The OffGuardian View – GE2019
Image source here
Consider this a catch-all discussion thread on the UK General Election 2019.
A few readers have been asking in email and in the comments why we aren’t running daily campaign updates on this, ‘the most important election in decades’, or ‘the most important election of the century’, or since time began or whatever hyperbolic descriptive being used.
The answer to that is simple. We don’t think it is the most important election since any of the above.
We think that mantle goes to 2017, when, if Corbyn’s Labour Party had won (and they nearly did) it would potentially have significantly changed the face of UK, European and maybe even world politics.
You can tell this potential was there because the Establishment at that time united across its entire spectrum to denounce Corbyn & Labour as dangerous and unelectable. No equivocations (or barely any). Just wall to wall hate and fear porn.
Contrast with now. Take off your blinders and just see the diff.
The Guardian in 2019 running ambiguous ‘maybe it’s time for a change’ pieces, and even pro-Corbyn pieces from some of its resident Blairites who were all hating on Corbyn or rooting for the LibDems two years ago.
We even have articles in The Financial Times suggesting Corbyn might be the best choice after all.
The recent “leaked” documents, on both Brexit and the NHS, have certainly been a boon to Labour. Though some sections of the establishment claim it was “the Russians” (a warning Labour should heed – Russiabaiting is a two-edged sword), the more likely explanation is that was other sections of the establishment, keen (for whatever reason) to give Labour a bit of ammunition.
Some of you might think this means the Establishment had a change of heart and likes socialism now.
If that’s helping you feel engaged and optimistic then sure – you go with that.
Others – OffG included – suggest what we’re looking at are clear signs Labour has capitulated on some vital issues, offered assurances to key people on key questions that make the Establishment feel able to back them as a safe alternative to the wildly unpopular Tories.
One key difference, of course, is that back in 2017 Labour were still committed to honouring the 2016 referendum result and taking the UK out of the European Union. Now they have – for reasons no doubt good to them – all but signed up to Remain.
This will, of course, make them more appealing to the very powerful pro-EU faction in the Establishment.
And as an added bonus, if Labour does get in on its current ‘Remain in all but name’ policy it will very likely render itself constitutionally unable to enforce its own manifesto of re-nationalisation, since EU laws expressly forbid any such ‘monopoly’ move (although this is a matter of debate).
That’s probably a nice reassurance for the chaps at the FT too.
Then there’s the much-touted “Green New Deal”, an issue at the heart of the neo-liberal agenda and which seeks to corporatise the environmental movement and net the wealthy elite billions of pounds in taxpayer’s money.
And of course, Labour has been demonstrating for a while its utter preparedness to go along with mainstream imperialist narratives on many aspects of foreign policy.
It leapt in eagerly to ‘condemn’ Russia’s perfectly legal military presence in Syria, and – like any good US poodle – made no attempt to distinguish between it and NATO’s utterly illegal invasion. Corbyn was also quick to buy into the totally data-free and implausible ‘Russia poisoned the Skripals’ narrative.
Not to mention the Labour luminaries clamouring for the release of the “Russia report” about how the Kremlin “interfered in the Brexit referendum”, and xenophobically decrying the “dirty Russian money” behind the Conservatives. (In this, Corbyn’s party have acquired some strange allies).
The FCO at least must be assured a Labour government will be on message for most of its future anti-Russ agenda.
All this – and any amount of other negotiating behind the scenes, of which we currently know nothing – could explain why Labour is currently getting a much easier time from the mainstream than it did last time.
Granted, there is much to support in Labour’s manifesto: re-nationalisation programmes (supposing they are possible), more money for schools and the NHS, scrapping tuition fees. If asked, we would have to tell anyone to vote Labour as, at least, the least bad option.
But realistically we have to acknowledge that the above issues do not bode well for any future Labour government being much more than a watered-down exercise in Blairism, with a sidelined Corbyn as its purely nominal head.
Is this the intended outcome? Or is the establishment hedging their bets in the hopes of a hung parliament, with a cross-party ‘government of national emergency’ taking us just a bit further down the road toward fascism?
There’s no denying “hung parliament” meme is certainly getting a LOT of coverage. See here, and here).
Another reason OffG has done relatively little coverage of the day-to-day of the campaign is that so little of any value has actually been said. This “most important election” is marred by a total disregard for the idea of rational debate, and complete collapse into binary factionalism.
Talk of policy is banished to the shadows, replaced with the ridiculous back-and-forth of identity politics and smears.
Sure, a few Labour die-hards talk of pensions and schools, but mostly we hear about “antisemitism” on the one hand and “Islamophobia” on the other. Corbyn didn’t listen to the Queen’s speech, Johnson said something rude about burqas. Corbyn is a commie, Johnson a Nazi.
The Corbyn 'antisemitism' stuff is stupid. But this is stupid too.
Corbyn isn't an anti-Semite. But the Nazis aren't coming to get us if BoJo wins.
Both claims are stupid
Has #GE2019 been reduced to choosing which pile of crap we want to pretend to believe? https://t.co/32nfNHqcX7
— OffGuardian (@OffGuardian0) December 4, 2019
Can the “most important election” be defined and decided by tabloid headlines? Should it be?
In the end, just to clarify – before we’re inevitably accused of being “anti-Labour” (since binary thinking is the mode du jour) – We do agree Labour are probably the only choice. Generally speaking, things are more likely to improve with them in charge. They, at least, have a few ideas and some kind of desire to at least try and change things for ordinary people.
Sadly, it looks as if they may be handed the reins of power, only on the understanding that under no circumstances should they try to steer.
Feel free to disagree wildly with all of the above in the comments below. Give us your own opinions. We’ll be keeping this on the front-page until polling day.
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Wasn’t the 2017 Conference agreement to go for a GE and the last option was to seek a second referendum. Labour Party doing what the members agreed at conference not ‘capitulating to the establishment’. Get a grip.
JC could have defended himself better from the lying Tory scum but think he seriously couldn’t believe they’d lie so much and sink that low, neither could I. His intellect, understanding, nuance and beautiful ethics have seriously stood out in this election, i’ll be gobmacked if they don’t carry him over the line tomorrow.
If they don’t we’ll know the election has been rigged, we know he has rock star status anywhere he goes, people love him, polls saying he is unpopular are false. Let’s hope we get a true result tomo, if JC doesn’t win, it’s rigged.
A bit of a xmas ad from Jezza
A cross between Grandad & JohnLewis
https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1204133009986850816
Ahhhhhh … now get out and VOTE you scamps.
That is gorgeous Dungroanin, cheers for the post =)
I see an example of the danger I was gonna post on already in this thread.
My point is if Johnson & the creepy tories win, the NHS promises etc., are certain to go out the door even if Johnso hadn planned on implementing them, on the specious grounds “That those euros have done us over and there is barely enough money for the rich let alone the poor.” Johnson’s carpet bagger allies are incapale of getting england outta the EU in a manner beneficial to the england economy as the need to gold plate the few will supercede the need to feed the many.
When that happens there will be a massive backlash during which the drongos, many of whom prolly voted for the tories but no longer admit it, will shift from “Corbyn should have won” to “Labour was robbed, all that bullshit about anti semitism, once again we see those jews protecting their bankers and diamond monopolies. The jews, all of ’em robbed us”.
The best propaganda contains a half truth. I have no doubt that some of the leaders of the “Corbyn is an anti-semitic” eg Margeret Hodge, are motivated by fear, fear that a genuinely socialist leaning government will put a stop to corporate welfare and billionaire tax dodging.
So they are cranking up the lies about antisemitism. Most jews have no such concern and are getting played by the likes of Hodge by leaning on leaders of Jewish charities Hodge & co support to reinforce the anti semite tosh.
When the shit hits the fan, hospitals are closed or privatised, rail companies are delivering an even worse unsafe & unreliable service, Hodge and co will be fine, they will simply hire extra security etc., but any hard grafting cabbie who fell for the anti-semite schtick will become an easy target for the angry mob .
The problem isn’t anti-semitism now, if one subtracts the valid but sometimes poorly expressed concerns of brits for the horrors being wreaked upon the people of Occupied Palestine, anti-semitism is infintesimal right now.
That will change once people are faced with the reality of a Johnson-led tory carve up and picnic, because as I said above, many will blame the lies about Mr Corbyn’s alleged anti-semitism for the Labour loss and some of those will take that blame the extra step into race hatred.
The media may try to characterise ’em as ‘labour sympathisers’ When they mostly come from, that courtesy of the media, larger than it should be segment of the electorate best labelled ‘more than a little confused’.
The bookies still have the Torys with incredible odds-on, can’t lose bets…
https://www.justbookies.com/election-odds/
Whilst putting various Labour connotations at best at 10 to 1.
This is all complete rollocks. The bookies have obviously been nobbled, just like the opinion polls.
It’s all so corrupt it’s beyond belief.
On Friday the 13th we will either awake to a Tory Dickensian theme park, or else Corbyn as prime minister (which is still my bet).
Bookies don’t lose.
They balance the money bet against money potentially paid out.
All it means is that a LOT of money is being bet on a tory win.
Who has LOTS of money to spend in this election?
It is designed to make people think Labour WILL lose so don’t bother VOTING for the LOSER.
PSYCHE.
If you are betting type the odds mean it’s worth a bet and arbitraging to cover that bet with the opposite bet.
Actual professional bettors will be coining it.
That does not matter to the bookies who will make money anyway.
It obviously doesn’t matter to the bettors who will lose – they are playing a bigger game.
Finaly, an article with deasent coments, all hail to the people, from BigB to HarryS, to mention some few, but what we really need is an good debate, not an dead beating contest, I am a bit tired of them my self.
But in this times people argue from their poits of referances, when it comes to Remian or leave to the AGWs new mantra the Grean deal, witch is basically the same people doing different things, but never the less the same club, just redifing the direction we are heading and redefining what we are seeing.
I give you an analogy.
I grew up in an place that when I was an child was really nice, wdie open plains with an high diversity of plants, and life in general, to what it is to day, where the nature is gone thru over population of half domesticated animals aka raindeers, and fjords decimated by industrial fishing.
Instead of admitting any of this, regarding what some claim is to preserve biodiversity, to make shure that out plains regain its former glory and plenty, nobody is willing to do anything, this goes again to fishing and life in the sea, where everybody agrees and have them selfs expirienced the downfall as on the plains, but nobody is admitting anything because they want others to do something, not them.
And then comes the blame game, and in the mean time, time goes, nothing substancial is done and the decline is continuing and when the decline comes to an certain point, the temop shoots up the pace, and the decline acselerates and is making the life on this two arenas more and more difficould and diversity is also declining and we end up with lesser and lesser speacies, and even then, everybody whines but nobody is willing to do anything.
