As I’m sure everyone following this blog knows, the Tories won Thursday’s election. I had a horrible feeling they would, because despite Labour’s excellent manifesto and the polls showing that support for the Labour party had risen so that they were close behind them, the Tories are masters of deception. They’ve had the mass media, almost without exception, lying to the electorate for the last ten years. And I was afraid people would believe Johnson’s lies when he said he was going to build 40 new hospitals, recruit more coppers and nurses. All demonstrable lies, but people believe them. Just as they believed the lies put out by Thatcher and Major when their reforms were causing mass unemployment, poverty and misery, and ruining the Health Service. But I was unprepared for the extent of the Tory victory. They now have a majority of 78 seats.
Like very many people, I felt extremely bitter and angry, and spent yesterday trying not to think about politics, though it was inevitable. And now I’m ready to start analysing and making sense of this mess.
Martin Odoni has already written a very good piece about it, which is well worth reading. He argues that the result had zip to do with the public rejecting Labour’s manifesto, and everything to do with Brexit. He writes
It is absolutely self-evident, and was even so as the results were unfolding, that the biggest factor in the outcome by a country mile was Brexit. At almost every turn where Labour’s support had slumped, a similar number of votes had been claimed by the Brexit Party, by the Tories, or by a combination of the two – the two parties that are most rigorously pursuing British departure from the European Union. Most of Labour’s lost support was in traditional working class territory in the north of England, the north of Wales, and the Midlands, and most particularly in areas where there was a high Leave vote in the 2016 Referendum.
Now, I have no doubt Corbyn was a factor in some voters’ rejection of Labour – no politician will be everybody’s cup of tea. And given how brutally and relentlessly he has been smeared by the media, including many supposedly ‘left-leaning’ periodicals, there can be no doubt that the wider public’s view of Corbyn has been unfairly coloured. But the general results do not offer any specific evidence of a rejection of Labour’s policy platform as a whole. The shift was very definitely Leavers, with their maddening tunnel-visioned obsession with Brexit, moving to parties boasting their determination to ‘Get Brexit done’.
Either way, a personal objection to Corbyn does not constitute an objection to his policies. When discussing the Labour Manifesto, people were usually very enthused – Labour’s polling numbers did improve substantially rather than deteriorate after it was launched – just as they had been in 2017. On that occasion, Labour scored forty per cent of the vote, and it seems unlikely that huge numbers have suddenly reversed that position.
Absolutely. When Labour were mooting their new policies – of renationalising the NHS, and taking water, electricity and the railways back into public ownership – the polls showed that the public largely supported them. Which is why the Tories and the mass media had to fall back to smearing Corbyn personally with the false accusations of anti-Semitism and that he was some kind of Communist, IRA-supporting threat. Also, analysis of the grassroots membership of UKIP also showed that they’re largely in favour of nationalising the public utilities. What they don’t like is the EU, immigration and the new morality – the acceptance of the LGBTQ community. UKIP always was much smaller than the impression given by the media, and collapsed when it spectacularly failed to win any seats at the last election. The reasonable, or at least, less bonkers section of its membership went over to Fuhrage’s Brexit party, which has now also collapsed.
I conclude from this that it’s not Labour’s manifesto that’s the problem, despite Piers Morgan and the rest of the media and Tory establishment, including the Labour right, all claiming that it’s ‘far left’. It isn’t, and never was. It’s properly centrist in the true Labour tradition of a mixed economy.
I also think it would be difficult for the Labour to win under the circumstances. The anti-Semitism smears began when the Jewish Ed Miliband was elected leader. He was far more moderate than Corbyn, but dared to utter a mild criticism of Israel and so was subjected to a storm of smears. And Maureen Lipman flounced out of the party for the first time. Corbyn was then subjected to further smears and abuse for his support of the Palestinians – which does not equal anti-Semitism nor even a hatred of Israel, except in the minds of the ultra-Zionist fanatics. This was pushed by the media and the Conservative Jewish establishment, as well as the Labour right. They also misrepresented his work helping to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland as support for terrorism and the IRA. Oh yes, and he’s also supposed to be a supporter of Islamist terrorism. There’s also a nasty touch of racism in some of the other reasons I’ve heard for people not giving him their support. I’ve been told that Labour are in favour of open borders, and would flood the country with immigrants. Diane Abbott is also bitterly hated, and among the sneers I’ve heard thrown at the Labour leader is the accusation that he had an affair with her. Well, he might have, but that’s his own business and doesn’t affect his policies or how he intends to govern. Abbott is perceived by many as anti-White. I remember the quotation the Scum attributed to her in the 1987 general election ‘All White people are racist’. I don’t know if she really said it, but I doubt she believes it now. She’s friends with Michael Portillo, so I don’t think she regards him as racist. But her continuing anti-racism means that she is perceived by some as anti-White. And this also extends to Corbyn through their close professional relationship. And then there are the antics of the Labour right and their determination to bring Corbyn down through splits, rumours of splits, right-wing female Labour MPs trying to claim that he’s a misogynist and the endless lying and partisanship of the media.
