English leader’s interference in Scottish affairs will destroy a party already reeling after Starmer’s rejection of new independence referendum
An explosive BBC Scotland interview with Scottish parliamentarian Neil Findlay has dealt a likely death blow to whatever faint chances remained for Scottish Labour in this year’s Holyrood elections after Keir Starmer sided firmly with the English Establishment by rejecting the prospect of a new independence referendum.
Findlay said that he understood that pressure from millionaire donors had led to Keir Starmer’s ‘intervention… to get rid of Richard Leonard‘:
Findlay also accused the Scottish Labour right of ‘continual undermining’ Leonard’s leadership, ‘throwing their toys out of the pram’ and ‘appalling’ behaviour – which confirms that the Scottish Labour right is as bankrupt, blinkered and unprincipled as its English counterpart.
Findlay’s account was corroborated by evidence that acting general secretary David Evans and deputy leader Angela Rayner were also involved in the call with the wealthy donors:
Keir Starmer is well known to have been chasing contributions from former wealthy donors as he tries to fill the hole in Labour’s finances created by the departure of many tens of thousands of left members who have quit in disgust at his rightward lurch and his betrayal of the campaign promises that fooled some on the left into helping elect him, as well as union Unite’s decision to slash its party funding.
The Labour leader also wriggled to avoid declaring most of his wealthy individual donors until the leadership contest was over.
But the ‘intervention’ is going to destroy the Scottish party in the eyes of Scottish voters already appalled at Labour’s cosying up to the Establishment and its rejection of their hopes of freedom from Tory abuse and arrogance.
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So the Israeli government don’t like Leonard as well as Corbyn,now its a case of “He that pays the piper” with UK Labour party.?The Scottish Labour party would be more credible if they jettisoned UK Labour.,and the Labour party need to urgently remove the cuckoo knight in the nest if they are to survive.
I’m afraid it will take more than the removal of Starmer to save the LP whether in Scotland, England or Wales. The PLP is largely unfit for purpose in a genuine left wing party, and the nature of much of the party bureaucracy has been well documented here and elsewhere. What is certain is that Starmer will finish the job of destroying the LP begun under that idiot Kinnock, and carried much further by the Blair gang. Those comrades attempting to save the LP face a monumental task, but I wish them well in their efforts. However, the Left in the LP must begin to realise that the Right is intent on their complete marginalisation/destruction before they can hope to fight back effectively. Any notion of “working with the Right” as I mentioned in another post, must be taken off the table.
The Left must form a a new Party, using the political capital and the hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic people that joined Labour under Corbyn’s leadership. Many are praying for this. The Labour Party has become once again corrupt in that it is controlled by wealthy covert Tories.
Indeed, john thatcher. The really tragic thing about the forcing out of Leonard, is not the sheer , totally predictable nastiness of the utterly corrupt Scottish Labour Right, who’s generations long corrupt cronyism and more recent Tory Lite politics had destroyed Labour in Scotland long before the Corbyn Surge Leadership in 2015, or Leonard’s leadership victory – to the advantage of the fake Left SNP and its bogus ‘Scotland as victim of England ‘ mythology . The real tragedy , to my mind, as with the supine grovelling of the Corbyn Circle to the unending sabotage of the Labour Right throughout the Corbyn Leadership years, is exemplified by the the pathetic comment by Leonard , quoted in today’s Morning Star , ie, “I retain my faith in the Labour Party as the party that offers hope to people and remains the only vehicle for the realisation of that hope.
“While I step down from the leadership today, the work goes on, and I will play my constructive part as an MSP.”
FFS ! Leonard has faced nothing but backstabbing and abuse from his supposed Labour Right ‘comrades’, during his entire leadership – and more recently, active demolition by the new Starmer leadership , but he STILL thinks Labour is the ‘only vehicle ‘ for some sort of progress ! The Labour Left will apparently never learn – that the Labour Party always was, and always will be, a deeply corrupt, utterly status quo-supporting, ‘reserve party of UK capitalism’. Still, Leonard, as with Jeremy Corbyn, and the entire ‘socialist Campaign Group’ of MPs , will carry on taking their generous salaries – as the impotent ‘Left face’ of that Reserve Party of capitalism – useful for fooling the more gullible Left-leaning voter that Labour has anything to offer them . Unfortunately for the Big Business puppet Starmerites the number of working class voters fooled by their bogus ‘electoral offer’ falls by the day – in every part of the UK.
A new Left Party is desperately needed -despite the huge obstacles to building one – but don’t expect the comfy career ‘lefties’ in the PLP or indeed the Scottish Parliament to play any useful role in building it . Jeremy Corbyn for one , just wants back in his beloved PLP – at any cost – and will busy himself with his new (impotent) campaigning vanity project – which 30,000 gullible Lefties apparently think is really an embryo new Left Party in heavy disguise .
jpenney, you have a credibility problem, which is you cannot be on the left and be a Zionist at the same time. It is inherent in left wing politics of the Socialist variety that racism is anathema whereas with Zionism, to which you ascribe, it is par for the course. There may be other forms of ‘leftism’ which tolerate racism and are therefore blind to the racism of Zionism, if so I doubt if many will have heard of it, despite your many attempts to push it.
