Development relegates Watson to the outer fringe
A day that looked set to be dominated by Tom Watson’s now-official loss of the confidence of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and his narrow escape from the abolition of the position of deputy leader has been turned on its head by the party’s announcement that Labour’s position in any new Brexit referendum will be decided at a special conference after the coming general election.
Corbyn’s opponents inside the party – on left and right – had been frantically coordinating an attempt to force the party into a full-remain position at Labour’s party conference, which started today.
But the impact of the news of the special conference – and the fact that Corbyn is almost certain to get his way in what will be a broad vote with all CLPs (constituency parties) having two votes apiece – can be seen in the angry reaction of Labour’s hard-line remainers (and those wanting to use remain as a weapon against Corbyn):
By allocating the matter to a special conference, all the centrist/soft-left manoeuvres for this week in Brighton are nullified – explaining their fury.
With a full-remain position representing the surest way for Labour to lose the next election – and a betrayal of Labour’s working-class base – the news that Corbyn has ensured that the party will fight the general election for the 99% is hugely significant.
Hugely enough to relegate the Lansman-Watson drama, which few were expecting to take place at all until yesterday – to a sideshow, to those who prioritise a Labour government.
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.
This Party doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing and is leaving open goals all over the place.
I can’t think of any party that doesn’t apply to
I can: it doesn’t apply to the Labour Party. This is absolutely the right policy.
The General Election has to be about the real issues: privilege and the poverty it fathers, the basic questions . Are the people well fed, well lodged, well clothed? And do they have fuel enough to warm themselves and cook with? When they are sick are they looked after? Are the children and the old protected?
These are the questions that have been important for centuries.
Brexit is about means, not ends. And above all it is about the status quo. It is not just in Europe that the privileged wish to remain, what they really want is the continue the journey back to the Old Poor Law and Victorianism.
Duncan Shipley Dalton just offered his services pro bono to anyone caught up in the witch-hunt. What a good bloke.
Spoke right after Mike Katz, about whom I have no comment to make.
A good bloke indeed.
Also re ‘good blokes’.
A reminder from Craig Murray that Julian Assange, journalist and publisher, is now a political prisoner of UK in de facto solitary confinement in a max security prison medical wing with health continuing to fail despite being in a medical wing, denied proper access to his legal team and resources to mount his defense against extradition to US.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/dedicated-to-david-allen-green-joshua-rosenberg-joan-smith-hadley-freeman-jess-phillips-david-aaronovitch-and-the-entire-staff-of-the-guardian-observer/
I think we all know the right of the party are as bad at organising now as they were in the years before Corbyn, I am not one who believes Corbyn is the perfect fit although I am also positive he should not be replaced, he outmanoeuvres the malcontents at every turn and it is beautiful to see.
Your optimism is admirable but unfortunately Lansman’s *hit-fest is still dominating the airwaves.
Personally I have little faith in a so called ‘special conference’. If you want to know what the members think then FFS ask them. The party should decide it’s stance on Brexit by conducting a ballot of the full membership. No more block-votes, OMOV is the only democratic way forward.
Weren’t we promised a members led party?
Given that the BBC and MSM were going to be thoroughly neg about Labour anyway, you could argue that Lansman’s stategem has actually helped Corbyn.
Watson is arguably more isolated amongst the membership, who are reminded of his marginalism, divisiveness and disloyalty.
In the country, people supportive of Labour anyway freshly see Jeemy Corbyn as i) a strong leader, ii) a conciliator, and iii) very results-oriented in how he managed the episode.
These are exactly the right credentials (and never admitted by the MSM) to be a good prime minister of a fiercely divided nation struggling to come to terms with the damage inflicted by Conservative policies on trade, the economy, public services, housing, the NHS, and education.
Like so many people, you are making fundamental mistakes by confusing policy with strategy.
I am a full-on remainer. I voted remain, and I still hope Brexit can be reversed.
I also 100% support Corbyn’s approach to Brexit. It recognises the political reality that many people do not believe the same as me. It plots a sane course to EITHER remain or a soft Brexit that minimises the damage; and whichever we get, it is because the people choose it knowing all the facts, in which case tough luck on the losing side, whether us or them, that’s democracy.
Many on the remain side jump from their preferred policy of wanting to remain, to a strategy of ignoring the 52%. By doing so, they increase the chances of a hard Brexit, and of serious social disorder if by some miracle we were to get to remain. The fact that they then attack fellow remainers who have a better grasp of strategy has been one of the most frustrating aspects of the past few years.