It reminded me very much of the elections in the 1980s and the abuse and smears hurled at the Labour leaders Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock. Labour lost those elections, and Lobster has published a number of articles explaining how, under the circumstances, it would have been difficult for Labour to win.
But I don’t believe that we should give up hope just yet.
Labour’s manifesto was popular. People do want a return to the old social democratic consensus of a welfare state, mixed economy, and nationalised NHS. Prviatisation hasn’t worked, services are still crumbling and Boris will soon show how empty his promises about building hospitals and putting more money into the Health Service are. It’s just that, for the people who voted Tory in the north and midlands, Brexit took precedence.
And I feel that Corbyn has also given people hope. Before Corbyn’s election, I was extremely pessimistic about the survival of the NHS because all of the parties were participating in its privatisation. But Corbyn showed that its privatisation was not inevitable, at least at the hands of Labour. Which is no doubt partly the reason why the Labour Thatcherites are now queuing up to blame him for the election defeat. I do feel very strongly that Corbyn has set a very firm basis for a future Labour party to build on and grow from here, provided it finds a suitable successor.
I do not want another Blair.
Also, my guess is that this defeat will also make the true Labour supporters more determined. Always remember: an animal is most dangerous when it is cornered. I’ve heard tweets from people calling for new, more aggressive forms of resistance like the occupation of Jobcentres. And these will come. People will think up new ways of getting Labour’s message across.
And Boris hasn’t and won’t solve this country’s problems. Sooner or later some people, at least, will have to realise what I sham and a fraud the Tories are.
Well, an election has been set for December 12th, and the papers have been full of stories claiming that Labour is 15 points behind the Tories in the polls. This is quite a reversal from last Friday, 25th October 2019, when that day’s I carried an article by Jane Merrick, ‘New opinion poll shows narrow lead for labour’. This ran
A surprise poll put Labour narrowly ahead of the Conservatives last night, suggesting the possible Christmas election could be as close as 2017.
The ComRes survey has Labour on 27 per cent, on epoint ahead of the Tories on 26 per cent. The Brexit party is on 20 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 18 per cent.
Recent polls have given Boris Johnson’s party a comfortable lead of as much as 15 points ahead of Labour.
However, the new ComRes poll was not based on a straight question of voting intention but was dependent on whether “the deadline for the UK to leave the EU has been extended beyond 31 October 2019”.
The survey was taken on 16 and 17 October, just as the Prime Minister had reached his Brexit deal with Brussels but before the publication of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.
The poll suggests Mr Johnson’s latest plan, to call an election and extend Brexit beyond 31 October to allow the Bill to pass through Parliament on 6 November could benefit Labour.
Well, it’s now the 31st, and the Brexit deadline has definitely been extended.
Polls, of course, are notoriously untrustworthy. The polls for the last few elections all claimed to show that Labour would be wiped out. But as many of the polling companies are run by Tories, it isn’t remotely surprising they show Labour behind them. In reality, the party actually made some gains. Much also depends on the implementation of the laws on media impartiality. These come into force at election time for broadcasters, so that the Beeb is prevented from lying quite so flagrantly about Labour and Corbyn. As a result, Labour actually rises in the polls to the point where it overtakes the Tories. My guess is that the same process will begin to kick in the closer we get to an election.
And as for the standing in the polls of the two party leaders, the last time I looked BoJob had a massive -44, by far the worse polling of any party leader.
Yesterday Mike put up the ominous news that BoJob has confirmed in parliament that he would break the Benn Act in order to bring about a no-deal Brexit. Mike comments that this seems to confirm that he is indeed in the pocket of financial speculators, who stand to make billions from the economic and social chaos and misery that would result. Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP have also made it clear that they will not support Johnson’s new attempt at a deal with the EU. It appears that they only course left open is a vote of No Confidence, followed by a caretaker government led by Corbyn. If that fails, Mike speculates that John Bercow may seek to delay Brexit again in preparation for a general election. Mike goes on to wonder if Johnson actually wants that, as well as the Lib Dems, who seem to be ready to support the Tories back into power once again. He concludes
Perhaps he thinks the Brexit-supporting public will put him back into Number 10 with a majority.
