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Ken Burch

nicky wrote:

Ken, as I understand current legislation an early election cannot be held unless 2/3 of Parliament agree.

 

That is what happened in 2017.

 

Corbyn  currently says he is in favour of a general election (notwithstanding the polls) but, if he chooses, Labour could vote against it .

If Johnson's request for an early election is refused, Parliament could then revoke s 50 or legislate for a second referendum. 

 

Both these positions were only a few votes short in Parkliament before and could well pass if Corbyn took a stand instead of continuing the dithering that has so damaged Labour.

You have said many many times that this is not possible. Repeating it ad nausium doesn't make it so.

1) It can't be left-of-center to argue that the second referendum matters more THAN getting the Tories out. 

And no one could seriously argue that it's a progressive outcome to stay in the EU and have the Tories stay in power. 

In any case, it goes without saying that it's impossible to persuade any current Labour  Leave MP to ever vote for a seconde referendum.  If it was possible to do that, it would have happened by now. 

Just as there is nothing Corbyn could have said or done to change a Leave victory to a Remain victory in the original referendum, just as there were never any magical words Corbyn or any of the people who stood against him for the leadership in '15 or '16, none of whom ever had any personal popularity whatsoever, that would have prevented what happened them, there is nothing he can say now to any Labour Leave MP to switch any of their votes.

It's simply not worth trying since there aren't any Labour Leave MPs who aren't locked into an absolute Leave position.  Even a three-line whip would make no difference.

And, since EU policy forbids socialism-and since nothing less than full-blooded socialism can make any difference in the areas that matter-there's nothing Labour could offer those voters in the North and Northeast of England who voted Leave that would make any difference in their lives, that could address the decades of economic neglect of that part of the UK by previous Tory and Blairite governments, in exchange for getting them to switch to supporting Remain after all.   You can never get economic revival of the North and Northeast under market economics and on an austerity budget, both of which the EU makes compulsory.

Nothing good comes of any scenario where a second referendum did happen but the Tories remained in power while it happened.  All any delay in the calling of an election can ever do is increase the chances of the nightmarish prospect of a Tory victory.

There's nothing in the EU that is worth that-and you don't have to obsess on staying in the EU to oppose xenophobia.

It might be different if any of the Remain obsessives were proposing any serious campaign to change the EU, and that campaign had a chance of victory-but they aren't because they know changing the EU isn't possible, and because the Blairite component of the People's Vote movement don't want the EU to change-they actually want it to stay just as it is, and they want any European government elected on an anti-austerity platform anywhere to be subjected to the humiliating subjugation imposed on SYRIZA.

And, let's be honest, that's what you want to.  You never accepted that Corbyn's victories in 2015 and 2016 were landslide votes to repudiate the Third Way.  You tipped your hand when you all-but-salivated at the prospect of Tom Watson-a man who still defends the Iraq War-somehow becoming leader.

Ken Burch

It wasn't possible for Corbyn to personally defeat Leave in 2015 and it wouldn't shift any votes in the House if he went all-out Remain now.

What matters is ending the Tory government.  And the only way that government can actually be said to be ended is if a Labour government pledged to actually erasing the Tory legacy since 1979 comes to power.

JKR
josh

It backed remain last time.

nicky

Today’s YouGuv has Labour even lower than last week’s all- time low:

Imagine that a General Election is held later this year before Brexit has been delivered. Boris Johnson is the leader of the Conservatives, Jeremy Corbyn remains leader of the Labour Party, Jo Swinson is leader of the Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage is leader of the Brexit Party. How do you think you would then vote?

Figures with undecideds and refused excluded:
CON 23%
LD 23%
BREX 21%
LAB: 17%
GRN: 8%

josh

Looks like that ComRes poll Nicky was touting as having Labour a 14%, actually has them twice that figure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

nicky

In his letter of resignation, Triesman wrote: “We may one day be the party of anti-racism once again but it certainly isn’t today. My sad conclusion is that the Labour party is very plainly institutionally antisemitic, and its leader and his circle are antisemitic having never once made the right judgment call about an issue reflecting deep prejudice. The number of examples is shocking.”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/09/labour-peers-resign-over-handling-of-antisemitism-complaints-triesman-darzi-turnberg

josh

The smear campaign continues apace.  But don't dare criticze it, or question its basis.  You might be suspended from the party and labeled an anti-Semite if you do.

Ken Burch

josh wrote:

It backed remain last time.

