Local Labour parties continue to say they have no confidence in leadership
At least three more constituency Labour parties (CLPs) have voted no confidence in the national party’s senior figures in the last day or so.
Members in Eastbourne and Romsey and Southampton North have voted no confidence in Keir Starmer, while Truro and Falmouth members passed a motion of no confidence in acting general secretary David Evans – with an added call for general secretaries to be elected by Labour members. Evans’s position has still not been confirmed by the party’s annual conference as required in Labour’s rules.
The party machine continues to try to kill free speech and member democracy by suspending officers who allow motions to be debated – including Jewish officers – even though there is nothing in the latest attempts to ban motions that rules out no-confidence votes.
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Good🌹🌹🌹 MORE needed. Hope this ACTIVE spirit lasts!!! THE BASICS which need doing RIGHT here RIGHT now 🌹🌹🌹
Hope it last 🚨🚨🚨
It’s surely an unprecedented Rebellion against a new Leader. It’s impossible for him to keep ignoring it. Maybe he’s going to have to go?
Paul, YES, These motions MUST continue. Enough calm! Enough “working around” the Right Wing. That has FAILED. Some are slow to see the obvious. They are no use to bring about change. I may be new and lack any political experience but at least i’m trying to find fresh solutions.
What is the point repeating the same as before when we see the metaphorical bloodshed on our side this very day? Enough appeasement!!
Enough Cowardice!!! Enough compliance!!! Enough complicity by silence and absence!!! FIVE YEARS is MORE than enough!!! LEARN – CHANGE – We are not a party for whining. Enough of the weird people trying to silence others. If you can’t make your case, then stop and think.
We can ALL improve. Only a fool refuses to even try to improve.
🌹🌹🌹
Paul- “Maybe he’s going to have to go?”. We’ll see Peter Mendacious is already on manoeuvres, but hey, what’s new??? Months ago i first posted about the “People’s Vote” Remainiacry was mainly a ploy to make Jeremy uncomfortable as they knew, being confrontation averse, he would get himself into a self defeating muddle.
This very day Mendacious wrote in the FT that He now realises that failing to respect the Brexit vote means etc etc etc all the obvious as predicted here by Skwawkbox, jpenney, i think toffee too etc. Presenters who banged on constantly about remain and that Jeremy was the cause of the election defeat, now admit it was Brexit.
One has even admitted live that even while banging on about People’s Vote, they felt it was wrong!!! I kid you not!!! Truth is stranger than fiction. This truth not strange though, exactly as you sense, Keith is just dispensable fodder for the 1%. Keith is desperate yes but again give Jack his jacket, Mendacious is astute. If as a newbie, the unease of Headroom at PMQs was palpable, Mendacious would have detected it the night before… no pun intended.
PLUS Johnson was expected to be lazy. But doubt this scale of corruption was expected and the tragic handling of Covid-19 being of epic proportions YET Headroom is struggling. Even a silent invisible leader would be performing stratospherically better. Methinks… not heard anything YET in this leaky world BUT won’t b surprised if just as with Brown, Mendacious has stitched & sewn up the v expensively stitched and sewn up Headroom… sewn up to the Max 🌹🌹🌹
Just out of interest, what medication are you taking signpost?
The Achilles heel of the Corbyn movement was that the majority of it’s supporters supported EU membership. This contrasts to the more solidly left wing and socialist Bennite movement in the early 80s.
Pehaps it’s you Alan who has been overdoing the mogodon. That medication is now compulsory for LP membership. Careful with the usage.
Unfortunately, Paul, the Right-dominated structures of the Labour Party, from the composition of the Headquarters staff – to the Regional Office staff, to the current NEC, to the PLP, to the majority of local councillors, means that Starmer is actually ver, very, secure from removal . There will be no mass PLP resignations, and votes of ‘No Confidence’ in the PLP, unlike 2016 when Jeremy was Leader. The totally supine ‘Socialist Campaign Group’ of supposed Leftie MPs won’t raise a cheep ! The Right Wing trade union Leaders, the returning billionaire funders, and the entire MSM too, are all totally behind the now clear ‘Starmer/Blair/Mandelson Agenda’- – which is to purge the membership of as many of its ‘Corbynista Leftish’ members as possible , and as many PLP lefties too (if they ever deign to say anything ‘naughty’). The Right and its backers hope that by the expected next 2024 General Election , Labour will be rid of its tiresome internal democracy – entirely top-down run, shorn of its troublesome Left members, and pretty much indistiguishable from the Democrats in the USA in its total acceptance of neoliberalism, NATO, privatisation, Nukes, etc.