But after a series of failed attempts at Brexit, is anybody really stupid enough to think he has anything to offer us?
By stating plainly that he is prepared to break the law to get the Brexit he and his backers want, Johnson has made it blatantly clear that he is not fit to be prime minister. While I’ve no doubt his toadies and lackeys in the right-wing press would try to claim that this would be the action of a strong prime minister against a weak, divided and traitorous parliament – and where would we have heard that kind of rhetoric before? Oh yes, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy – it’s the actions of an autocrat. We have such laws binding the powers of prime ministers and the head of state because we have constitutional government. It’s evolved over centuries through turmoil and revolution to protect British people, their liberty and property, from arbitrary, tyrannical government. That’s it’s point. Johnson and his supporters are willing to break that. It puts the lie to the old Tory claim that they represent democracy and the British constitution. In reality, as this shows abundantly, they are increasingly keen on autocratic one-man rule, with BoJob as the new Duce or Fuhrer.
If BoJob does violate the Benn Act, then I believe that he should be arrested and impeached as a clear and present threat to democracy. Perhaps we could put him and his supporters in the internment camp the right-wing forces plotting a coup in the 1970s wanted to put Harold Wilson, trade unionists and left-wing activists and journalists.
There’s a very worrying story right at the beginning of this fortnight’s Private Eye. It’s page 7, where the actual text of the magazine starts right after the first few pages of advertising. Titled ‘Privates on Parade’, it reveals that Project Yellowhammer, the secret government plan for dealing with mass shortages caused by Brexit, also includes provisions for drafting the army in as local government officials. The reason they’ll be needed there is because there aren’t enough civil servants in the national administration to deal with the crisis, and if it happens, they’re going to have to draft in local government officials. The article runs
The government has spent the past fortnight trying to play down the leaked Operation Yellowhammer document about preparations for a “no deal” Brexit. Ministers initially pretended it was an old plan; when it emerged that the document was dated August 2019, they claimed preparations had alread moved on since then.
But the ramifications of the plans are extraordinary. To fill the thousands of extra civil service posts required the government has arranged for a rather unorthodox shuffle: if/when a “no deal” Brexit happens, thousands of local government officials are to be reallocated to Whitehall departments to fortify Sir Humphrey.
Who will run town and county halls in their absence? This is where matters become surreal. The army – including territorial volunteers – are being issued with instructions to take over local government posts, in a civilian capacity, in the event of “no deal”.
One officer, who admitted he was uncomfortable at the optics of all this, observed to the Eye that this involved putting soldiers in charge even when they lacked basic literacy and numeracy. Quite how they would get on in calculating council tax, or providing adult social care and children’s services, remains to be seen…
There are several remarks to be made about all this. The first is that it shows how stupid and destructive successive Conservative administrations have been in their determination to slim down the civil service. This has now reached the point where there are too few of them to run the country effectively in the event of a national crisis, like a ‘no deal’ Brexit.
The second is the massive implications this has for democracy in this country. I would imagine that one reason the unnamed officer felt uncomfortable about the ‘optics’ of the army moving into local government is that it looks very much like the beginnings of a military coup. And events don’t have to go much further before it really would amount to a military take-over of civilian government. I think that Operation Yellowhammer also provides for emergency legislation to deal with possible civil unrest in the event of shortages of food, medicines and other essential services. After a wave of rioting up and down the country the government could declare a state of emergency, draft in the army and put in force martial law.
Given Boris’ personal authoritarianism, as shown in his prorogation of parliament, I can imagine that he may even wish to dispense with parliamentary supervision in such an emergency. With the very loud support of the Tory press, he dissolves parliament again, which will only be recalled in after the restoration of order. And it probably isn’t so far-fetched to see some of the Tory right and British press demanding the arrest of left-wing subversives. If the unions call a strike, I imagine they’d be delighted. They could go back to Maggie’s tactic of posing as the nation’s champion against the bullying of the union barons. Further legislation would be passed or invoked to break up the strikes, ban trade unions and arrest trade unionists. At the same time, allegations of Communist connections and sympathies would be used to justify the arrest and detention of left-wing activists and trade unionists as threats to national security. This might be going too far, but I could also imagine the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the right-wing Zionists of organisations like Herut handing over lists of names of ‘the wrong sort of Jews’ in order to make sure Jewish critics of Israel and Conservatism were also arrested and detained. Because after all, they’re a threat to Israel, one of the West’s major outposts in the Middle East.