And Corbyn himself backed Remain and did all he could to work for a Remain victory.  And he never did a thing to prevent "the Labour machine"(whatever that is)from campaigning all-out for Remain.  It was just quite simply that Remain couldn't have won that referendum, because to people in the North and Northeast of England, voting Remain was universally seen as a vote to endorse every institution in Britain and Europe who could have prevented their region from becoming an economic boneyard but refused to do anything to prevent that from happening.

Ken Burch

nicky won't let up on the antisemitism lie until it is impossible for any Labour member to say ANYTHING about what the Israeli government does to Palestinians without being instantly expelled from the party, and until Labour goes back to being "center-left", i.e., Tory.  

Not sure why you're so obsessed with vilifying a honorable, decent, democratic political leader in somebody else's country-a man who isn't wrong on any major policies and who hasn't done anything to deserve your unrelenting hatred and contempt.

There's no possible policy Labour could adopt on Brexit which wouldn't have the party down in the polls at this point.  And we can assume that if it had somehow caused a second referendum on the ballot, the Brexit Party would be over 30% in the polls and climbing, gaining votes solely from former Labour voters, and that there are no votes it would gain from anywhere else that would even come close to offsetting that.

And if Corbyn had centered the right-wing, pro-austerity cause of the second referendum in the first place, you'd simply have found something else to vilify the man for.

 

Ken Burch

josh wrote:

Looks like that ComRes poll Nicky was touting as having Labour a 14%, actually has them twice that figure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

Which makes two polls in a row with a Labour lead, which utterly discredits nicky's "Corbyn is dragging Labour down" narrative, as does the fact that six out of the last twelve polls show a Labour lead and that the last three in a row show a decline in both the Brexit Party vote and the combined LibDem/Green vote.

josh

I don't know whether his heart was in it, but as a Brexit supporter I don't care.  His position to support the result of the referendum with conditions was the smart one politically.  And it still is. But he know appears to be moving to a rejection of the results of the referendum and support of a do-over vote.  That will hurt him politically and is wrong on the merits.  But he has constantly been undercut by the Blairites inside and outside the PLP, and now the McCarthyite anti-Semitism smear campaign.  He is not in a strong position to withstand the threats and pressure from those who want to nullify the referendum vote.

Ken Burch

So...nicky-now that Corbyn has moved to supporting the referendum with conditions, will you finally stop your endless derision of the man?  He's doing what you want here...can you leave it at that?

Ken Burch

Here's another question, nicky:  if the UK did stay in the EU-there's still a chance that Leave could win again, after all-will you support a Labour government if it does what it would HAVE to do to address the long-term economic abandonment of the North and Northeast of England and defies EU spending, taxation, and nationalization policies?
 

 

NorthReport

Hey Boris, what's a useless right-winger like yourself going to do now!

US says Brexit trade talks with Liam Fox cancelled amid mounting fury over leaked Trump memos

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-memo-brexit-liam-fox-meeting-trade-talks-ivanka-cancel-wilbur-ross-twitter-a8997681.html

NorthReport

Brexit: Hopes rise for bid to block no-deal after Theresa May urged to grant Tory MPs free vote

Philip Hammond wants whip lifted on any amendments to stop Boris Johnson suspending parliament in the autumn – ahead of clash tonight

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nodeal-brexit-theresa-may-philip-hammond-tory-mps-free-vote-suspend-parliament-a8996401.html

NorthReport

It is obvious a no-deal Brexit hasn't got a hope. So what will the Tories do now?

NDPP

Brendan Chilton: Labour As We Know It Is No More

https://t.co/f6tk76xUFH

"In an extraordinary and unprecedented u-turn, the Labour Party announced today that it would campaign for Remain in a future EU Referendum. This is despite the 2017 manifesto promise, written in ink, to accept the result of the original 2016 referendum. This follows 3 years of campaigning by those within the Labour movement who refused to accept the referendum result. They piled enormous pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to change Labour's stance. Today he buckled [Again!] to those very same people who a few years ago were challenging him for his leadership of the party.

Today is a tragic day in the Labour Party's history and a fatal day for British democracy. It is potentially, the beginning of the end of the Labour Party as we knew it. Labour continues to spiral downwards in the opinion polls, despite Labour MPs from the Leave-voting Midlands and north making a gallant last stand in the defence of democracy and for the preservation of Labour as a party of the working man and woman. Their efforts may be too late to save Labour from a possible catastrophic defeat at the next election..."

We can only hope.