Then comes the political created scam called AGW, and on top of it, they drool something about biodiversity, and all we read is the scare about Carbon aka CO2. And then the people in this comunitys are in it because of the climate change, and instead of admitting the decline before this scam came along they gling to this AGW nonsense as the reason for the decline in the flora witch life on land depends on and like wise in the sea, and nothing happens other than a new field of debating what to do, and we end up with whining about some few areas where there is population, maybe even industry, mining, witch all takes an minimum of space, in an wast region, and all the focus ends up in an verbal fight to do something about this regions while the large one is stil in decline because the fndamentals arent debated, at all, namely to much raindeers.
And the same people runs Quad bikes, all over the plains, and one quad bike, running over mires, dries them up and kills the biodiversity that was in this places since it desimated their need for water and the moisture that an more provides for an range of creatures and insects, and others that feeds upon this, etc, and we have an down ward spiral, and that is ruining wast regions, and now they have become as close its possible to be an desert in the artics, and if you hear an so called raindeer herder whine, people I have no respect for, because most of them are f…. liars, and is not and will never admit their own life and their herds are The problem, not what some roads or mines are doing, since this are minute, because of the space they take, while the other issue is the entire region.
Huh.
I can imagine how some regions of Africa is devestated, where they claim its due to climate, and that results in desertification, but what they dont talk about is the true reason, humans whom isnt taking their own actions into consideration over time that it indeed have an impackt of the region.
Then we have all the AGW religions scams like biofuel, soyabeans, etc, and fishfarms are heavy into soya, etc and corn where 50% is going into other issues but food and some whine about food shortages witch I claim is an flat out lie, the problem is political and created by corruptions, like the cutting down of rainforests not only in Brazil but elswhere to, like Indonesia etc, etc.
The problem is how to trust, whom speaks the truth, what to expect when we are feed lies, distorted realitys, created by people whom have an perseption where they only think about them selfs, ignoring even their own region, and to even think the EU is democratic is just another fallacy, its as far I know, nowhere near, simply because local self goverment isnt alowed, they say what we shall do and direct this to regions where and to whom we have nothing to do with other than observing the effect it have on the local comunitys, and this goes to a lott of issues as the explosion of violence, and the effect of wars.
I agree with BigB, we are on an downward spiral, noot because of the llack of warnings, but the lack of democrasy and self deremination over local resources, and all this, witch we suffering under comes from central regions witch knows little or nothing about the rest oof the land and its peoples problems.
The constant and last decades poltical hesit about centralising everything to larger units have in an nation as Norway desimated the outer regions, vilages go dark, when there is nothing to give the young ones an future, when everything they educate them for is removed to large citys.
I dont eve blame them, but the cost of centralisiation is questionable, but its been never the less the matra thru decades of both sides politics and economic issues, and somehow everything gets more expenvice, and the what we get is makeing it harder for those that tries to make an living outside the larger citys.
And then the EU is just the same but in an larger scale, the effect is the same, their economic policy is insane, and have to this day, thru shooting feets of them self managed to create an downfall, thru expsnces and sanctions, and austeritys.
And then we have the people whom is fighting for an expancion of what I define as legalized plundering, aka neo-liberalism, the leaks should scare you, because if this is the future you will get something much worse than what you already have.
I am afrid the future looks bleak, not to be pessimistic, but of what I already encounters, and to an future of whats to come, mainly where nothing is done, just some few areas of witch have more or less nothing to do with enviroment nor biodiversity or polution, but an centralised economy and larger and larger units controlling what little we have left, instead of doing something, they just leave it to be dust, and like Norway, despite that a lot of us sees the same, we simply cant do jack shit, its hard to say it, but the only chanse we have is to make shure we elect the right people and right now, its hard to say witch is worst/best, Bozo the Clown or GoreBin.
To be ruled by outsiders or rule your own land and control over the resources.
And regarding the Rabbis, give them an inch, and they will take an mile, you blinked and they will never lett that go, how easy it was to sell your soul and to destry the future of an nation, by droppin on your knees for an people whom is saying one thing and do something else.
Do as we say, not was we do.
Tsk, tsk, tsk, this wil come and bits your asses, Brits.
peace
Trump wants less US money spend on European defense: ok, close down >90% of US bases in Europe: win -win. Except that the US Mil-complex doesn’t like less fixed sales.
https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Antisemitism/Influential-Corbyn-supporting-Facebook-page-run-by-Hamas-from-Gaza-610306
Corbyn wants to immediately recognize a Palestinian state, so why wouldn’t they return Labour the favour? Its all about the UK right ????
To be fair and for the sake of balance, let us look at ‘foreign interference’ in British politics
Ah yes … Shai and Joan. They might have some difficulty in remaining anonymous .
That story comes from Tazpit Press Service as I’m sure you know. Sadly TPS couldn’t provide any tangible evidence to support it. ” A source in the strip who wished to remain anonymous told TPS “Abu Rouk serves Hamas’ information campaign and is guided by it.”
That’s it … pathetic don’t you agree ?
Maybe Off-G wants to look at the desperate polls? Maybe ADMIN may even consider posting this as an article? It has many links so would be grateful if you can post it at the top when you approve it. Thankyou mod.
—–
I posted this a while ago Richard Murphy put it on his site. I do so again to try and help us understand wtf they are doing.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/11/24/why-the-observers-opinion-polling-is-wrong/
Additionally I came across useful studies that explain the why? & the how? Of the fake polls.
1. Why? – it seems close polls INCREASE turnout.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w23490
So the purpose of the Opinium/YouGove/Survation type gross distortion is to LOWER the turnout.
It is good to get that proof.
2. How? – it is the self selected group of recipients and their repeat inclusion, and ‘secret’ weighting formulae by the pollsters that delivers that result.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/10/29/long-read-are-opinion-polls-pro-leave-biased/
‘A extremely essential and timely piece of research by Thiemo Fetzer (University of Warwick) illustrates some of the technical issues that arise using the example of the British Election Study, which is an important point of reference for much UK political science research. The analysis suggests that repeat participation in the BES panel may systematically skew the implied Leave/ Remain split in favour of Leave. ‘
———
I ask one further question that has been nagging at me for months – why try and lower the turnout?
The only reason I can think of is that it makes it easier to ‘fix’ the result.
Ballot stuffing – the lower the turnout the fewer fake ballots needed to skew the outcome; and so the lower the chance of being caught out by a suspiciously higher turnout!
It’s my theory, I have no proof of the illegality, just this circumstancial evidence, that the vector for the ballot stuffing is postal votes:-
Who the hell are Idox?
https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/privatising-elections-referendums-accusations-fraud-rigging/
They are a part of this Borg setup:
‘Godin co-founded CGI (short for Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique, later freely translated as Consulting to Government and Industry) in 1976 with André Imbeau, who has kept a relatively low profile during his career at the company (the long-time CFO is now vice-chairman).’
‘But the company’s influence extends even farther. Through a multitude of contracts with the RCMP, Canada’s Department of National Defence, the U.S. Department of Homeland Defense and all three branches of the U.S. military, CGI has become deeply embedded in the overt and covert activities that governments direct against enemies throughout the world.’
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/its-a-cgi-world-we-only-live-in-it/article12830890/
Until the detailed data is handed over by the Electoral Commission and examined by scientific methods and experts – you may want to consider me a conspiracy theorist – when I say that was how the brexit referendum was ‘fixed’ (and i think the Scottish one too), going by the suspiciously high turnout in certain counting areas – in excess of 80% even in some. The ‘cover’ for that was the supposed Billion FB targeted adverts timed for the postal votes going out! As they are saying again is happening at this election now.
Can we rely on the supposed integrity of the privatised Electoral Commission at such a crucial election without independent oversight?
I think you’d have been better posting Craig Murray’s last two Blog posts, which, if correct, put the Tories at 42/43% of the vote, same as 2017, this is still higher than what Labour are probably Polling in reality, alas, we still have the issue of where disgruntled traditional voters are peeling off too, if soft-Tories/Shy-Tories are going to vote elsewhere, or abstain, will the Brexit Party voters be peeling off to the Tories, or again abstaining, and that’s before we focus on Scotland & Wales with their nationalist Parties, both of which happen to be Remain, which complicates the mix further.
By what I’ve personally witnessed in a very typical traditional Labour Constituency in South Wales Labour won’t achieve 50% of the cast vote as it did in 2017 and is unlikely to gain the two seats we could have also won in 2017 had resources been freed up sooner – co-ordination being very poor for the first two weeks. So, its down to Scotland, our only hope being many North of the Border vote SNP, which, may gift us another hung Parliament judging by the collapse in the LibDem vote.
Anyhow, I’m now getting most depressed at all of this, deflated actually after pushing for 4 long years for a Corbyn-led Government. And if he loses, I won’t blame the media, i won’t blame the Electorate, I’ll place the blame where it squarely belongs, with the PLP itself, much of which is opposed to a traditional Labour Party as we had in the 70’s and early 80s.
Chris , Craig Murray is going through the same exercise I did in my first link and pointing to the fake 42% number.
The polling co’s have not been releasing their raw data numbers.
And right on cue the Groaniad publishes a snapshot of the latest ICM poll – still showing a substantial tory lead!
But no link to their data set.
ICM website itself is only going up to their previous poll!
Tell me they aren’t playing fast and loose
Meanwhile enjoy Bozo pocketing a ITV reporters phone instead of looking at a photo of a child in a hospital floor!
Cummings defends by suddenly inventing the abolition of TV licence charge !
LauraKoftheCIA spins it to some fake report of Han ocks aide being assaulted by ‘Labour activists’ based on NO evidence.
She/BBC don’t show footage of bizo the clowns panic and grabbing of the reporters phone and tries to defend the PM by suggesting he had an innocent brain fart.
Peston tries to minimise their OWN reporters scoop
Haw Haw Mair on LBC ignores it completely! And tries to divert with the ‘flawed election system’.
The wheels on the bus go flying off, flying off, flying off.
No Pasaran!
Well, whatever happens, my Mother is casting my Proxy Vote for me and that will only go one way, namely, Labour, as will both my parents votes, I take it our next door neighbours will also vote Labour, both kids heavily in debt with University fees and neither able to get full-time jobs. I’m aware Labour’s posts votes from my own peer group in Wales (all post 40), however, unaware of any Tories changing Parties as not one to associate with Tories – the few UKIP voters I know, God knows how they’ll vote, but I’d imagine they actually won’t bother – Torfaen is not in the Valley’s though and the Valley’s Brexit vote was far higher than in my own Constituency – the folks I know down at Cardiff University have run the numbers and believe Labour’s on course to lose seats in Wales, which is why I’m now fully depressed about this bloody election.