Ultraviolet 22/09/2019 at 12:04 pm
I agree with much of what you’ve said but I am perplexed as to why you thought it an appropriate reply to my comment.
To point out that you mistook policy with strategy maybe, but I;m not sure that you did. Corbyn is doing so well on both fronts atm.
@SteveH You said, “If you want to know what the members think then FFS ask them.” Perhaps wrongly, I read this as the same old same old “Labour members support Remain, therefore the party should go straight to Remain this instant”.
Apologies if I have misread your intentions.
“…Labour’s position in any new Brexit referendum will be decided at a special conference after the coming general election.”
Interesting. Wonder when the GE will be… I’m still waiting for the many previous predictions to come true and will only believe it when I see it. Obviously LP has to be ready, shame majority of same old MPs will be standing it seems.
Doesn’t matter how soon the GE is. The referendum should ideally be part way through Labour’s term.
It will take a while to the xenophobia, despondency and nationalist desperation that the current incumbents have inflicted with their vicious pointless austerity.
Say we win the next election and hold a conference immediately afterwards – say a policy is agreed that we hadn’t campaigned on – wouldn’t at least some of the electorate feel cheated?
” …wouldn’t at least some of the electorate feel cheated?”
Good point but I think many voters are going to feel cheated or even blackmailed by their suffering anyway with LP Brexit/BRINO/’Remain really’ policy. Perhaps a OMOV should take place before any election, to base policy on if UK hasn’t already Brexited, then voters will truly know where LP stands.
In some ways it leaves us in a worse position than before. For week senior Labour MPs (incl. JC) have been saying that our policy would be decided at conference. It is doubtful that our critics (or the doorstep) will accept us claiming that we we didn’t say which conference as a valid reason for kicking the can down the road again.
If the Labour Party really want to know what the membership want then, it’s not rocket science, just ask them.
Cut out the the unrepresentative block votes and hold a full ballot of all the membership (incl. affiliate members). In our ‘members led party’ OMOV is the only method that will give a definitive answer to where the party stands on Brexit.
I can’t see any political logic in this latest car-crash.
After a week establishing a coherent position (despite the media’s attempts at crapping on it), Corbyn goes and feeds the wolves some more red meat to chew on.
It’s horribly like the disaster of the IHRA saga in simply bolstering the enemy.
In the last few days, there has been the shaping – at last – of a coherent, sustainable position. One that depends upon getting the best settlement from Brussels, unsullied by Tory red lines, and then presenting this candidly in a referendum to the electorate with the other clear option as ‘Remain’. There needed to be no formal pre-commitment at all.
Now we’re back in the territory of can-kicking fudge – and another febrile thrash around isn’t going to shift those dire polling figures, gifting back to the LibDems the votes that can be retrieved, whilst the conservative readers of the Sun/Mail nexus remain Tory/Brexit, anyway..
In a few weeks or months, Labour hopes to try to negotiate a deal.
We don’t know yet what that deal will be.
And you want the party to commit now as between that unknown deal and remain.
Have you any understanding of how insane that looks?
You’ve misread my post, Ultraviolet. Have another look, and you’ll see that I’m advocating adherence to the line that was shaped *before* Corbyn’s stumble on the Marr programme, where he expressed a confused opinion on Leave as an option.
My argument is for the Wison approach, and focusing on the referendum.
What is insane is suggesting that any settlement could be better that the Remain option. That just makes any old crap that Johnson turns up as viable. I’m just suggesting *genuine* neutrality, whist clarifying what the will of the Party at large is.
You say I have misread your post, but then you repeat the very thing that I thought you said and believe you are wrong about.
“What is insane is suggesting that any settlement could be better that the Remain option.”
It is that belief of yours that is leading you into a catastrophically bad strategy. Because, although you may think that, millions of people do not. And you can’t keep just ignoring them.
Ultraviolet 22/09/2019 at 4:48 pm · ·
Nobody is ignoring anyone, Labour is promising you and everyone else, both Leave & Remain a referendum within 6 months of being elected. You and others will have the opportunity to make your voices heard which is more than any other party is offering.
I can’t believe anyone on the left is still writing this Leave garbage.