Such a party will have all the electoral appeal of a polished turd to the mass of poorer working class Labour and ex-Labour voters increasingly crushed by the hyper Austerity to come. But the arrogant, hubristic, triumphant, Labour Right, really thinks warmed-over Blairism is a sure-fire future Election winner ! The Guardian ,Independent, and New Statesman, CERTAINLY believes this crap as well !
We have been here before with Right Wing Labour Leaders being hugely unpopular with the mass membership, eg, Tony Blair over supporting US imperialism on Iraq, and in the late 1950’s/early 60’s, Hugh Gaitskell on ignoring clear Conference motions to Ban the Bomb – but they sailed on as Leaders regardless, and only premature death (Gaitskell) and internal power struggle squabbles on the Right, (Blair) got rid of them .
The only potential threat to Starmer is from that bloc of Left-led trades unions, like UNITE, the Bakers Union, etc. But I think the Starmerites would be happy to see them fuck off too (as Blair also planned towards the end of his leadership) – replacing their funding with billionaire cash. Unfortunately it is unlikely even UNITE will break with Labour – although some smaller unions may disaffiliate. IF a bloc of trades unions would leave and fund a new Left Party the entire UK political landscape would be transformed, However , nothing like that has ever happened before in Labour’s often outrageously reactionary, pro imperialist, strike-breaking, history ! The coming global covid19 profit crash-caused economic crisis MIGHT change that though.
jpenney – “IF a bloc of trades unions would leave and fund a new Left Party the entire UK political landscape would be transformed,”
But would union members actively support this, or will the union leaders be counting on the lamentable political apathy of most union members.
Correct. That’s why the Party must be restructured. Power must lie at the grassroots. There needs to be a federal structure which keeps branches autonomous. A hierarchy of function must replace a hierarchy of power. Power must be in the hands of the members and must not be passed upwards. As for the bureaucracy, it ha to be dismantled and replaced by an administration which has no power of decision, merely of implementation. And here too there needs to be a federal structure. The principle needs to be power to the people. Power to the members. Never pass power to leaders or bureaucrats. Never.
If I had £5 million quid in the bank, a new party would be easy. There are at least 100,000 people who would sign up. But it needs money. Such is capitalism. The unions have the funds but they are bound to Labour by hoops of steel. How else can we get the money? 100,000 folk putting in £20 each? But people won’t join what doesn’t exist. That’s the conundrum. You need the money to get the members to get the funds. I think only the unions can do it, but maybe we can find another way if we get our heads together.
The PLP and NEC will just ignore the membership, as they did under Blair. It’s like a party within a party!
ps and SOD those who prefer to continue keeping quiet, for fear of “being attacked”. PATHETIC cowards🚨🚨🚨
oh for Gods sake change the record
Tiresome little wannabe rabble-rouser, isn’t he?
Maybe he thinks that’s what it takes to get elected to office – dog help the Left if shouty buffoons like him gain ground.
What we need are people who can marshall our arguments and express our anger lucidly.
Rage good, ranting bad.
I wouldn’t mind if he was genuine but he’s not
He’s like someone who’s read a book on self-improvement, leadership, modern management or some such bollocks and swallowed it hook, line and sinker – and now he’s trying to pass off his borrowed, vapid platitudes here as insight.
Thousands of words and every one wasted.
Well THAT is certainly something YOU don’t do signpost – ie keep quiet!
But YES, signpost is right, speak out and get suspended or expelled from the party!
The more the merrier, eh signpost!
Allan, I hardly even skim garrulous dross like windbag’s – more like skip past it.
I’m all in favour of speaking out ‘though the heavens fall’ but to be effective it must be spoken convincingly – in force and anger, not in wild-eyed rambling rants.
Jimmy Reid, Arthur Scargill, George Galloway – these were forceful, angry men but always in command of their facts and always on point.
Bullshitters are not what the left needs.
It’s such a pity that CLP Exec;s have to show extreme levels of courage to simply accept motions, in jeopardy of suspension.
That “courage” is what is needed and it is NOT “extreme levels of courage”. That would be what Mandela showed PLUS CHILDREN in South Africa, Pankhurst, Parks, the Palestinians AGAIN INCLUDING CHILDREN, Simon Bolivar, Castro … all over the world many demonstrate “extreme levels of courage”. We must respect them more. AND respect ourselves.
