Rebel group set to become de facto opposition on Liverpool City Council
This morning five Liverpool Labour councillors announced their refusal to vote for cuts proposed by City mayor Joanne Anderson and Tory-imposed commissioners.
But already the group has grown to six. Cllr Lindsay Melia has joined Councillors Alison Clarke, Alan Gibbons, Rona Heron, Alfie Hincks and Joanne Calvert – daughter of former city mayor Joe Anderson.
Keir Starmer’s Labour has promised ‘severe’ punishment for standing up for the people of the city – likely to mean withdrawal of the Labour whip and the expulsion from the party that goes with it in the authoritarian minds of the Labour right.
If the councillors continue to stand as a group they would be close to forming the opposition group on the council, especially if – as is likely – they join for essentials with Sam Gorst, the councillor already unjustly expelled by the party and Cllr Sarah Morton and former Lord Mayor Anna Rothery, who already resigned from the party in disgust at the leadership’s conduct.
Solidarity with the six – and counting.
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What do they hope to achieve?
SteveH…..this is not your business, this is my back yard.
steve101704 – I wonder if ‘the 6’ will manage to hang onto their seats at the next election.
“hope to achieve?” Many things. Off the top of my head, maybe:
– better connect with and serve electorate(s);
– openly develop an electoral position that challenges furtive austerity;
– make rejection of austerity a formal electoral position for a new, as yet unplanned Labour successor party;
– test empirically the feasability of new party positions and attract members
Others will see other objectives clearer than me, but there’s a starter stevieh.
The ousting of a scab Mayor and investing of a dignified replacement who represents local people? Or is that too democratic for your straitened, callous, right-wing, destructive Tory ideology?
wirral – …and will ‘the 6’ manage to hang onto their seats or lose their deposits.
That’s the rub. Worth testing, no?
The last time this was tested at the ballot box (06/05/21) the the results were conclusive. The TUSC candidate Roger Bannister got only 2912 votes (2.88%) and lost his deposit.
In May 21 Roger Bannister didn’t have Sir Keir Rodney Starmer, the entire World Economic Order, apartheid sponsors and the Trilateral Commission batting for him as loudly as they are today. The Covid Con and Starmer’s uber-warmongering are also factors, but never rains but it pours., eh stevie?
In May 21, SteveH, Keir’s No Longer Labour Party lost 325 council seats and was reduced to 18 seats in Scotland. The ONLY places Labour did well in May of 21 were Wales, Preston and Manchester, where Keir had NOT been able to impose his well. It’s meaningless to reduce it to “we can’t try for anything other than French-style alternance”, as you have. BTW, as to the polls, the newest one just out to day has ‘Labour’s lead down to three points, so don’t assume Keir’s vindictive nastiness has been vindicated at all.
kenburch – The difference is that the poll that I have quoted elsewhere uses the MRP model, which maps polling results onto every seat in the country thus giving a more accurate projection of the results of a GE
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10556181/HALF-Boris-Johnsons-Cabinet-lose-seats-general-election-held-poll-reveals.html
You’re still breathing, then. 😒.
If scruples were breaths you’d have asphyxiated a loooong time ago. But there’s still hope.
Toffee – How many deposits did the TUSC manage to retain in the 2021 Liverpool LA elections.
Toffee – How many deposits did the TUSC manage to retain in the 2021 Liverpool LA elections.
Who’s arsed? This isn’t about TUSC. It’s about your labour party providing – and being SEEN to provide – an opposition. Something you and keef are far too
reticentclueless and shit scared to do.Plenty of the (remaining) members aren’t happy with so-called labour’s abject shithousery, Liverpool labour councillors aren’t, neither. You can bet your bottom one that local joe public won’t be.
But keef still thinks doing fuck-all is an alternative. He thinks not being de piffle or Corbyn will bring him success.
It won’t, and it hasn’t.
Toffee – On the contrary the latest polls are indicating that the Tories will lose 164 seats and that Labour would have a 14 seat majority at the next GE. Labour have been consistently in the lead for 3 months now.
