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VIDEO: Corbyn lays out Labour’s campaign message for the coming election

Corbyn promises to take on vested interests, break the rotten system and make a Labour victory a victory for the people. Does he mean it? Can he possibly pull it off even if he does? Time will tell. But his Q&A with the press is brave and quite impressive.


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BigB
BigB
Apr 26, 2017 4:01 PM

As it stands, before the June 8th polls, the Labour Party has 229 MPs in the PLP – 172 of whom signed a vote of no confidence against Corbyn (and just 40 of whom backed him.) Of those 172, a significant number harken back to the ‘Glory Days’ of 1997-2007 as their finest. For those of you under thirty, and for those suffering from short term memory loss, let me do a quick recap of those years.
Iraq Sanctions and ‘Desert Fox’ bombing: a ‘collective punishment’ Crime against Humanity (started in ’90), included the withholding of vital water purification equipment, despoiling vital medicines, food, etc. which led to 1.5m Iraqi deaths – of which 500,000 were children. In the currency of children’s lives for oil – was it really worth it? Overseen (from ’97) by Carne Ross for the Blair Witch Project.
Sierra Leone: to open the ongoing Imperialist “Scramble for Africa” – an unmandated unannounced undemocratic invasion to liberate the ‘blood diamonds’, sorry, non-combatants. Approved (in secret) by Robin Cook for the Blair Witch Project.
Kosovo: the original ‘Blair Doctrine’ (R2P) invented intervention to cover the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Serbs by the KLA and install the (heroin and human organ smuggling) Thaci puppet regime. A joint venture of the Bush/Clinton Mafia and the Blair Witch Project.
Uzbekistan: man of principle Craig Murray resigned from the FCO alleging illegal rendition, torture and murder – rendered possible by the CIA and the Blair Witch Project.
Afghanistan: another ‘Blair doctrine’ intervention in search of an enemy. If viewed in the mission statement to rid Helmand of the Taliban, and curtail opium production – can only be viewed as a £20 bn sh_tshow and humiliating “worse than a defeat.” If viewed that year on year Helmand remains the burgeoning basket of opium production – could be viewed more profitably (for the few.) Certainly in terms of rare earth minerals and oil/gas pipeline transits. Another joint venture of the Bush/Clinton Mafia and the Blair Witch Project.
Iraq: needs no further condemnation. Was it worth it? Ask Reg Keys and the other parents whose children lost their lives/limbs/minds – or who continue to suffer with ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ (yes, from the second gulf war) – to maintain the economic hegemony of the petro-dollar? So much for our social democratic rights – endorsed at the time by just 24% of the British public [Ipsos MORI] ; the Bush Mafia, and of course, the Blair Witch Project.
I should add unstinting support for the Israeli and Nigerian genocidaires.
I could do the social side, suffice to say – everything Thatcher started, Blair quickened. After all, he was her “greatest achievement.”
My point is that this country needs a far more fundamental reform than changing the badge of the genocidal corporate war party every few years. We have been forming an ‘electoral dictatorship’ since the Blair years, and a de facto one party, or 1.25 party state, for at least thirty years. There has been a continuity of purpose, even if not an actual continuity of government.
But Jeremy is not like this, he is a man of principle, a neo-pacifist and non-interventionist. Agreed (caveat below) – but his party is not. Look at the number of uncounted ‘unpeople’ they have killed in the name of peace and democracy during their ‘Glory Years’; and how they voted subsequently. If we want peace, or are truly antiwar – we need to unmask the Imperialist war cartel masquerading as democracy. We can’t truly begin to propose the solution if we can’t even diagnose the problem.
[I can substantiate nearly all of this, if need be – apart from the speculation about Afghan opium – with references on request.]

