Tag: labour party

September 12, 2015: the day Blairism died

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By Daniel Margrain

The momentous nature of Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide victory  one year ago should not be underestimated. It has to go down as one of the most sensational and politically earth shattering events in modern British political history – the impacts of which sent tremors throughout the entire establishment. After the announcement was made that Corbyn had won, it was obvious that the smiles, handshakes and applause of the vast majority of the calculating and opportunistic labour elite were as a fake as Blair’s claim that Saddam was about to attack Britain within 45 minutes.

A pointer to the overwhelming inspiration underlying Corbynism was the fact that no less than 160,000 volunteers who seemingly emerged out of nowhere, were recruited to the cause. The grass roots support that Corbyn engendered – by far the biggest of its kind in history – was almost certainly the catalyst that propelled him to victory. Although the activists were mainly young people, they were by no means exclusively so. In fact the demographic was wide ranging.

Corbyn’s straight talking, lucidity, and unambiguous commitment to a programme of anti-austerity brought many older activists who had felt betrayed by the direction the party had gone under Blair, back into the fold. To put Corbyn’s victory into context, he secured a higher percentage of votes than Blair in 1994  Even more significantly, the 554,272 votes he achieved was more than double Blair’s, and no less than 76 per cent of them actually voted, a higher percentage turnout than Blair received.

This suggests that ‘Corbynmania’ is no ‘flash in the pan’. On the contrary, it represents a new hope for people that society can make a great leap forward from the decades of Blairism where nothing happened, to weeks where decades happen. Neoliberal ideology and the cementing of the Red-Tory axis, which for many was perceived to have been fixed and immutable has, with the rise of Corbynism ,the potential to be swept into the dustbin of history. All that is solid really can melt into air.

When Corbyn was first nominated, he was seen by his opponents – both inside and outside the party – as a joke candidate. But an indication of how seriously he has been taken since he became leader is the extent to which the mainstream corporate media and Tory establishment continue to unanimously attack him.

Tories such as Gove, Fallon, Cameron, Osborne and Patel who thought an opposition party lead by Corbyn could only enhance their political careers, were the ones who subsequently read out an unsubstantiated claim contained within what was clearly a widely circulated Whitehall-issued memo which asserted Corbyn was a threat to national security. Gove then went on to misquote the Labour leader by implying he was economically incompetent and an apologist for Osama bin Laden.

The smearing wasn’t restricted to the media and Tories. On the labour side, around twelve MPs ‘lent’ Corbyn their support ostensibly to widen the contest. Blairites such as Margaret Beckett who nominated Corbyn clearly as a tokenistic gesture, described herself as a moron after Corbyn won. His victory had therefore rebounded back in her face.

No sooner had Corbyn’s victory based on clear and unambiguous principles been announced, then threats to resign by ‘modernizing’ frontbenchers followed. According to the Daily Mail at the time of Corbyn’s election victory, among the Labour figures refusing to serve in his team were high profile prominent Blairites Chris Leslie, Tristram Hunt, Emma Reynolds, Vernon Coaker, Michael Dugher, Shabana Mahmood, Mary Creagh and Lucy Powell. I’m sure the Tories will welcome these unscrupulous careerists with open arms.

The resignations were undertaken on the basis that Corbyn’s programme was too ‘extreme’. Is a refusal to be a part of the Labour friend of ethnic cleansing (sorry, Israel) rump within the party ‘extreme’? Is supporting the nationalization of the railways and utilities ‘extreme’?

Is it also ‘extreme’ to oppose nuclear weapons, war, the growing wealth gap and supporting the need for a massive affordable house building programme that benefits the mass of the population? How can it be that as far as the PLP are concerned, all these things are regarded as ‘extreme’, yet the bailing-out of bankers that benefit nobody other than bankers, is not?

It’s precisely the kinds of principles Corbyn espouses that has resulted in the regurgitation of the official/media meme which criticises him for voting against his party 500 times. This is represented as disloyalty. The notion that he might have voted against the Tories, while most of his Blairite colleagues, many of whom are war criminals, voted with them, is quietly forgotten.

The notion that the Blairites within the PLP will willingly work alongside Corbyn after having spent a large part of the past year conspiring against him – despite the elected leader’s continued attempts at reconciliation – is, I would suggest, delusional. If he wins the election on September 24, as expected, it’s almost certain that the war of attrition against him will continue. Any reluctance to act decisively against the destabilizing elements is likely to be seized upon resulting in a possible split within the party.