Why are you still obsessing about a party that you left decades ago. Have you found it difficult to find a credible alternative?
🥱😴
Yeah.
And actual polling – y’know? The stuff that results are made of???
Well now, they’ve been telling quite a different tale to your opinion polls, haven’t they? Therefore, you tell all of us just when AND where keef has had a WIN reflective of this supposed humungous lead he’s meant to be currently enjoying?
Go on plums. We all await your
next demonstration of smarmeresque shithouserypearl of wisdom that will once again prove itself to b nothing more than your supposition.Toffee – We all saw where being behind in the polls got us in 2019. Perhaps we can discuss this further after the May elections.
Again, yet another deflection from the question added to yet another suggestion that we wait and see.
Well you said that when you gave your approval to smarmer after the 2nd ref shithousery that you claimed back then would be a surefire vote-winner.
….That turned out well didn’t it?
So when keefs’ labour do worse than expected will you promise you’ll fuck off forever, because people are tired of your know-nothing repetitive shite.
Toffee – Nobody is forcing you to respond to or even read my comments. It is entirely your choice to follow me around like a needy stray.
Again with your default methods and answers.
Stop whining about supposedly being followed when you’ve already freely confessed you post merely to get a rise out of people,and find it ‘entertaining’ when they do.
But you don’t like it when you get to wear your arse for a hat for the cunteenth time.
Now then…The alternative that smarmerism is supposed to provide is???
Sometime this century….
Toffee – You are the one who is getting all het up again, I don’t really GAF what you think about me, why would I ?
Steve Hall ….Leadership and a internal rebellion against the fascists labour leader…..it starts with people of principle somthing alian to you lot and it might just start a nasty habbit that might even catch on.in the PLP were the subdued labour left mps might actualy consider awakening.and fighting back.
Really? 😏
Yes really stefan h
Better question: what does Keir hope to achieve by forcing all elected Labour officiais to go to the right of Ramsay MacDonald- as anyone who votes for these cuts would have to do?
There is nobody who’d vote Labour, but ONLY if it makes life just as hard for Labour voters as the Tories do. There’s no large group of people who want the differences between the parties blurred down to less than nothing.
You are complaining because these people haven’t abandoned all humane values, as anyone who votes FOR the cuts would have to do- and as you have in being an unquestioning defender of every right-wing betrayal Keir has committed.
Face facts, SteveH- what Keir leads isn’t Labour anymore. It’s the Just Slightly Less Nasty Party, and it has no reason to exist.
Keir had no mandate to do any of this.
“Solidarity with the Six on Merseyside”. Stay solid & fight for social justice!
Steve101704 shouldn’t it be solidarity with the Nine on Merseyside? I hope that they join as a group with the 3 Cllrs that have the Labour whip withdrawn.
The more united that they stand the more chances everyone has to keep their seats.
Signs of hope in these bleak times. Solidarity!
Speaking truth to power is often difficult when public opinion is so carefully controlled by MSM, especially by Stasi Starmer’s chum Rupert Murdoch. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world & lose his own soul?” What else does Stasi Starmer have to sell? Starmer & Murdoch, ‘Soul Brothers’.
The last time this was tested at the ballot box (06/05/21) the the results were conclusive. The TUSC candidate Roger Bannister got only 2912 votes (2.88%) and lost his deposit.
Again – SO WHAT?
Bannister, by the way, was in the mayoral election. The independent candidate (Stephen Yip) still came a clear second.
Would smarmerite-imposed replacement candidates retain all those seats? Not at the rate they’re losing support. (Don’t bother with your opinion poll bollocks – I’m talking about at a REAL ballot)
All one of those (rebel) local council candidate would have to do is make sure the public know keef shat on the locals by running to the murdoch rag hated in these parts; and make it known the replacement labour candidate has to follow keef’s dogma religiously – That is, with even LESS dissent than vlad will allow – in order to have been imposed upon them.
