Keir Starmer’s 10 Pledges for the Labour Party

I’ve just received a pamphlet from Keir Starmer’s campaign team, promoting him as the future of leader of the Labour Party. It begins with this quote

“I’ve spent my life fighting injustice. I’m standing to be leader of our Labour Party because I’m determined to unite our movement, take on the Tories and build a better future. If all parts of our movement come together, we can achieve anything.”

There’s a brief biography that runs

A Life Devoted to Fighting Injustice

Keir is the son of an NHS nurse and a toolmaker. As a former human rights lawyer, Keir is dedicated to Labour’s core principles of fairness and justice.

He has devoted his whole life to fighting injustice and defending the powerless against the powerful, as his ten-year unpaid battle over the McLibel case goes to show. he has fought against the death penalty abroad, defended mining communities against pit closures, and taken up hundreds of employment rights and trade union cases. After being the Director of Public Prosecutions, he was elected MP for Holborn & St Pancras in 2015, later becoming Shadow Brexit Secretary. Defeating Boris Johnson is a huge task but Keir knows that if we bring our movement together and stay true to our values, we can win, and change Britain for the better.

As leader of the Labour Party, Keir will contine to fight for justice in all its forms: social justice, climate justice, economic justice.

There’s then three columns of endorsement from people such as Dawn French, Rokhsana Fiaz, the elected mayor of Lewisham, Laura Parker, the former National Coordinator of Momentum, Emma Hardy, the MP for Hull West and Hessle, Aneira Thomas, the first baby born on the NHS, Sarah Sackman, a public and environmental lawyer, Alf Dubs, the refugee campaigner, Paul Sweeney, the former MP for Glasgow North East, Ricky Tomlinson, David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, Doreen Lawrence, Konnie Huq, the TV presenter and writer, Mick Antoniw, the member of the Welsh Assembly for Pontypridd, Ross Millard of the Sunderland band, the Futureheads, Lucio Buffone, a member of ASLEF and LGBT+ Labour national committee member, and the Unison General Secretary, Dave Prentis.

The back page contains his ‘My Pledges To You’. He says

My  promise is that I will maintain our radical values and work tirelessly to get Labour in to power – so that we can advance the interests of the people our party was created to serve. Based on the moral case for socialism, here is where I stand.

His pledges are as follows

1. Economic Justice.

Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, reverse the Tories’ cuts in corporation tax and clamp down on tax avoidance, particularly of large corporations. No stepping back from our core principles.

2. Social Justice.

Abolish Universal Credit and end the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime. Set a national goal for wellbeing to make health as important as GDP; invest in services that help shift to a preventive approach. Stand up for universal services and defend our NHS. Support the abolition of tuition fees and invest in lifelong learning.

3. Climate Justice

Put the Green New Deal at the heart of everything we do. There is no issue more important to our future than the climate emergency. A Clean Air Act to tackle pollution locally. Demand international action on climate rights.

4. Promote Peace and Human Rights.

No more illegal wars. Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act and put human rights at the heart of foreign policy. Review all UK arms sales and make us a force for international  peace and justice.

5. Common Ownership.

Public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders. Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water; end outsourcing in our NHS, local government and justice system.

6. Defend Migrant’s Rights.

Full voting rights for EU nationals. Defend free movement as we leave the EU. An immigration system based on compassion and dignity. End indefinite detention and call for the closure of centres such as Yarl’s Wood.

7. Strengthen Workers’ Rights and Trade Unions.

Work shoulder to should with trade unions to stand up for working people, tackle insecure work and low pay. Repeal the Trade Union Act. Oppose Tory attacks on the right to take industrial action and the weakening of workplace rights.

8. Radical Devolution of Power, Wealth and Opportunity.

Push power, wealth and opportunity away from Whitehall. A federal system to devolve powers – including through regional investment banks and control over regional industrial strategy. Abolish the House of Lords – replace it with an elected chamber of regions and nations.

9. Equality.

Pull down obstacles that limit opportunities and talent. we are the party of the Equal Pay Act, Sure Start, BAME representation and the abolition of Section 28 – we must build on that for a new decade.

10. Effective Opposition to the Tories.

Forensic, effective opposition to the Tories in Parliament – linked up to our mass membership and a professional election operation. Never lose sight of the votes ‘leant’ to the Tories in 2019. Unite our party, promote pluralism and improve our culture. Robust action to eradicate the scourge of antisemitism. Maintain our collective link with the unions.