It ain’t over till it’s over!
If I can get my hands on the ICM raw data tonight- i may even sit down at a computer and fire up spreadsheet to try find any truth it may contain.
This time in 2017 it was being reported as a 15% deficit i daw it as 3% – it ended up at 2.5%.
Should I ignore the numbers this time and accept the ‘reporting’?
Anyway here is a bit of venting, can’t wait for what he’ll do with todays tory shitfest.
https://dorseteye.com/jonathan-pie-speaks-more-truth-in-5-minutes-than-laura-kuenssberg-and-robert-peston-have-in-their-whole-careers/
Climategate centered around the UK’s UEA: a long institutional experience in manipulating un-shared raw data, all for the “Good Cause”.
Albion in the lead again, after 8 decades.
DG, you should submit your piece for consideration as an article to the email address shown in OffG contacts. I doubt that the editors churn through all our comments and may not notice your request.
I thought…. judging by some of the latest ‘news’ that we are still being bombarded with, about Corbyn, that he is, both, a commie and a nazi.
But my constituency Labour MP, Clive Lewis, who used to be on CND national council, and is funded by the pro-nuclear GMB union, and failed to vote against Trident renewal, then told us that he had to fail to vote against it because he is a ‘multilateralist’ (yet still hasn’t signed the multilateral ICAN Parliamentary Pledge in support of the multilateral UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons) has now informed us that he has talked Jeremy Corbyn out of his anti-Trident commitment by saying “look Jeremy, do you really want to go against the power of the unions?”
Now the Labour manifesto threatens to “renew Trident” if Labour are elected. I suspect that must be rather pleasing to the warmonger British Establishment, too – even if they do want us to think he is a commie-nazi.
And one further egregious example of BBC skullduggery was spotted.
‘A newspaper editor’s frank account of Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘rock star’ popularity ‘wherever he turns up’ and his ‘prime ministerial’ status astonishingly made it into the 10.30pm newspaper review. By the 11.30pm review, the article in question was not discussed at all’
https://skwawkbox.org/2019/12/09/video-truth-about-corbyns-popularity-public-love-him-hes-pm-material-how-the-hell-did-it-get-onto-bbc-an-hour-later-it-didnt/
Yes – lets be digging up that spaffing rose garden Cameron/Clegg dogging spot and transfer Corbyns allotment there – he needs to be near the office and keep an eye in the weeds.
And while I’m here here is a US msm view on getting their hands on NHS money …yum yum – feed me!
‘The United States has publicly declared that it would demand not only that its companies have “full market access” to the United Kingdom, but also that “government regulatory reimbursement regimes are transparent.” That would likely mean a provision allowing US drug companies to have a greater say in how the United Kingdom values medicines for the NHS, similar to one included in the US trade deal with South Korea last year.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/06/business/nhs-trump-trade-drugs-analysis-intl-ge19/index.html
If the UK votes that lying piece of slime, Boris Johnson, into office, it will be a very, very sad day for this nation. A seriously depressing, dystopian future will be the reality. Not a grain of hope in sight. Friday 13th December (hello Satan!) will be a day of mourning, nothing to celebrate.
It’s a choice between a good man and a total fraud, and these idiots are about to choose the fraud. Use your vote wisely and end this madness. Brexit is nothing but a con.
A senior British diplomat in the US has quit with a blast at the UK government over Brexit, saying she could no longer “peddle half-truths” on behalf of political leaders she did not “trust.”
Alexandra Hall Hall, the lead envoy for Brexit in the British Embassy in Washington, said that she had become increasingly dismayed by the demands placed on the British civil service to deliver messages on Brexit which were not “fully honest.” Research this.
Those 5G masts going up everywhere, right outside your house, irradiating you and your kids to illness and an early grave. White light everywhere from the streetlights and cars, slowly making you blind and messing with your biology on a grand scale. Poisonous food supply. You’re gonna get loads more of that, instead of the brilliant idea of free fibre optics for all, a grand Labour vision indeed. Stupid Brits just don’t get it. They actively encourage, defend and endorse their own slaughter, slow kill Boris has got a lovely 5G package for you, reactor-ready, and the Brits are licking their lips at the prospect.
Weaponized air. Weaponized lights. Weaponized food. Weaponized water. Weaponized clothing. Weaponized household goods. Weaponized everything you consume. Wake the fuck up!
When Brexit actually goes through, there will be no celebrations, it will be another day of mourning. This is the truth, Britain, it’s a fucking horrible future you are teeing up.
Divide and rule yes, but it’s confuse and rule as well. This is another one of their many black-magic tricks.
Britain is a nation of liars, it’s all they know. The people here have serious truth issues. This is why they are comfortable voting for this utter cunt, because he’s just like them, full of shit. How can any decent person vote for him?
Can you imagine the UK becoming more corporate than it already is? Yuk! Truly vomit-worthy.
A track befitting of a Tory win – Lucifers Hymn | Choir
Ho ho ho… The minions are revolting
‘When supporters of Boris Johnson say: he achieved what so many claimed was impossible: he got EU to renegotiate #Brexit deal therefore he can also get an EU trade deal done by December next year although many say unlikely .. It’s important to remember the red line PM crossed.. /1
He didn’t get the new Brexit deal by bullying/impressing/charming the EU. He got it by agreeing to protect their single market on island of Ireland after Brexit by putting a customs border down the Irish Sea. Allowing a ‘division’ between NIreland + GB he’d pledged never to do /2
Of course the EU also engaged with Boris Johnson because they believed that he – as a political figure – had a better chance of selling a deal back home to MPs than Theresa May ever had – BUT have a chat in EU circles .. /3
And you’ll hear the only way Johnson really has chance of getting bare bones FTA with EU done and dusted by Christmas next year is if he crosses his own red lines again and gives in to EU concerns ie. level playing field regulations and allowing EU fishing rights in UK waters /4
Getting it done seemed of more importance to Johnson with the #Brexit deal than keeping his word about the union and avoiding a dividing line down the Irish Sea. How might it be with an EU trade deal? Would he give up ‘control’ and ‘sovereignty’ for a quick deal by December? /5
Remember if he signs up to ongoing alignment with EU environmental, labour, state aid competition rules etc after Brexit, then where’s the national sovereignty he promised voters? And if he doesn’t sign on the dotted line, then negotiations with the EU are bound to take longer /6
5
Then again, if he did keep U.K. close to EU, then Brexit-related divisions between NIreland and the rest of UK would diminish as the EU need for controls/checks/paperwork to keep an eye on what’s coming in or going out of their single market/customs territory would decrease /7
It all comes down to not being able to have your cake and eat it. Those trade-offs so many politicians seem very reluctant to come clean about /8
@BBCkatyaadler
This is why Katya is a better class of journalist than most on the BBC, as she tells it how it is!!
@bbclaurak
Could learn a lot from this lady! 👍🏻😎
Bob Rurley
@bobrurl
·
1h
Katya is facing disciplinary action as we speak
This US run club should have been abolished in 1992 after the Warsaw Pact died in 1991. With president George H. W. Bush -ex-CIA director- the US didn’t didn’t. The CIA was surprised by the fall of the Berlin Wall, but this failed mafia managed to keep its secret dominance through this POTUS of their own.
Europa had no clue and was just grateful for the new Europe: Germany even made a quick blunder incorporation of East Germany out of surprise.
Sorry, wrongly placed.
Off Guardian is way off the mark with this piece.
Mostly because France has been in an open state of revolt since January 2016 (that’s almost four years ago, folks).
The ‘yellow vests’ are just the latest incantation of this.
None of this gets reported, or talked about; and certainly not on this board.
The tides of revolution are all around us, but none of it ever gets mentioned.
“Hung parliament edging us closer to fascism”
Are we not already there! Lo Stato Corporato. a phrase first coined by Benitto Mussolini in 1919. the Corporate State.
Ever since Corbyn took the helm of the Labour party anglo-zionist and Blairites where on a war path and white aunting Corbyn’s paradigm from day one. If the legacy media are giving Corbyn favourable coverage it is plain as day light that a pact has been made with the plutocratic and oligarchical class.
The next move of the elites will be in commodifying the environment. With the advent of 5G network this will further the nail in our dying western system . Then they will eliminate cash and digitalize money which will further our Orwellian night mare.
Post Scriptum: The mere fact that Brexit has not happened only proves that democracy died with Socrates. Pure insult to any one with a scintilla of grey matter . Referendum results only get approved when it suits the elites. Greece anyone under Tsapiris.
Lol, the and T POpost should have read Cesca
Something else, in the current climate, u can’t get power and get the opportunity to change to change things in the current climate, if u tell the truth, which is why JC and Tulsi are cautious. Say what u can but don’t burn ur boats to power, where u can seriously change things.
I totally agree with them!
Galloway has completely called this one wrong (but please still vote for him if you’re in West Brom)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whx-P37J8Wc
Love him or hate him, we need people like George Galloway in parliament.
We do not need creatures like Bojo.
Sadly i;m not but i love George too and totally understand why he feels gutted with JC.
Currently, it needs a disgusting, long game atm to get anywhere approaching power, George, Ken etc feel hurt now but hopefully there will be a gr8 endgame.
Cesca, the story of Jeremy Corbyn is one of the most incredible stories in modern politics.
If Corbyn becomes prime mister this coming week – and I believe that will happen – it will become even more incredible.
At this point the psychopaths who rule us will no doubt assassinate Corbyn.
At that point we might need to do ‘the French thing’.
I’ve got a feeling quite a lot of journalists will be fearing the madame if things go that way.
RobG,
Regrettably, as I’ve detailed here from personal experience in my own Constituency of Torfaen, Galloway has not called it wrong, indeed, he’s stated the best Labour can hope for is a minority government in alliance with the SNP – he’s detailed the peeling off of Labour Traditional Voters (working class) to the Tories, and within my own Working Class peer group in South Wales this is exactly what has happened, numerous non-political and Labour voters annoyed at Labour over Brexit and many other issues of a local nature – when even my own MP is at risk of losing his seat in a Constituency that’s been Labour since the 1920’s, then the party is at risk of losing 5 seats in Wales come Thursday, one of which is down the road from where I live when resident in Wales, which is once every five weeks.
Galloway has called for a world wide ban for anyone who doesn’t except the given view on the so called holocaust, why George is this the only war we’re not allowed to talk about, what happened to free speech George, and why didn’t you work it up the other louse , Sugar , when you had the opportunity of doing so over his ridiculous claim about the boring antisemitism he made against you which lead to you being sacked from talk sport
So sad u lovely offG people feel so disillusioned by JC’s performance during the election but i think he’s been spot on. The SCUM want us to feel it’s all got to be now, or else, waiting means death etc but that’s rubbish. Most ppl are taken in by action must be taken now, what about analysing the best action first?