I’m not saying this will happen, only that it could. Back in 1975 the Conservative party and parts of the press, including the Times and the Mirror, were also pressing for a coup to overthrow Harold Wilson’s Labour government. Because industrial unrest had got out of hand, and he was supposed to be a KGB spy. See Francis Wheen’s book on paranoia in the ’70s, Strange Days Indeed. It’s also described in Ken Livingstone’s 1987 book, Livingstone’s Labour, in which the-then mayor of London discusses how there were plans to round up left-wing activists, MPs and journalists, and have them sent to concentration camps on one of the Scottish islands.
The plan to draft soldiers in to local government also reminds me of the very strong position of the armed forces in the economies in many developing countries. In Pakistan, for example, the army also runs businesses, like cement factories. I’ve heard that the same is true of Egypt. The military is deeply entwined with large sectors of industry. Now Johnson and co.’s plan only involves drafting the military in to deal with a shortage of civil servants. But Zelo Street posted a piece recently showing that the government was also considering buying up the surplus food produced by our farmers if they could not export to the continent, and asked whether they would also provide financial support to the British car industry, another part of the economy that’s under threat. If the government decides that they, too, will have to be given over to army management or staffing, then Johnson and the Tories will really have turned this country into a third world nation. He’ll have a created a real military dictatorship, like those that have afflicted Pakistan and other nations. And they will be cheered on in this destruction by the right-wing press, like the Times, the Mail and the Scum. Lurking behind this threat of a coup, is the danger of a return of real Nazism from Social Darwinists like Toby Young and Dominic Cummings, who fear that giving education and welfare support to the poor and disabled is a threat to our racial stock and the proper running of our society by the upper classes. You can see them demanding legislation once again to sterilise the disabled and those on benefits.
The Tories and the right-wing media, including the Beeb, are now a real threat to democracy, whatever Boris and the Polecat now say about holding elections. We have to get them out, even if that means that Corbyn and the rest of the opposition have to bide their time for the moment. The future of our country and its people really is at stake.
Ho ho! An article in yesterday’s I for Monday, 15th April 2019, might explain why the Sunset Times was so keen to try another anti-Semitism smear against the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn the day before. The article, entitled ‘Labour on course to win general election’ by Cahal Milmo reported the findings of a poll by the Sunday Torygraph that in a general election, Labour would defeat the Tories, taking 59 seats from them. The article ran
The Conservative Party faces being swept from power by Jeremy Corbyn with the loss of nearly 60 seats in the event of a general election, according to new polling.
Labour would become the largest party in the House of Commons with prominent Tories, including the Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd and arch Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith at “high risk” of losing their seats.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that the steep fall in support was being fueled by anger among Conservative voters at the party’s failure to deliver Brexit on 29th March, despite repeated promises by Theresa May that the date would not be changed.
Professor Sir John Curtice, president of the British Polling Council, told the paper that it appeared Leave voters were being drawn back to Ukip or Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.
The “poll of polls” by Electoral Calculus, based on surveys of 8,561 people between 2 and 11 April, found that in the event of an immediate general election Labour would become the largest party with 296 seats against 259 for the Tories – a net loss of 59 MPs for Mrs May’s party.
But despite such a victory, Mr Corbyn would not automatically become prime minister – he could only form a government if he secured support from other parties such as the SNP.
“The Conservatives’ failure so far to secure Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union is at risk of costing them dearly,” said Sir John. (p. 6).
While it’s refreshing to read a story that predicts Labour winning a general election, obviously it’s still incredibly biased. It comes from the Torygraph, and follows that rag’s pro-Brexit line. But while I don’t doubt that the Tories’ continued incompetence, factionalism and May’s stubborn determination to hang on to power and force through the same tired, discredited and utterly unwanted deal, there are other powerful factors that might bring about a Labour victory.
Firstly, as Mike has also pointed out this week, Remainer Tories are also being drawn towards the Tinge Group, Change UK, thus disproving their claims to be ‘centrist’ Labour. And secondly, Labour’s policies are massively popular. People want the health service renationalized and restored, electricity, water and the railways taken back into state ownership, the trade unions strengthened, workers given better employment rights and places in the boardroom, as well as the creation of a proper welfare state. All the policies that the Tories and the rest of the neoliberal establishment hate with a passion, and revile as just a return to the policies of the 1970s.
But Labour are very definitely ahead in the polls, but rather than admit that this is because the Party is genuinely popular and neoliberalism and Thatcherism are dead, zombie economics, the Torygraph is trying to spin this to discredit the ‘Remain’ camp within the Tory party. But hopefully it won’t be too long before there is a Labour election victory, and the entire Tory party is swept from power and kept out for decades.