Newham, Labour Youth JVL now Liverpool all up in arms against Starmer not to mention all the Socialists, Anti Zionists Irish and Kashmiri members and supporters who have been alienated by Starmers Labour.
Labour is heading for a massive defeat at the next election ( and will probably lose big time in the upcoming Erdington bye election ) and Starmer will ride off into the sunset (the House of Lords and other lucrative directorships etc) content to know that its “job done”
Starmer’s arrogant rejection of Corbyn’s and Conference’s Kashmir Position (v. India) happened in the first week of the reprobate’s ‘new management’. It was probably done only done to show the Rockefeller Billionaires (Trilateral Commission) and proto-fascist likudist backers like Trevor Nunn that he’d obey their New World Order facilitation (once the covid scam started properly and fight for their zionist position as party leader/prime minister).
I believe that true democratic socialists (within and without the Party) should explain this to Moslem members and supporters. They’ll instantly reject the lying charlatan and understand the state of war he has unleashed within the Labour Party.
It is the most damning reason not only to reject Starmer, but also to ensure he is never allowed to enter Downing Street under a Labour banner.
“.. Labour would have a 14 seat majority at the next GE…”
And then what? It would govern as Tories do- attacking the interests of the working class, privatising social services and property and throwing the country’s weight behind aggressive US imperialism.
The six councillors are refusing to betray the people who elected them. To them pledges made to electors are promises that ought to be kept, not lies told at a job interview. That is where they differ from Sir Ramsay Mac Starmer.
Reply to Bevin
You are absolutely right Bevin – well said
Why don’t you both come back and tell me all about it when you can offer a credible alternative.
Why don’t you both come back and tell me all about it when you can offer a credible alternative.
Why don’t you name something credibly alternative that keef offers? .
Do not even begin to entertain the idea of referring to Corbyn’s 2019 manifesto when it’s now public knowledge keef has binned all of it off.
He doesn’t oppose, he agrees. He doesn’t openly reject, he brags of lending support to the rags.
What alternative is THAT? The same as the alternative reality you’re living in?
Toffee….the wee Turd Polisher is feeling the heat as his Boss is running scared from the electorate.
There it is, loud and clear. Anthem of the neocons, greens, neolibs, (there is no) credible alternative
Wobbly – An odd thing to brag about.
SteveH
You are right, New New Red Tories do invariably succeed when cheap and nasties are mired in sleaze and the stench is unbearable, it is one of the quirks of FPTP
You can lose 5 million votes and practically bankrupt your party but still win GE’s
But heres ths rub, when a real choice comes along then both a Tory parties will be wiped out 33 33 34 is all it takes
Doug – You’ve some way to go if the TUSC’s election results are anything to go by. All I can see is a string of lost deposits
SteveH
That’s because you cannot add up
JC and the Unions could offer that alternative the morra
What’s this new-fangled obsession with sneering at TUSC, wee gobshite?
Realised you’ve (ab)used up all your Corbyn sneers – to no avail?
Or have they just got you so rattled you need to get yours on first**?
**Again to no avail, because nobody listens to you, because you never get anything right – ever
Toffee – Really? ‘🙄
I guess that explains why you are here again with your knickers in a twist. 🤔
I guess it’s why you’re on here, completely alone in your opinions once again, billy no-mates. 😏
Wrong yesterday, wrong today, wronger tomorrow, you utter wrong ‘un.
Toffee – Are you absolutely sure about that? 🤔
……….but StevieH, it must be so comforting for Sir Keir to have have his MSM sponsor Rupert Murdoch behind him & know that he is safe from any criticism or character assassination from any MSM source. No other ‘Socialist’ leader has ever enjoyed such a privilege. Public opinion is so well managed.
Oh I’m positive.
You’re a wrong ‘un, and no mistake.
They could consider joining Breakthrough, good young Corbyn supporters.
On another matter
EU Foreign Minister confirms across the board increase in military spending
Methinks
The fuckers are bleeding us dry again
Re: The usual comments such as
“SteveH28/02/2022 AT 10:55 AM
What do they hope to achieve?”