JC has been perfect about that, why are u asking him to behave like the scum instead of discussing? The scum want to stop discussion and just be evil like they are, JC is so right to set a standard they should come up to.
Hope i’m not too late to offer ideas to some and i want to just say sorry to the gorgeous Edward Curtin. i commented on something where i was over protective about ppl i care about, Edward’s article was totally right, i got sensitive. Love hugs and all that’s good to every1 =)
Admin, you stated that this GE article would be pinned to the top of OffG for the rest of this week. I’ve noticed that it’s already slipped into 4th place!
We Brits would appreciate if you could keep it at the top, as promised, thanks.
Don’t worry, the psychopaths who rule us know that Corbyn will be the next PM.
The psychopath’s stenographers carry on like an old banger that’s run out of fuel.
But realistically we have to acknowledge that the above issues do not bode well for any future Labour government being much more than a watered-down exercise in Blairism, with a sidelined Corbyn as its purely nominal head.
Let’s see if you’re still saying that when/if Corbyn releases Julian Assange (the acid test) and cancels arms sales to Saudi & Israel!
Corbyn has said that Assange will be released under a Labour government.
The Labout manifesto also states that a Labour government will immediately recognise a Palestinian state.
The Labour manifesto also supports sanctions against Israel.
I could go on and on with this (not least NATO and the ‘nuclear deterrent”).
Anyone who votes for the Tories is certifiably insane.
ha ha ha ha ha true!
Not just insane but cowardly.
Some seem to regard Brexit as the most important issue in politics, and that delivering it is worth almost any cost.
Corbyn has set out a position which they don’t like meaning the only politicians offering Brexit in its purest form is de Pfeffel or king of the Kippers, Nigel Farage.
So why not come out and say you should back them – surely the new structure that will emerge once free of the yoke of Europe will turn Britain into the envy of the civilised world?
Just think about it: no more starving families, Uni’ fees that are not on par with a mortgage, hospitals that do not resemble battlefield medicine, and ulitility services provided by friendly collectives rather than rapacious corporations.
Oh joy
I am simply amazed that there are still those who, rather than recognise the obvious, persist in arguing that Corbyn is not committed to withdrawing from the neo-liberal EU.
It is not as if he is operating without a manifesto and the entire thrust of the manifesto is to govern against the basic principles of the EU.
For example the re-nationalisation of railways and utilities is in clear contravention of EU ‘principles’.
The same is true of the plan to nationalise broadband provision which clearly contravenes neo-liberal market principles.
As to the idea of a second confirmatory referendum this should only worry those who are convinced-by bien pensant assertions- that Brexit was a fluke, maybe produced by massive external interference, and has no chance of being duplicated.
This is not the case: the logic of electing a sovereign socialist government to lead the country in a new direction necessitates abandonment of the EU. By insisting that the terms of this withdrawal be clearly understood and transparently negotiated, Labour is ensuring that there is no crisis in which financiers and industrialists create massive economic disruption in order to sabotage socialist measures in the cradle.
The last thing that anyone need worry about is that a Labour government would become a Remain government on any other basis than the abandonment by the EU of neo-liberalism. And submission to US Foreign Policy.
The problem both with this article and a large number of the comments is that they are arguing against voting Labour because it may not lead to the full implementation of the Labour Manifesto.
Instead they suggest, in effect, either abstaining (That’ll teach them!) or voting for one or other of the openly pro-capitalist election platforms.
In short “Don’t vote Labour, because they will tend to compromise with the Tories. Instead vote Tory.”
To put this into some historical context it is this sort of sectarianism-for the article is aimed not at Tory or Liberal voters but at natural Labour supporters- which has, since the 1950s consistently produced, as an alternative to supporting left social democrats, a series of sectarian formations, not one of which outlasted by more than a few years the charismatic/charlatans who established them, which have diverted enormous amounts of energy, intellectual, physical and moral into the sands of impotence.
It is very true that voting Labour will not of itself lead either to breaking up NATO or putting an end to the appalling effects of neo-liberal social policy. But what is the alternative being proffered? What is the alternative to voting Labour, as a first step, and then by working for the implementation of the party’s programme and the purging of all elected representatives working against the membership and the people. A vote is merely the first step towards the real battleground.
The vote is a capitulation to Parliamentary cretinism. All they want is that vote. Then they do what they are going to do anyway. Power does not reside in Parliament or even less so in No10. For the longest part: power resides in the haute bourgeois billionaires – and their MNC/TNC corporate vehicles …including of course the international financial institutions. These compromise the Transnational Suprasociety …the TNS.
The corporatocracy operates predominantly offshore: via the Transnational Money Multiplier System …the TMMS. The global governance architecture includes the old Bretton Woods organisations – IMF/WB/WTO and the UN – and the financial system – run through the BIS/CB nexus. This system is suprasovereign to the EU, EAEU, SCO or any other free trade organisation. By the time you get to Corbyn – if he gets into No10 – he has to ask for about ten different permissions to wipe his arse.
NATO is not going to break up. The EU and everyone else is militarising. There has been no talk of EU Militarisation or the EU Defence Union. Yet another taboo subject. Until we can make the link between our own consumerism and the WHY of all this imperialism: there will be no change ever. So long as we keep supplying the demand for EV fetishism: capitalism’s military imperialism will keep supplying it. It is a dialectical materialism: whereby we get the shit end of the stick. But we take it anyway: then complain of the smell.
We are driving this, literally. Does anyone even want an EV soaked in indegenous blood and costing the earth? Does anyone really want to spaff all our remaining mineral resources on re-industrialising finance-capitalisms last Hurrah! Because that is what is happening here.
Fuck Corbyn: this is about humanities future. And whether we have one or not. And if that easily bounces of the bubble consciousness: it soon won’t. If we want a life that is intergenerationally sustainable: Labour’s GND is not it. That is why every green finance capitalist on the planet is behind the GND. Our parachialism over this election has global consequences we are not even admitting to. And one of them is our survivability. Which will make itself apparent over the next decade: but the time to act is now.
Decarbonisation is not an actually existent thing. Green growth isn’t either. We cannot grow sustainably: we are destabilising the entire planetary life-support system and jeopardising all life on earth as a character justification for one man. That is a definition actual insanity.
If we want to survive: we have to opt out of their system and starve it of the validation it needs. They were genuinely scared we would: how the hell else do you think every party found the missing grove of magic money trees? You are spectacularly naive if you cannot see this came from the top …from the TNS through their prophet Klaus Schwab of Davos/Klosters …and to you as a socially inclusive Manifesto. Scratch the surface and see the corporate image making machine at work. You’ve been had. If you fall for this, you’ll fall for anything. Survival means we need to up our game and smarten our perception from that of turkeys. Once they bought that vote: anything could happen. Do you really think they are going to share all the trimmings with you?
BigB,
I respect your views hugely, however, on the GE, by not voting for Corbyn and/or abstaining, we merely aid and abet the implementation of a Johnson-Trump alliance, a TTIP+ On Steriods, the transformation of Washington-led military alliance of NATO to become a Washington-led POLITICAL-military alliance of NATO (to replace the purposefully-destroyed European-centric EU, with its warts and all…).
Be VERY careful what you wish for.
Frank Speaker: Likewise – respect. But your supposition is that a Corbyn led Labour has the political and moral courage to do anything about it. And also, that Labour itself is not a corporate shop-front. If you’ve followed any of the links to Cory or Vanessa and Whitney Webb’s exposes: you’ll have seen that Labour’s GND is backed by any amount of Big Organisation; Avaaz ‘Theory of Change’ affiliates; and philanthrocapitalism’s dark money web of the ‘non-profit industrial complex’.
If you think Corbyn has the backbone to stand up to pressure: scroll down and read the four or five paragraph’s I posted to show how he responded to pressure by inventing political capital for “Labour’s Magnitsky Law” during the Skripal psyop. He and his party forced the agenda – not the Tories. Based on fantasy events that did not happen. To the point of sympathising with Navalny and invoking support for him. The very Navalny who is almost certainly an MI6 agent (agent freedom): and for the spurious fact-free agenda of another obvious intelligence asset – William Browder (agent solomon) [Gilbert Doctorow et al].
If ever there was an Establishment arch-imperialist – Browder is it. A known fantasist and a man excluded by himself from the truth. But Corbyn made it his personal mission to get his – or Labour’s Magnitsky Law – made statute. An act he succeeded in: as we will be getting Labour’s Magnitsky Law ‘after Brexit’. So much for standing up to Establishment pressure?
It is all there in black and white below. If you can draw the vision of a man who will reshape the corporate will: from his venal servitude to the billionaire corporate anti-Putin agenda …you are a more imaginative man than I.
The global governance architecture of real supra-sovereign transnational corporate power will be untroubled by the next resident of No10. In truth, they have never been troubled by the incumbent. They merely hand them their list of talking points and say “Read this”. The comments on this page indicate the narrative constructions we indulge in to deceive ourselves from the self-evident truth I am stating. The City controls No10: not No10 controls the City. You can thank Blair and Falconer for sealing that.
The ‘least worst’ and false hope – that this time it will be different – only indicates the depth of despair among the electorate. We are sub-consciously aware of our complete powerlessness: but will not consciously admit it …even privately to ourselves. Democracy is empty ritual and totemic tokenism. It’s an old cliché: but do you think we would have the vote if there were any danger of it changing anything? It is a legitimation cycle that confirms our subordinate and servile obedience. Whoever we deem to win the current pantomime unpopularity contest: we have all co-constituted the capitalist state to subordinate our collective will for another term of the social contract. We choose voluntary servitude. We choose to be capitalist stakeholders in the state and market economy. We choose ecogenocide. We choose militarism in service of the national security interest. We choose NATO and Trident.
Radical politics is all but dead in this carnally capitalist country. We choose democratic totalitarianism. I hope to live for the day when we one day choose life.
(But it won’t be Thursday: because it is not even on the ballot …until we put it there).
Bevin,
I’m not too sure if you kept a keen eye on the last Labour Party Conference in September this year, which clearly underscored the fact that most of the Shadow cabinet, actual Party membership, and those still continuing to vote Labour are very much pro-EU, indeed, the tussle over Corbyn’s Brexit compromise is illustrative of the divisions that exist within the Labour Party, and the Labour Movement itself – I’m in a minority as someone who opposes Brussels on purely Socialistic principles, I’m also in a minority of being a proud member of the Welsh working class, the majority of my peers, both on Social Media and in real life being Middle Class, lower Middle Class, but Middle Class none the less.