John
John
Apr 25, 2017 8:36 PM

Corbyn and Labour are committed to leaving the EU – so too are most of the rest of the British people.
One of the reasons for leaving is to reverse the ratchet-effect of EU-required privatisations.
Once an industry or part-industry is privatised, under EU rules it cannot be de-privatised.
That is why so many in the Labour Party – and their supporters – support leaving the EU.
An EU-free UK Government will then be able unilaterally to pass laws to nationalise any UK industries.
Clearly, the mass media in the UK is unsupportive of any attempt by Corbyn and Labour to gain power.
When was it ever really any different?
With the mas media owned and controlled by tax-dodging billionaires, what else is to be expected.
It should be noted – however – that Labour Governments have won power in the past.
Labour today is the largest political party in Europe.
If Labour can mobilise fully its own members and supporters, they will win and hold real power.
Corbyn is not – and never will be – a Clegg.
Labour are aiming at one thing and one thing alone: majority rule in the House of Commons.
Labour will never ever get into bed with the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists or Ulster Unionists.
On Syria – regrettably there has been much obscurantism and misinformation on the situation there.
I too am sorry that Labour have not been more forthright in condemning the actions of terrorists.
Even the late Jo Cox and her surviving husband were taken in and fooled by the fake propaganda.
Hopefully, Corbyn – as a Labour Prime Minister – will treat Palestine and Syria far better then ever before.
I hope Corbyn wins.
Five more years of the Tories will spell the end of the NHS and social care as we have known it.

Arrby
Arrby
Apr 25, 2017 10:28 PM
Reply to  John

Corbyn has been mush on Israel. As bad as Al Jazeera is, they did a good job exposing the Israel government’s meddling in British politics (which operation Craig Murray vowed to look into and write more about). See part 1 here: http://bit.ly/2jvKRVl. I hope I have this right. I believe that there’s a segment in one of their 4 shows on the subject that shows Corbyn just running scared, saying as many good things, without qualification, about Israel as he can and as many bad things about anti-semitisim as he can in order to appease agitators in his Party. I’m running out of time here in the coffee shop I’m in, where I have free data, so I can’t double check. At work, where I can play around on my laptop or read, I don’t have free data and I can’t afford my own.

Frank
Frank
Apr 25, 2017 11:10 PM
Reply to  John

”Corbyn and Labour are committed to leaving the EU … ” I wish that were true, Corbyn maybe, but the PLP is certainly not committed to leaving, in fact quite the reverse; the same is true of the soft left of the party and of the globalist left in general. Please see the remainers in Red Pepper and Sodium Haze in this respect. You know, those people who are aware what EU membership entails but will somehow contrive to ‘reform’ the EU from the inside. Yeah right! Don’t overthrow the Bourbons, reform them from the inside and make them see the light of day. The capitulation of Syriza and PODEMOS should be a salutary warning with regard to transforming the EU from the inside. Stated baldly, if a government takes for granted the institutional framework of the globalist elite and its insitutions – viz., the IMF, World Bank, WTO, NATO The EU – then it will have to implmement the same neoliberal policies irrespective of its rhetoric or whether it calls itself a goverment of the left. These institutions are the EU’s ‘Deep State’.
The New World Order and transnational neoliberalism should be seen as an occupation of Europe, based upon free movement of labour, capital and commodities, and the ongoing homogenisation of economies, politics and culture. A downward homogenization at that. Moreover, I didn’t notice any mention of NATO in Corbyn’s speech. NATO, it should be understood, is the means whereby the US contols EU foreign policy. So the EU represents a geopolitical bloc as welll as an economic bloc. American occupation of Europe which the social democrats and soft left do not even seem to recognise will be mobilised by the Transatlantic elites to put down any signs of independence in Europe.
Don’t get me wrong, I am aware that Corbyn is on record of being opposed to the EU, but my fear is that he and his section of the party lack the political nous and wherewithal to withstand the counter-attack coming from the estblishment globalist NWO. My fear is that should Labour be reelcted – something of a moot point – they will settle for some sort of half-baked compromise which would leave the UK with all the costs but none of the beneifts -such as they are – from a looser association. A Free Trade Area perhaps. Hmmm, didn’t come out well in NAFTA.