 

WATCH: "Costas Lapavitsas masterclass on Syriza and Labour. 'Syriza basically promised all sorts of things to the Greek people, didn't deliver them, changed completely and became a pro-EU party, and therefore followed policies that were dictated by EU conditions."

https://twitter.com/JoshuaYJackson/status/1148343517594435584

Labour, Syriza, NDP. The last thing the world needs  is more weak, wimpy and mendacious neoliberal compradors masquerading as 'progressive alternatives.' They only leave things worse not better. Time to abandon these collaborationist dead enders and sellouts and  get serious about building authentic, strong movements for real change.

NorthReport

Finally, after it may already be too late, some common sense from Labour. 

NorthReport

Unfortunately, probably!

Labour is finally backing a second referendum. Is it too little, too late?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/09/labour-second-referendum-jeremy-corbyn-brexit

Ken Burch

NorthReport wrote:

Unfortunately, probably!

Labour is finally backing a second referendum. Is it too little, too late?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/09/labour-second-referendum-jeremy-corbyn-brexit

North...where the hell did you get the idea that the EU is some sort of Utopia?  Or that the ONLY way for people in the UK to oppose xenophobia is to try to overturn the referendum?

Here's a clue...no matter what Corbyn did, The Guardian would still tear him apart and do all it could to force him out as leader and his supporters out of the party.  

NDPP

F0r many on this board 'Blairism' or its Canadian equivalent is their natural habitat. No surprise that a  political life spent around  the sellout NDP should produce this state of confusion in which what is at best bourgeois, middle-class liberalism becomes interchangeable with 'left progressive' politics. Relying on the Guardian for guidance in these matters probably won't help much either.

"There is no reality under which you can honestly say you want radical and transformative change whilst also saying you will govern under the conditions of the european treaties that mandate neoliberalism. A 'Remain' movement can only be a middle class liberal movement."

https://twitter.com/JoshuaYJackson/status/1148343517594435584

nicky

So Labour will oppose any Tory Brexit (regardless of what it entails ) and campaign against it in a second referendum.

But if Labour takes power and negotiates its own Brexit (whether it is different or not from the Tory deal) it will also hold a referendum but wont say if it will campaign for or against its own deal.

Does Corbyn really expect to sell such nonsense to the elctorate? It already doesnt trust him on Brexit and this further dithering will hardly inspire its confidence.

Ken Burch

He's done all you asked.  He can't pledge Labour to campaign for Remain, no matter what, without pledging Labour to abandon all meaningful difference with the Tories.

 

Ken Burch

It goes without saying that Labour, in government, would get a far different and better deal on Brexit than the Tories would-one that would preserve what is good in the relationship with the EU while discarding what is bad.   

 

NorthReport

If any election is called soon there will only be one ballot box item  - Brexit: Unless Labour is unequivocal in supporting Remain they are doomed. It's their choice whether they want to form government or not. Time will soon provide us with the answer.

Ken Burch

It can only be right-wing to put Remain over all other issues, North-there is nothing SO freaking important about the EU that it justifies fighting to stay under the EU restrictions on taxing the rich, restoring the massive post-1979 cuts in social spending, and agreeing never to nationalize anything again.

Nothing even mildly progressive can be done by any government who agrees to abide that.

There's no such thing as a decent, caring society under austerity and market economics.

And there's nothing to the right of Corbyn's policies that's distinguishable from Thatcherism.

Ken Burch
bekayne

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/islamophobia-tory-party-britain

Digest that carefully: more Tory members than not believe that the very presence of minorities has damaged our society. These are far-right beliefs and yet they are mainstream in the party of government.

This should be a national scandal, and yet it is not. It is not splashed on all the front pages; it is not topping news bulletins; it is not the relentless topic of TV pundit debates; it is not leading to disgusted resignations from the Tory party; it is not provoking frenzied warnings that the Tory party is not fit for power. Let me conduct a thought experiment: imagine a poll that found that 60% of Labour members agreed that Judaism is “generally a threat to western civilisation”, or that 43% did not want a Jewish prime minister, or 40% wanted to limit the number of Jews entering Britain. Such findings would quite rightly cause an explosion of outrage, as well as passionate warnings, including from me, that Labour must be kept from winning office.

This not to pit Islamophobia against antisemitism in a grotesque racism Olympics. Rather, it is to say that anti-Muslim racism should be treated with the same seriousness as antisemitism. Anti-racism that is not consistent is not anti-racism at all.

NDPP

True enough. It seems though many are called few are chosen. Funny then the Guardian deciding to publish then disappear an open letter from Chomsky, Finkelstein and others dealing with this A/S issue.