If authorities such as Steve Howell – deputy election strategist to JC in the 2017 GE and very much grounded in wales is unable to get his reservations listened too as far as Labour’s Brexit policy goes, voices such are mine are just ignored.
mr Howell warned, and quite correctly, that if the LP was perceived as an out and out Remain Party it would lose substantial support within its traditional heartland’s, that advice was not headed by the majority of the PLP, indeed, longtime allies of JC, specifically John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, with the Bitterites boxed JC into accepting what in reality is a second EU Referendum, to call its present Brexit Policy as elected at Conference would being denying reality, and as far as heir Starmer, Emily Thornbury and the rest of the centrists are concerned, said policy compromise did not go far enough, they want a firm commitment to remain in the EU regardless of any negotiated deal Corbyn managed with Brussel’s – they are on record as opposing Labour present policy after Conference vote, and will campaign against the UK adopting such a Brexit deal, namely, they will campaign for the UK to remain within the EU, which is one of the two options that would be on any ballot, which by definition is a re-run of the 2016 Referendum.
Obviously JC could have come off the fence on recent interviews, that he failed to do so was commented on by quite a few persons i know, all Labour voters in the past, and did not float well shall I say. If in a Constituency such as Torfaen the Tories can make inroads, it don’t look good in other Leave voting constituencies with sitting Labour MPs whose electorate voted in a clear majority to exit the EU, with the sitting Labour MP opposed to Exit. my own MP, who happens to be the shadow Attorney General is in this camp, as are the majority of Welsh Labour MPs, with the exception of one Stephen Kinnock, which just about sums up this crazy situation.
As a lifelong Labour Party voter, and Party member – now expelled by Iain McNicol for my eco-socialist views, I’ve no other Party to vote for, however, other’s are not as committed to the cause as me and its this segment of my own community that won’t vote Labour come Thursday, and this is very much linked to Brexit, whether you like it or not – and, its this fact many on the actual left have been making for 12 months.
If only the party stuck to its Brexit position as detailed in its 2017 manifesto we’ve have romped this Election, instead, the best we can now hope for is a hung Parliament, and all this gives the Bitterites all the ammo they require to remove Corbyn and return to its old ways – and again, this could have been combatted had Corbyn supported Open Selection in September 2018, that decision and the Brexit policy has been suicidal in my humble opinion.
Vote away you’re all wasting your time! Like George Carlin said “I know you’ll be having one of those really swell elections you like so much, you take part I’m sure your country will improve immediately. I on the other hand will be doing essentially the same thing as you, the only difference is, is that when I get finished masturbating I’m gonna have a little something to show for it folks”
The easiest thing in the world, to avoid the responsibility for changing the world for the better, is to sit back and abstain and say “FU i no longer care”.
If you feel happy, and can sleep at night, for aiding and abetting the neoliberal coup of Britain, then simply stay as you are, coward.
For sure, Corbyn / Labour are far from ideal, but your view is defeatist, and I would even go far to say may be part of an orchestrated PSYOPS campaign to ensure Johnson wins.
Apropos of the forthcoming election. We would do well to recognise the fact that the UK and most of the rest of Europe is under American occupation and has been so since 1945. Operations Mockingbird, Paper Clip as well as the direct interference of the internal politics Euro states which continues to this day. Largely through the existence of NATO the US has a direct leverage to determine European geopolitics and political economy. Europe is a system of vassalised states led by pliant Petainist leaderships which puts US interests before their own. This is taken to be the natural order of things. So the existence of sovereignty in Europe is a questionable to say the least.
It would be true to say that the right-wing parties are more pro-American than the left, but generally speaking when the master cracks the whip the social-democrats jump.
Of course none of this is part of a pre-election discussion: the empire is above discussion; but we are permitted a say on domestic affairs but this stops about there. Personally I think this is outrageous, but judging from some of the comments posted these issues seem to be matters of little or no importance. Better left to the higher ups in the FCO, Judiciary and MIC.
One of the reasons I will be voting to Corbyn/Labour is the flagrant way in which a foreign country – Israel – has blatantly interfered in the internal affairs of a putatively sovereign country – the UK – ably assisted by Johnson, the Tories, the Conservative party, the Chief Rabbi and various other Zionist factions, and of course the ever pliant media.
‘Personally I think this is outrageous, but judging from some of the comments posted these issues seem to be matters of little or no importance.’ – that’s pushing the envelope too far, I would challenge you to find any online community that loathes imperialism more than Off-G regulars (apart from a couple of Empire apologists who keep us entertained with peverse theories about the benefits of mass murder and asymetric military power).
Anyway, Corbyn is still the best bet if you want to undo domestic harms, or reduce Britain’s role as a prominent terror state: as you probably know he voted against EVERY military action proposed by the UK government during his 35 years in Parliament.
Having said that I agree whole-heartedly with your concern about right wing Jewish groups exploiting antisemitism for transparent, and unsavoury political motives – pretty low in my opinion, yet this hasn’t stopped the Guardian from conducting an endless smear campaign against those who are clearly not antisemtic, but rather dismayed at conditions in Palestine and the terrible abuses being inflicted there.
I disagree: if you loathe imperialism – you have to loathe green imperialism. On per capita throughput alone we are one of the richest countries in the world. According to LabourGND: 93% of us are in the top bracket of the global consumption/pollution bourgeoisie. To vote to extend that is an imperialism over all life on earth.
But that really is pushing the envelope. That envelope is the biosphere itself. If we never take this into consideration there is only one outcome. An outcome we have all grown Spectacularly blindsighted to. Why are there on a couple of people pointing out the obvious logical fallacy here? If we want to end imperialism: we have to recognise we are the imperialists.
Even LabourGND admit: if everyone had our level of consumption – the ecosystems would collapse. And yet we are proposing to vote to extend our ecological footprint even further? What is the matter with us? I might get accused of over-intellectualisation: but the simplest things seem to flumox us. You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet.
I have done my best to expose the Labour GND as a neoliberal scam. If we hate imperialism: why isn’t everyone behind this? This is humanities suicide pact: and we are entering into it so blithely …totally ignoring the green gilt imperialism over indigenous humanity and the ecogenocide entailed.
Everyone denigrated Greta Thunberg as controlled: but we really do have only a decade or so to sort this out. And we are just about to spaff half of it away into corporate green finance capital control. I can’t odds the rest of the country: but how come we have just ignored the real issues here? If we hate imperialism: why are we voting it in?
I’m sorry: you’ve all been Spectacularly had. Cory exposed the GND in January: to largely be ignored. Scratch the surface of Labour policy: and you will find Avaaz affiliated perception management and Big Organisation. Links I have highlighted for months. As DG says: you are not electing a president …but you are electing green corporate financial capitalism. To kill us: to put a fine point on it. If not us: the rest of biodiverse inter-species communities and indigenous tribes everywhere. For bad faith bourgeois capitalism?
We are not against imperialism: we are green imperialists. Our lifestyle is pushing the very envelope of the life-sustaining capability of the planet itself. We already consume 3.45 planets of resources per capita. The global average for material consumption is 7,000 tonnes – we consume 28,000 tonnes per capita, per annum [Hickel]. And we are voting to extend this? We desperately need to re-evaluate our priorities, our terms of quantification, and our semantic framing if we are to consider ourselves ‘anti-imperialist’. Because our lifestyle choices cause the rest of the world impoverishment: which seems like imperialism of lifestyle to me.
‘On per capita throughput alone we are one of the richest countries in the world.’- scant consolation for children eating out of bins or for those who drop dead in the job centre having just been deemed ‘fit’ to work.
What you seem to be saying is that Corbyn does not deserve support because he cannot reverse all of the ills that have afflicted western culture for decades.
What you seem to be saying is that we expropriate even more material wealth so that the visible become the indigenous invisibilised dropping dead. As they have dutifully done for centuries unreported elsewhere. So we can continue in good conscience to expropriate more.
If you bother to scroll down: that is definitely not what I am saying. I said we should address our social problems and poverty morally and responsibly with degrowth and wealth redistribution. By Labour’s own figures: many of our ‘poor’ and still in the global bourgeoisie. So we have to redress our problems with a new globally responsible class value-ethics: one that is life-coherent and socially just.
We are entering deeper into false consciousness and bad faith if we think that cyclical voting will ever bring social justice globally. It is just a lie. It is not even a noble lie. Imperialism is the highest phase of capitalism: and we are extending its lease on the planet. Shame on us all and let us at least hope that there is someway that we can retrieve some sort of life after the inevitable collapse we voted for.
We will have to do better than cathex all hope on one man: even as a least worst candidate. There are 15% of the worlds population that can stop capitalism: and we are in it. Why we are still here is beyond me. We should have ended it years ago. In five years – if the global economy lasts that long – there will be five years less chance of surviving capitalism. Unless every person takes in that 15% takes it upon themselves to self-sacrifice and reject capitalism: we will not survive.
It’s just that simple. And let’s hope the rest of the world can forgive us.
‘we should address our social problems and poverty morally and responsibly with degrowth and wealth redistribution.’ – this discussion is about the election on 12th Dec, and as we both know the conditions you describe are simply not on the table, although the excesses of hypercapitalism are bound to be stimulated even further by another 5 years of unfettered toryism.
The problem with your analysis is that NO political system (in its current guise) will deliver it: not in the UK, not in Europe, not in China, not in India, not in Russia, and certainly not in the USA.
The question is, do you want to land a weak blow against it via a Corbyn-led government (unless you really think there is no difference between him and Johnson) or put your faith in a movement outside of traditional power structures that will bring about the kind of changes you describe?
I don’t need to remind you that those in power didn’t get there by worrying about the externalities of greed (sorry, if that line comes across like a watered down version of CJ from Reggie Perrin).
In other words you/we have got a fight on our hands and one that is not necessarily going to respond to logic or reason – I wish it were different but its not.
You are right – partly – I said so myself below. And for this election I concede. But the reason that we have got here is that that we always seem to wait to the last minute …then hold our nose and vote for the very system we have been supposedly critiquing all year.
And due respect, Harry: I tried to warn everyone about Corbyn nearly three years ago …more than enough time to at least start a contingency. I did not set out to “score a weak blow” against Corbyn. I set out to score a strong blow – to expose that he was a terrorist supporter by dint of the fact that he collected money for the White Helmets. This was no aberration: as he supports the charity regime change Jo Cox Foundation to this day. You must have seen the amount of times I have tried to expose this? And the number of times I linked to the Mintpress expose of the Foundation?
If anyone follows those links- to Cory’s work too – they will see a very different picture emerge. I never set out to take the moral highground: I have been stranded here by almost every one else’s dereliction of moral responsibility. I genuinely thought that no community of people could possibly support the supporters of terrorism. But they do: actively.
