United Kingdom

Quote:

Khan said Britain was now facing either a bad deal or a no-deal Brexit, both of which were “incredibly risky.”

If the Brits were to choose to go with an "approval" referendum for whatever deal gets hammered out, they would still be facing either a bad deal (if it's indeed bad) or no deal.

The UK already served its notice of resignation.  There's no reason to believe that if the UK decides it's unhappy with the proposed severance package then its job is waiting for it like none of this ever happened.

And honestly, it's not the EU's problem that the UK spent the last two whole years since voting "leave" to fight internally, moan and groan, point fingers, resign, try to propose Plan B through Plan T for how to land butter side up, and act like everything since June 2016 has been a "practice round" that doesn't really count.

They've got about six months now to get down to business, and it counts.

..that's funny. txs krop!

The Neoliberal Order is Dying. Time to Wake Up  -  by Jonathan Cook

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50306.htm

"The neoliberal order goes unquestioned - presumed against the evidence of history, to be permanent, fixed, unchallengeable...The story of Britain's Labour Party is a case in point."

Brexit Leavers Are Out in the Cold and Totally Misrepresented

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/brexit-leavers-are-out-cold-and-...

"Protests against the IMF and WTO used to be extremely popular on the left, but the EU - which has an identical neoliberal agenda - is not getting misguided support. The idea that you might vote to leave because of the EU's neoliberal agenda got buried, and with it  the plight of those who suffered most from it when they took the opportunity to protest.

The EU elite, closely associated with bankers, financiers and those associated with the 2008 financial crash, are using a poisoned cocktail of 'suppression and mainly deception,' according to Takis Fotopoulos in his article 'The Systematic Efforts of the Transnational Elite to Crush the Brexit Revolution.' He notes that the left, long associated with 'societies victims, has clearly changed sides in the globalisation era."

The Oligarchs Behind the 'Humanitarian' Regime Change Network Now Exploiting Jo Cox's Death To Push For UK Labour Split

https://www.mintpressnews.com/humanitarian-regime-change-jo-cox-uk-labou...

"Only by masking their otherwise unpopular policies in the cloak of Jo Cox's tragedy, and humanity's natural empathy for good samaritans and the downtrodden, has this small group of powerful individuals been able to launder disastrous wars and military adventurism as 'the right thing to do."

And as always in such dirty business there is an 'ugly Canadian' involved. Who is Jeffrey Skoll?

The Killings of Tony Blair (doco)

https://twitter.com/HamamaForaj/status/1064742914318917633

"Highly recommended documentary produced and narrated by George Galloway shedding light on one of the world's notorious war criminals Tony Blair. A true eye-opener."

British Secret Service Infiltration, 'The Integrity Initiative'

https://t.co/NznaII75xe

"Let's make the MOD/FCO Orwellian titled 'Integrity Initiative' the most counter-productive effort ever in the history of covert state disinformation and propaganda campaigns.

'As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even more dirtier. You can bank on continued ramping up of Russophobia to supply 'the enemy.'

Now China has been added too.

Important Note on the Integrity Initiative

https://twitter.com/PiersRobinson1/status/1076052306309906432

"Important new briefing on the Integrity Initiative from the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media. A close examination of past and present posts held by individuals associated with the Integrity Initiative indicates that specialists in military intelligence and other senior military personnel with responsibility for Strat Com operations are closely involved in the programme..."

Why Do Progressives Associate with this Ultra Establishment Source of UK Disinformation?

https://twitter.com/markcurtis30/status/1077117580656234497

"Guardian: 1. Covers nonsense from billionaire attacking Corbyn but silence on UN statement on Assange. 2. Pretends US foreign policy is about 'democracy, the rule of law and liberal values."

'Integrity Initiative': New Documents From Shady NGO Released

https://t.co/YCMGfZzzz2

"The British Government runs an anti-Russian smear campaign through the pseudo non-governmental organization 'Integrity Initiative.' Some person operating under the 'Anonymous' label obtained internal papers of the Initiative and publishes in several batches.

Today the Anonymous account released a new batch of some 50 internal Integrity Initiative documents at the Cyber Guerrilla website. With the new release Anonymous lays out a timeline that connects the Skripal affair in Britain with the activities and personnel of the Integrity Initiative..."

Coincidence? Chief Nurse of British Army Was First Person to Arrive at Novichoked Skripal Scene

https://t.co/kANmceuWgL

"...Isn't it an extremely unlikely coincidence that the first person who 'by chance' attends to the Skripals is the top nurse of the British Army? An experienced officer, highly connected, who is also known for treating highly infectious patients? Who wrote the script for this drama? This is one of the many, many 'coincidences', curiosities and lies that make the official Skripal poisoning narrative so unbelievable..."

George Galloway, MOATS: Friday, January 25, 2019 (1900-2200)

https://talkradio.co.uk/radio/listen-again/1548442800

BREXIT!! etc...

Why disaster capitalists are praying for a no-deal Brexit

George Monbiot

Part of me wants to smash it all up. I want to see the British bubble burst: the imperial nostalgia, the groundless belief in the inherent greatness of this nation; the casual dishonesty of those who govern us; the xenophobia; the intolerance; the denial; the complacency. I want those who have caused the coming disaster to own it, so that nobody ever believes them again. No-deal Brexit? Bring it on.

Such dark thoughts do not last long. It will be the poor who get hurt, first and worst. The rich leavers demanding the hardest of possible Brexits, with their offshore accounts, homes abroad and lavish pensions, will be all right. I remember the eerie silence of the City of London. While the bosses of companies producing goods and tangible services write anxious letters to the papers, the financial sector has stayed largely shtum. Shorting sterling is just the first of its possible gains.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, caused by the International Monetary Fund’s insistence that countries removed their capital controls, began with an attack by foreign speculators on Thailand’s baht. As currencies tanked and nations raised their interest rates, indebted companies went down like flies. Foreign corporations, particularly from the US, swept in and bought the most lucrative assets for a fraction of their value. Though the causes are different, it’s not hard to see something similar happening here. If it does, the City will clean up.