A wise man has said anti-semitism used to refer to some people who don't like Jews but now refers to people some Jews don't like. Especially Zionist ones for Apartheid Israel which Corbyn is not.

nicky

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/10/labour-bosses-accused-of-undermining-fight-against-antisemitism-bbc-panorama

surely it is not enough to ignore these allegations simply because they are in the Guardian or the BBC

josh
Ken Burch

nicky wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/10/labour-bosses-accused-of-undermining-fight-against-antisemitism-bbc-panorama

surely it is not enough to ignore these allegations simply because they are in the Guardian or the BBC

It does discredit the allegations, to a very large extent that A)Corbyn has been a lifelong fighter against bigotry, and that fighting against bigotry means fighting against antisemitism as much as it does fighting any other form of hate.  It also discredits it that antisemitism is the least-prevalent form of bigotry in the UK, and that the Guardian and the BBC have been obsessed with forcing Corbyn out as leader from the moment he was overwhelmingly elected to the leadership-they started by pushing the canard that his victory somehow "didn't count" because he only took 49.9% of Labour members on the first preference, a vote share that guarantees he'd have gone well over 50% on the second preference.

Corbyn has put the antisemitism canard to rest.  There's nothing more he can do  He can't expel people solely on accusations, for God's sakes.  Margaret Hodge made 200 accusations of antisemitism among Labour members...it turned out that 180 of those people weren't even IN the party.

And he can't adopt the IHRA "guidelines" in exactly that form without making all public critique of the Israeli government by Labour members impossible.  

It's a smear.  It's the Right where the antisemitism lives, not the left.  And it's not "far left" to be anti-austerity.

NDPP

Asa Winstanley: 'My Thread on Last Night's Panorama...'

https://twitter.com/AsaWinstanley/status/1149275514777079808

"My thread on last night's Panorama -- a deeply dishonest programme repeating same old lies about the manufactured Labour antisemitism 'crisis.'

josh

Revealing thread.  But the Tory/Blairite/Zionist war on Corbyn's Labour will continue.  They have a common interest in seeing Labour defeated.

nicky

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jul/11/labour-antisemitism-30-whistleblowers-to-give-evidence-to-ehrc

30 whistleblowers !! I guess they must all be evil Blairites.

Nothing to see here. Just move along....

 

josh

30?  There's far more than that in the PLP who are opposed to Corbyn, and would do just about anything to get him out.

Labour has complained about the programme to the highest level of the BBC, claiming staff were disaffected and motivated by political opposition to Jeremy Corbyn.

And for conrtrary viewpoint to the JLM:

https://twitter.com/JVoiceLabour?lang=en

nicky

You are absolutely right Josh. 80% of Labour MPs , the people who have seen Corbyn close up for years, know how useless he is.

those who don’t know him and who project their own ideals onto him are more likely deluded into thinking he is a capable leader.

josh
josh

The idea that people who defend Corbyn on AS are “turning a blind eye to anti-Jewish racism” is complete and utter nonsense. Unlike I will never abuse the issue for political purposes. I will call out false allegations of AS which undermine fight against real AS

https://twitter.com/TomLondon6/status/1149287219456294912

josh

Survation:

Labour 29

Tories 23

Brexit 20

Lib Dems 19

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1149680897240817665

 

Michael Moriarity

Here is an article in Jacobin which examines the real issues at play in the battle between Corbyn, representing the left, socialist faction (a majority actually) of the Labour Party membership, and the right, neoliberal majority of the Labour MPs. These are issues nicky will never talk about, because he is on the wrong side of history, and he knows it.

nicky

Thank you for that interesting and well written argument Michael.

as for being on the wring side of history i think that phrase may have originated with Trotsky describing the Mensheviks. History has a habit of never ending so, like Trotsky, you can be on the right side if it on Wednesday but Friday may reverse the situation.

i think it is simplistic to analyze the opposition to Corbyn through a left/ right prism. There are many left wingers who recognize that Corbyn’s unpopularity is rooted innthings beyond ideopolgy. His poor political presence, his unsure speaking style, hus tolerance of intolerance, his dithering on Europe, his perceived lack of competence, his rigidity, his perceived tolerance to  the IRA and Hamas, his age (perhaps unfairly) and the fear, as deminstrated in recent polls and rlections that he will enable a right wing victory by leading Labour to electiral disaster.

nicky

Please excuse the spelling in my previous post. I am typing on an iphone and i find that difficult

Michael Moriarity

Of course spelling errors are no problem, but I would note that you still have not taken a position on whether the Labour Party should move left towards socialism, or maintain its current centre-right, neoliberal, pro-austerity orientation. Certainly I, and I suspect all the other Corbyn supporters here on babble would be just as happy with any other leader who would take the party in the same left direction. There is nothing personal about it.