What has surprised and disheartened me is the actual physical rejection of brute fact – like the WH collection, which every Labour supporter got by email at the same time as me – three years on and I am still trying to convince people fact is fact. And morally – there can be no argument that we SHOULD support the supporters of terrorism as a realpolitik. None.
So we had plenty of time. We may be few: but it only takes a spark. I’m not talking about some superior moral ethic. I’m talking about basic right and wrong ethical choices a child should be able to make.
When we move away from basic right and wrong – into the denial of actual brute fact reality – we are already stranded. We’ve lost. And we end up validating capitalism again as a convenience. Well that convenience costs lives. The GND will require a massive rematerialisation of our already over-reaching economy. The over-reach itself could cause a metabolic rift. No one knows: and no one can say definitively it won’t.
So: here we go again for another five year stint of ecogenocide. But it will be different this time. Does anyone really believe that? Because if we can’t share the very event-reality: where Corbyn supports terrorism without distorting it to suit a story where he doesn’t …how can we verify that our suppositions about reality are true? Because they are not, Harry. And we can only hope the economy will collapse before the planetary life-support systems do. Which is one hell of a gamble on a story.
We are in uncharted waters: trying to maintain or even accelerate to full speed. This is exceedingly dangerous. To be based on the imaginary character of one man. All because we could not handle the fact of who he is, or the immense danger backing the GND.
I agree: it’s no fucking use a couple of people on the internet trying to point out the obvious. And get people to honour moral standards they should already have. Suppose all of Momentum had walked away from Corbyn three years ago? Which, without me claiming any vastly superior ethics, by all rights they should have done. I am only isolated because I upheld the standard everyone should have. We could have had that ‘impossible’ movement: if and when people display only a modicum of ethical resolve. If they do not: capitalism wins every time.
Personally; I have the intuition this is the penultimate time for voting anti-capitalism. Show me where to vote against exponential ecogenocide and I’m there. We could have had eco-socialism on the ballot on Thursday. But we chose to ignore our honesty and simple value-ethics. If you think I feel superior: you’re wrong. I’m very distraught we could not make the simple choices a child makes.
And I’m angry too: at the distorted stories we tell ourselves to compensate for our lack. An election should never be about two men. All our value-choices should be about all-life first – globally: not capital accumulation with voter buybacks. And if no one can get that even now: when will they ever learn?
‘If you think I feel superior: you’re wrong.’ – far from it, I learn more from your posts than most others.
And if there is any superiority its simply because you know a lot about these particular issues.
The sticking point is between the gap in your analysis (which is correct) and how we bring about stuctural changes when certain ideological and economic systems fight so ferociously to protect their interests (irrespective of the cost to the rest of the planet).
Broadly speaking I think there is more of a chance of these issues being addressed (however imperfectly) with Corbyn at No:10 rather than de Pfeffel or the pot loving Swinson.
I think we can both agree that de Pfeffel is no environmentalist? But he became a pseudo-environmentalist as soon as he got the keys to No10. If it seemed to me that he was reading from the WEF’s cue cards when he got in: that is because he was.
It was obvious to many the the Maybot had no control whatsoever. She was being controlled by Cummings and more importantly Sir Mark Sedwill …the behind the scenes kingmaker. We can thank Tony Blair for that. He set up the FCO and Cabinet Office as his executive council. Now the PM is their spokesperson. Anyone who thinks that Corbyn is suddenly going to develop a spine and restructure power is going to be mightily disappointed.
Power is a global compact and global governance architecture that operates transnationally and ‘offshore’. It has been like that for most of our political lives: but no one seemed to notice. Ordinarily, I’d just concede my personal powerlessness and hope that this time people actually notice how little power the PM has. And don’t be fooled if some of his socialism actually materialises. This has been sanctioned from the very invisibilised apex of the transnational power-structure. Just read the WEF forums and listen to what Klaus Schwab says.
If no one else can see the inevitable teleology of voting in the capitalist state: the inexorable consequences will be coming ever more apparent over time. Absent a truly internationalist and anti-capitalist solidarity of the oppressed – everything Labour is not – the only thing that can stop capitalism destroying all life on earth are the contradictions of capitalism itself manifesting ever greater degrees of failure.
That this is wholly unsatisfactory for all of us – but can only be seen by a relative few – is the natural attitude. Capitalism won: as pointed out by Mark Fisher (RIP) – there is no alternative. Except life: which is going to take an “impossible” international conversation to address.
Well, it ain’t going to happen by Thursday! Whoever anyone votes for: the apparition of a sovereign state with an uncharismatic leader – legitimated in a so-called ‘unpopularity contest’ – gets in. There is nothing you, I, or anyone else can do about it.
Things are getting bad when BigB sets his wopro to the “Readers Digest Subscription Hustle” mark.
So we should all go back to cave dwelling and hunter gathering so as to be an example for the rest of the world to avoid extinction? How is that going to work?
To be serious I want you to present a concrete workable manifesto which is not going to scare not only the 1% but the rest of us.
Scared: you should be fucking terrified of the ecogenocidal consequences of this election. Consequences I have been trying to make known for decades – and for a few years herein. The solutions are obvious once we stop denying the problems. Degrowth and the very opposite of what every party stands for sums it up. When it comes to the wire like now: there is nothing that can change. But we absolutely need to change. There is actually a growing sustainability, degrowth, and biophysical economics literature to draw on. In preparation for the next round of not being able to convince people that our choice of paths is suicidal.
Perhaps the focus should not be on the Cassandra’s who are saying “Look out” …but on the majority who say “Fuck off, it’ll be fine”. Except it won’t. And there is no pleasure in I told you so. Something has to break this ecogenocidal election cycle and open up new possibilities. Currently, I do not know what that is. But I fear it will be an actual collapse situation that offers some possibility of recovery. And if anyone wants to help avoiding that possibly inevitable outcome: you’re welcome. Possibly not here BTL: but you are welcome to join the human race …not to join the race to end it.
Ardent Brexiters of supposedly any convictions who want to vote Tory to ‘Get Brexit done’ as our disheveled clown of a PM keeps reiterating should consider the following:
1. Brexit was voted for by a narrow margin of voters. This has caused a major split in the country.
2. Brexit was not fought on party lines even though some parties took strong lines overall on their stance, but within all the major parties there were remain politicians and leave politicians campaigning on opposite sides.
3. The advisory referendum was then taken by the politicians to work out the details of how this wish could be carried out. The referendum could be nothing but advisory because of the intricate details of how this process can be carried out needed a lot of close work. Brexit included as a first step, a withdrawal agreement but also a future trade agreement.
4. Parliament could not come out with an ideal Brexit that was more advantageous than remain. This became clear very quickly because some of the small print was missed out from the discussions during the referendum debate, or were glossed over because the possibility of remain was so high and these intricacies were not explained clearly to the public through some complacency’
The first major stumbling block was the interpretation of whether this Brexit would be a hard Brexit, complete separation and then renegotiation, or a very soft Brexit which includes being within the custom union and so on. It then became suddenly very clear that a hard Brexit meant a hard border between the Irish Republic and NI. An attempt was made at glossing this over, but this has failed.
The main culprit in the delay and non-achievement of Brexit was the Tory party. They had a working majority but constant squabbling within the party meant constant delays. Teresa May had the majority to work out Brexit but didn’t because of her party.
5. Through a false sense of invincibility because of the perceived weakness of Corbyn, bolstered by constant demonization by the press and also the PLP Blairites, the Tories thought they would get a landslide win and called an election which led to a hung parliament.
6. To obtain a majority the Tories had to recruit the DUP to get a majority. This accentuated the Irish border problem, even though it was a big problem in itself anyway, but it now came into sharper focus.
7. Of course there are also other problems with Brexit not least of which is that most economic assessment of its effects have been very negative,
8. May was forced to resign as she could not control the party and a Brexiter was elected to head the Tories. The newly elected PM was defeated on almost every single vote presented to parliament was running a government with a majority of -42 having sacked his own MPs.
9. A general election was called to sort this out and here is where we are,
10. An argument has been posed, here and elsewhere that the ‘Establishment’ want this or that. The conspiracy theorists are on both sides. ‘The establishment is in favour of remain’, says one set of conspiracy theorists whilst ‘The establishment wants Brexit’, shout the other set. But like all conspiracy theories this involves the tentacles of invisible forces manipulating us. Now I know I am opening myself to a lot of flak here and this is deliberate to get this out of the system. But the truth is much more mundane. ‘The establishment’ is not a monolithic structure made up of an organisation that has regular meetings and a common purpose. Is anyone here seriously trying to tell me that Johnson is not part of ‘the establishment’? Is Farage part of ‘The Establishment’? Once we get into the quicksand of this argument there is no escape.
11. If we would like to define ‘The establishment’ then we must look at some of the structural elements of this entity and I suppose the two main ones are: money and power. To concentrate on money, as the EU after all is an economic union, we can see this is made up of the financial institutions, the banks, the hedge fund managers the insurance companies, the secondary Ponzi schemes and so on. Also, these will also be country or EU specific and so there may be many ‘establishments’. Inevitably there will be clashes of interest between these and therefore we will have to understand why invoking ‘the establishment’ is so much fluff. To give a very simple example when the result of the referendum was published, the money changers voted against it by a very sharp decline in the Sterling to other currencies rate. Now the same money changers have decided to vote for Brexit by buoying the pound to unprecedented levels because they believe that Johnson will win. I think there is a good chance that they also know what that means, ultimately a hard Brexit. Analysts may spend more time on this, but it really doesn’t matter to the money changers, being a major peg of capitalism to play this game whereby the quick win and not the long term is what is in sight.
12. This is the same old capitalist game and that is why capitalism has been so successful. Capitalists always win. During the 2007 crash, which was purely a failure of casino capitalism, world leaders bailed out the banks because they were ‘too big to fail’. In so doing they did not curb the same practices that the banks used, and bonuses still flowed and no heads rolled. Far from learning from this it is still a common myth that in 2008 ‘Labour crashed the economy’ by recruiting a few nurses which in turn gave strength to actions such as cutting out nurses’ bursaries.
13. Remember that invoking the establishment is just chasing a mirage because it is not a single entity with a single interest.
14. When voting on Thursday remember to vote for sound long term policies not for yesterday’s half-baked slogans sold to you by a shabby salesman of ill repute.
15. Remember it is the Tories who brought on the Brexit vote, it is the Tories who lost the vote, it is the Tories under may that delayed Brexit and it is the Tories under Johnson who pulled out his deal in order to carry out this election. Please do not be fooled by the Tories and please do not distract by introducing false narratives.
