Guy Debord’s Cat on Jo Swinson and Racism in the Lib Dems

Also on the subject of hypocrisy and racism, Buddy Hell has written an excellent little piece about it in the Lib Dems under Jo Swinson. He notes that she said nothing about the Tories Hostile Environment policy and how it disproportionately affected Blacks and Asians, and said little about the Windrush scandal. She also hasn’t raised any objections to the Tories’ persecution of Gypsies and Travellers, has said nothing about islamophobia and has also said little about the rise in hate crimes against people of colour. He observes how she was silent in the House of Commons when Sir Paul Beresford called Travellers ‘a disease’. She has also welcomed into her party former Tory Philip Lee, who has also expressed racist views on immigration, hidden behind coded language. She also welcome the former Labour MP Angela Smith, formerly of the Change group, who infamously referred to people of colour as having a ‘funny tinge’.

The shadow equalities minister, Labour’s Dawn Butler, was also angered by her failure to act properly over the claim of one of Swinson’s activists that Butler had made up her own experience of racism. The activist involved was Steve Wilson, Angela Smith’s husband, Wilson wrote to Butler to apologise, and Swinson said that she believed Butler had been racially discriminated against. But Butler was not satisfied as Swinson had not revealed whether Wilson had been suspended or punished. She also wanted Wilson and Smith to undergo diversity training.

He also notes that before Sam Gyimah and Chuka Umunna arrived, the Lib Dems had no people of colour among their MPs. But Gyimah has shown his character by accusing Labour’s candidate for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, of being one of those responsible for making the decision to use flammable cladding on Grenfell Tower. Coad hotly denies this, and is suing. Dr Geoffrey Seef, the Lib Dem candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, has also been making coded islamophobic comments against Labour’s Faiza Shaheen, who has complained to Swinson with the support of Dawn Butler. Coded racism isn’t anything new to the Lib Dems either. In 1991 one Langbaugh produced leaflets urging constituents to vote for a ‘local candidate’. Presumably he thought he and his constituents lived in the League of Gentlemen’s Royston Vesey. In 2009 the Lib Dems in Islington were accused of camouflaged racist campaigning against Travellers, and used the same tactics in Tower Hamlets to try and get votes from BNP supporters.

He also describes how Swinson has lied time and again over a number of other matters. Despite claiming that the Lib Dems must own the failures of the coalition with the Tories, she’s done absolutely nothing to change their policies. She was caught lying about her misleading graphs claiming that the Lib Dems were the leading opposition party in certain constituencies by Sophie Ridge on Sky, but continued repeating the lie. She also has fantasies about becoming prime minister, something that is beginning to irritate her followers. He notes that she has done precious little herself about racism and anti-Semitism, while falsely accusing Jeremy Corbyn of it all day long.

He concludes

If Swinson isn’t lying, she’s fantasising about becoming Prime Minister. If she isn’t doing that, she’s claiming that her spokespeople are a ‘shadow cabinet‘. In September, Swinson was heckled by her own party members who were unhappy that she’d admitted Tory defectors into the party. Come 13 December, I’m hoping the voters of East Dunbartonshire do the right thing and vote Swinson out.

The Jo Swinson File

Absolutely. She’s a massive liar and hypocrite. She certainly is no progressive, despite her claims. After all, what true progressive would support the Tories’ attacks on the poor and vulnerable through their welfare cuts and the bedroom tax, for example. I also strongly believe that she isn’t a serious remainer, and that it’s just a voting tactic to provide her with an excuse not to go into coalition with Corbyn. If she’s given the opportunity, she will show her true Tory nature and go back into coalition with the Conservatives again. Just like Nick Clegg.

Don’t be fooled by her egregious lies. Don’t vote for her, or the Tories, but Corbyn.

Loser Johnson Loses Majority, Loses Vote and Purges Rebels

Ho ho! Things definitely aren’t going too well for the Blonde Generalissimo. Yesterday he lost his majority in the Commons when Philip Lee crossed the floor to join the Lib Dems while he spouting something about the G7 summit. Lee gave his reason for joining them his opposition to the immense harm being done to this country by Brexit. He declared

“This Conservative government is aggressively pursuing a damaging Brexit in unprincipled ways. It is putting lives and livelihoods at risk unnecessarily and it is wantonly endangering the integrity of the United Kingdom. More widely, it is undermining our country’s economy, democracy and role in the world. It is using political manipulation, bullying and lies. And it is doing these things in a deliberate and considered way.

“That is why today I am joining Jo Swinson and the Liberal Democrats.”

