Group scheduled to appear on Socialist Telly this evening
A group of eight Liverpool councillors have formed an official independent group on the city’s council in opposition to the cuts the current mayor is forcing through on behalf of the Tory-imposed – and Starmer-welcomed – commissioners.
Councillors Alan Gibbons, Alison Clarke, Rona Heron, Joanne Calvert – the daughter of former Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson – and Alfie Hinks have joined forces with three others, including former Lord Mayor Anna Rothery, who had already left Labour in disgust at Keir Starmer’s war on members, on party democracy and on Liverpool itself, as well at the entrenched racism of the Labour right.
The councillors all voted in February against the sweeping cuts to vital services budgeted by mayor Joanne Anderson and the council leadership, who are following their party leader’s line in welcoming the appointment of Tory commissioners to swing the axe. The group is just four councillors short of forming the official opposition on the council.
Councillors in the group said that they refused to vote to make life more difficult for the residents they represent and that the party was letting them and local people down in its eagerness to cooperate with the Tories’ assault on the city. Keir Starmer has mounted his own war on Liverpool since conning his way into the leader’s chair, writing for the hated Murdoch S*n, interfering in candidate selections, disenfranchising local members and appointing a ‘Liverpool officer’ who had left Labour to campaign for the now-defunct and always politically-bankrupt Change UK, known to many as the ‘funny Tinge’ party because of racist comments by founding members.
The members of the new group are scheduled to appear on Socialist Telly this evening from 8pm. Watch on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter and participate in the show via the comments on Facebook and YouTube.
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Would’ve thought Gerard Woodhouse might’ve been on that list but fair play to those that are.
I hope they can make things extremely difficult for the toerag enablers within LCC.
Well done them eight !!!
🔺🔆🪢🔺🔆🪢🔺🔆🪢
Toffee – “I hope they can make things extremely difficult for the toerag enablers within LCC.”
Are you referring to the councillors that obeyed the same very sensible instructions that were issued by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell?
https://www.scribd.com/document/293617536/Council-Illegal-Budgets-2
I agree with you Toffee and hope that the formation of this new group marks the beginning of the end for Starmers Labour.
Smartboy,
I hope so too and it looks like dissent may be about to break out. The question is, will enough of the PLP find they have a spine after all?
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/labour-leadership-against-climate-crisis-blockades/
Nemtona
I really does look like it – fingers crossed!
Pretty short-sighted timing, though, eh Toffee? A direct clash with Liverpool v Utd isn’t going to do this show any favours. Among socialist football fans, at any rate!
Well, there’s one – at least – worried Southside Labour disciple.
I wonder how many more there’ll be, on the ‘comments threads’, this evening.
Slightly off subject Breaking News
DWP ordered to change by human rights watchdog after benefit claimants’ suicides
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has ordered the DWP to draw up a legally-binding action plan to address its treatment of disabled and mentally ill benefit claimants
3:13, 19 Apr 2022Updated15:42, 19 Apr 2022
Britain’s human rights watchdog today ordered the government to reform its treatment of disabled and mentally ill benefit claimants after a string of deaths.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission responded to “serious concerns” about “failures” in the Department for Work of Pensions (DWP), including suicides.
MPs had asked the EHRC to investigate “the deaths of vulnerable claimants by suicide and other causes between 2008 and 2020”.
In a bombshell intervention after more than a year of inquiries, the EHRC is drawing up a legally-binding agreement for a DWP “action plan”.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-ordered-change-human-rights-26744897
Excellent!
Time they forced the bastards to pay out the £20 UC uplift to those on legacy benefits as well.
Temporary Embarrassment doesn’t follow EHRC guidance
Imagine how much worse it would be if the Trilateral Commission’s Special Envoy were the Prime Minister instead of the bunch of brutal psychopaths known as the Conservative party. Show-me-your-papers and mandatory ‘vaccination’. Keir Starmer is an affront to all that is decent.
Even Priti Patel would be remebered fondly and missed if ever the Trilateralised Labour party won a Westminster general election
qwertboi – Don’t be silly. 🙄
SteveH – the letter from Corbyn and McDonnell was dated
late 2015 – when the Opposition WAS an opposition.
HFM – I know when the letter was published and it is just as relevant today as it was then, particularly for LCC in its current predicament..
Sorry to ask the questions often posed by ordinary labour voters on the doorstep but if a spending programme is set in excess of the budget where does the extra money come from to pay wages, cap ex etc?
Errrr… The same place they can find £££billlions to go to their mates during the pandemic?
https://skwawkbox.org/2022/04/19/8-former-lab-councillors-form-independent-group-on-liverpool-council-inc-ex-lord-mayor-and-former-mayors-daughter/#comment-221258
Clues in the OP once again, nuckfugget
8 FORMER labour councillors form INDEPENDENT group
WTAF is your major malfunction?
Time to seriously consider violent revolution B4 any form of protest becomes illegal. If not now then when? A summer of price hikes, real poverty & austerity that will lead to a massive decline in living standards & the distinct possibility of people being unable to feed their families & heat their homes………..& then comes the winter of real discontent. If not now then when?
I hope things workout for the new independent group. New New Labour will, of course, back most of Toerag cuts, on the grounds of fiscal responsability.
Chris – Do they have a choice?
As Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell said in their letter to Labour Council leaders.
(direct quote)
“….councils must set a balanced budget under the Local Government Act 1992. If this does not happen ie if a council fail to set a legal budget, then the council’s Section 151 Officer is required to issue the council with a notice under Section 114 of the Local Government Act 1988. Councillors ore are then required to take all necessary actions to bring the budget back into balance.