This very day someone who seemed sound shattered that impression in one swoop. They displayed the exact opposite of these CLPs. Thank goodness the CLPs were able to triumph over that very type who prefer displacement whining instead of trying to improve🌹🌹🌹
Dave, I have no idea as to how many parties, movements or organisations Jock the hat, rules. He can’t complain about lack of media exposure. He does though. We know that he helped ex president Mandela to escape or something but the loyalty of some people towards him is astonishing. Where does the man live. Are there many machats? I dunno. Awesome individual. Cheers.
ps ps REGURGITATING noises about things at a distance and more out of our control, while blindly ignoring basic PRACTICAL steps to control and hopefully drive out the parasites OR at least make it uncomfortable for them🚨🚨🚨
Well done these DYNAMIC CLPS , STANDING up to Starmer and Evans rather than hiding and trying to silence those who want change🌹🌹🌹
They won’t ‘go’. They’re there to make sure the LP never gets into power with a socialist mandate and programme, no matter what the membership vote for. It’s why they tear up the rule-book when it no longer works for them. It’s the same reason that they despise democracy, despite their reassuring smiling faces.
They’d close down the whole LP rather than be in a minority. Bessie Braddock and her husband did it in the 50’s in Lpool I believe. The membership didn’t want high rise flats as they’re not suitable for raising young families. We got the flats, and a statue of Bessie. She can be viewed in Liverpool, along with the statues of slave merchants and murderers waving the butchers apron.
We have descended from a situation in which every member of the Party assented to Clause IV Section of the Constitution- in effect and in general terms agreeing to work for socialism- to a state in which the leader of the party has publicly proclaimed his allegiance to the capitalist and imperialist Trilateral Commission.
The fact that this man was actually elected speaks volumes of the consequences of a party in which political education was left up to The Guardian and the BBC
Bevin
We had no choice, I didn’t vote because they all signed up to BoD demands
Dont believe in the least worst
Name the next Socialist leader of the Labour party
Good news is my dog could challenge and defeat Temporary Embarrassment
But then I would expect him to hand over to the next generation
James Asser, the LGBT campaigner who represents socialist societies on Labour’s NEC has been elected Chair of the Equalities Committee.
This will give JA a seat on the NEC Officers’ Group and will further consolidate Keir Starmer’s support within this key group.
HEAVEN HELP US!!! Dreadful!!!
What a struggle we face… Not u of course SH. But i hope my lot learn from you. You are up and defending the often indefensible.
My lot, with virtue and correctness in our side, think the basics are beneath them. That’s why one is never sure who is a “Spy Cop” and who is not. BUT , i’v been thinking, you do get normal members of the public who work against their interests due to false consciousness (concept attributed to Marx though i think it predates him) someone is welcome AS EVER to put me right.
BUT , many more work against their interests due to genuinely feeling afraid. Either by nature or nurture, their habit is to avoid what the see as “confrontation”. They are desperate for what i describe as a superficial peace / calm / don’t make a fuss for fear of making matters worse. So they never try. All their energy is focused on licking their wounds and hoping not to be bashed about.
The battered wife syndrome. Understandable yes. Sad thing is those counter productive habits re not due to stupidity. It is the paralysis of fear. Never stepping back to look at the situation combined with the fact that we are creatures of habit.
Eg i’ve not been in this environment long enough so my frank style may be quite a shock. BUT straight forward incisive analysis is vital in all areas of life where one cannot afford to repeat the SAME errors. Make errors DEFINITELY.
We make errors from doing things, trying new things, new methods. The problem is making the same errors and refusing to learn. Also failing to realise that in an effective multidisciplinary team, talents, abilities, knowledge are combined to achieve aims.
If every one sweeps the floor or one corner only, then obviously the rest remains unswept. We don’t refuse an operation because the surgeon has not said what you like hearing. Who goes from one opinion to the next in search of someone who says – oh you are so nice, that is a nice tumour, leave it as it is. BTW could you write about the dreadful state of cancer care in Bhutan? Horrible care over there.📛📛📛
If youu new then welcome to the struggle. Oh, by the way, it never ends. Regards.
Dont forget class action based on internal report, all of this Bollocks feeds into that case, they think they are above the law, typical Tories
Temporary Embarrassment and his side kick are literally hanging themselves
Where is Forde report
I had to keep on digging about the young keir Starmer after finding out about an unaffiliated young socialists he set up as a very young man in Oxted Surrey and operated completely independent from the Labour party to dig dirt on Militant tendency and all true socialists.IT would seem that the solution to why Starmer is the way he is was right in front of my nose in my former backyard of Reigate constituency were I was a councillor.I will now continue to dig out the knight and have enlisted my mate in the States to track down this rogue operater Sir keir Rodney Starmer and expose him for the one man band fanatic he is..Somthing stinks in the Labour party and its not just crooked councillors in Liverpool or parliament,but a concerted planned attack on the very existence of the Labour party by the enemy within.a stooge and a plant the knight from Surrey.
