The rewriting of history continues on all kinds of fronts as various figures try to avoid blame for the disastrous impact on the last general election of of Labour’s change of position on Brexit.
The Labour right has already completed its own shameless version of events in which the loss of 51 leave-voting towns had nothing to do with the push by Keir Starmer and others for another referendum – including a 2018 conference speech in which he disregarded what had been agreed with the leadership to say Labour had put a remain option on the table.
And the weathervanes of the left are trying to distance themselves from their own responsibility for joining forces with the Labour right on the issue of Brexit and contributing to the disaster:
Today Guardian columnist Owen Jones has published an article in which he says that the determination of ‘hard remainers’ to stop Brexit altogether has resulted in the hardest of Tory Brexits – and he’s absolutely right.
But last year, Jones was one of the very people claiming that the only way forward was a so-called ‘people’s vote’ (Brexit votes were also cast by people, regarded by centrists with contempt):
Meanwhile, the working-class left continues to be dismissed as ‘cranks’ for warning that showing contempt for the Brexit votes of working-class communities would cause an electoral disaster.
Of course, such analysis almost never reaches the so-called ‘MSM’, who are more than happy to enable narratives that put the blame on Labour’s socialist policies despite the obvious fact that the policies were more or less unchanged from the ‘Corbyn surge’ of 2017, or to promote versions of reality that pretend the real working-class left wasn’t fully aware and highly vocal about the wilful blindness of ‘hard remainers’ and those who pretended to be hard remainers in order to damage the Labour left in and even earlier – and the ‘hardest of Tory Brexits’ it would lead to.
That willingness to ignore the facts doesn’t change them, though.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support 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 to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Jeremy won OVER 64% votes despite Keith Starmer’s dreadful deceit. Jeremy WON nearly THIRTY FIVE THOUSAND VOTES, despite four years of NASTY non-stop treacherous plotting by Starmer Hodge Campbellend Ashworth Streeting et al to MAKE LABOUR LOSE.
Jeremy STILL retained his seat despite not defending himself. What did Twatson achieve??? He ran away!!! How many votes did Mandelson, Rudd, Bliar, + other Arsetair Campbellend’s super moneyed CUKS – People’s Vote SHAMBLES receive???
SH’s “MANDY” is now saying Labour should vote for ANY deal wether good or bad. SteveH’s “MANDY” is now admitting that the argument is done. New readers to Skwawkbox.org should read posts from 2016 to date. New readers should keep reading Skwawkbox.org to be AHEAD of the curve. Be signposts not weather veins🌹🌹🌹
ps Owen, you admitted your errors at the Politics Festival. You admitted how gracious Jeremy was at accepting your apology for your lamentable FAILING to support him. You should apologise again‼️
Admit it and apologise NOW for joining in with the utterly RIDICULOUS fervour at INSULTING democracy. We cannot respect democracy by doing as you did ie try to overturn the opinion of the electorate before it was even implemented.
The Virus killing Labour is the scorn too many have for working people, in REAL JOBS. That virus could be cured partly by digesting Skwawkbox.org DAILY to immunise yourself against that sickness rampant amongst the metropolitan bubble. It would help too Owen if you get out of that bubble. Get out now🌹🌹🌹
Signpost, I agree with much of what you say but democracy cannot be overturned with democracy. As long as a vote is held fairly, the only people who could overturn the Brexit vote are the people themselves if it’s what they wished.
It is certainly not antidemocratic to call for a confirmation of a previous vote if conditions have changed and/or if people believe they have been lied to.
Should we have a “confirmation” vote re Starmer? Trump? Biden? Johnson?
Politicians lying is not new. If you believe you saw through lies to make your decision, then why believe others who came to a different conclusion did not see through lies❔🌹🌹🌹
Signpost, we DO have confirmation votes on all those issues you mentioned, they’re called elections.
Brexit was such an important issue with no chance for many years to overturn it that it was vital people were 100% sure that they had based their choice on all the salient factors. Over time, it became evident to many that this was not the case, which was why they should have been given a chance to confirm their vote if they wished.
Elections four or five years AFTER the elected get an opportunity to carry out at least some of their manifesto. We don’t spend millions dragging the government throughout the courts in every desperate attempt to frustrate the choices of others. Then to add insult to injury, accuse them of racism, stupidity, unable to see through lies etc etc etc.