Games over cmds. Forget the LP ever getting into power. Even with a Scottish vote it was highly unlikely. Well heeled opposition is what Sir Stormer wants, jobs a gudn. Kerching. And of course, the real reason, to eliminate opposition to rampant, unregulated capitalism. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and Sir Stormer, QC, defender of Saville, there to protect his class interests. LP RIP.
I am very sorry to say Potatoclock that I think you are absolutely right about Starmer and co wanting to be in well heeled opposition rather than government. It is the only possible explanation for the deliberate alienation of 60% of the party membership.
After deliberately alienating 30% of the membership with his second ref shithousery, stammer’s doing his best to alienate most of the precious 70% (left) of those who backed him over it by not just completely washing his hands of the matter but actually endorsing the toerag Brexit he promised he wouldn’t allow to happen.
Well that’s the 30% totally vindicated for starters, isn’t it?
And if there’s any left of that remaining 70% support, I expect that remaining bloc to dwindle rapidly after deciding to write articles hidden behind a paywall at the (as popular as he is) torygraph, as well as courting the elitists who want someone a bit more solemn but every bit as toerag as de piffle.
…That’s if they hold true to their alleged socialist convictions…
And it’s high time the unions told the rat in no uncertain terms that he’s welcome to the elitist pound…but not to expect a shiny penny from the them in future if he continues down his current path.
..Unless, of course, they actually want him to remain as *leader* 🤔??
I am replying to Jack TS question because it had no reply button. If memory serves, Strasserism, might answer your question. Probably wrong but there was a revolutionary component in Nazism though I am uncertain whether racism was a major plank in it’s ultimately doomed concept. I think that Harrington and his grouplet of political soldiers were Strasserite and they claimed that they were nationalist not racist. They WERE RACISTS. REGARDS ☮️
I think that with lockdown that now would be a good time to have another look at exes.
So it will go the same as Thatchers greatest creation, the loss of millions of votes and bankruptcy
Any decent challenger would wipe the floor with Temporary Embarrassment, I just can’t see who it is
My advice is just go for it but dont stop until you have cleared out every last Red Tory, you have three years, should you choose to accept this mission
One hell of a job to take on. Ian Lavery, tough as he is, didn’t fancy the role a year or so ago and who could blame him! The Guardian report a few weeks ago sensationally accusing him of being an anti-Vaxer on the basis he’d said something like ‘who could trust this government after X, Y, Z so who can trust their vaccine promises’ fell flat on its face almost immediately when the BBC journalist Vicky Young said the same thing when questioning the Govt at a press conference. It showed which way their guns were pointing and presumably seem him as threat. Interesting that the shell they lobbed was an ‘Anti’ meme; so easy and risk free to allege and so difficult to defend.
The idea you could spin Lavery into a wild conspiracy theorist, Pers Corbyn instead of Jeremy, is so off beam surely Luke Harding was involved?
How long has Max been a dues paying member for? It’s been a swift rise for our jailer in chief. How many of the great and good are in good order? What does the book say about voting when one is in bad standing?
Labour Dead! Nothing else to say accept the Unions had better get out Now.
Agree Andrew, Prob is that the same crew are taking over leadership of the TU’s. Better I think to work with the electorate, who are sick of the Tories, no trust in Labour and open to good ideas, and, some, open to bad ideas.
Best get cracking, like we’re doing in Wavertree, Educate, agitate and organise. The support is there, but we have to put the effort into turning it into a ‘voice’. The LP have no answers, no solution, which is why they’re trying to eliminate the common sense politics of socialism.
The leadership has no shame kowtowing and doing as they are told to anyone who’ll blackmail them into getting rid of the pesky left.
In any case the plan is clear in that they are desperate to distance the party from the TUs (look up Evans and spokespersons to Starmer) and the left. Hence their desire of begging for money from millionaires.
If someone from the left of the party decides to run for Scottish leader. Be interesting to see how long it would take Starmer, Evans and Rayner to find an accusation big enough to stop them from being successful.
Finally I’m minded to say Rayner has become a disgrace all’s she was interested in was furthering her LP career. Yet she’s not on her own there and I suspect it’ll be a long time before she makes another appearance at Tolpuddle.
Always enjoy reading skwawkbox articles, although I didn’t enjoy the conclusion of this article as the author seems to believe that warmingvthemselves in a nationalist coat will rid us of Tory policies.
We had an independence vote in 2014, I know that because I voted on it.
Seems too late now, but Scottish Labour should have split from the party.