Even with the odious DUP supporting him, BoJob only had a majority of one. Now he doesn’t even have that. Which means that, democratically, he can’t pass any legislation whatsoever.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/09/03/tory-mp-defects-to-lib-dems-now-dictator-johnson-has-no-majority-in-parliament-at-all/

But the humiliation got worse. The 21 Tory MPs who were threatening to rebel against Johnson over the vote whether to debate a bill preventing a no deal Brexit put their money where their mouths were and actually did it. They voted with the opposition. From today backbenchers have control of commons business. The Old Etonian Duce becomes the first Prime Minister since Pitt the Younger to lose his first vote.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/09/03/mps-defeat-government-theyll-debate-bill-to-prevent-no-deal-brexit/

The Tories, who voted against him were Ken Clarke, Philip Hammond, Guto Bebb, Rory Stewart, Oliver Letwin, Dominic Grieve, David Gauke, Nicholas Soames, Richard Benyon, Steve Brine, Alistair Burt, Greg Clark, Justine Greening, Sam Gyimah, Stephen Hammond, Richard Harrington, Margot James, Anne Milton, Caroline Nokes, Antoinette Sandbach and Ed Vaizey. Clarke is, I think, the father of the House, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer under John Major. Hammond was also Chancellor until a few weeks ago, while Oliver Letwin and Nicholas ‘Fatty’ Soames have been prominent, even notorious, Tory politicos since the days of Thatcher, as I recall. And unlike many Tory chancellors, such as George Osborne,Clarke did seem to understand something about economics. When a prominent MP like him rebels, the fault’s very much with Johnson, not with him.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/09/03/the-21-tories-ejected-from-their-party-for-voting-with-their-consciences/

But BoJob also reacted as he threatened. He removed the whip from them, effectively expelling them from the Tory party. But there are also rumours that, following the advice of his adviser Dominic Cummings, he also removed their parliamentary passes so that they’d find it difficult getting into the Commons today to vote against him. One of the rebel MPs, Sam Gyimah, was reported by Sky News to have said that it seemed he had disabled their passes when they came in yesterday evening.

This was followed by the bizarre behaviour of the Polecat himself. It seems that with nothing to do during the debate except wait, Cummings retired to the bar, where he became, as Private Eye would have said, ‘tired and emotional’. Peter Walker, one of the Groaniad’s hacks, spotted him wondering down the parliamentary press corridor, lost and clutching a bottle of red wine, looking for the office of a particular newspaper. Then Cumming lurched over to Portcullis house where, according to Tim Shipman, the political editor of the Murdoch propaganda sheet the Sunday Times, he started yelling at Jeremy Corbyn ‘Come on Jeremy, let’s do this election, don’t be scared’. Shipman claimed the Labour leader was then whisked away by horrified aides. The Labour MP Cat Smith tweeted that, ‘As one of several shadow cabinet members stood right next to Jeremy (who was on the phone at the time) I just thought there was some loud bloke who stunk of booze yelling at us’. Commenting on this bizarre spectacle, Brexitbin tweeted ‘ Drunk & disorderly in Westminster is a new low even for him. The way to beat these people is not to play their game. Put them under pressure and they crack”. To which Zelo Street added ‘Didn’t need much pressure, did it?’ and concluded ‘Cummings is cracking up. Expect more pissed apparitions before he is taken away.’

See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/09/dominic-cummings-go-home-youre-drunk.html

Did Boris Johnson really cancel Parliamentary passes of rebel Tory MPs? And what did drunken Dominic do?

This really doesn’t look good for BoJob. Corbyn could seize power, as the Skwawkbox says, it Jo Swinson wasn’t so determined to preserve Tory power in order to keep him out. https://skwawkbox.org/2019/09/04/johnsons-majority-shattered-lab-could-form-govt-if-mps-really-want-to-stop-no-deal-time-to-revisit-corbyns-offer/

Johnson has also confirmed that he’s a Stalinist by purging the Tory rebels, who now have absolutely nothing to lose by voting against the government and bringing it down. And as various bloggers, like Zelo Street, have already remarked, it also shows up the horrendous hypocrisy of the press. They were howling a few months ago that Corbyn was an evil Stalinist because he gave the constituency parties the power to deselect their MPs. How terrible and dictatorial, reinforcing internal party democracy like that! In fact, Corbyn hasn’t deselected anyone. But Johnson has. And the Tories are likely to have been embarrassed by it. When BoJob first made the threat, James Cleverly – surely a misnomer? – tweeted out that the party has no mechanism for deselecting MPs. Perhaps not, but Duce Boris has still kicked them out of the party nonetheless. Still, it could have been worse. Dictator Boris could have gone full Hitler and had them all killed like the SA during the Night of the Long Knives. I wonder who would have taken the part of the SS? Conservative Future, perhaps? They seem to be racist enough, if not necessarily that violent.

Here’s the Guardian’s video of Philip Lee crossing the floor:

I hope these are just the first of many defeats leading to this vicious, murderous government finally collapsing. And hopefully taking the whole Tory party down with it for good.