Frank
Frank
Apr 25, 2017 6:29 PM

Yes, all very stirring stuff. But of course most, if not all, of Corbyn’s growth/redistributionist policies run completely counter to EU and possibly WTO rules. Rail nationalization, state aid to industry (industrial) policy, nationalization, exchange controls, capital controls, inflexible labour markets – nothing doing says the European Commission! You’ll have neoliberalism and like it! Thus Corbyn will need to be prepared for a fight to the finish with the EU bureaucracy and its 5th column remainers in the UK, and possibly even the US who have a geopolitical imperative for the EU to remain whole.
Will he be able to to this, or will he be Trumped by the EU deep state?

michaelk
michaelk
Apr 25, 2017 5:06 PM

A big problem, in relation to elections, is that vast swathes of the once so numerous ‘working class and lower class’ no longer, (for various reasons – many of them structural) don’t vote anymore, which is just as the system likes it. It makes it so much easier to win elections in the UK if around half the people stay at home. Corbyn and his supporters are attempting to change this, but I fear it’s too late, at least for this election.
Corbyn is made to seem… weird, when he’s really a moderate, middle of the road, social democrat, surrounded as he is by a pack of snarling political

Yonatan
Yonatan
Apr 25, 2017 3:53 PM

I hope Corbyn has more substance than Clegg. Clegg talked the talk, but once in coalition with the Tories, he folded and enabled the most reactionary Tory regime to go ahead effectively unchallenged.

Aaron Lowe
Aaron Lowe
Apr 26, 2017 1:53 PM
Reply to  Yonatan

I don’t think Corbyn will ever be given the chance to prove he has any substance. To a large degree fate as passed him by. What good it is to discuss what he could do if he’ll never get the chance to?

BigB
BigB
Apr 25, 2017 2:35 PM

Corbyn: he can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk? One of the recurring topics here at OffG is the Syrian crisis: it may seem a disconnect to conflate the issue of Syria with GE2017 – but one of the main perpetraitors of the continuing suffering of the Syrian people is the British Deep State, (particularly for their sponsorship of the White Helmets.) I rejoined the Labour Party specifically to get Jeremy elected, but now I have deep misgivings. The red line for me was the Jo Cox Christmas Appeal for (among others) the murderous bastards known as the White Helmets. For me, a truly principled man would have spoken in condemnation of them – not supported and raised money for them. In recent months we can see where that money went: the war crime of cutting off the water supply to the civilian population of Damascus; the staged murderous CW incident at Khan Shaykhun (Were they kidnapped Christians being treated as pieces of meat in the White Helmet/Edlib Media Centre video? They certainly weren’t the local residents as no attack took place in Khan Shaykhun – and the local residents are all terrorists); and the barbarous Hatecrime against Humanity of luring starving children to their deaths, then forcing the shocked and grieving mothers to watch as the survivors were kidnapped at Rashideen – sponsored (if even only in a relatively minor way) by Jeremy Corbyn, Tom Watson, and the Labour Party. “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” [MLK.] Not really sure what Corbyn could say to make that right?

Arrby
Arrby
Apr 25, 2017 10:30 PM
Reply to  BigB

Wow! Corbyn has jumped on the White Helmets are heroes bandwagon?! I didn’t know that. Big fail there.

BigB
BigB
Apr 26, 2017 3:01 PM
Reply to  Arrby

Yes, it was an internal Labour party circular “From Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson” dated 16/12/16. He stood with Treason May at PMQs to urge people to download the specially recorded ‘MP4’ single (which Hammond generously waived the VAT on.) Here is one of the few references I can find, so no real fail if you are not a member of the party.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/prime-minister-urges-nation-help-9456558

Nogginthenog
Nogginthenog
Apr 25, 2017 8:18 AM

The content in that speech is exactly why everyone from the BBC to the Guardian want him to fail.
As organizations and individuals, everyone reporting on him in mainstream media benefit from the very systems he wants to tear down. The idea a man prepared to stand up in this world and say those things is not brave, or is somehow ‘weak’ is ridiculous. Weak is knowing those things and saying nothing.

hope from doom
hope from doom
Apr 25, 2017 7:50 AM

what was the amateurish wobbling camera about? an attempt to make the viewer not to take this seriously? very dodgy from the BBC

Dead World Walking
Dead World Walking
Apr 25, 2017 2:57 AM

Impressive speech from Corbyn. He articulated ideas and criticism that is taboo in most of the drainstream media.
Question is: Will it be heard and digested by the working class and underclass?
Only they have the numbers to bring about REAL change.