Corbyn might be banking on the possibility that a newly elected pro-Corbyn NEC will reinvigorate the party further from the grass roots up leading to a dissipation of the Blairites by stealth, akin to the melting of ice enveloped by steam. As the parties grass roots expand, the reliance on corporate funding and large individual donations lessens. This will give more confidence for Corbyn and his allies to expose, as John Moon put it, “the ongoing immoral motivations and machinations of their elected Blairite MPs”, thus initiating the possibility of deselection at the grass-roots level.

A year ago, I heard Ken Livingston on LBC say that under Corbyn the party will unify with little signs of any attempts to undermine him. In terms of the latter, he has been proven wrong. We await the outcome of the former. My fear is that in the absence of any purging of the Blairite clique, the gap between the ideology represented by the elite within the hierarchy of the party and the multitude of its members is so vast, as to be irreconcilable. I strongly suspect that something will have to give as the party moves forward, but we will see.

The idea that a highly principled leader of a party who espouses peace and reconciliation can reconcile two diametrically opposing forces, seems to me to be a bridge too far. But equally, the notion that these irreconcilable forces are able to keep Blairism teetering on the edge of the precipice by its fingernails indefinitely, is as misguided as the insistence that a free-falling object is able to resist the gravitational pull of the earth.

As I type this, I’m watching Corbyn being interviewed by the BBC in relation to the proposed boundary changes against a backdrop in which fellow comrades are seen uniting behind those protesting against the police brutality at Orgreave. A year ago a newly elected Corbyn was protesting at a rally about the terrible treatment of refugees created by Cameron and Blair’s wars. Could, you dear reader, imagine Owen Smith or any of Corbyn’s predecessors post-Michael Foot doing that?

 

Corbyn’s Victory

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By Gilad Atzmon

Jeremy Corbyn’s victory yesterday is a clear message to the British political world. You politicians had better start listening to the people, otherwise you will be out.

But his victory goes has ramifications beyond British politics. In recent weeks an alliance made up of British Jewish leadership (BOD, Jewish Chronicle etc.) and heavily supported by their caretakers within the British establishment, have waged a brutal yet counter effective campaign against Corbyn.  The campaign abused and slandered the last gentleman in British politics and probably the nicest man in the parliament.

Prior to the election, as it became clear that Corbyn was well ahead of his rivals and destined to become the next Labour leader, the Jewish and Zionist media used all of their tricks to destroy him. The Labour leadership contest was subjected to the full range of ‘Jewish sensitivities’: Corbyn was associated with and then accused of Arab and Muslim ‘terror’, ‘treason’ and ‘holocaust denial.’  The British media failed to discuss Corbyn’s politics, his anti austerity plan or even his take on foreign affairs.  But, miraculously, none of that damaged Corbyn’s campaign. Quite the opposite, the more dirt they slung in his direction, the more people rushed to support him.

Before it happened, would anyone have believed that Corbyn would survive the ‘holocaust denial’ slur, or his supposed comradeship with Hamas and Hezbollah? Corbyn’s achievement yesterday was a political earthquake that delivered a clear message to the Jews and their Sabbos Goyim — beware, the Brits are going through a transition. They don’t buy into the primacy of Jewish suffering anymore, they have had enough of it and no sane person can blame them.

The hundreds of thousands of young people who joined the dysfunctional Labour party wanted to make a change. They are frustrated with austerity, Zio-con wars, the Jewish Lobby, the loss of manufacturing and the cost of education. Those who joined the Labour party are patriots as is Corbyn. They want to live in a country with a prospect of a future – a place where justice, equality, peace and tolerance correspond with reality instead of existing only as empty political slogans.

Those who continue to convince themselves that Corbyn is ‘unelectable’ may want to refresh their memories. Just three months ago the same Corbyn was unknown to most Brits and his candidacy was portrayed in the media as a radical left stunt. Yesterday the man won an unprecedented victory and proved to be, by far, the most popular political figure in Britain for generations. But in truth, it doesn’t really matter whether Corbyn makes it to 10 Downing Street. At the moment, this country badly needs a real feisty opposition. And I have no doubt that Corbyn is the right man in the right place.

The above article was originally posted by Gilad Atzmon on September 13, 2015 

Labour are still a bunch of crooks

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UPDATE

36,000 people voted for swizzler Tessa Jowell to be Labour candidate for London’s mayor. If you consider the facts below, that says something very scarey about a substantial portion of Labour Party membership, even if she didn’t win.