Some may be outraged by the question, but it’s perfectly legitimate. The Nazis were Social Darwinists, who believed that the social elite, aristocrats and businessmen, were biologically superior to those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. And like Social Darwinists elsewhere in the West, they bitterly despised the disabled. They were ‘lebensunwertigen Leben‘, ‘life unworthy of life’, and a danger to the racial purity and biological fitness of the German people. Other nations had attempted to prevent the congenitally disabled from breeding through eugenics legislation providing for the sterilisation of the congenitally disabled and mentally handicapped. 22 American states had passed such legislation prior to the Nazi seizure of power, and when the Nazis in their turn enacted such laws, they claimed they had done nothing new. But they went much further, setting up a programme of official euthanasia in which the disabled and the incurably insane were taken by the SS to special clinics, where they were medically murdered.
A similar attitude seems to underlie the Tories’ policies towards the disabled and the hated fitness to work tests. These are based on policies introduced by Blair’s New Labour, in that the disabled are required to undertake tests administered by private contractors like Atos and now Maximus in order to judge whether they are ‘fit for work’. Those that are, are thrown off benefits and left to survive on their own. And all too many don’t. As has been pointed out by left-wing and disability rights bloggers and activists, the tests are based on pseudoscience within an inbuilt assumption that people are malingering. Whistleblowers have also come forward to tell how there are targets set by the DWP for declaring a certain proportion of claimants well enough to work, even though they are anything but. Blogs like Atos Miracles and the satirical magazine Private Eye have reported incidents where people in terminal comas have been declared fit for work, along with others with serious physical and mental conditions. Amputees have been asked when they expect their limbs to grow back, and depressives suffering from suicidal thoughts have been asked why they haven’t attempt to kill themselves. People in real, pressing need have been thrown off benefits and left to starve to death. Mike at Vox Political and other activists and bloggers have fought hard to get the statistics out of the DWP for the number of people, who have died after being declared fit for work. The Tories have attempted to refuse the information, and only very grudgingly released it. At the same time they have also consistently denied that there is any connection between their policies and the deaths of the disabled and the unemployed, who have suffered similar removal of benefits under the infamous sanctions system. This has been so even when people have taken their own lives, leaving behind notes explaining why they have taken their own lives and placing the blame firmly on the DWP’s iniquitous policies.
Yesterday John McDonnell, Corbyn’s chief ally, urged people to make their concerns about the hardships caused by the DWP and Universal Credit known to their MPs personally, especially Tory MPs. He believes that if MPs personally met people, whose lives have been made worse through the sanctions system and Universal Credit, MPs would have a greater understanding of their suffering than through the ordinary process of parliamentary debate.
Mike in his piece about it was sceptical, pointing out that the government shares the same fundamental attitude towards the disabled as ‘useless eaters’, and believe that any policy that cuts down their number is good for the nation. Which means that it allows them to give massive tax cuts to the very rich. Mike also points out that the same rich the Tories defend and promote are far worse parasites, as they contribute less to the economy and use more of the state’s resources, funded by the taxpayer. Many of the business elite aren’t responsible for establishing the businesses they own or run. They simply inherited them.
But contacting the Tories won’t do any good. They’ll simply spit out the same old stories denying that their policies are responsible for the suffering and death they have manifestly caused. Meeting the disabled and unemployed personally won’t do any good either, they’ll just nod solemnly, look concerned and then carry on as before. This is because the Tories want the disabled and the unemployed, who find it difficult to get work, to die. Mike feels that the only way the DWP’s reign of terror can be stopped is if a court case or public inquiry found that a reasonable person would conclude that there was a connection between their policies and the deaths of the unemployed and disabled. This would open the way to the government being prosecuted for corporate manslaughter, possibly of as many as 100,000 people, although this is a conservative estimate.
The only other possibility is through a general election which puts Labour in power, though this may not be possible. Although the public believes in Labour’s policies, they are being deliberately misled into thinking that Corbyn himself is a threat. Hence the spectacle last week of soldiers in Afghanistan shooting at a picture of the Labour leader. Mike concludes
The system is stacked against Labour, and therefore against anybody who is in a position of vulnerability; anybody who isn’t a vastly rich Tory.
So if you have a relative or friend who has to claim sickness and/or disability benefits, go and see them, and give them a lot of affection. They may soon be dead – and if you voted Conservative, it’ll be because of your vote.
Mike here is absolutely right. The rich do use more state services than the poor, which is one reason why they should be charged a consequently higher tax rate. And the Tories have cut welfare benefits in order to give massive tax breaks to the rich. Who don’t pass the benefits of their increased wealth further down the social hierarchy in the form of wages increases or opening new businesses. It simply stays in their accounts. And they really do seem keen to kill as many of the poor and disabled as possible.
