have hoped that at my time of life the Labour party would have the guts to abolish the house of lords.It was a feudal system even when I was achild.We seem unable to get to grips with even contemplating a modern democracy.We limp on with Monerchy ,Lords, knights and and a privey council,Royal perogative its all mind bogelling and depressing.Radicals the Labour democratic socialist party,,abolish unelected Lords,………The establishment have nothing to fear from us.,and never will.
Sorry about the spelling !above but very angry about all the inherited corruption inside and outside the Labour party.Forgot to mention we need a constitution and a loyal oath to the people.,not the Windsors and whoever they breed with.I swore loyalty to the people of Britain not the windsors when ELECTED to the council.I also asked the chief executive of the council to put away the bible…..We need principles sometimes in politics ,not follow the herd!
Boris Johnson is a strong argument against letting the proles elect anything but what can you do?
First we need an education system worthy of the name, then our single elected leadership body can be very different. MP’s and candidates permanently being rated by on line, ongoing voting for all places. 650 highest-rated keep their jobs. When enough people want you in you’re in, when enough want you out, you’re out – but voters get to change their vote at any time. Maybe have a margin for the relegation zone or a short grace period so MP’s have a chance to up their game and nobody’s kicked out on a whim every five minutes.
No fixed term parliaments though – no jobs for life, no frills, no extras, no retirement to the Lords, expenses monitored in real time, no sinecure directorships. You perform or you’re out – why should MP’s get five years’ grace when they turn out to be useless? (Boris will be dizzy from the revolving door until the electorate is finally smart enough to see how trivial the fucker’s mind is.)
Really – I’m serious. Elect them on intellect and beliefs and insist they perform as promised – like we have to if we want to keep our fucking jobs.
Make ‘MP’ just another job with the same terms you and I have to live with.
Interesting thoughts David,but we would need the corporate media sorting out before attempting such radical democracy.
john thatcher, my comment wasn’t intended to be all-encompassing.
By “First we need an education system worthy of the name” I meant that at present we’re educated just enough to be good little employees who believe in the BBC’s impartiality, the Tories’ economic competence, the benefits accruing to us of trickle-down theory and the antisemitism at the heart of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.
Oh – and the special relationship, the value of inward investment and the benefits of the royal family to the country.
I think we can safely assume that behind the scenes, labour lords have opened up another front against the leadership and suggested that they would vote against labour bills. If this is true, we can only imagine what life is like for the leadership at the moment battling against many fronts as well as the ones we can see.
This is true and it is built in to the system, there isn’t an easy solution, a healthy majority in the HOC can overcome it but but that will rarely these days, I would like to see the plans from Labour as changing the make up of the Lords is fraught with problems
We don’t need a House of Lords of any description, either elected or unelected. It is a retirement home for those who have been able to ingratiate theselves with their sponsors and who are lucky to live close enough to attend.
It is nothing more than a food bank for the privileged and a way of continuing to prop up the job creation scheme for the Windsors and their god knows how many off springs and hangers on.
Some years ago I was talking to a man in South Africa in kwazulu Natal.I was driving down from the transval Pretoria and spoke to a local who helped me change my tyre.In those days having a blowout was very dangerous.and help from a local who spoke English was unexpected and and surprising considering the country was burning and a curfew was in force , l told him thanks for the help and gave him some rands.He smiled and said Boss! You must keep going when you get to Durban and back to the sea from where you came,at first I laughed,,but he said go before you die here,you do not belong here…in Afrika ¡. This is exactly how I feel regarding the whole stinking system,in Britain Monerchy peers knights Barons ,high sheriff ..men in wigs dressed up clowns,.Like Apartheid Boss you lot don’t belong here anymore You the establishment and all your trappings don’t belong here anymore.
Joseph, when I was young and relatively innocent I was offered by two different agencies jobs that would have been tempting if they weren’t in SA. I thought at the time there might have been a recruitment drive to build the white population, a bit like the Australian assisted passage scheme..
One of the main selling points both agencies used (to which I listened out of politeness and a wish to hear other offers) was the huge benefit of being able to hire ‘local’ servants, gardeners, pool- and other ‘boys’ … for pennies.
I’ve always loved African music and I’d have loved to work there under an honest democracy, but it was at the height of apartheid and the jobs were of a kind that would only reinforce that.
The House of Lords is an anachronism that needs abolition. That has been obvious for some time, and the Blair government failed to carry through the reform when it had the chance.
But just abolishing it isn’t enough – there has to be part of a wider reform of the UK’s addled constitutional arrangements. The HoC isn’t on its own, and in it’s present form, a model for good government (remember – many of the time-servers in the Lords are their courtesy of its use as a Commons retirement home), and majoritarian pretend ‘democracy’ is no substitute – as the referendum proved beyond doubt.
Ludus57 mentions that we didn’t need the Lords during the Commonwealth. True. But that period didn’t exactly go well in the end, either. The decline from the free thinking evidenced in the remarkable Putney Debates to the pseudo-monarchy of the Protectorate isn’t exactly a model of progressive checks and balances and constitutional reform.
Good . They have shown their vile self-interest once too often by joining in the malicious false accusations of the baying tories and their sycophants.