What would be the correct strategy be for combatting such dreadful cuts?
goldbach – As acknowledged in writing by Jeremy Corbyn, the law is quite clear, there isn’t one.
Mmm. If there isn’t a correct strategy then it doesn’t matter what people do. So why would the LP “leadership” get all het up about which way people vote?
goldbach – Your question doesn’t really make sense.
The only real option is for LA’s to be creative and find ways of working within the new financial constraints through creative leadership and by involving local communities in adapting and improving the provision councils services to meet local needs. Both Wigan and Barking & Dagenham Councils are quite good examples of this approach as is Preston. There isn’t a one size fits all strategy.
Been asking around. So far I have a comment from Wigan.
Seems the LA have said “We believe we can continue to keep Council Tax bills down but still balance our books if you help by doing things like recycling more, volunteering in your communities and using online services.”
“volunteering”, “on line services”? Surely the implication here is job losses with the gaps being plugged by the people of Wigan?
I get your perspective. Just disagree with the idea that you simply have to always give in to the neoliberal orthodoxy.
goldbach – Given that councillors would simply be replaced by Tory appointed Commissioners if they tried to set an ‘illegal’ budget then I don’t see that they have much choice.
Co-incidentally this edition of Analysis was broadcast today.
It is typical BBC but it is still worth a listen.
Analysis – The case for public service reform
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014x7v
Chris Naylor asks if there’s a better way to deliver public services. Many of these were designed nearly a century ago to address the challenges of that time; from cradle to grave, offering help and support during times of need – just enough to get you back on your feet. But as we approach the quarter-way mark in the 21st century, our context today is radically different to that of 100 years ago. Dig a little deeper and some of the other assumptions that underpinned Beveridge’s vision of a welfare state no longer hold either: full employment; economic and fiscal growth; the presumption of unpaid domestic care (then done by women) and of affordable housing. Little wonder that services designed to respond to momentary problems in a person or household life can’t cope with the tsunami of demand that comes when those problems last for decades. And if our public services can’t cope with collective demand, the worry is this is contributing to a collapse in the trust we place in our public institutions and therefore in our politics too. As the years go by, as trust declines, so the problems get harder and harder to resolve.
So what are we going to do about this? Is there a better way to deliver public services? Chris Naylor, the former Chief Executive of Barking and Dagenham Council assesses the need for public service reform, meeting innovators and talking to those who design and use public services. Is it time for a radical rethink?
SteveH
13 members have got rid of one of your council leaders, Nick Forbes, out, gone, long walk off a short plank, question is
How many members does it take to change a Temporary Embarrassment
Doug – The question is academic because you simply don’t have the numbers. Triggering a leadership contest would be just the start. You should be careful what you wish for, would you really prefer the likes of Yvette Cooper to be leading the party.
Steve H your postings on the changing circumstances in the welfare state is bullshit propaganda with the idea that welfare is outdated and thought up nearly a century ago and is irrelevant in the modern age.
.I think in Tory labour speak that means “we will increase your taxes and our wages but you can settle for charity and charities to provide social provision….Your smarmy slithering politics is disgusting because I have worked for charities and the people of the third world in dire need of the basics for life Water,sanitation and the ability to grow their own food.
You and your Neo liberal world want to take us back more than a century and I remind you that Britain does not need charity but modern welfare from “Cradle to grave” and not your bloody vicious charity comrade.
Joseph – I do wish you would put your brain in gear before commenting.
Steve Hall your comments “the only is for LAs to be creative” That must have come from the top from somone whos never been involved in politics for any length of time such as the labour leader plant “What the clown forgets is that you can’t treat taxpayers money like its just members money and decide to spaff money up the wall whilst collecting the money.then turn around and talk the Tory policy and blead the public whilst smashing services.Now creative acounting and theiving are illegal outside of the labour bunker in southside and the only way for councillors in Labour authorities is just to say “NO” to the torys maniac slasher policys
.Noted today that moderna and most of the pharmaceutical industrys have free falled up to 60%in the stock value as the penny dropped to most of the world that the virus was a stunt for a doller reset and to line the pockets of big pharma and big brother.How quickly the world turns in the neo liberal merrygo round.This morning in Asia the money pours into the doller and euro whilst the pound and Britain as a country becomes irrelevant to the world.Thats the result of a country with no opposition and no alternative to the status quo….very sad for all of us who rely on a strong economy and the value of sterling in the world..