Unless we back Remain there’s little chance of Labour preventing a Tory majority and disaster capitalism enabled by the removal of EU protections for a generation. We need to get the bulk of defectors which have left for the LibDems not Leave parties. Even in the North and Midlands 75 to 85% of Labour voters are Remainers. The people this will please most are Johnson, Cummings and Trump
What eu protections? Food standards protection? (Bugger, forgot about when the eu allowed hepatitis c infected pork to be exported)
Workplace protection?
(Shit, forgot about the zero hours contracts made to circumvent that)
Human right to a financial safety net and a right to have a roof over your head? (Sorry, forgot about all those homeless people begging on the street because they have no income or home)
But we do have low energy toasters. Thank ghod for the protections of the eu.
“I can’t believe anyone on the left is still writing this Leave garbage”
Brexit like anti-imperialism is a clear indicator that the ‘left’ is not monolithic like liberal left preach to us. I no longer know if I am ‘left’, being a politically late starter, because there is so much I don’t like about the accusatory, shut up and be quiet, what do you know tactics of the liberal left.
Chappell also, once again, muddles up what he wants the policy to be, with what the strategy needs to be to win.
If Labour goes into an election committed to a Remain position, it will sacrifice dozens of seats in the Midlands and North.
The strength of Labour’s position is that it will allow the country to choose between two credible options. If it writes one of them off now, that would destroy the entire strategy, and reinforce the narrative that none of the parties are listening to the left-behind communities who voted leave.
Ultraviolet,
“@Maria I get your concern, but how about not trying to win all your battles in one fell swoop?”
Well that was one of the main reasons I voted leave. Taking on UK establishment is a lesser battle than taking on the far less democratic EU.
“Personally I believe Corbyn will be able to implement his policies even within the EU.”
Personally I don’t, another reason I voted leave. That is to say in any meaningful sense. We’ve just had nearly forty years of overt and covert privatisation agenda and financialisation of the economy inflicted on us under many different, cross party appeasement and frankly dishonest rhetorics and policies. I have always respected Corbyn especially for his beliefs and political history, he is leader of a party where most MPs are hostile to him and that history and a party where faction fighting appears to be going on for control.
I am now coming to terms with the fact that the LP is not and wont be representative of Corbyn/what he stood for. I have no idea what kind of party LP is turning into, democratising it seems to have dropped off the agenda along with supporting free speech, unless approved by the party.
The EU’s utterly neoliberal and unrepealable Four Freedoms and competition policy guarantees that Labour must enforce disaster capitalism. As long as we remain a Member State, these provisions do however provide a wonderful alibi for the many Fake Left Labour “left-wingers” who really don’t want to change anything very much.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/quit-single-market
How about we rally round the strategy that we get a vote on this AFTER the election, and for now concentrate on winning that?
Ultraviolet,
I applaud your campaign to get people onside with the EURef 2 after a Labour win GE but I am a leaver than doesn’t believe many LP economic policies can be achieved within the EU. You expect me to trust LP to deal with EU on re-nationalisation etc. and win?
The fact that I am not alone in believing EU wont play ball on honest and real re-nationalisation for eg. when push comes to shove is going to put this strategy at risk of failure.
I want to know LP policy on remaining in the EU before a GE not after, if any ballot contains a remain option which is in the now approved policy.
Maria 22/09/2019 at 1:19 pm
“I want to know LP policy on remaining in the EU before a GE not after, if any ballot contains a remain option which is in the now approved policy.”
Why, what difference will it make?
Will you abstain, or vote for Farage or Johnson if Labour decide to campaign for Remain?
Labour are offering you the choice of a sensible Brexit (if such a thing exists) or Remain. My point is that Labour are the only party that is saying you decide. It will be your decision.
In this context it doesn’t make any difference one way or t’other if Labour support Remain or Leave, the choice of how you vote in the CV will be yours.
SteveH 22/09/2019 at 1:54 pm ·
There is no main stream political home for me now however much you, RH et al want to put me into Farage and Johnson’s boxes, I, that’s me not your interpretation of me, wont fit. I voted in good faith in the EURef and my vote has been slandered, trashed, dragged unethically through an incompetent, arrogant Parliament and successive Govs to overturn the result my vote was part of.
I am a leaver that believes many LP policies cannot be truly (only in name only cynical political speak) be enacted within the ever more totalitarian EU, so how LP will work “to reform EU from within” is crucial, as it is clear most of LP PLP and gobby online and media crowd will be campaigning for remain in EURef 2. Call it a CV all you want but it is an EURef 2 hiding under a cynical political strategy.
