The Discreet, Poisonous Corporatism of the Labour Party Quitters

Yesterday, a group of seven MPs formally split from the Labour party. Now going independent, this glittering array of third raters, has-beens and deadbeats were supposed to form the nucleus of this new, shiny Blairite ‘centrist’ party that has been mooted for the past year or so. The group included such luminaries as Gavin Shuker, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Chuka Umunna, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey. They were all Blairites, who had been trying to overthrow Corbyn or undermine his leadership since he was elected head of the party. Or else had been threatening to quit.

Comparisons have been made to the Labour split in the 1980s which saw the notorious ‘gang of four’, including Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams form the short-lived Social Democratic Party. They ended up shortly forming an alliance with the Liberals before finally merging with them to form the Liberal Democrats. At the time there much verbiage in the press about the SDP ‘breaking the mould’ of British politics. It didn’t happen, despite the TV critic Clive James in his Observer column sneering at Tony Benn, who said that support for the SDP had peaked. But, as Zelo Street has pointed out, the comparison also doesn’t do the Quitters any favours in another way. Some of the MPs, who formed the SDP were actually first rate politicos. As Home Secretary in the 1960s, Roy Jenkins oversaw some profound changes in the liberalization of British society. Like the partial decriminalization of homosexuality, for which, among other things, he’s still bitterly resented by the Tory right today. Reading Shirley William’s 1979 book, Politics Is For People, it’s clear that she did have a powerful mind with strong, distinct views on how socialism should improve British society and industry.

This bunch, by contrast, don’t seem to have any distinct views or anything more to offer than rehashed, warmed up Blairism. Before their website crashed yesterday, Zelo Street was able to get on it and read what they had to say. Which seemed to be a lot of flannel. More fine-sounding words about democracy which didn’t actually come down to meaning very much. The website said

Our primary duty as Members of Parliament is to put the best interests of our constituents and our country first. Our free media, the rule of law, and our open, tolerant and respectful democratic society should be cherished and renewed. We believe that our Parliamentary democracy in which our elected representatives deliberate, decide and provide leadership, held accountable by their whole electorate is the best system of representing the views of the British people. Zelo Street remarked that the first part of this statement, about cherishing and renewing free media, rule of law and democratic society doesn’t actually mean anything, while the second – about parliamentary democracy being the best method of representing the views of the British people – is just what every MP in the House believes.

But what the group really stands for is best shown by the group’s legal organization and its members’ very cosy relationship with private enterprise. The group’s website was set up in 2015 in a tax haven. The new party actually isn’t a party. It’s been registered as a private corporation, Gemini A, which means that it doesn’t have to identify its backers. This also, apparently, makes it exempt from the spending restrictions on campaigning which apply to genuine political parties.

And then there’s Angela ‘People of funny tin…’ Smith’s connection with private water companies. Smith is chairman of the all-party water group, which is mainly funded by private water companies like Wessex Water and Affinity Water. Talking to Smith on This Morning Yesterday, Ash Sarkar pointed out that her group were some of the very few people left, who still believe in water privatization. She predicted that people would like at Smith’s leadership of the group and say, ‘You know what, that stinks of corruption’.

Sarkar isn’t going to be wrong either. The Canary in their article on this pointed out that 83 per cent of the population want the water companies to be renationalized. And Blair’s very strong links to private industry were very heavily criticized when he was power. Blair was a corporatist, who gave business leaders and senior management key positions in government in exchange for donations. This whole, nasty web of corporate links was exposed by the Groaniad’s George Monbiot in his book, Captive State, which lists various businessmen and the government positions Blair gave them. Even at the time Blair’s government was notorious for doing political favours in return for donations, as Blair did for Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One magnate, in return for something like a million pounds of corporate dosh.