Joseph – Come back when your brain has caught up with your fingers.
Or, alternatively, doing the government’s dirty work gives the LibDems a chance to say that the LP is no better than the Tories. [99% of voters won’t be bothered with checking the LD’s record].
SteveH
You simply don’t have the numbers
13 members got rid of Nick Forbes, now we know your effing CSE MATHS has not served you well in the real world, so we will keep it simple for you, Red Tories are fucked
Doug – I suggest that you acquaint yourself with the Labour Party’s Rule Book perhaps then you will appreciate that you are talking nonsense and stop making a fool of yourself.
On another matter (I have been having a little “restorative therapy” and have missed reading this site for a couple of days, so my comment on an earlier thread is lost in the mists of time) a repost a comment here:
This [an earlier thread] has become quite an exciting thread.
I ask a question. A genuine question. Not a dig at anyone since I don’t know the answer.
I don’t know if this site has been operating for 8 years or not but:
Some are now posting comments about the right of the Ukrainian people to make their own democratic decisions.
A fair position to take. Quite right.
Were you also taking the same position in 2014, when a coup overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine, and saying that that was disgraceful and that the Ukrainian people should have been allowed to exercise their democratic will in the elections which were scheduled for later that year?
And of course the new Ukrainian Govt in 2014/5 never kept to the Minsk Protocol, and started attacking Donbass. Which was when Putin stepped in. Now I understand the EU wants to fast track Ukraine into EU membership. So that will ensure it gets destroyed by Russia. The EU and NATO should keep the hell out of Ukraine as per the Minsk Protocol.
I see they haven’t thought of an answer yet.
Could try reading this first?
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/02/western-leaders-are-hypocrites-when-it-comes-to-war
……… and these comments on the website of right wing US ex-Hiouse of Reps commentator, Ron Paul.
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/march/01/zelensky-s-saakashvili-moment/
goldbach – Putin is the aggressor here, he is not wanted by the people of Ukraine. He is the one who should get the hell out of Ukraine. The people of Ukraine want nothing to do with Putin’s sick Imperialist ambitions for Russia.
I must admit to being baffled by the support that the pretend lefties on these pages are giving to a thuggish autocratic dictator like Putin who’s regime is the antipathy of democratic socialism.
The Putin apologists should take a long hard look in the mirror, at themselves and their so called principles. To put it frankly I’m relieved that so many of them are no longer associated with the Labour Party.
You really need to read what people have written and think before shooting your mouth off.
Quote – “Some are now posting comments about the right of the Ukrainian people to make their own democratic decisions. A fair position to take. Quite right.” – “Putin apologist”?
Please get over the idea that, because Russia has behaved atrociously by invading Ukraine, we must ignore the dreadful behaviour of Ukraine and “the West” that helped to get us here. A plague on all their houses.
The question is “What can be done to bring an end to the situation?”
How about:-
“1. Implement the Minsk Agreement and make Ukraine a federation with internal autonomy for all regions including Luhansk and Donetsk.
2. The withdrawal of Russian troops.
3. Guarantee Ukraine’s sovereignty and neutrality.
4. Bring to justice the Neo-Nazis who burnt to death around 40 people and badly injured over 100 in Odessa in 2014.
5. Disband and disarm the Azov Battalion.”
……. and something has slipped your mind –
“Were you also taking the same position in 2014, when a coup overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine, and saying that that was disgraceful and that the Ukrainian people should have been allowed to exercise their democratic will in the elections which were scheduled for later that year?”
…. or are you an apologist for the Azov Battalion, Nazis?