Plus i kept the public funded literature which promised that it was a once in a generation opportunity etc and what ever you decide we will implement it.
No one protested about that before people made their choice, expecting it to be honoured. 🌹🌹🌹
ps i was indifferent before Tory Cameron granted the ref to end the long running Tory internal fight about EU membership. After reading the history of the progressive tighter entanglement in the capitalist enterprise, we see that at each stage it was a Tory PM who increased the squeeze of the super EU boa constrictor.
It was a rare Labour PM Atlee who until his death, maintained his aversion to the EU. His predictions inl the decimation of British industry, were proved correct. Possibly that is why Jeremy and Tony Benn kept that view.
No idea if Atlee predicted what made me take a position leave or remain. Initially it was because Jeremy and Tony have almost always been correct, so good enough for them? + research and reflection = Good enough for me.
The firm clincher now for me is, passionate arguments to deny and overturn the vote. To me, the arguments are totally unconvincing. They also reveal a dearth of confidence. As worrying, the disturbing behaviour of UK politicians conspiring with foreign powers agains this country. I expect that behaviour from the warmonger Blair, Starmer its shadow, Kate Bingham, Twatson, et al and of course the over promoted DIY ambassador to occupied Palestine – Pritti Patel, who had at least fourteen unauthorised meetings with agents or operators of a foreign occupying power. We must be infinitely better than that🌹🌹🌹
Signpost
to hear Mandelson on Radio 4s PM last week saying the party should vote to support any old crap of a deal Johnson brings back.
For many it proved what the left knew, but were ridiculed and accused of being paranoid that Starmer’s blatant opportunistic change from Labour are a Remain party to Labour are now a Brexit party. Supported by Mandelson and Blair exposed the fact it was all about Corbyn and the left
BackofBeyond, Mandelson was indulged at length on LBC too. I missed the lengthy bit. Only heard extracts around 17:07 hrs. But something which never reads my long posts … scrolls past😂 but could point out one last week saying what Mandelson wrote in the FT. Many months ago, also posted that Keith would dump the Remain position, just aft he schemed his way to turf Jeremy out of the leadership.
On Skwawkbox.org AHEAD of the curve ALWAYS
🌹🌹🌹
Spot on Back of Beyond! Read posts incl mine from 2019 October ish … a few who “never read them” could give u the exact dates and times… to the minute 😂
… weathervane … apologies
JT they were given less than 2 years before they asked for a confirmation vote. Elections are every 5 years. Tell me how often should we have a new vote and who should get to call it and for what reason? There was always (and still is) an opportunity to have another vote once the first vote had been fulfilled (as with every single election in the UK – you get to vote again only after the original vote was fulfilled)
Also JT I’d wager that the overwhelming majority of labour members who voted Starmer (if not all except the PLP and those close to him) did not expect him to behave as he has, nor did they expect him to go back on his election pledge to unite the party. If you can defend a Brexit confirmatory vote as a matter of principle then you must support a new labour leadership contest vote even more. (we had a much better idea of the numbers who still wanted to leave becuse of the European elections which barely gets mentioned. Farage WON by a landslide!)
M, what was being proposed was a confirmatory vote on whatever ‘oven ready’ deal the Tories came up with, with the option to Remain.
On Starmer, I agree but based upon his previous record, I was one who DID know what he would be like. I would not have voted for him or any of the others.
Signpost, As we have seen on many occasions, we do not always have to wait five years between elections.
The ‘others’ to whom you refer could equally have wished to change their mind but they we’re not given the chance.
The only people I have accused of racism are those such as UKIP who used the racist argument to convince others to vote against the EU. Brexiteers often use the ‘we feel insulted’ remark against Remainers when it is suggested to them that racism played a part in the result. I was a canvasser at the time for Labour and I know without a shadow of a doubt that racism had a big effect.
You may well have your own perfectly valid reasons for wanting to leave and I respect that. However, there are many who learnt after the vote and are still learning, that they were lied to, it would not have been anti democratic to give them and everyone else the opportunity to confirm their vote. Those on either side could stick to their original position if they wished.
If you are saying it’s just hard lines, the original vote should have stood, just because you don’t want the outcome to change, you are flying in the face of democracy.