‘Bevan Boy’ described what other Blairite policies this crew probably also stand for in this tweet, quoting by Mike in his article on them:

What will this new “Centrist” party stand for?
More Austerity?
Rampant marketisation & uncontrolled capitalism?
Neoconservative Thatcherism?
I suspect all of the above under a pro EU banner. The policies are being rejected & thank Christ they are.
We need a socialist LAB govt!

And what the splitters really think of democracy is shown by the fact that none of them actually want to hold a bye-election and give their constituents a say in whether they want them to represent them in parliament. It’s been pointed out that only one per cent of voters say that they actually vote for the individual MP, rather than the party. But these avowed democrats really don’t want to give their constituents the opportunity to decide whether they want to keep them as their MP or whether they want to elect someone else.

Which is what you could expect from a group that includes Luciana Berger. Berger, or should that be Lucrezia Borgia?, was facing a vote of no confidence from her local constituency. She then declared that they were bullying her, and demanded Jenny Formby expel the constituency party from Labour. Formby told her that she had no cause to do this and refused.

But Borgia, sorry, Berger, has carried on whining about bullying and intimidation nonetheless. Just as all the Quitters have moaned about anti-Semitism. The truth is, anti-Semitism is not the reason they’re splitting. It never has been. It has only been a convenient stick with which to beat Corbyn and his supporters. In fact anti-Semitism in the party has fallen under the Labour leader. It is lower in the Labour party than in the others and in the general British population. And the anti-Semitism accusations against him and the majority of those accused are nothing but contrived smears.

The real truth is that Berger, Umunna, Shuker, Leslie, Smith, Coffee and Gapes are corporatist anti-democrats. They wish to hang on to power against the wishes of their constituents, in order to promote the power of private corporations. Just as Mussolini and Hitler promoted private industry and gave it a seat in government and the management of the economy in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

For further information, see:
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/02/18/mps-split-off-from-the-labour-party-voters-say-good-riddance/

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/02/18/mps-split-off-from-the-labour-party-voters-say-good-riddance/

http://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-independent-group-on-way-out.html

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/02/18/ash-sarkar-takes-down-a-resigning-blairite-mp-so-brutally-a-bbc-host-intervenes/

More Problems for Tweezer and Biased Beeb as Corporation Withdraws Offer to Host Debate

Last week Mike also put up a series of articles discussing the Beeb’s proposal to host the debate over Brexit between Corbyn and Tweezer, and showed why Corbyn should choose ITV instead. It seems the Corporation had been in negotiations with May to host the debate through Robbie, one of Tweezer’s spin doctors, who used to work at the Corporation. This had been done weeks before May issued her challenge to Corbyn, which suggested that Tweezer was hoping for some help from the ever biased BBC.

The Beeb didn’t just want a straightforward, head-to-head debate between the two party leaders. They also wanted this to be

followed by a discussion between eight panellists, including politicians, with a wide range of views on Brexit, and ending with further head-to-head debate and closing statements.

This was in contrast to ITV’s offer, which was just for a straight head-to-head debate between May and Corbyn. As Mike points out on his blog, the Beeb had no right to change the format of the debate, and suggested that their doing so may have been part of their negotiations with Tweezer. The inclusion of a panel, with members that included other politicians, also gave the Corporation too much freedom to pack the show with pro-Tory viewpoints. Like the Corporation has been doing every Thursday evening on Question Time, and on just about every news programme. If they can get in an attack against Corbyn, they will.

On Tuesday Mike put up a piece reporting that the Beeb had withdrawn their offer, and published their official reply. Which he also critiqued. Apart from the above comments about possible bias in the format, and its origins with Tweezer, Mike also commented that the Beeb’s disappointment at being unable to bring the British people this programme and its wide variety of views, shows why the Corporation still deserves its nickname of ‘Auntie’. It’s still trying to tell the British public what to think.

The Corporation did, however, say that it would have a Brexit edition of the One Show, which was apparently broadcast yesterday, and would show a programme completely devoted to Brexit on Monday, 10th December.