Maria 22/09/2019 at 2:31 pm
Firstly it is undeniable that the real reason Brexit hasn’t happened is that Brexit supporters haven’t been able to agree on what Leave actually means. Yes I accept you knew what you were voting for as did millions of others who voted leave but those votes were spread across a multitude of different versions of leave, and there lies the problem.
Given where we are, I really can’t see why you have a problem with what Labour is offering you. Regardless of what they eventually decide to campaign for they are saying you choose its your decision.
If you and sufficient like minded individuals vote leave then that’s what you’ll get because Labour is making a firm commitment to implement the result. Unlike the 2016 Ref we will already know exactly what Leave means so there will be non of the fiasco we’ve all had to suffer for the last 3 years whilst the Leavers argue what leave means.
In fact there is no reason why legislation can’t be passed to make the referendum binding (as per the Kyle amendment). This would also have the advantage that it would, unlike the 2016 advisory referendum, be subject to the rule of law.
Maria –
“my vote has been slandered, trashed, dragged unethically through an incompetent, arrogant Parliament and successive Govs to overturn the result my vote was part of.”
I’m sorry, but that’s self-pity, not an argument. This country *is* a representative democracy. The horribly mangled referendum was *only* advisory, despite Cameron not truth-telling. The result was *not* a decisive vote for Leave by any known standards of contitutional revision. Even the narrow majoritatian result was achieved *only* through the influence of the Tory propaganda machine we call ‘the media’, plus funny money, plus lies. The Leaver case *has* been comprehensively demolished during the intervening period, as has any shred of internatioal credibility. It is the *extreme right* behind ‘Leave’ that has been vociferous in trashing democratic norms of debate with the ‘betrayal’ crap etc..
So please don’t come the ‘Poor Me’ stuff. You’re too intelligent to fall for it. This will run and run, whether you like it or not.
*That’s* ‘democracy’.
SteveH,
So, LP is asking me to vote in a GE fore them so I can vote again on EURef when LP doesn’t know what its leave terms will be yet?
Look SteveH, most who voted leave wanted to leave and presumed Gov and Parliament were competent and ethical enough to carry out the subsequent decision to leave on the best possible terms for UK and its future place in the world in good time. There were no leave policies before the EURef only the usual opposing election talk. Perhaps we were wrong to assume Gov and Parliament were ethical and competent but we didn’t reckon on the intense, divisive, derogatory, divisive and insulting remain camp, in and out of Parliament, working day and night for wasted, socially destructive years now to put two fingers up to the result.
If any EURef 2 produced leave we are back to square one unless it’s a cynical BRINO deal that remainers like.
I don’t want to have to vote for unicorns, vague promises and ‘trust’ anymore in some vain hope election promises will and can be kept and things for the majority will improve via UK Parliament processes and unrepresentative, unaccountable inhabitants of that/those Parliaments. It looks increasingly likely the same or very similar Parliament (some individuals in different parties) will emerge after any GE so I don’t hold out hope of much of anything constructive being achieved for a long time.
Maria 22/09/2019 at 4:18 pm
You don’t appear to have read what Labour is offering. https://skwawkbox.org/2019/09/22/breaking-nec-statement-ratifies-corbyns-brexit-position-and-post-ge-special-conference-plan/
One of main points of Labour’s offer is that they are offering a conclusion as well as giving you the choice. The very real difference between 2016 and now is that Labour would negotiate the best possible deal with the EU before holding a referendum (within 6 months of getting elected) on a negotiated deal or remain. They have committed to enact the result immediately and as I said above there is no reason why the result can’t be made to be binding in law.
If you can trust Corbyn to run the country then surely you can trust him to negotiate the best possible deal on your behalf. As you’ve said yourself you don’t have many options.
RH, I will ignore your cringeworthy patronising of me.
” This will run and run, whether you like it or not.”
I am well aware of that and for how many more years will nothing be done to halt austerity, privatisation of the world, the siphon economy, parasitic finance sector, and march of corporate financial hegemony over every aspect of our lives? Why do you think I want EURef result respected and carried out asap?
All thanks to that representative ‘democracy’ you speak of which is in fact wholly unaccountable to the public who votes for them and international law etc.
@Maria I get your concern, but how about not trying to win all your battles in one fell swoop?
Personally I believe Corbyn will be able to implement his policies even within the EU. In short, the rest of them weren’t stupid enough to privatise everything in the first place, so it is no skin off their noses if we renationalise. If that is what it takes to get the UK to cancel Brexit, I would expect the EU to happily agree to it.