Jack T – “As we have seen on many occasions, we do not always have to wait five years between elections. “
How about one year then? six mths? one month? Why not weekly? I loathe even the notion of Starmer or the warmonger Blair. Were there calls to rerun elections “to confirm” the votes? Or check if people “changed their minds”?
“Just because you” “want the outcome to change, you are flying in the face of democracy.”
However, i’m glad to get a chance to reiterate: Prioritising – Sequencing – Focus – Here and Now – Ongoing Assessment – Prioritising – Sequencing – Focus – Now and Here ➡️🔁➡️🔁➡️🔁
Signpost I’m not sure if you are being deliberately evasive or just being mischievous. My point was, if circumstances dictate, elections can be held reasonably quickly, which is not the case with Brexit.
I readily admit, because Brexit is going to very badly affect Britain, which is putting it mildly, I did want the outcome to change if there was another vote but if everyone had had their chance to confirm their original choice and the result was the same, I would have been disappointed but would have accepted it.
No matter how it is spun by the Brextremists, who don’t forget said if the result was close and went against them they would contest it, a confirmatory vote was perfectly reasonable and democratic and because Labour were a Remain Party, apart from some on the right and a few on the left, it was the majority position of Labour members.
If Owen Jones had read Skwawkbox.org he would have said what he is only now saying
🌹🌹🌹
Owen you would have realised the obvious posted on Skwawkbox.org YEARS AGO🌹🌹🌹
I’m as sure about Owen Jones as I was about Angela Raynor & look what happened with her.
Spot on BoxOfSkwawk. i thought highly of Raynor initially, until the dodgy “makeover”. She became as suspect as the overdone caked on face mask. Suspicions have now been proved… even worse than suspected. Shameful⚠️⚠️⚠️
FACTS: The 1% have accumulated even more of the world’s wealth, ALL under the EU. E.g. TAX AVOIDANCE by Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, Google etc. Then we have Blair Mandelson PFI, rampant state assets selloff, EVERYTHING outsourced, V ADVANCED NHS privatisation BY STEALTH, and STILL people like Owen helped push the rejection of the Referendum vote as if the EU is their be all and end all. Out of touch attitude on steroids⚠️⚠️⚠️
This has all the makings of another glorious Lost Cause, like the US Confederacy: a glorious world that might have been if the UK had stayed in the EU.
The real question now, is what will the Blairites put at the centre of their policy when the EU has been waved farewell? For years they have avoided the hard questions, the real questions, by deferring them to Brussels, to the EU and NATO. The UK’s policy has been to go along with its allies, on other words sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes sulking, to follow orders from above. An ‘above’ which doesn’t care about the working class and cannot conceive of anything that will amount to real change. “Reform” has come to mean privatisation and letting wealth have its way.
All Starmer, and Jones for that matter, can possibly offer is-like Joe Biden- more of the inevitable same (TINA) but offered up by a cast which carefully manages to convey the illusion that its members are the people because they look like them.
And the EU? It’s dead already.
Starmer & Evans. Starmer has been allowed to disgrace Labour and country to please the 1%. The EU has indeed been used as an excuse for domestic problems caused by the Tories including Blair.⚠️⚠️⚠️
Well, actually, there is no contradiction at in Owen Jones’s position. He pointed outlast yea that the hardliners in te Tory party had ceased to look for any kind of exit consenual to both the UK and the U, and that given this we needed to fight – rightly – for a second referendum Boris won the day by ‘force majuere’ in the commons and the election result outcome, But nature (as it abhors a vacuum) stays in place and now as the clock is ticking to the final end, we are where we are – which anyone could have forseen, except the Tory Brexiteeers and their deuded camp followers in Labour,
He works at the Guardian, expect very little.
‘works’?
Is that in the same way that the royals ‘work’?
Dave, truly there are none so blind as those that do not know who the enemy is. We forget the class war at our peril. Look at the standard of person who waves proudly the skull and bones. Traitors, all enriching themselves and gorging on the profits creates by the working class. Even worse when its their own class, Step forwards , Mr P. Im a marxist Mason.
Jones – another phoney. Is he the victim again?
Signpost not windchimes is about right: It’s all in your moniker.