Mike concluded his article on this by saying that the Beeb’s withdrawal puts May into a quandary. He writes

It seems clear she has been trying to manoeuvre Mr Corbyn into a position where she can accuse him – of not understanding her Brexit plan; of trying to sabotage Brexit; or even of running away from a TV debate.

But now, with her BBC set-up scotched and all the smart money saying she won’t agree to the ITV plan, it seems that – once again – Mrs May will be the one accused of “running away”.

In fact, the Labour Party has done that already.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/12/04/rumbled-agony-for-auntie-as-bbc-bid-to-host-brexit-debate-is-canned/

In fact many people said on Twitter that Corbyn would be far better off going to ITV, Channel 4 or Sky for the debate, rather than the Beeb. Because the Beeb simply can’t be trusted. Lord Adonis, one of Blair’s former cabinet ministers said it. And Tom Pride gave four good reasons in one of his tweets. These were about Andrew Neil, the host of the Daily Politics, Nick ‘Macclesfield Goebbels’ Robinson, Sarah Sands, a Beeb politics editor, and Lynn Hayter, the fake vicar.

Neil before he joined the Beeb was a former chair of the Confederation of Conservative Students, Robinson was also a chair of the Young Tories, Sands was a former editor at the Mail and Torygraph, while Hayter is an actor the Beeb dragged on claiming she was a proper, accredited member of the clergy. Instead of a self-appointed pastor of an internet church flogging the Prosperity Gospel heresy.

He also commented on how May threw a strop at the Philip Schofield for asking her an awkward question over on ITV’s This Morning. Schofield’s a good professional interviewer, but This Morning is very definitely not the Spanish Inquisition. Which May definitely didn’t expect, and couldn’t handle the torment of the comfy chair (gratuitous Monty Python reference). So Mike went on to argue that, from past evidence of May running away from a debate with Corbyn at the last election, if anyone’s going to do a runner, it’s her.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/12/04/if-anyones-running-scared-of-a-tv-debate-on-brexit-it-isnt-jeremy-corbyn/

As for the Neil and Robinson, they’re only two of a newsroom packed with Tories. Mike and the other left-wing bloggers have discussed many other Tory spin doctors, who used to work at the Corporation before deciding that even trying to put up a pretence of being impartial was too much for them, and went off to join Cameron and Tweezer. Neil was also the editor of the Neoliberal The Economist, and then the Sunday Times, where, according to Lobster, he ran fake stories and disinformation for MI5. And Robinson showed how massively biased he was in his editing of an exchange between him and former SNP leader Alex Salmond during the Scots Referendum debate the other year. Goebbels Nick asked Salmond whether he was afraid that the big financial houses in Edinburgh would flee south if the Scots gained independence. Salmond gave him a full answer, denying that this would happen. Confronted by awkward facts, Robinson and his team went off and edited the exchange. First of all they made it appear as if Salmond hadn’t really answered the question, then they removed his response completely and claimed that he ignored the question.

It was one of the most blatant falsification of news that I’ve seen.

And the Beeb has a long history of this, which they’re desperately trying to deny. They’ve launched a campaign against ‘fake news’, which is risible, considering they and the lamestream media are responsible for a fair number of fake and spurious news stories. And in next week’s Radio Times, there’s a feature praising Question Time to the roof, complete with a piccie of Dimblebore with a quizzical smile on his mug.

But older readers remember how the Beeb faked footage of the police attacking the miners at the Orgreave colliery during the 1980s miners’ strike, to make it look like the miners were attacking the rozzers. And too many people have now woken up to how Question Time is consistently biased against the Left. Quite apart from the systemic bias against Corbyn on nearly every Beeb news show.

The Beeb’s withdrawal of their offer to host the Brexit debate seems to confirm just how deeply the British public are suspicious about the Beeb and its Tory bias. They don’t trust it, and will continue turning away from it until it does something to correct its bias. But this may be far too much for a state broadcaster, that automatically follows the Tory, establishment line.