Joseph – In 1986 Keir, a man full of surprises and hidden depths, was a member of the “editorial collective” which founded a radical left-wing journal called Socialist Alternatives. read carefully so you don’t miss the surprises
The magazine was sharply critical of the Labour party under Neil Kinnock,’ attacking the “Labour right’s hopeless neo-Keynesian economic programme” and called for a “radical alternative”. In editorials, the magazine called for a “radical extension of common ownership over wealth and power”. In one, it argued that “prisoners should have much greater control over the conditions of their own imprisonment”.
Starmer, who contributed articles, interviews and book reviews, used the platform to rail against “the authoritarian onslaught of Thatcherism”. In one column he called for a “nationwide campaign of struggles” to reduce the European working week to 35 hours, echoed in Corbyn’s 2019 election pledge to push for a 32-hour working week.
In another, writing about the dispute between print workers and Rupert Murdoch’s News International in Wapping, where he had attended the picket lines, he questioned the police’s role. He denounced “‘paramilitary’ policing methods” and wrote: “This leads to the question of the role the police should play, if any, in civil society. Who are they protecting and from what?”
Keir criticised the way trade union leaders had responded to Thatcher, saying the TUC and Labour party were too acquiescent and not seen the lessons of the miners’ strike in terms of conflict. He was adamant that the Labour party needed to embrace the burgeoning social movements of the time, including those pushing for women’s equality and green policies.
The short-lived journal, which was first published in the summer of 1986, was inspired by the views of a Greek communist called Michael Raptis, who went by the name Pablo
Here’s an article that you should also read in full
https://www.thesocialreview.co.uk/2020/05/28/starmers-socialist-alternatives/
Musing on the future of the Labour Party in 1986, one twenty-four-year-old activist denounced centrism, insisting that the future lay with the grassroots Left. “Instead of heading towards an SDP Mark II”, he wrote, “we would be better to go forward to re-build and develop the party as an instrument of socialism, capable of integrating into its project the emergence of the new social movements of the last twenty years”. That activist was a young Keir Starmer, and he was writing for a journal called Socialist Alternatives.
No interest whatever in your link – at 58 he’s not the socialist he may once have been at 24, and that’s if the piece is all you imply it is.
Even if he started out as a socialist he was as comprehensively corrupted by the parasite Blair as the rest of you and your kind.
The kind who believe the young are socialists because their political minds aren’t fully developed – when the truth is you fuckers who sold out are just lie to yourselves for a comfortable life.
̷a̷r̷e̷
David – …and yet despite your loud protestations of no interest here you are giving me your opinion on something you steadfastly refuse to read because you have no interest in it. Have you any idea how ridiculous that sounds. What’s worrying you, are you scared that the ‘purity’ of your thoughts might get challenged.
Whether you choose to read it or not is entirely up to you but to take the trouble to express your opinion on it from a proud position of ignorance is just bizarre.
I was expressing my opinion of Starmer and of you and your fellow parasites – not what you linked to – because I know if you’ve linked to it it’ll only irritate me.
“The magazine was sharply critical of the Labour party under Neil Kinnock,’ attacking the “Labour right’s hopeless neo-Keynesian economic programme.”
This was in 1986, the year Thatcher & Reagan ditched Keynes for Friedman/Hayek and kicked off neoliberalism with the Big Bang.
If he was opposed to Keynes then, whose theory was the dickhead lobbying for but Hayek’s, and which does he believe now?
Has he urged any other novel and interesting socialist economic ideas lately? Like redistribution or nationalisation? Perhaps some of the genuinely socialist measures from either of the two manifestos were his work?
How come, if he’s really a friend of socialism, doesn’t he offer Skwawkbox a guest article so he can explain to us all why we’ve misunderstood him so dreadfully?
Holding my breath here, tell him to hurry up.
Wjhat;s the point of showing us that tripe, wee steven? Ricky Tomlinson was once a member of the national front…
And strangely enough, for all my memories of ‘Boyd from the blackstuff’ the one that sticks out most to me is when arld geroge is dying in hospital, and his wife is speaking to the doctor (played by Tomlinson) -who, if memory serves – says he grew up in the same area in S.Liverpool (Dingle) where George is from, and goes on to say he used to be a labour member but he’s joined the (Then newly-formed) SDP. George Malone’s missus then berates him for turning on his class.
That, more than anything, stuck in my pre-teenage mind, and has never left me since.
Stammer was NEVER working class, he doesn’t get the working class, and NEVER WILL.