There is only one fruit in Scotland & it’s not Socialism it’s Nationalism, now a subject taught in schools aka Scottish History.. Scottish Independence is a project started by Tony Blair who called it ‘devolution’. When Scotland becomes ‘independent’ what will change & who will benefit? Salmon & Sturgeon always wanted to be the big fish in the smaller pool; both want to be figures in Scottish history; both being classic examples of the privileged bourgeoisie now squabbling among themselves with sharp elbows.
Freedom & Independence…..romantic Brave Hearts. Freedom from the Union with England but tied to the economic & political dictates of the European Union with an open border with the old enemy ? Tied to the Bank of England currency with a German monarch; a dependence on oil & gas that should stay in the ground & refusing to help Britain be rid of this Tory gov’t
Nothing much will change…….cars will drive on the left; the pound will still have the queen but with a thistle; the BBC will still broadcast its inane right wing crap; Celtic & Rangers will dominate Scottish football. Perhaps Scottish fishermen may get a better deal, but it is the bourgeois ‘White Heather Club’ aka the bourgeois chattering classes who will sit in the Scottish parliament & earn vast amounts of money promoting their own careers. …
Of course, we don’t mention the elephant in the room of the Nationalism which is implicitly claimed as not a Nationalism.
British Nationalism and its centuries old Imperialism, still operating today. Covered here:
http://steelcityscribblings.uk/wp/2021/01/06/the-tragedy-of-corbynism/
and here:
http://steelcityscribblings.uk/wp/2021/01/14/imperialism-two-equally-needed-takes/
A Nationalism whose first colonies were its near neighbours.
Its really interesting how selective some approaches can be which will spend years and decades campaigning for the rights of people all over the world to attain political, economic and social independence and the dignity which goes with it but will do a 180 degree turn on that principle closer to home.
British Nationalist Unionism is an imperialist project. As the Irish will attest. There’s a great deal of projection going on here and Kettles and Pots spring to mind on this matter.
I wonder what the great Rabbies, Burns and Nesbitt, think of this lot?
If we were going to leave, we would all leave together and take everything with us including the dog
‘Don’t you just love the smell of autocracy first thing in the morning.’
They’ll be picking and choosing who gets to be a volunteer member next.*
*Assuming of course that volunteer members are not already earmarked to be technologically substituted by an AI algorithm which totally eliminates all that pesky, inconvenient and inefficient nineteenth and twentieth century “democracy” nonsense.
“But the ‘intervention’ is going to destroy the Scottish party in the eyes of Scottish voters………….”
Labour in Scotland is already destroyed.
‘Better Together’ (the coalition between Labour and the Tories to defeat the independence campaign) saw to that.
Skwawkbox should check facts before writing articles of fiction. Starmer had to sack Leonard (please dont tell me he resigned) on results alone. In the 2019 European elections, under Richard Leonard’s leadership, Labour in Scotland came 5th behind SNP/Tories/Libdems/Greens, with less than 10% of the vote (that is how relevant Labour is north of the border). In the GE of 2019 Labour were reduced to one Scottish MP. Not so long ago Scotland sent 50 Labour MPs to Westminster.
Facts Skwawky, not fantasy, thats the currency in the grown ups world.
.
The Labour collapse in Scotland- the “Scotpocalypse”, as it was called- happened in 2015, YEARS before Leonard became leader. Labour was reduced to a single MP at that point- it made a mild recovery to eight seats in 2017- so it’s absurd to imply that the party was still at its historic levels of support under Leonard until he personally ran it into the ground.
If they want private money funding them why are the unions still paying them?
If I was a union boss they’d be given the ultimatum.
fuckin’ A
In fact even as an individual member I’d be giving them the same ultimatum.
Wealthy donors’ interests are substantially incompatible and irreconcilable with mine.
If I wanted to subsidise a party that looks after wealthy donors’ interests I’d be giving my subs to the toerags, that’s what they’re there for.
As I keep telling people, the labour party is not the friend of the average working Joe and hasn’t been since kincock.
The Toffee
Either or
Stay, rejoin and challenge the fucker
Or
Leave and take unions and members with us
And the dog
Off topic again, sorry – interesting Covid question was missed by a BBC newsreader just now interviewing an expert.
Discussing the new South American variant, she asked the expert if someone testing positive would be told which variant they had, and was told “No.”
It must be possible that this or any other new strain will respond differently to treatment, whether vaccine or any other treatment.
It could conceivably become a survival issue to know which strain someone has already tested positive for.
That information really ought to be available immediately on admittance to hospital – I wish I felt confident that it would be.
British Medical Journal
Is the go to site, particularly responses to articles and editorials
What you should be up in arms over is the decision to delay 2nd jab and mix and match vaccines
That’s the second time this week some idiot’s said “THIS is what you should be saying” – as if nothing else should ever be written about.
What YOU dummies should do is grow the fuck up.
Thanks ‘Bubble Boy’