Which brings us back to the Nazi euthanasia campaign. This ran between January 1940 and August 1941, when public outrage led by the Roman Catholic aristocrat, Count Galen forced the Nazis to abandon it. By that time they had murdered somewhere between sixty to eighty thousand disabled people. See D.G. Williamson, The Third Reich (Harlow: Longman 1982) 68-9.
If the Tories are responsible for the deaths of 100,000 people through Universal Credit, benefit sanctions and the fitness for work tests, then they have killed at least 20 – 40,000 more people disabled people than the Nazis.
This is horrendous. I dare say that Tory supporters would reject the comparison, as those left to die are not being forcibly taken to places against their will, like the Nazis’ murder hospitals or concentration camps, where they are then murdered by SS soldiers or compliant doctors. They are just thrown off benefits to starve on their own, so that the Tories, with a clear conscience, can say that they had nothing to do with their deaths.
But they did, and are. And its a disgrace. It’s long past time the Tories’ murder of the sick, disabled and unemployed was ended. Ideally those responsible, like Iain Duncan Smith, should be personally brought to trial and charged with their manslaughter. But this is probably impossible. The best solution would, as Mike says, be a Labour government brought in by a snap election.
And the fact still remains that the Tories have now killed more disabled people than the Nazis, and that those who voted for them are complicit in this.
Mike suggested in his first article on the Sunset Times’ latest anti-Semitism smear against the Labour party that it was motivated by the fear that a general election was in the offing. Mike wrote
This is a critical time for the people of the United Kingdom.
Hysteria over Brexit is at fever pitch, with Theresa May in negotiations with a Labour team on a way to save the process from the disaster she has made of it.
If the talks fall apart, it is possible that Mrs May will trigger a general election in the hope that a new Parliament may be able to support one of the options available.
And in this context, The Sunday Times publishes a piece smearing the leader of the Opposition.
I don’t think there can be much doubt about it. The Skwawkbox has also pup up a very interesting little piece reporting that the Mail on Sunday has an eight-page feature telling its readers ‘How to protect your cash from Corbyn’. Which, as the Skwawkbox points out, is a frank admission that they think he’s going to win the next election, and that they think that one’s coming soon. The Skwawkbox also points out that it shows that the Tories are also all about the wealthy, drily commenting ‘Who knew, eh?’
Who indeed? The Tories have always seen themselves as the party of business and industry. Or rather, they have since they stopped presenting themselves as just the party of the Anglican Church and aristocracy, and decided to broaden their constituency by taking the business vote from the right-wing of the Liberal party. As a result, they are very much the party of the Establishment, although it has to be said that the religious right have also become very worried that a large section of the Anglican church, along with many other British churches and religions, doesn’t support them. And it seems from the latest smears against the Labour party and this piece in the Heil on Sunday that the Establishment is very, very worried. And so they should. Polls last week showed Labour five points ahead of the Tories, and the Newport by-election even suggested that the lead could be as much as nine points. Or at least it was in Newport.
Hence the Sunset Times’ attack, which, as well as being a malign attempt to misrepresent and libel Corbyn and his party, is also an act of utter desperation. The Tories are desperately afraid they’ll lose the next election, and so they’re reverting to the anti-Semitism lies and smears. But they’ve used them so often before, it’s very likely that the British public, or at least a sizable part of them, realises that they’re lying and simply don’t believe them. I’ve blogged before about a piece I found elsewhere on the Net, which reported that a senior member of the Israel lobby, responsible for spreading the anti-Semitism smears against opponents of Israeli ethnic cleansing, lamented that it was no longer working as effectively as they’d like.
I hope this continues and the whole, wretched sham campaign of smears and lies is utterly discredited along with the soulless hacks and politicos that retail it. And that Labour wins the next election by a landslide.
As Mike reported this morning, May lost the vote about her supposedly renegotiated Brexit deal. As Mike himself has said, it’s anything but new. It was the same material she’d tried to pass already, and, again contrary to everything she said, it also wasn’t legally binding. The Tory MPs Charles Walker and Daniel Kawczynski have said that if May lost the vote, she should call a general election as it would then be clear that the government was dead.
Jeremy Corbyn has done it for her. In the video below, he stands up in parliament and demands that the government call a general election, backing this up with very strong arguments. But please hold your nose while watching it – it comes from the Scum.