But let’s suppose I am wrong. You still have the right to campaign for leave in the further referendum.
And let’s suppose both that I am wrong and that remain wins.
Are you seriously telling me that there is any other plausible Government that would be better for the country than even a constrained Corbyn Government?
So yes, I do expect you to trust Corbyn to deal with it, because there is at least a good chance that you will get what you want, and there is no better option.
Ultraviolet, my reply to your post @ 22/09/2019 at 4:55 pm ·
came under the wrong thread, my error. It’s above in the replies to jrchappell 21/09/2019 6:13 pm post.
All I can say is, I and we have already voted in an EURef and to leave and so I object to another EURef. however it is framed. LP and Corbyn can offer me to deliver the Brexit deal of the century, that’s fine, even great and I couldn’t wait for that.
One last comment SteveH, it’s pointless going around in circles when we are not going to agree.
“If you can trust Corbyn to run the country then surely you can trust him to negotiate the best possible deal on your behalf.”
The thing is Corbyn wont be running the country the LP machine and entrenched civil services will. Assuming there wont be a landslide victory then Parliament will have plenty of opportunity to cause chaos again and delay positive changes. I need to get a clearer idea of what that LP is becoming because it is not ‘Corbyn’ and so far PLP etc. have worked against Corbyn every step of the way.
“LP is asking me to vote in a GE for them so I can vote again on EURef when LP doesn’t know what its leave terms will be yet?”
Why is that a problem for you now? It wasn’t a problem for you to vote for Brexit on unknown leave terms in 2016, was it?
£8 billion bet on No Deal by supporters of Cummings glove puppet,
They care not a jot about GE, if in doubt, follow the money
Watson – what a fully automated luxury communist SELL OUT!
It was a pretty duff idea anyway. Far better to contest the deputy leadership or to put forward a rule change to have two deputy leadership.
But having proposed the constitutional amendment, withdrawing it was a disaster. It serves to confirm that the Left is weak-willed and will cave in to the Right whenever enough pressure is applied.
Indeed it confirms that Corbynism is already dead. It died when Corbyn caved in to Watson on the second referendum. At that point we chucked away our heartlands and the target seats and our electoral fate was sealed. Gone too was the faint hope that a Corbyn government would take anywhere beyond capitalism. The shift within the Labour Left from democratic socialism to left-liberalism and its endless capitulations are now starting to reap their bitter harvest.
Danny on Corbyn, I hope you are wrong on Corbyn and the left,Ithat for me their is a shift in perspective of Jeremy Corbyn stepping in along with the unions to save Watson and is supporters.This might seem statesman like by Jeremy,but an enemy of socialism allowed now to unapologetically attack the membership and socialism will eventually lead to an invigorated PLP to remove any chance for a socialist revival Sometimes leadership means the unpleasant duty to pull the trigger and Jeremy backed off! .Maybe its brave and forward thinking…but for me it leaves a bad taste of capitulation to the forces of right wing manipulation of the Labour party and even less chance of taking the membership with him.Jeremy Corbyns strength is the membership and this yesterday does nothing to enhance the membership in trust of our future…genuinely depressed regarding the Labour party in government!
Joseph: So if Tom Watson were to lose his position as Deputy Leader he would then desist from attacking and undermining and smearing Jeremy and the left, would he?
Do you directly co-ordinate with the wreckers, or just follow their lead!
PS As I said in another thread, Lansman’s ploy didn’t backfire at all. entirely the opposite. It worked a treat….. and gave Joseph et all the opportunity to fire off again and cite Chris Williamson and exploit and manipulate peoples emotions at Jeremy’s expense.
‘Labour will decide it’s Brexit position AFTER the General Election” ! And this astonishing example of ‘kicking a pus-filled can down the road to plaster over fundamental internal party divisions on Remain v Leave’, is meant to represent some sort of tactical triumph ? So this is what Labour will campaign on Brexit on in our 2019 Manifesto is it ! The public already know that most of the Shadow Cabinet, including Jeremy’s closest old comrades, McDonnell and Abbott, are all determined to campaign for Remain REGARDLESS OF ANY DEAL A BREXIT LABOUR GOVERNMENT MIGHT NEGOTIATE ! John McDonnell reiterated this nonsense in a two page interview in The Times again today .