One thing you’re not right about is offering Jones another chance: he should get a proper job, perhaps selling flip-flops to German tourists on Spanish beaches once the virus has died down, then in the evenings cleaning up the vomit left on the Costa del Sol by beer-swilling Brits. Sensible voices on Skwawkbox and in the Morning Star have been saying the bleedin’ obvious for years while the likes of Jones, Mason etc. and latterly McDonnell and Abbott pulled the wax from their ears, untied themselves from the mast and allowed the siren voices of Campbell, Blair, Mandelson and the 5th columnist Starmer to draw them into the worst shipwreck the British left has ever suffered. In criminal law it’s known as “aiding and abetting.”
Harry Enfield’s righteous brother would have taken Jones aside, given him a good slap and said: “Hey you, STFU, nobody gives a monkey’s toss what you’ve got to say.”
The fact that those around Corbyn who could be trusted have now been utterly silenced whilst wankers like Jones continue to bleat in shit-rags like the Guardian tells you all you need to know about who still has the bullhorn. It might be an inconvenient truth for Skwawky but Corbyn chose to surround himself with Stalinists (Milne, Murray, Clark, Howell etc), those who were chiefly responsible for the manifesto/great showing in 2017 but were subsequently attacked and undermined by McDonnell and the others who had lost their political compass and facilitated the fatal embrace with Starmer and the PV wallahs.
I had two Polish comrades Janka and Roman, sadly now passed away, both survivors of Nazi concentration camps, who left Poland in the late 50s in protest at the revisionism of Gomulka. They ended in their days in a little village in Devon where they would regularly visit the war memorial to place flowers in memory of uncle Joe, who had saved their lives when the Red Army liberated the camps in Poland. One day, Janka took both my hands and said:”Tovarich, I’m sad to say this but your country needs more shootings.”
Primarily she was talking about bankers and the big bourgeoisie but, knowing her as I did, people like Jones would have also qualified.
If we can learn anything from the last two centuries of class struggle and specifically the last five years in Britain, it should be that if you have the class enemy on the ropes, or even if you’ve caught them off guard with a surprise blow, press the advantage home and show no mercy.
And next time you jump to condemn the USSR and other working class people who have tried to build socialist societies before us, consider how the enemy not only has guns & truncheons, money, TV and newspapers but may also have infiltrated your head – something they did to Jones the Lickspittle long ago.
I’d not call Steve Howell a Stalinist, or for that matter a Marxist, and I’ve dealt with Steve and his business on a few occasions – turns out he was a decent journalist and quite politically nuanced compared to many within the LP.
Indeed, it was Howell who began warning as soon a Starmer starting taking the spotlight that if the LP was seen as pro-EU and anti-Brexit vote it would be obliterated at the ballot box in its Red wall constituencies, include Fortress South Wales – the 2019 election result proved Mr Howell right, just a shame so may idiots did not wish to listen, whilst Starmer and his Rightist cohorts used FBPE and the People’s Vote crap to destroy Corbyn – that Abbott and McDonnell were involved in this crap is wholly unforgivable.
superb labrebisgalloise🥇🥇🥇 i stand corrected. secret shh… even i’m too forgiving. achilles heel on “the left”. plus, jones has a pleasant manner … in person. i’d meant to lay into him at the politics festival but was fighting off a rare cold. that was aft the 2017 election. hoped he would reform but as ever the guardian bubble as the rest of the msm corrupts possibly permanently⚠️⚠️⚠️
He’ll need a safe space. I’ll stick my tongue out at him from my wheelchair. That should get Mr J another Victoria Cross. Good grief, I’m getting older and meaner. Thought That I was meant to drift to the right. No chance. Pip Pip.
labrebisgalloise – “If we can learn anything from the last two centuries of class struggle and specifically the last five years in Britain, it should be that if you have the class enemy on the ropes, or even if you’ve caught them off guard with a surprise blow, press the advantage home and show no mercy.” SPOT ON❌❌❌
labrebisgalloise – “undermined by McDonnell and the others who had lost their political compass and facilitated the fatal embrace with Starmer and the PV wallahs.” i agree with that too.
ps puzzled by your last paragraph. i’v certainly never condemned the ussr and other working class people … etc. ps i don’t even have a tv 🚨🚨🚨
Good post. The Euros have nearly finished their vile project. There are many on Swawky know who I mean. All the best .
You must win the prize for naive idiot of the month in your praise for Joe Stalin and the USSR, lets not forget he (Stalin) was an ally of Hitler until the USSR was invaded, his brutality and crackpot schemes killed millions in the camps and starved more millions to death in Russia, Ukraine and other republics. Get real. Listening to old romantics in their dotage talking shite is hardly a basis for pragmatic policy making.