It begins with the speaker announcing that Corbyn is about to stand and speak. He thanks the Speaker, and begins with the statement that the government has been defeated again by an enormous majority, and must now except that their deal, their proposal, the one the Prime Minister has met, is clearly dead and does not have the support of this House. And quite clearly, no deal must be taken off the table. We’ve said that before, we’ll say that again. But it does mean the House has got to come together with a proposal that could be negotiated. The Labour party has put that proposal and we will put that proposal again. Because the dangers of what the Prime Minister’s proposing if she carries on threatening us all the danger of no deal, the danger of that, knowing full well the damage that will do to the economy. Corbyn states that his party will put forward its proposals again, which are for a negotiated customs union, access to the market and protection of rights. Those are the proposals they’ll put forward. They believe there may well be a majority for them, but there will also be the potential for negotiating them. The Prime Minister has run down the clock and the clock has been run out on her. Maybe it’s time instead we had a general election and the people could choose -. And there the clip ends.
That’s it. May’s credibility is in tatters. Of course, it was in tatters long before last night, and her second meaningful vote hasn’t changed anything, except perhaps to make it even more glaringly obvious what a spent and empty political force she is. Corbyn, Walker and Kawczynski are right. We should have a general election now.
But I don’t doubt that the Tory party will try to cling on to power with all its might. Zelo Street has reported this morning that May’s Brexit problems are all the creation of herself and her party, the Heil and the Scum are trying to shift the blame somehow on to Corbyn. It won’t wash. A general election is the only hope we have of finding a government that will be able to salvage something from this mess. A Corbyn government.
Mike says that if it happens, it’ll be our third in four years. Which is approaching the level of political instability our political pundits believed could only happen in the continental system, and particularly with the Italians. But now it’s hit us, and the only chance of producing genuine, beneficial change is for a general election and the replacement of May’s failed Tories with a Labour government under Corbyn.
What can decent people do about Christopher Chope, the Tory MP for Christchurch? Apart from either waiting for him to be voted out at the next general election, or having him committed to Broadmoor as a dangerous lunatic whose twisted view of democracy is a threat to the safety of vulnerable women and girls?
Yesterday Mike put up a piece reporting that Chope talked out a bill on Friday intended to safeguard girls and women against Female Genital Mutilation. His decision to do so was in direct opposition to his government’s own stance against this repulsive practice. Mike’s article quotes a tweet from Tweezer herself, who said
Female genital mutilation is an abhorrent practice and we will not accept it. We’ve strengthened the law on FGM, leading to the first UK conviction last week, and we’re helping communities around the world to end this appalling crime.#EndFGM
Chope declared that the reason he did so wasn’t because he was in favour of FGM, but because he hated Private Members’ Bills. But in the instance, as Mike pointed out, his professed principles amounted to pure egotism as he placed them before the wishes of his government, party, nation and parliament. Mike asked in his article whether Chope would have been quite so keen to block the bill if he knew someone, who had suffered from FGM, or if it was a form of mutilation and torture he might also have suffered if he had been born into a culture that practiced such barbarity.
Mike also goes on to say that he first learned about it at school, and it turned his stomach. I was about the same age when I first heard about it, and Mike’s right – it’s horrific and revolting. I think it can very in terms of severity, and has been described by feminists as ‘female castration’. There are absolutely no medical benefits to it, and, apart from the horrific nature of the operation itself, it can also be a positive danger to women’s health. It isn’t just the national government that is worried about it. Local authorities are too. A few years ago there was an article on the local news for the West Country on the Beeb, Points West, about concerns by activists and medical professionals about girls in Bristol being taken out of the country to their families homelands to have it done.
As for Chope himself, last year he also talked out a Private Members Bill to prevent upskirting, which Mike suggests means that he seems to have an unpleasant attitude to stop women protecting their private parts. And public opinion was very definitely against Chope. Mike quotes two Tweets from Dangerous Hero Rachel Swindon, who said
Following on from his upskirting disgrace, Tory MP Christopher Chope MP has just shouted to object to the Female Genital Mutilation Bill.
There is seriously something wrong with this guy. Abhorrent individual.
And also pointed out that he was one who believes in denying government aid to the many, while being very glad to avail himself of it.
Tory Christopher Chope doesn’t just derail upskirting & FGM bills. He voted –
•12 X for the Bedroom Tax
•44 X to cut benefits
•9 X against bankers bonus tax
•19 X to reduce Corporation tax
He used £10,000 expenses to fix his roof, a £2,600 bathroom & £881 to repair a sofa
Mike stated that, thank to his principles, the provisions of this bill will now have to be included in a formal government bill. Which means more time putting more women and girls at risk. He asks
Will Mr Chope accept responsibility for their pain and humiliation? If not, perhaps any such victims should take out a private prosecution against him.
Mike also concludes
So perhaps we should simply accept that he blocked the Bill against FGM because this principled man believes in the principle behind FGM: That those with power are entitled to do anything they like with those who have none – and do all we can to remove this dinosaur, and his prehensile principles, from Parliament at the earliest opportunity.