For those getting excited that this COULd be the end of stammer – Don’t get excited. Getting shot of him isn’t even a tenth of the battle. The whole kit & caboodle of the champagne socialist faction need removing. They are penecillin-resitsant bacteria; a new more potent antibiotic is need to rid the body of their disease – else another, newly formed, disease-free body is required to be totally free of them.
BOYS from the blackstuff…Boyd??!! Tsk!
I was in the LPYS in the seventies early eighties. There were a number of handy little “socialist” groups that career minded youth could join instead of Militant who would have put their commitment to socialism to the test.
He’s since been on a ‘deradicalisation’ program provided by MI5.
Send a copy to Julian.
Why is it sycophantic to post a link to an article about Keir’s early involvement in the Labour Party. People are more than capable of reading it for themselves and making there own mind up. What are you afraid of.
The above was intended as a response to Toffee’s comment below at 10:00am
SteveH05/12/2020 AT 4:40 AM
David – …and yet despite your loud protestations of no interest here you are giving me your opinion on something you steadfastly refuse to read because you have no interest in it.
And yet, despite your loud protestations about stammer’s manifest inefficacy, you point-blank refuse to accept that you support an unquestionably tory, politician who openly brags about supporting tory policies and even sacks MPs for voting against tory bills pernitting murder torture and rape.
In fact, we’re yet to see an open admission that you cannot – and have not – provided one single instance when stammer has opposed tory legislation since shithousing his way into the leadership.
SteveH05/12/2020 AT 2:03 AM
Have you ANY idea just how sycophantic, fickle and idiotic your tripe is?
Try this fella for a clue…
https://youtu.be/Fvjk47UORFs?t=59
Toffee – What is sycophantic about posting an article about Keir’s early political life. The article also raises some really interesting points. Why are you so desperate to distract people from reading about what Starmer was up to decades ago?
What are you afraid of?
The young Keir Starmer.
As Starmer put it: “Just as there must be a pluralist socialism in today’s world, there must be a pluralist Labour Party if it is to play any part in the transition to socialism. This means it must accommodate different trends, tendencies and ideas provided only that they are united around the socialist programme of the party”..
https://www.thesocialreview.co.uk/2020/05/28/starmers-socialist-alternatives/
You think you’re NOT a crawling, arselicking sycophant to a shithouse that has shat on just about every single one of the principles he claims he held/holds dear? Lad, it’s took him less than 6 months to shit on his ten promises.
Less than SIX MONTHS. Who in their nright mind would trust someone who cant even keep up a pretence for that long, for fuck’s sake?
stammer was NEVER a socialist; and when he’s pretended to be one, everyone can see through his not-so hidden agenda for his self-promotion. You know it every bit as well as everyone else; yet you push the agenda because you’re a knobhead. That’s why you’re the object of fidparagement and acrimony on just about every site you visit.
Afraid? Normally I’d be close to pissing meself with laughter, but you’re actually serious, aren’t you?
Seriously, have a word with yerself, you gullible imbecile.
*object of disparagement
From your quote: This means it must accommodate different trends, tendencies and ideas provided only that they are united around the socialist programme of the party”.
stammerism never was, and never will be. one of those ‘trends, tendencies or ideas’.
stammer has NEVER been a socialist. stammerism is NOT socialism. Stammerism is best exampled by providing ZERO opposition to conservatism.
If I’m wrong, then you can either give us an example of how so, or explain why you’re not a toerag sympathiser by way of your stammerism advocacy
Your choice..
And as usual you’ve done the shithouse shuffle when asked to provide detail of any supposed opposition stammer’s meant to have shown.
And you wonder why you’re almost universally despised?
Good for the CLP’s and then what? Passing worthless motions the same as walking out of one meeting is gesture politics and nothing else. If you still pay your subscriptions and allow these new Labour 2.0 cultists to do this rubbish you’re condoning it.
Yes, you might wag your finger but now is the time to decide are you going to allow this to happen in your name and you stay a member. Or are you going to say nope not in my name and quit. Staying silent and hoping for change isn’t going to achieve anything.
Oh and the Next CLP on from Eastbourne are to scared to even have ANY clp meetings and I can bet will never sign off on any no confidence motions as most are fellow cultists. I put up with years of their views they don’t believe in socialism and I won’t support a party that has no morels, won’t obey the rules of the party and thinks it’s fine to ban free speech and try and use racism to label anyone that does not conform…
Exactly like no-confidence motions, when they have stop obeying the rules!
disabledgrandad – The question you need to ask yourself before you quit is ‘Will anyone listen?’ once you’ve left.
I believe that until we replace FPTP with PR any new ‘socialist’ party will be doomed to failure.