I aslo forgot to add that for Johnson ‘Get Brexit done’ means merely signing a withdrawal agreement. Brexit will only be done quickly if the Corbyn formula is follwed because in remaining in the customs union all the difficulties in negotiating a new trade deal will be much simplified.
The second arm of Johnson’s Brexit will involve protracted trade agreements with everyone something that will take ages. It is also the case that disentangling current EU agreements and regulations within the post Brexit Britain will entail many pitfals and hidden problems.
Your admiration for Brussels is misguided I’m afraid, as detailed under the Lisbon Treaty, and a few subsequent reforms to monetary policy from 2011 onwards – lets be blunt, the EU is a neoliberal project, its monetary policy forces perpetual austerity on the majority of the members of the Euro, and to be blunt, it don’t give a fuck about the masses, if it did there would be no austerity – when you sacrifice real lives on the neoliberal crap known as ECB/EU Monetary policy no such Institution deserves the support of the Left, so, I’ll stick to actual Leftwing politics thanks very much, the ones Bevin, Benn, Foot, Castle, Shore et al espoused, or are none of these Socialist hero’s Socialists as none had time for European Unification pipe dreams.
Iam confused, so Johnson, ugly Patel, the fanatic Raab, Farage, Redwood, doughnut duncan smith want us to leave the EU because it’s a neoliberal concept? who would have guessed that, I must be missing something, I think I’d best vote Tory
Editor: Basic error of logic. The fact the EU is a neoliberal organisation (and it is by its own admission) in no way implies this is the reason any given individual would want to leave it. The EU is many other things as well, and clearly the UK Establishment is divided over whether being in or out would serve their interests best – or at least they are committed to the fairly meaningless sideshow that is the Brexit ‘debate.’ – ed
Geoff,
If you are of the opinion that the EU is not a neoliberal project, one that came into being following the Single European Act, and one placed on steroids with single monetary union, fine by me, but as I request of others, do actually read the text of the Lisbon Treaty, paying particular attention to all tracks on fiscal consolidation across the EU member states, ever closer monetary policy for all Euro members, and all competition clauses – if that ain’t neoliberal economic proscriptions, I don’t know what is!
As for the ERG Nutters, I can’t speak for them, I can only speak for the traditional Labour Left, which was never in favour of EEC membership, so God knows what they’d make of the EU in its present, post-Lisbon guise.
Where did I express admiration for Brussels or the EU? It is important to recognise that none of those socialists you mention lived under a globalised casino capitalist system as we do now. We are not going to evade the system by leaving the EU, merely being a smaller fish in a shark infested sea. I ask you a simple question: will a socialist post Brexit government be able to carry out unfettered socialist policies? The answer is clearly no. Please be realistic and understand that the current system is beyond Brexit and the EU. It is about getting a socialist inroad into the system and then having a socialist voice to change it from within. A revolutionary approach sadly is currently not on the cards.
I’m none too sure where you think the Uk will ever again be given an opportunity to Leave the EU, the fact remains if we don’t exit now, based on the 2016 EU Referendum result, I doubt we’ll ever leave until the thing implodes, or we have an actual civil war very similar to that that took place in the States in 1860, and that war was not about slavery, it was about the Federal entity known as the USA.
Now, lets be rational, the power Elite across Europe will not allow members of the EU to actually leave the Body, not via the ballot box anyway, as Macron himself has observed, the French not being too keen on Brussel’s since the advent of the Single Currency, so, if not now, when please, because internal change within Brussel’s is virtually impossible, as detailed on this site on a few occasions this year.
Again, I’m quite happy to be a member of any club that puts the welfare of its citizens above all else, regrettably, the EU puts monetary union before all else, and that’s had a disastrous impact on the majority of Euro members – just look at Greece, Italy, Cyprus and a few others to gauge that sad fact – hence, i can in no way support any Institution, be it Parliament or Brussel’s that rams neoliberalism down our throats – if we desire to break with neoliberalism, then we need to do it now, not wait until its far too late, in which case we’ll have bloody revolution.
“Where did I express admiration for Brussels or the EU?”
Where it oozes out from underneath.
I find it difficult to counter anything you have written and think it a well-reasoned analysis, so thank you for it. Our current prime minister is on record as not wanting the people to vote for anything that will take the nation back to the past when in fact that is precisely what he desires. Mr Johnson yearns for the days when the laws didn’t protect workers rights and that before the introduction of the NHS if a person was sick and couldn’t afford medical bills, they died. Mr Johnson’s reluctance to be scrutinised by Andrew Neil so the electorate can make an informed choice when they lend their votes speaks volumes.
The problem is that of those who are most likely to be adversely affected by the measures a new Conservative government will undoubtedly seek to impose are not the people who read and contribute to websites like this one.
It will certainly affect me,and millions like me, if people had daily access to sites like this, it would probably change the outcome of the election, I get educated by both the leader and the comments.
Shardlake,
You claim our present ‘unelected’ PM desires to take the country back in time, that may be so, alas, i’m quite happy taking the nation back in time also, back to the 70’s, when we had near full employment, strong trades unions, people had roofs over their heads and inequality was actually closing, not widening as of today. Further, we can get rid of our own Administrations via the Ballot box, however, we can’t get rid of the Commission via the ballot box, so, let move away from TINA, as its really most depressing to hear folk continually infer their is no alternatives, when actually there are alternatives such as those documented by Mitchell & Farsi, and funnily enough, by Corbyn himself when a Backbencher.
”Brexit was voted for by a narrow margin of voters.” So what?
It wouldn’t matter if the majority were only one. First past the post system. Please note that no-one argued against FPTP before the referendum, but having lost the Remainers haven’t stopped bellyaching about the result which for some reason they declared to be unfair, and somehow illegal. And please don’t try to kid me that the Remainers would have jumped at the result – albeit narrow – if the referendum had gone their way.
Francis,
You are indeed correct in pointing out had Remain won the 2016 EU Ref., then that would have been accepted as the legitimate verdict/outcome, regardless of what Farage or the Tory ERG Group had to say about it – which, demonstrates the pure hypocrisy and lack of demonstratable support for democracy by your average Remainic, who’s mostly a liberal progressive bent, certainly not a Socialist bent.
Political Scientists and Historians will have great fun charting how so many were fooled into believing the result of a Referendum was so undermined and perverted by those who allegedly are advocates of democracy, whilst denying an actual democratic outcome that a majority of the Establishment opposed.
Having just listened to the first 20 mins of TMOATS with George Galloway, and his guest Prof Sir John Curtice, I’m aghast how the Labour Party is now perceived in many of its once loyal heartlands, the heartlands being those constituencies in England & Wales that elected by a clear majority to Leave the EU – these folks and their opinions have been thrown under a bus by the Remainiacs and anti-democrats within the PLP ranks, many of whom would have been ejected by the membership had we had Open Selection.
To state I’m distressed is an understatement, obviously I trust matters won’t turn out as poorly as they seem today, particularly given personal time invested in pushing an actual leftwing agenda within the Labour Party, one not addicted to Brussels or NATO for that matter.
Chris
You must really grow up and stop calling remainers by other juvenile names. There is no hypocrisy in holding one view on Brexit and there is no need to lecture me that only true socialists accept Brexit as the only way forward. You are indulging in cultism, the very thing you accused others of.
Seriously if you can convince me how Brexit will make this nation prosper overnight then I may be converted but this shallow name calling is tedious and cannot be taken seriously. I could for example point out that socialists brexiters are in the same boat as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson Gove and the like, unlike the majority (63-65% of labour voters in the referendum), but I won’t.
No Orage,
Its you that needs to grasp the nettle, its you that needs to grasp the fact that a certain number of extreme Europhiles have been intent on voiding a democratic outcome since the EU Ref came in in June 2016 – if you had not noticed, these same folk began by trying to overturn Corbyn’s own Election as Labour party Leader and blamed him for the defeat, we’ve then witnessed a plethora of excuses by said same folk claiming the June 2016 Vote was null and void and there was no legal reason whatsoever to follow through with the will of the UK electorate, these persons are REMAINIACS, they are opposed to democratic outcomes and many are found within the PLP and LibDem Party – indeed, see Ms Swineson’s comments, which was to revoke Article 50 and ignore completely a Referendum Result the majority of Parliamentarian’s voted to enable in the first place.
Many on the Left, myself included on multiple forums, have warned and warned and warned about this thinking, many in my own Party did not desire to heed our advice, despite us knowing full well our own demographic was not having it, was not pleased at being called pig ignorant and racists and that some kind of blow back was to be expected – they did not listen, as Labour’s Brexit Policy presented to the nation in September clearly demonstrates and subsequent coup within the Party itself.
You may not like these facts, but your rabid, remaining was/is as dangerous as your rabid ERG Brexiteer, that you can’t see this fact sums it all up. This Election, as with 2017 was always about Brexit based on the reality that it is Brexit that has dominated all Parliamentary business since June 2017.
Chris
You assume a lot.
You do not represent all the left nor do you not own the ‘truth’. I am also of the left by my view is different from yours and more nuanced. So please stop acting like a hurt betrayed socialist.
It is not the Labour party that has stimied Brexit, the Tories did when they had a majority.
AS I pointed out before, you are in the minority and that is what you have not accepted, you wish to ignore that 48% of the population and 63-65 of Labour voters do not agree with you.
I myself understand the intricacies. I left Labour when Blair got in and rejoined when Corbyn was elected because he was elected and because I realised that at last the Labour party may be able to implement socialist policies. To me this is more important tan Brexit. So please do not patronise.
If remain won there wouldn’t have been any need for soul searching in order to avoid the self harm that is Brexit.
I have to agree with you even though I voted to leave the EU. But, and this is a very important BUT, the reason the situation can now be classified as “self harm” is because there have been bumbling, thick idiots in charge of the exit mechanics since the day the referendum produced the “wrong” result for them. They seem to have spent most of the following two years sitting on their backsides complaining about the outcome and thinking about how they could best turn it round or sabotage the exit process, rather than just seriously getting on with it.
I do not believe that it was the referendum result that will most likely prove damaging to the country, it was the intellectual and moral limitations of those empowered to implement it. Like spoilt children, their view was that if they couldn’t have what they wanted then they would make sure that nobody else gained from their loss. With this lot in charge, constructive exit from the EU stood no chance.
Judy
The major unforeseen obstacle to an efficient Brexit has been the eat your cake and have it syndrome that has characterized both sides.
If a clean hard Brexit is what it takes, there will be protracted negotiations for a new deal, no ifs and buts. Plus there will have to be a border between NI and the republic, again no ifs or buts.
It is because nobody had the integrity to accept this and to try to pull the wool over their own eyes that this situation arose. The real consequences of leave of possible destruction of the peace process in NI and also of the economic destruction of UK was not acceptable and hence the obfuscation.