Chopes’ decision to block the bill seems to be part of the same attitude of a certain group of far-right Tories and Kippers. There was a scandal a few years ago, I seem to recall, when some UKIP MEPs tried to block or voted against a similar bill intended to protect women from either sexual assault or FGM, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten which. And in some cases their actions have been extremely hypocritical.
I don’t know what Chope’s attitude towards Islam is. I’m not aware that he’s a bigot. But there is a very strong element of pernicious, systemic islamophobia in the Tory party. And one of the issues islamophobes have seized upon to try to show that Islam is incompatible with British culture and should be heavily legislated against and discouraged is Female Genital Mutilation. Yes, it goes on in Islam, but it is not commanded in Qu’ran. I think it’s one of the practices that entered Islam from outside, and is most widespread outside the Middle East in sub-Saharan Africa. Certainly the women’s rights activists, who spoke about it on the Points West piece cited cases were girls were being taken there. There is an Islamic feminist movement, and I’m absolutely sure that there are campaigners against it in the Dar al-Islam. But many of the same Kipper MEPs, who voted against the European parliament’s attempts to outlaw it were also bitterly islamophobic, which made them both religiously bigoted and misogynist. Islamophobe or not, by blocking this legislation Chope has also undermined the efforts of Islamic and BAME feminists to protect women. But then, as Dangerous Hero Rachel Swindon and Mike have pointed out, Chope doesn’t believe in supporting the health and welfare of the poor and underprivileged, only in giving even more to extremely rich White men like himself.
As for his precious principles, they’re clearly undemocratic. Private Members’ Bills always have been part of parliamentary democracy. He can hate them all he likes in principle, but it should not be his right to obstruct parliamentary democracy. Especially when it puts women and girls at risk of horrific mutilation.
You hope it won’t be too long before there’s a general election and he, and the rest of his party of thugs and bigots, are thrown out and a proper Labour government installed instead.
More lies, cowardice and broken promises from Theresa May. After telling the world that she was going to hold a vote on her Brexit deal tomorrow, 13th December 2018, Tweezer has once again shown her true colours and run away. Just like she pulled out from a debate with Jeremy Corbyn when she found that the Labour leader was not going to give in to her and hold the debate on the Beeb, in a format packed with Tories or pro-Tory voices. Just like she also demanded Corbyn debate her at the election in 2017, and then ran away from that when agreed.
It’s standard Tweezer policy when the going gets sticky. And the going here was very sticky end. According to RT, 62 per cent of the country think her deal is bad for Britain. MPs on all sides of the House are lining up to criticize it, and her own cabinet is bitterly divided on the issue. Plus leading Tories are lining to up to say they’ll challenge her leadership of the party, the latest being Esther ‘Killer of the weak and disabled’ McVey. So Tweezer has decided to postpone the vote.
This is a woman, who doesn’t like facing an audience unless everything is very carefully stage-managed. Like during the electioneering last year, when she went round supposedly meeting ordinary people. Except she didn’t. The meetings were very carefully staged, often in private, and with very carefully selected audiences, in order to exclude anybody who was going to ask awkward questions.
May has therefore postponed the Brexit vote. Mike has asked on his blog whether this means it’s effectively been cancelled. Which would lead to another contempt of parliament motion. This wouldn’t surprise me either. It would have been the first promise Tweezer has broken. Some of us still remember how she promised all manner of things last year, including workers on management boards, which were forgotten or postponed as soon as she got into No. 10.
But Mike also asks what this means for democracy. Without the vote, she can simply push it through parliament, no matter how bad it is for the country and the amount of opposition to it in parliament.
Are we living in a democracy, or slaving under Dictator May?, Mike pointedly asks.
Mike has also mischievously suggested that one reason May pulled out of holding the vote on her wretched Brexit deal tomorrow is that Andy Serkis did an impression of her as Gollum. Serkis is the actor, who played the character in the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit films. And it’s appropriate. Tweezer got nicknamed Gollum after her obsequious fawning and curtsying to the monarchy, just like the character flits between fawning over Frodo and the others searching for the Ring and spitting hate about them.
It appears that Serkis did his impression of May/Gollum as part of the People’s Vote campaign for a second referendum. I found it on the We Wants It channel on YouTube, which takes its name from Gollum’s cry about the Ring, ‘We wants it, precious!’ Just as the we, the country, or at least some of us, wants a second referendum. Here it is.
Mike has also written about this latest piece of massive cowardice by May. His piece also includes Serkis’ Gollum impression, taken from the Mirror, as well as some very grim pictures of May groveling to the Royals. It’s at