Ken Burch

Indeed.  What matters is that the overwhelming majority of anti-Corbyn MPs who are in the now nearly-extinct Blairite and Blue Labour wings of the party acknowledge that the Labour rank-and-file(paid members and paid supporters)wanted and still want a clear break with the policies and forms of internal governance Labour had from 1994 to 2015.  The day of sectarian militarist, pro-austerity, anti-worker "centrism" are over.  

If the Labour right were to insist on doing what most people on this board are convinced they want to do-not only remove Corbyn, but guarantee that he could only be replaced by a sectarian "centrist", expel all the socialists, and pound their hands on the table and demand that everybody anywhere on the left side of the spectrum support the party-of-no-principles this would inevitably create, the only thing that could ever come of that would be the destruction of Labour.  Next t0 nobody, anywhere, would think the kind of party Watson and Hodge would create, if they had their way, was in any real sense different than the Tories.

ANY Labour leader, treated as Corbyn has been treated by both his party's MPs(who have more than made the case for an Open Selection policy for all Labour candidates including sitting MPs) and the corporate media would be doing well in the polls at this point.

And based on the Blair years, nobody the corporate media approved of would be worth calling a Labour prime minister.

Ken Burch

nicky wrote:

You are absolutely right Josh. 80% of Labour MPs , the people who have seen Corbyn close up for years, know how useless he is.

those who don’t know him and who project their own ideals onto him are more likely deluded into thinking he is a capable leader.

Jesus, nicky-you can't STILL be arguing that he was obligated to stand down and not stand for re-election when the bogus "no-confidence motion" was passed.   He put that to rest by winning re-election as leader in a landslide.

Ken Burch

nicky wrote:

Thank you for that interesting and well written argument Michael.

as for being on the wring side of history i think that phrase may have originated with Trotsky describing the Mensheviks. History has a habit of never ending so, like Trotsky, you can be on the right side if it on Wednesday but Friday may reverse the situation.

i think it is simplistic to analyze the opposition to Corbyn through a left/ right prism. There are many left wingers who recognize that Corbyn’s unpopularity is rooted innthings beyond ideopolgy. His poor political presence, his unsure speaking style, hus tolerance of intolerance, his dithering on Europe, his perceived lack of competence, his rigidity, his perceived tolerance to  the IRA and Hamas, his age (perhaps unfairly) and the fear, as deminstrated in recent polls and rlections that he will enable a right wing victory by leading Labour to electiral disaster.

I can excuse the spelling, but not the lies.  Corbyn was never "close to Hamas or the IRA".  He supported a united Ireland in the Eighties because, at that stage, there was no other way to end discrimination against the Catholic/Nationalist community in the North.  Corbyn later worked to get Sinn Fein into negotiations-there was never any possibility of ending The Troubles WITHOUT negotiations, it was never possible to end violent republicanism through military victory-and especially so since neither the British government nor the Royal Ulster Constabularly ever tried to end Loyalist violence-and since Corbyn's efforts helped end The Troubles, isn't that what REALLY matters?

As to the Hamas thing...all he was doing there was trying to get Hamas into negotiations, as he'd done with Sinn Fein.  Corbyn never defended anything Hamas had done, and since it's impossible to end the Israel/Palestine conflict through military victory for either side, why shouldn't he have worked for a negotaited settlement?   

And the man has proved he opposed antisemitism his entire life.  All he's guilty of is not accepting the right-wing canard that cricitism of the Israeli government, acknowledgment that Palestinians are largely the injured party in this conflict,and formal allegiance with the Israeli side in the conflict are forms of antisemitism when they simply never are.

Not sure what your beef with his speaking style is, and even if he had centered the pointless fight for a second referendum earlier, he was still never, at any point, going to get any of the Labour Leave MPs to start voting for a second referendum.  There was no argument anyone could make to them that could ever have changed their minds on that-especially since nobody in the Remain camp is talking about even trying to change the pattern of neglect that the EU has consistently had towards the North and Northeast of England, the areas which will always vote Leave.

And it's telling that you used the term "perceived" twice in that passage-the only reason anyone had either of those perceptions was that the right-wing media and the Blairites worked overtime to create them.

nicky

Ken , perhaps you should look up the definition of “perceived” before you throw out words like “lies”

josh

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