This is all good, radical stuff, but there are problems. Firstly, his commitment to taking ‘robust action to eradicate the scourge of antisemitism’ and his decision, along with the rest of the Labour leadership contenders, to sign the Board of Deputies’ highly manipulative pledges, means that more people are going to be thrown out of the party without any opportunity to defend themselves, based only the allegations of anonymous accusers. We’ve seen innocents like Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth, Mike Sivier, Tony Greenstein, Martin Odoni and so many others suspended and thrown out through the party’s kangaroo courts. One poor lady has died through the shock of being so expelled, even though she was a passionate anti-racist. This isn’t justice, it’s a pledge to renew the witch hunt.

As for promoting peace and human rights – how long will that last with the Board of Deputies demanding to supervise everything relating to Jews? Israel is a gross violator of human rights, but the Board has consistently defended it and its deplorable actions. Their demands that Labour adopt the IHRC definition of anti-Semitism was to stifle criticism of Israel by declaring them ‘anti-Semitic’. This pledge might be genuine, but the momentum anyone applies it to Israel the BoD will start howling ‘anti-Semitism!’ again and decent people will start getting expelled. Especially if they’re Jewish.

And his plan for giving Britain a federal constitution doesn’t seem to be a good one. From what I’ve read, it has been discussed before, and while it may solve some problems it creates others. It’s supposed to be no better than the current arrangement, which is why it hasn’t been implemented.

I also don’t back him on Europe. Oh, I’m a remainer at heart, but I think a large part of  the reason we lost the election was because, instead of accepting the results of referendum, Labour pledged itself to return to the EU. This was partly on Starmer’s insistence. He is right, however, that EU nationals in the UK should have voting rights.

But I have to say that I don’t trust Starmer. His campaign team were all supporters of Owen Smith, one of those who challenged Corbyn’s leadership. They include Luke Akehurst, one of the leading figures of the Israel lobby within the Labour Party. Tony Greenstein a few days ago put up a piece arguing that, whatever he claims to the contrary, as Director of Public Prosecutions he always sided with the authorities – the police, military and intelligence services – against everyone else.

My fear is that if he becomes leader of the Labour Party, he will quietly forget these pledges and continue the Blair project.

See: http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/02/keir-starmer-is-candidate-that-deep.html

http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/02/pauline-hammerton-expelled-for.html

Safety Fears over Brexit Debate with Sargon at Bristol’s UWE

This was on the local news for Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, Points West, this morning. The debating society at the University of the West of England here in Bristol has been warned by the uni and the rozzers not to go ahead with a planned debate about Brexit because of concerns about people’s safety. The debate is due to include Carl Benjamin, aka ‘Sargon of Akkad’, the notorious far right candidate for UKIP in the southwest.

This is the notorious Sargon, who has made numerous videos attacking feminism, supporting the use of offensive epithets against Blacks, Jews, gays, Asians and the mentally challenged. The vlogger, who said that he could be quoted as saying it’s all right to sodomise young boys, because they did it in ancient Greece. Who answered a question about whether sex with underage children was right or wrong by saying ‘it depends on the child’. The guy, who sent a tweet to Labour’s Jess Philips saying ‘I wouldn’t even rape you’. The same Sargon, who seems to believe he’s centre left, when in actual fact he’s a complete libertarian, who would like to see all public enterprises privatised, including the NHS, and the welfare state dismantled. And when asked what his policies were by a reporter for Sky News, couldn’t find an answer except to say that he opposed political correctness and Islam.

As a result of his antics, the head of UKIP in Swindon wants him deselected and the party’s Gloucestershire branch has closed down. When he traveled to Gibraltar on his campaigning tour, the country’s governor, Fabian Picardo, refused to meet him and tweeted that Sargon’s comments were hate speech, which had no place there. He has been refused entry to a restaurant because of his vile views in one of the cities in which he campaign, and a protester threw a milkshake at him in Cornwall.

And then there’s the question of the hatred and threats spewed on social media by some of the Brexit crowd. You can understand why the University and police fear violence at the debate if it goes ahead.

I think the debate is also overshadowed by a disturbance at another university event featuring Sargon a few years ago. As Sargon was speaking, a load of black clad people in balaclavas waving an Antifa flag rushed in, only to be beaten off by Sargon and his supporters. Who captured their flag. There are clips of the incident on the Net, and many commenters have suggested that the incident was fake. It may have been staged to make Sargon look good, as the brave defender of free speech against anti-racist intolerance.

Despite this the debating society has said that they intend to go ahead with debate on Friday. If it does, I hope it all goes well for them, and that Sargon gets a sound intellectual and verbal, but not physical, drubbing. 

In the meantime, here’s another video from Kevin Logan briefly showing some of the highlights of Sargon’s campaigning so far to suitable musical accompaniment. This includes Sargon having fish and the milkshake thrown at him. It ends with a statement of where UKIP now lies in the polls – 2% – accompanied by Woody Guthrie’s ‘All You Fascists Bound to Lose’.