Failing to do so can lead to complaints against councillors under the Code oof Conduct, Judicial Review of the Council, and most significantly, government intervention by the Secretary of State. It would mean that either council officers or, worse still, Tory ministers deciding Council spending priorities, Their priorities would certainly not meet the needs of the communities who elect us.”
https://www.scribd.com/document/293617536/Council-Illegal-Budgets-2
Is Corbyn still leader?
No.
Is mcdonnell still deputy?
No.
Are those eight councillors labour councillors?
No.
Therefore, shut up.
Toffee – Will it make any difference when Labour have such a large majority in Liverpool
NO
Your concern ought to be that those same people of Liverpool in those council seats will sack smarmerist labour right off in droves – as has happened with your membership numbers.
(Clue – before you start it’s fuck-all to do with TUSC. The independent mayoral candidate did far better than was predicted/expected. No reason those councillors won’t do every bit as well, if not retain their seats)
Oh, but Liverpool voted remain, didn’t it?** That means keef will grant them their second ref – even if he does write for that fucking comic….
**Or some such total irrelevant bollocks you’ll no doubt have been entertaining the thought of posting – before I did it for you.
Toffee – …and you have the nerve to accuse me of posting irrelevant bollocks. Do the maths.
I see that you have already resorted to expectation management. Are any of them up for election this May, if so and they loose their seats what will have been the point?
The fucking nerve of you, demanding others do the maths…
From the divvy that thinks 16.1 is MORE than 17.4
And that 52 is LESS than 48.
The same divvy that believes going from less than 200k to over 500k to finishing with 430k is a LOSS.
But from 430k to whatever the numbers have dwindled to today, is progress
Your smarmer-imposed candidate for the mayoralty absolutely pissed it in the election didn’t it?
Against an independent…
And of course the citizens of Liverpool are fucking THRILLED with the nonentity she’s irrefutably proved herself to be.
So before you come back with more of your inane shite, remember that you’re only makin yourself fair game for more ridicule, you sad friendless, clueless oaf.
Toffee – You can rant as much as you like but it won’t alter the figures.
Are any of these councillors up for election in May?
Rant? Nah lad, it’s called correcting your utter bullshit.
expectation management this the latest southside shitespeak, is it?
And I’m not remotely arsed if any of them are up for election next month or next year.
expectation management … Dear God!
From the balloon that told us that keefs’ masterstroke would ensure all those libtard votes would go labour’s way. 🤦
And expected keef to be 20 points ahead of THE most corrupt, LAWBREAKING prime minister in history…🤦🤦
Take your useless, meaningless buzzword shite, and cram it back in from whichever hole from whence it came.
And at least TRY to put up a coherent, validated case.
Oh…. I forgot. It’s you, isn’t it!?. Doh. 🤦
Toffee – Thanks for being so predictable but I really can’t be arsed with your childish histrionics and faux outrage at the moment. I’ve got better things to do. Haven’t you?
SteveH19/04/2022 AT 8:33 PM
Toffee – You can rant as much as you like but it won’t alter the figures.
Alter WHAT figures, soft ollies?
52<48?
17.4<16.1?
430k< today's membership numbers?
God but you've really NO idea just HOW stupid you REALLY are.
Right, am away to me pit. Be sure to annoy and/or bore anyone else that can be bothered to reply to your crapulence, wontcha?
🖕
Toffee – The sanctuary of your comfort blanket beckons. Sweet dreams 😘🥱😴💤
That letter was printed and distributed with the quiet glee that comes when watching an enemy making a mistake
Change of subject……..Israeli war planes yesterday bombed Gaza.
Julian Assange – BREAKING NEWS
At Westminster magistrates court on Wednesday, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring formally approved Assange’s extradition, handing the decision on to the Home Secretary for final agreement.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/julian-assange-extradition-fight-home-secretary-priti-patel-westminster-magistrates-wikileaks-b995195.html
Julian’s fate is now in Priti Patel’s hands
Then God help Julian then ..
On another issue there is a good article in
Labour List by John McDonnell pointing
out the benefit of PR
HFM – You are right it is an excellent article. Now that Unite have changed their policy in favour of PR I see no reason why it shouldn’t become Labour policy at this years conference.
PR could lead to a JC party holding the balance of power and hasten the bankruptcy of the Labour
Doug – As I have pointed out many times on these pages. Whether ‘the left’ like it or not their only route to PR is through a Labour government. Those who claim that they want to set up a socialist party and yet short sightedly continue to do everything they can to ruin Labour’s electoral chances are fighting against themselves. Is it any wonder that ‘the left’ can’t make any consistent progress when so many of them are obsessed with chasing petty and destructive pyrrhic victories.
Doug – There certainly are advantages to PR. There are disadvantages too. Opponents of PR often cite the removal of the “link to the constituency”. My concern is that it would place even more power in the hands of a party’s bureaucracy. When the controlling elite in a party can determine the “slate” there is, literally, no room for dissent. The only way to counter that would be for position on the slate to be determined via a system of primaries, and I can’t see any of our UK parties voting for such a system.
Maybe a FPTP system with primaries where candidates can self-nominate might be an option.
Not that the discussion is anything other than academic – the current crisis in neoliberalism and the rise of China is tossing all the cards in the air. When they fall, Europe and the US could easily emerge as more right wing/authoritarian with the rest of the world ploughing its own furrow(s). We may find out sooner than we expect. Watch France.