Clearly the Russian situation raises questions about just who is currently in charge of the west.Many would say that its the USA and I would have last week.The coordination of Banks,swift transfers,accounts and media with goverments across the west all singing in identical hymn sheets makes me and many who live outside western influence step back and wonder just who has bypassed the ballot boxes and gained control of the west ?
.I have been listening to reports on China and in many ways those of us who have travelled to China have seen a remarkable transformation all around with skyscrapers high end shopping in shopping malls and literally a mirror image for westerners of the USA..And in many respects it is but for one important point of the law in China
..The government are not controlled or dictated to by capitalism and are not lobbyed by the multinational companies who operate there because the penalty is swift and tough were directors are jailed and company assets seized….The culture of the Chinese and sorounding countrys is so different and although capitalism and world trade are welcomed the positions of forigners will not change..We love your shops and freedoms of expression but you and your Neo liberal world government will never be allowed to enslave the people on this side of the planet….and thats exactly whats happened in the west you are being enslaved by neo liberal dictators.who have bypassed the ballot boxes and gained control of your finances government and media and importantly the armed forces
.Russia are not comrades and putin is not a Communist but Russia has been unique in standing alone in challenging Nato and the corruption of neo liberal society
China recognise the independence of the the Russian people under putin
.you destroy Russia at your peril because your goverment is not of the people or for the people….IF you cant see the writing on the wall you are blind!
Joseph,
IMO it’s the banks who are in control and the arms manufacturers…..in other words Trilateral Commission. Look at how Barney Rubble Starmer is behaving. He’s more right wing than the Tories at the moment, and Mr Lammy is trying to out Right Wing him too.
https://skwawkbox.org/2022/02/28/breaking-sixth-liverpool-councillor-joins-rebels-against-mayors-cuts/#comment-216968
Yadda,Yadda,, bluster, bluster…get where you are by hard slog and have to put tax concessions first… We have to live within our means….Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
creative leadership…
How about we get a vertebrate opposition leadership squad who actually tell the truth that the covid money (like all supposed debt) was CREATED out of thin air, and doesn’t need paying back, for starters?
And then one that taxes the fook out of the parasitic, racketeering bastards so they end up with a penny out of every £ they made instead of 99.5p on every one, or what have ya?
Nah, wouldn’t do for keef and Rach. They’re on the side of business after all.
Toffee good morning and I see you are on the night shift again subsidising the failing welfare system once again with free care for which you should be compensated for even if just a salute from a comrade who realises you have the most difficult job there a caring a elderly relative like thousands are now because they play on familys.You are spot on with the fiat money but many dont realise that it has a paper trail right to the footsteps of Russia who have the third largest gold deposits in the world along with China USA and India…also by sheer coincidence Russia also have the third largest oil deposits and are rapidly becoming the Worlds biggest oil producer.Now the
“Fix it again tommorow” money supply has finaly arrived and the real world powers of the East dont like paper money and empty promises and thats why Russia’s gold and oil is needed now and urgently.The value of the pound in your pockets has been de..valued and we can’t just raid another country and loot it like in the old days…..or can we?
I was, as a joke, going to post opposing Tory policy will get them kicked out of New New Labour. Then I read the article, that joke fell flat.
Indeed, Chris.
Although the irony is totally lost on one particular poster on here, while it’s evident to just about everyone else what starmerism entails.
Steve H is a Troll, take no notice of that prick.
Caitlin Johnstone has a good opinion piece on Consortium.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/01/caitlin-johnstone-the-single-most-important-question-in-the-world-right-now/
This link works
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/01/caitlin-johnstone-the-single-most-important-question-in-the-world-right-now/
You have a full-stop at the end of yours which screws things up
Thanks, but not when I click on it, it doesn’t. Maybe you could try again.
Oh, and have you had time to think?
“Were you also taking the same position in 2014, when a coup overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine, and saying that that was disgraceful and that the Ukrainian people should have been allowed to exercise their democratic will in the elections which were scheduled for later that year?”
…. or are you an apologist for the Azov Battalion, Nazis?