This totally confused and deeply dishonest position is no basis for winning a General Election in our majority of Leave-supporting heartland constituencies, or the Leave-voting Tory marginals (or our Remain-supporting constituencies either) we have to win. Very few voters will believe that , at that Special Brexit Conference the Delegates will not vote overwhelmingly for the same Remain position that today’s wheeze has avoided this week’s Conference.
So lots of radical Left rhetoric will be pumped out in the next few days – with promises of wide-ranging re-nationalisation – and big balanced budget-busting spending promises, and all these promises will be impossible under EU Rules. And Labour will again fail to present any solution to the EU-based unlimited labour supply that is crucifying the wages and conditions particularly of our lower paid citizens, ie, state-led forward planning of labour supply combined with a massive long term training effort to upskill our citizens (in addition to the very doable legal freeing up of our trades unions of course) . Of course unlimited labour supply, a key issue for the unskilled and semi-skilled working class in particular is guaranteed as one of the EU neoliberal Four Freedoms if we stay in the EU. So don’t expect many of the flowery transformational promises to gain much credibility away from the middle class bubble of the Labour activist Left Liberal membership , in our vital electoral heartlands.
Still, I can’t blame either Jeremy and his team, or his desperately spinning Skwawky mouthpiece for trying to talk up yet another massive fudge to keep the show on the road a bit longer. But, as the utter capitulation to the Labour Right and hostile MSM today over the treacherous wrecker, Watson, shows, the Labour ‘Left’ just don’t have the required politics or basic bottle for this fight. I have a good socialist comrade at conference as Delegate from our CLP this week – she must be deeply pissed off already at this bullshit manoeuvring – and it is only Day One !
Balloting the whole membership is the only way to get a true picture of where the party stands on Brexit. Any conference vote will be disproportionately influenced by unrepresentative factions.
OMOV is the only democratic way forward on this.
I agree. Conference is an inadequate vehicle for this issue, and block votes needs to be jettisoned for the purpose of getting a clear direction on the Party’s wishes on this particular issue. A special conference is beside the point.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/brexit/tom-watson-labour-party-jon-lansman-conference-2019-636077
It seems the arsehole couldn’t wait to go wailing to the press as soon as Corbyn saved his sorry arse. I’m just waiting to have a good laugh when twatson sticks the knife into Corby’s back again; believe me we won’t have to wait very long for that to happen.
Perhaps you should reflect on the fact that it was Jon Lansman’s maverick actions that gifted Tom Watson this opportunity.
Steve We have moved from factions within the NEC to block votes like the momentum organisations inside the NEC.Little wonde that Chris Williamson was never exonerated..
I’m sorry Joseph but I’m unable to follow your train of thought on this.
Steve I meant block influence with momentum approved candidates on the NEC…sorry for the the block vote reference!
As I’ve said before, Steve, there’s a horrible symmetry between Watson and Lansman – both arch-plotters who use support from the membership in their election to pursue purely sectarian ends, and who are quite happy to throw good colleagues under the bus.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ally-jon-lansman-wanted-jeremy-corbyn-removed/28306
???
Interesting report by Winstanley.
NOW you see another aspect of why he was targetted for truth-telling by the Israel Lobby – of which Lansman is a part.
Despite the historical facts, Lansaman wishes to normalise the political term ‘zionism’ as an essential part of religious identity.
This was not an NEC issue on the whole tis was a JC bottling it issue and he will reap what he sowed after showing his belly to the right whingers yet again.
They will go into conference revitalized after this week showing and the trigger ballot fiasco. Expect all kinds of fun and games during the conference from them.
Quite right Will. The impetus which pushed JC to save Twatson was indeed the right of the party. Poor Chris Williamson has been left to rot. Shameful.
Chris Williamson MP is speaking in the ‘Freedom of Speech’ tent today along side Jackie Walker, and others.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-freedom-of-speech-tent-rialto-theatre-tickets-73474035819
With the treatment and lack of solidarity meted out to Williamson MP and others who speak out it, is clear to me which way LP is heading, a tightly controlled, intolerant ‘safe’/establishment acceptable party. So same old with a ‘woke’ makeover.
Tony Greenstein……….
https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2019/09/victory-for-right-to-free-speech-and.html
Thanks so much for that link Allan Howard I will watch later. I hope and expect todays event to be filmed as well.
Thanks so much for demonstrating the old truth that the demand for purity and perfection by the left will enable the right to win every time.