The fact that it is still a serious possibility that a substantial number of Labour members will vote for Tessa Jowell to be the party’s candidate for London Mayor – which Labour electorate includes the new membership – should be a serious jolt to anybody who believes the Labour Party is transformed. The Labour Party is still full of crooks, and Tessa Jowell is one of the biggest crooks.

As I wrote in 2009:

Tessa Jowell actively participated in the laundering of the corrupt payments from Silvio Berlusconi, given to her husband David Mills in return for false testimony in court to cover up some of Berlusconi’s endless crooked dealings. Tessa Jowell participated as a full partner in the three time remortgaging of her home, paying off the mortgage with cash and then remortgaging. She has stated that there was “Nothing unusual” in this.

Most people would think it was very unusual to be able to pay off a large mortgage with cash at all. To do it twice and remortgage again each time would strike most of us as very weird indeed.

Tessa Jowell claimed she did not read the mortgage documents before signing them or know where the money was coming from. David Mills was eventually acquitted on a technicality by the Italian legal system, but it is not in dispute that the money came from Berlusconi or that he lied in court. Jowell claimed she did not read the documents and had no idea where the money came from or what her husband was doing. She then “left” him and went through a sham “separation” which the whole London establishment knew was a fake, (but the media obligingly did not publish), until the heat died down and the couple could get together again.

Revelations about Labour crookedness constantly make you gasp, such as the meetings Cherie Blair set up with Hillary Clinton on behalf of the Qatari royal family. Blair’s free holidays on Berlusconi are well remembered. Labour can claim that the Corbyn election is a defeat for Blairism and a new leaf. But if today Jowell gets more than a derisory vote, we will all know Labour are still a bunch of crooks at heart.

Article written by Craig Murray and published on his blog on September 11, 2015.

Toby Young Regurgitates Old Labour Myths In Order To Denigrate Corbyn

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In a debate on yesterday evening’s Channel 4 News (August 11) between Toby Young and Owen Jones, the former was aghast at the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn victory in the forthcoming Labour Party leadership election campaign.

For the metropolitan elite, who Young speaks on behalf of, any notion that Corbyn could actually be victorious is invariably met with incredulity, derision or mockery.

Corbyn’s runaway lead in the polls, and the fact that he continues to pack out halls to capacity in rally after rally, is simply mystifying to people like Young. In a typically patronising fashion, the right-wing journalist was aghast at how Labour Party members could possibly support Corbyn.

Such support “beggars belief”, he said. He continued: “How many elections does Labour have to lose when it puts up a left-wing leader in order for the message to sink home”? Here, he is perpetuating the myth discussed here and here that left-wing leaders are unelectable.

He then made a reference to former Labour leader Michael Foot’s lack of apparent popularity in an attempt to bolster his argument. But again, he was dealing in myth rather than reality. A commentator on Craig Murray’s blog by the name of Bevin put Young straight on the matter:

“What happened to Foot’s campaign in 1983 was that a large part of Labour’s leadership seceded calling the Labour platform extremist and Marxist. This had the effect, amongst other things, of confusing much of Labour’s traditional support.

Occurring at the same time as a massive media campaign celebrating the SDP and its purported radicalism – ‘breaking the mould of British politics’ – it divided the Labour vote and handed the election to the unpopular Tories.

Then there was the Falklands effect. The notion that Foot was defeated in a straight contest with Thatcher and that his mild socialist policies were rejected in favour of her hard right programme is nonsense.

His position was sabotaged by a well financed and carefully co-ordinated campaign to split the Labour party, by a right wing faction that has, since the 1940s, relied upon US governmental patronage on condition that it use every weapon to thwart those in Labour opposed to the Cold War and in favour of nuclear disarmament and peace.

Those who actually recall the history of the period will confirm that both within the Labour party and in the broader population, nuclear disarmament, getting out of NATO and declaring British independence from the US were very popular policies.

The membership of the Labour party was overwhelmingly in favour of the left. The proto Blairites and the Grosvenor Square groupies invariably relied on block votes from the authoritarian Union leaders at the party’s annual conference. The membership of the Constituency parties always supported the left. And so did most Trade Unionists and Labour voters.

When predicting the result of the next general election it would be best to understand that, for the great majority of the electorate, the coming five years are likely to see the NHS going the way of free education, a housing crisis which will see large numbers of working families, once again, living in crowded slums, an enormous increase in unemployment and a radical decline in living standards. A return to Victorian conditions.

Any politician who can offer an alternative is likely to do better than those declaring that nothing can be done, which is what the Blairites say. That any such politician will be crucified in the media, slandered and misrepresented goes without saying.”