But this is not the end of it. A no-deal Brexit might offer the regulatory vacuum the Brextremists fantasise about. The public protections people have fought so hard for, that we obtained only through British membership of the EU – preventing water companies from pouring raw sewage into our rivers, power stations from spraying acid rain across the land, chemical companies from contaminating our food – are suddenly at risk.....

..this is a different world josh. capital is much more powerful than the times you refer to. you can't just brush that aside.

..the only way a no deal brexit would come into existence will be with the tories in power. not with a labour government. this is why monbiot says what he says.

..the most important aspect/struggle is not brexit vs no brexit but achieving a labour government with the corbyn platform. and that is the tricky part. and that will be when the greater struggle with capital will begin. better to find a way to unite most of the country than to obssess on the eu. imho.

..here is a small glimpse of what is needed to take on capital. at this point in time neither labour nor the population is ready to take on capital in a no deal brexit. you can't be successful without doing the work. and there are no shortcuts. a better world is a bottom up project while brexit is top down.

In and against the state

Labour needs to develop a socialist strategy that goes beyond a single election manifesto. Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin look at the challenge of state transformation

quote:

Here is where the lessons to be learned from the Syriza experience become especially important. One of its original leading cadre, Andreas Karitzis, who remained in the party apparatus while others rushed into the state, has recently articulated this extremely well in arguing that decision-making processes at the parliamentary and governmental levels ‘are just the peak of the iceberg of state policy’. This was ignored by ‘the dozens of committees that had been formed and reproduced vague political confrontations instead of outlining specific implementation plans by sector to overcome obstacles and restructure state functions and institutions with a democratic orientation’.

Strategic planning to this end must, as Karitzis puts it, ‘not only involve the government but requires methods of social and political mobilisation at multiple levels and of a different nature than movements of social resistance and actions for attaining government power’. Perhaps the most unfortunate result of this was that grassroots participation exhausted itself ‘in protest or support demonstrations, rather than in substantive and productive engagement’.

In terms of the lessons the Labour Party under Corbyn’s leadership can draw from this, it might especially have been hoped that Corbyn’s ‘Digital Democracy Manifesto’ might have pointed in that direction. Unfortunately, it betrayed ‘a rather narrow image of technology that concentrates on the internet, end-users and “networked individuals”… an image of publicness in the form of networks that nevertheless has security and privacy at its heart’, as Nina Power has noted. The result is that the report contributes very little to how ‘the new digital technologies help us to think about democratic economic planning’, as Power goes on to do for the care services sector of the economy.

George Galloway's MOATS, Friday, Feb 8, 2019 (podcast)

https://talkradio.co.uk/radio/listen-again/1549652400

 Italy/France, Gilets Jaunes, BREXIT, Reunified Ireland, Corbyn v Blairites, Imploding EU, Venezuela and MORE...

Labour in bid to stop Theresa May 'running down the clock' on Brexit with meaningful vote deadline

Number 10 has yet to put a date on the second vote after Mrs May suffered an historic Commons defeat when she first asked MPs to cast their verdict on the EU agreement.

The Prime Minister has since vowed to push European leaders for changes to the controversial backstop plan to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, with the Government on Thursday expected to put forward another "neutral motion" letting MPs cast non-binding votes on alternatives to Mrs May's deal.

But - in an interview with the Sunday Times - Labour's Shadow Brexit Secretary said the party would lay its own amendment to try and force Number 10 to hold a meaningful yes-or-no vote on her agreement before the end of the month.

"We have got to put a hard stop into this running down the clock," Sir Keir said. "And that’s what we want to do this week."

The Labour frontbencher told the paper that the move was designed to stop MPs from being forced to confront an 11th-hour choice between Mrs May's deal and a no-deal Brexit - the current default option if no agreement with the EU is approved by 29 March.

"We shouldn’t be put in a position where the clock is run down and the prime minister says it’s either my deal or even worse," he said.

"That isn’t right in terms of the respect for parliament."

The move came amid signs that Mrs May will this week stop short of guaranteeing MPs a second meaningful vote before the end of the month....

Britain's Gavin Williamson Places Russia & China on Notice, I'm Not Joking

https://on.rt.com/9o5r

"UK Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson is itching for conflict with Russia and China. He's not mad. Not even slightly. But he is stupid. Very..."

Britain’s impossible futures

A woman harasses Brazilian skateboarders on a London street, demanding they stop speaking ‘Brazilian’. The confrontation, emblematic in its stupidity, goes viral on Twitter on 29 January. The chief executives of major supermarkets, plus McDonalds and KFC, warn of significant supply disruptions if there is a No Deal Brexit. The government admits on 27 January that it has contingency plans to introduce martial law to avoid ‘death in the event of food and medical shortages’. On the night of 29 January, Britain’s parliament votes for something it cannot enact: Conservatives, Ulster Unionists and a few opposed to immigration from the right of the Labour party combine to demand that the EU make changes to a deal the British government had agreed last November. EU leaders immediately emphasise that no eleventh-hour renegotiation is possible.

If a hostile power had scripted Brexit, this is how they would have written its final act. Unfortunately, the British people have scripted it for themselves (1).

How did we get to this pinnacle of unreality? Because the UK’s political class has fragmented over issues that are too fundamental to be contained by the party system, and because much of the ideological glue that held British civil society together for two generations no longer sticks....