Simple really,we voted leave,but were ignored along with millions,.Confirmatory vote?laughable ibut for the damage it did in allowing saboteurs from within use it to destroy the socialist revival and the possibility of a socialist PM Lessons learned…None….Labour’s party…gone!
People all over the world, cannot believe the base antidemocratic machinations and extraordinary deceitful Evans and Starmer. But at least Evans is crassly proud being a one percent tool… much like Jessica Phillips MP boasting that she would “knife Jeremy in the front. Starmer on the other hand, is a different matter. Answers please; what matter is Starmer? Looks like … Sounds like … Moves like … lies like… Then it is … ❓❓❓
UK moved closer to the EU in stages over many years after many votes in parliament and many GE’s, but ‘left’ after one referendum with a tiny majority. That’s inarguable.
Will the UK ever again take such a giant leap into the unknown on such a stupidly slim majority? Not with any half-competent government in office.
Brexit was a bad decision based on bad information, nevertheless I’ve argued that reversing a democratic decision before implementation should require a substantially bigger majority – such as the 60/40 that should have been specified for the original referendum.
The “How Very Dare You” attitude of leavers is nonsensical when they’d have been perfectly free to vote the same way again – plainly they knew they’d won on a fluke and would lose next time.
That’s an undemocratic attitude, but not as undemocratic as a second vote that reversed the first by another simple majority.
You don’t fix one bad decision with another.
As for Jones, he’s just a windvane. And a lousy writer.
I don’t get it. Why is it ok to disenfranchise 40% of the public but not 48%. I don’t understand where this arbitrary 60/40 comes from? after all 70/30 would disenfranchise even less people who lost. Lots of people loose in democracies, they loose elections all the time with such narrow margins there isnt even a winner. Just hung coalitions. PR would be best. Lets vote against EU policies we dont like and keep the ones we do. But of course the EU doesnt want that does it. As we saw with Greece.
If EU members got to keep the policies they liked and junk the ones they didn’t, the EU would cease to exist and the possibility of war in Europe would grow.
Again.
Scotland will soon be leaving the UK, and it might be that NI and Wales will leave too.
Then London and the home counties will begin to feel that the rest of England is dragging it down and it’ll demand its own independence.
It’ll get it too, because that’s where the political power is, and where the unearned wealth is ‘created’.
Enjoy yourselves dodging between wind farms, solar farms and giant O2-sized greenhouses in the North when London decides to “invest” there to keep all those nasty, noisy, unsightly monstrosities out of lovely, leafy Surrey.
I live in the North too but I’ll be gone before they block my boat in with a barrage across the estuary.
Later on the North will struggle to compete in global markets as the international grid grows bigger and more efficient.
The North may turn out to be better off alone in the world as you leavers hope, or hanging on to US coat tails – but frankly, I doubt it.
Owen is a joke and only interested in getting his bum on studio seats. The fact that he’s their go-to guy for the ‘token’ leftie says all you need to know. He’s no comrade of the left.
Every time Owen Jones is invited on Novara Media and the crew get all chummy with him I have to ask myself 2 questions: 1) Has he duped them into thinking he’s on their side or 2) should I cancel my subscription. Everywhere I look this twat is there speaking for the left and yet I rarely agree with him, except when he disagrees with himself. Which I find disagreeable. Like this article notes. He even said he was setting up his own channel to challenge mainstream media, while still keeping his job at the Guardian. Thats like andrew neil setting up GBNews to challenge the spectator.
Why do Novarra have have him on?
Watched Jones interview Clive Lewis recently & he was was acting like a giddy schoolboy with one of his idols on a sleepover.
Every time that oily piece of shit Jones gets on TV and opens his mouth with his unctuous self satisfied smarm you know that thousands of Labour votes are disappearing.
It is far too easy to blame Brexit for losing us the 2019 election. We must also look at the role of the PLP, Southside, the anti Corbyn propaganda of the MSM , the Establishment including the Jewish establishment and the open political interference in the Election by the Chief Rabbi (interference said to be “unprecedented”) alongside the pressure exerted on the leadership by “remainers” of which Keir Starmer was one. We never stood a chance.