Well. Corbyn had been playing it well during the last week. But he definitely dropped a bollock on the Marr show in pretending that any Brexit settlement might be better than Remain. Which put him back firmly in the fence-up arse mode, rather than ‘neutral mode’ (which involves staying in touch with reality and saying simply that what would be presented is ‘as good as it gets’). There was a different line to take that would have been consistent with non-advocacy. This wasn’t it, and I think he may have unwittingly let Swinson off the hook.
Kicking the can down the road AGAIN with the special conference stuff definitely isn’t a good look, no matter how patched up things are by a compositing poultice – he’s passed the ball back to the opposition.
The wise thing would have been to simply state the successful Wison line if it’s felt better not to commit the Party.
Sqwawkbox’s nonsense about ‘ a full-remain position representing the surest way for Labour to lose the next election – and a betrayal of Labour’s working-class base’ is, of course, more of the same old Leaver nonsense (see the word ‘betrayal’ and you’re reading shite).
You don’t have to be Einstein to have grasped the fact that (a) Labour’s base isn’t overwhelmingly just working class and (b) that its worjking class support voted mostly for ‘Remain’. Any statement that comes out with such fictions has to be regarded with the utmost suspicion – just like Sun headlines.
Then we have the crap about ‘hard line Remainers’ – as if there was a ‘soft-line’ compromise in what is a dichotomous choice. Pure fudge.
I was actually quite surprised this morning at how badly Corbyn’s mis-step had been taken by the other Remainer in this house. Not a good sign.
“Well. Corbyn had been playing it well during the last week. But he definitely dropped a bollock on the Marr show in pretending that any Brexit settlement might be better than Remain. ”
Well to me it speaks of Corbyn trying to keep leave voters onside. A losing game when Thornberry (Lady Nugee, don’t forget the Lady bit)) is prancing around wearing her yellow EU star necklace on her blue top for the delectation of the media.
To be frank I intensely dislike this political shenanigans and have come to the conclusion LP must hold a OMOV on the issue and make policy based on that for any GE, surely that is the way to go for a self declared democratic party? Then voters know where LP stands and don’t suspect they are being deceived with EURef 2 after any GE that LP seems to think it will win. In the event of Remain LP then I want to see policy LP has re what it will do in the EU, once there was talk of remain and reform… now EU has taken on a almost religious righteousness in LP Remain camp.
Wow, how can you STILL be so dense as to the strategic realities caused by the fact that MANY LABOUR VOTERS PROFOUNDLY DISAGREE WITH YOU?
I’ve just noticed this verbatiim quote from Corbyn :
” “The vast majority of Labour party supporters and members supported remain, but a significant minority voted the other way. The party, the people and the leader of this country should understand why people voted leave.”
Sorry, Jeremy. That’s not leadership.
We need to understand, too, the conservative instincts of people who vote for the Tories. But we don’t stand on the sidelines mumbling ‘Errrr … you may have a point.’
And, of course, cutting through all the sentimental bullshit – the *major* reason for voting ‘Leave’ was the massive power of the Tory press playing on the a cluster of dissatisfactions. It doesn’t need wrapping up.
“Sorry, Jeremy. That’s not leadership.”
Yeah. It fucking is. It is pretty much the dictionary definition of leadership. He is listening to all sides and looking for a way forward that will be acceptable to the vast majority.
No it fucking isn’t 🙂
It’s not just about ‘listening to all sides’. It’s also about being clear about which side is spouting crap. Just like at an election time, when listening to people who’ve absorbed the Tory propaganda line doesn’t mean that you then say ‘Well … You might have a point about austerity. Let’s decide later.’
Let LP carry out OMOV then we can all see where LP truly stands on this crucial issue, LP policy flows from in or out whether we like it or not.
“CORBYN’S DEFINITIVE SPECIAL-CONFERENCE VICTORY ON BREXIT ISSUE RELEGATES WATSON TO SIDESHOW”
…. Despite S.box’s mention of Watson in 6/10 recent postings! ???
Were it so! The fixation is almost like jilted love 🙂
It is interesting that conference has had to give in on refer backs because CLP delegates got more than a little pissed off at losing every vote. They have now abandoned the show of hands and are now doing all the refer backs using card votes
What exactly are card votes? Paper/card you vote on and hand in to be counted or hold up?
The subject of show of hands came up recently on another topic. It is not a reliable way to do voting that has substantive consequences, at best its an indication.
It will be interesting to hear what CLP delegates say after this change.