Enjoy!

Useful Books and Articles on British Fascism

Since Brexit there’s been an alarming rise in racism, which has resulted in a spate of verbal and physical attacks on Blacks, Asians and eastern European immigrants. The openly Nazi fringe has shrunk to a handful of feuding grouplets, whose membership has also fallen dramatically. Unfortunately, these groups have become increasingly radical, and their Nazism and racism is now much more overt. The banned British Nazi youth group, National Action, as I’ve said, used to march about in cod-Nazi uniforms while making speeches full of the Jewish world conspiracy twaddle. And they’re not the only clowns. There’s another Nazi group, which also dresses up in quasi-Nazi gear, and whose leader seems to desperately fancy himself as the new Oswald Mosley.

With this occurring, I though I’d post a piece about some of the books and articles I’ve found useful on the history of British Fascism. These are

Richard Thurlow, Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1985 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1987).

This is a comprehensive history of British Fascism, from its origins in late 19th century reactionary Conservativism, racial theorising, Eugenics and bizarre evolutionary speculation, to the mid-1980s. The groups covered include notorious anti-Semites like Arnold Leese’s the Britons, the arch-Conservative British Fascisti, who acted like a kind of paramilitary wing for the Tories in attacking trade unionists, members of the Labour party, and other dangerous and subversive working class radicals; the BUF and Oswald Mosley, and other notorious Fascist and radical anti-immigration groups like the League of Empire Loyalists, the BNP, National Front, British Movement, Column 88, and lesser organisations. It has the following chapters

1. The Twilight of the Gods, 1890-1914
2. the Lost Generation, 1914-1932
3 The British Fascists and Conservative Fascism, 1918-1934
4 The Jew Wise, 1918-1939
5 The BUF and British Society, 1932-1939
6 The Boys in Black, 1932-1939
7 The Mutiny against Destiny
8 The Hitler Fan Club
9 Internment, 1939-1945
10 New Wine for Old Bottles, 1945-1960
11 National Socialists and Racial Populists, 1960-1967
12 The Grand Synthesis, 1967-1985
Conclusion: The Sawdust Caesars.

The British parapolitics magazine, Lobster, has also published a number of articles about British Fascism and its denizens. Lobster is a ‘conspiracy’ magazine, but it isn’t about stupid and murderous rantings about Jews and freemasons. This is about real conspiracies and clandestine groups that are documented history, and have been trying covertly to influence British and global politics, such as the various front organisations set up by the CIA during the Cold War and the type of pro-Nazi groups set up and organised by the Republicans in their long campaign against global Communism. The articles on British Fascism are by anti-Fascist writers and activists.

Larry O’Hara published a series of articles, Notes from the Underground on British Fascism from 1974 to 1992. These ran from issues 23-25. Part 1, published in Lobster 23, was on the period 1974-83. Part 2 in Lobster 24 covered the links between British Fascists and their counterparts on the continent, including Steve Brady, the political soldier faction in the NF, the safe-housing of German and Italian Fascists in Britain in 1983, and the plot to bomb the Notting Hill carnival. Part 3 in Lobster 25 covered the four years from 1983 to 1986 including the removal of Martin Webster as the head of the NF and the resignation of Joe Pearce and Nick Griffin,, the attempts by the NF to set up Instant Response Groups to organise rapid campaigns against marches by Irish Republicans, and a brief occupation of the offices of the Daily Mirror. In the same period they also tried to present themselves as Green and eco-friendly, organising demonstrations against vivisection. They also mounted a campaigned against the kosher slaughter of animals. This prefigures the recent campaigns of some of the far right factions against halal slaughter by Muslims. They also tried to set themselves up as being for the miners in the miners’ strike, a series of prosecutions in 1984, which resulted in several of their members being jailed for various offences, and their foiled attempt to infiltrate the National Council for Civil Liberties. O’Hara followed this up in Lobster 29 with an analysis of the NF’s split in 1986. He also wrote a piece in issue 30 examining the possible links between Combat 18 and MI5. He also reviewed the books Contemporary British Fascism: The British National Party and the Quest for Legitimacy, by Nigel Copsey (Palgrave MacMillan 2004) and The Radical Right in Britain by Alan Sykes, (Palgrave MacMillan 2005) in Lobster 49. There was also piece in Lobster 46 by Kevin Coogan on the League of Empire Loyalists and the Defenders of the American Constitution.

The issues from Lobster 58 are online and free to read. Earlier issues are only available in hardcopy, and have to be ordered from the editor, Robin Ramsay.

This obviously is a very limited and dated list of material on modern Fascism. Nevertheless, it helps give the perspective to the contemporary antics of the British Far Right and their campaigns to beat and terrorise people simply because of their ethnicity or colour.