Good post, but i disagree with there being no Establishment, they are beyond Brexit and will win either way.
Anyway, your comment reminded me of split views on the EU: the right wingers accuse it of being the EUSSR, whereas the left wingers say it’s a Neoliberal project.
To the rest of us a middle-of-the-road attempt to stop war in Europe and improve the living standards of the working person; it’s generally succeeded on both points.
Yes, it’s far from perfect, but so is everything else, and choosing the best of all “evils” is not the worst that can happen and often is an essential tactic.
Breaking up the EU only serves the agenda of Atlantacists, the true neoliberals, who wish to divide and conquer.
I’m glad someone else sees it as I do, none of the above respond to my question, why do they think it’s going to be great living under these right wing fanatics like Raab, Patel, Lord Snooty, ian arsehole smith and the rest of the fascists , just what is it they see as being great, I’m glad I’m the age I am, because I couldn’t put up with what about is to happen in the workplace, why people can’t see it I will never know, and the nonsense argument ‘we can always vote them out’ well, we see the difficulty of that with this election, there’s a chance in the future for another Tory lite government, and we’re back to square one, the Labour party should maintain these policies for the next election because people will be sick of the right wing bastards after five years, although I doubt that will happen.
Permit me to disagree
The so called peace in Europe is a hollow one because it was done by a process of occupation of Europe by the US through NATO. It failed to uphold this peace notably in the Balkans and in Ukraine, in fact in the later it was a chief instrument of the war/ Plus other NATO interventions in the ME and threats against Russia.
You see my view is that US does not really like the EU but traded that for NATO so tha it insisted that all newcomers to the EU should also be members of NATO thereby circling Russia and also ensuring fealty from the vassal states, let them indulge in the fantasy of economic independence. It is this battle for the soul of the EU and its removal from NATO that could save the European project. Brexit will make this much harder as we are important for the European project to prosper in the long term.
Empirically, there is only one course of action to leave the EU superstructure before it implodes outright & devastatingly for the UK & Her Majesty Parasite Queen Elizabeth II plus her spawn progeny. If the Limeys in the UK decide to remain they will most assuredly be directionless under the leaderless & guidance system dysfunction of Brussels bureaucrats, autocrats, & technocrats which are just lackeys & functionaries for Goldman Sachs & the Giant Vampire Squid.
The UK Limeys can opt for existential perdition under Brussels tutelage in the workhouses designed for them by Goldman Sachs & USA oligopolists if they want to.
Frankly, nobody holds out much hope that the UK Limeys will ever figure out that Goldman Sachs made the UK & EU in their image by forcing everyone into a finance union that ensures EU wide poverty & austerity at the behest of the IMF & World Bank oligopoly which works for the USA Group of Thirty & Rothschild Bank.
Good luck, eh.
P.S. Follow the money.
MOU
MOU
I agree. As you know: I see the City of London as the cancerous rectum of the universe. It is not the only diseased black hole down which the very life of the biosphere is draining …but it is the original and most diseased. Goldman Sachs et al came to London to avoid federal jurisdiction and take advantage of the unregulated lawlessness of the Euromarkets and access to secrecy jurisdictions ‘offshore’. Of course, now they have Delaware – a whole state that is offshore. Or Ireland …a whole country …
But it all started in London: which is still the epicentre (or anus) of the ‘Spider’s Web’. And no, us ‘UK Limeys’ do not have a clue about the exponentially metastasising transnational ‘money multiplier cancer’ centred here. Most of us that is. Even less do they know or understand – that solely in order to preserve itself and reproduce – the City is going ‘green’. And it is this greenwashed finance-capitalism that is behind the GGND. The green shoots of recovery sprouted in the City first. The amounts are trivial so far (green bonds £19bn last time I looked) and the Green Finance Initiative not much more than an idea. But that will soon change with a Labour government. Or a Tory government. Or a Lib-Dim government. Or a Brexit party government. Or a Green party government.
Our country goes into a mass trance around election time. The rest of the time it is just sleeping. When we open one bleary eye, crusted with sleep – all we see is two men. At least Labour has policies: the Tories have not even bothered with them. Oh, £550mn for youth football! So fixated are we on a the Spectacular pantomime of cartoon personalities in conflict: nothing much else matters really. “Get Brexit done” is the autonomisation of one half of the publicly Disneyfied debate. At least the others are trying to broaden the issues. And avoid the execrable dirty smear campaign of manufactured antisemitism – coming from the Simon Wiesanthal Centre this morning. That aside – which is serious slur and indictment of UK politics – they are nevertheless the wrong issues. And no one ever mentions the City.
Whoever wins: the City gets in. And it is going ‘green’ globally. It is the next phase of ‘Globalisation 4.0’ – the tertiarisation of financial trade-in-services – in which the City and UK already lead the world. Three giga-factories and some unionised jobs won’t change that: where does anyone think the uncosted £459bn in green gilt capital investment is coming from? The grove of magic money trees every UK party has found itself in?
If anyone would bother reading Cory’s exposure or following the WEF advertorial narrative spouted by Klaus Schwab – or the latest ‘Financing the Green New Deal’ initiative …they would see that this is globalised greenwashed neoliberal capital-finance reproducing itself in a more socially inclusive way. They genuinely feared the populism that austerity was manifesting. But rather than use this to our advantage: we capitulate at the first sight of ‘neo-socialist sweeties’ in ten years.
With an ‘ESG scorecard’ – of environmental, social, and global governance empathy – under the UN/WTO ‘global compact’ of voluntary corporate social responsibility …The WEF/BIS/UN/WTO/City-corporate nexus will be handing out sweeties and killing us with love from now on …just ask Klaus Schwab or Antonio Guterres.
UK Limeys are so fixated on two bleary personalities they cannot see the bigger picture. The cannot see the ‘green industrial revolution’ is a globalised greenwashed neoliberal Zeitgeist. One which entails humanities protracted suicide pact with the green finance capital’s global governance architecture of a ‘just transition’ (now one of their neoliberal stock phrases). Or that the Labour Party Manifesto is the new ‘longest suicide note in history’. Those sweeties are poisoned: but Boy, aren’t they sweet!
UK Limeys assertively reject any reference to the GGND being a finance capital front. They hide behind the half-dream of a ‘decent principled populist’. They cannot – and indeed will not – see the GND as a globalised corporate finance vehicle of reproduction and self-preservation. Nor will they see the corporate capitalist concessions as a ‘double movement’: of globalisation preserving its core of exponential life-draining expropriation – by presenting itself as a feigned ‘deglobalisation’ and inclusive ‘socialisation’ compact. And nothing but nothing will stop them voting for the life-blind legal-rational legitimation of ecogenocide.
So you are completely right. UK Limeys are completely blindsighted to what is hidden in plain sight. One can only hope greenwashed neoliberal globalisation – masquerading in socialisms sheep’s attire – fails Spectacularly enough to wake UK Limeys from their half-sleep somnolence. But not Spectacularly enough that there is still enough e-tech minerals for a universal-emancipatory ‘just transition’ …a rapid degrowth to a sustainable intergenerational solar ecology.
Which is an enormous gamble with the stakes being all life on earth. A gamble no social group – especially one feigning being ‘socialists’ – is morally empowered to undertake. But gambling with all life on earth is what pseudo-socialists will undertake – for a decade of decadent bad faith bourgeois state neoliberalism. Eclipsing the unborn right to life of the future. Such unconscious blindsight is why we will be voting in the greenwashed neoliberal globalisation of the City on Thursday …whatever the result. But hardly anyone is awake enough to see that: let alone stop it. It will have to stop itself. Will the bourgeois pseudo-socialists take responsibility for what they have done then? They sure as Hell won’t take self-responsibility now. The City’s greenwashed neoliberal ‘just transition’ here we come …like lambs.
If an election is i portant enough to matter it is important enough for people to actually talk as if decision-making actually mattered.
1. It is important to discuss immigration and population dynamics like adults. It is not racist to hold opinions on such matters, any more than it is adult sanity to leave your front door wide open for anyone to come doerp in your living room of a night. There are enormous implications and consequences resulting from mass migration and if politics actually matters, discussing those issues will not descend into identity politics, crying ‘racist’ every five minutes etc etc. Democracy can only function if adults holding different viewpoints can engage respectfully, without smearing, sneering and distorting.
2. It is important to discuss the reality of the EU and what Remaining will mean for the UK as a nation. It is important people understand that all the European Parliament is is a rubberstamping body. It is the Commission that draws up legislation, guided far too often by TNC lobbyists. The people have no influence on that bunch of tax avoiding middle class oligarchs. Socialist choices are illegal in the EU….
3. It is critical to discuss the way the whole nation is distorted by the selfish overbearing city called London. Because the whole media is controlled from London, the vast maiority of Senior Civil Servants are London-centric, all policy puts London first, second and last. There is a genuine case for 30 million people in the north, midlands and Scotland to tell Westminster to go take a hike and form a new nation no longer controlled from The Big Smoke.
4. Discussing NATO and its reform or even abolition would clearly be part of a serious election. As all politicians merely eat from the US begging bowl, NATO is presented as the only alternative. A serious polity would discuss alternatives.
5. The health service needs modernising, a new 21st century reality must be embraced. A puerile debate between an ossified 1948 and a rape by US HMOs is of no value. If we are too childish to discuss the implications of extended life expectancy, why do we deserve to remain an independent nation? All you get from politicians are meaningless slogansahd cheap distortions of a few statistics to create soundbites.
6. Politics dominated by soundbites is like a marriage dominated by a leering bloke obsessing over his wifes tits. It may last a long time but the possibility of spiritual growth is close to zero. This election has no serious coverage, so I ignore most of what is going on.
7. Education is another arena where cheap words trump serious discussions. I have never heard a serious debate in the media on education where decisions have not already been taken in private. No one ever discusses whether classrooms are the place to learn or not. If people were serious about grooming children for adult life, that would be a question in the forefront.
It may be a time in history when epochal change is possible, but I have heard nothing to say that the UK Establishment wants any change to the closed door chumocracy of London Clubs, gongs and fawning, and all the other manifestations of ill concealed contempt for participatory democracy.
Rhys Jaggar: “This election has no serious coverage, so I ignore most of what is going on.”
Took a brief glance at BBC political correspondent on World News (the first in years) likewise no serious coverage of the points you raised. Probably a deliberate attempt by this AZC propaganda medium to trivialise the importance of the Corbyn factor in this election: after 40 Thatcherite “years that the locust hath eaten”, a real old fashioned Socialist has arrived to head the Labour Party.
I really can’t agree that Labour is getting “an easier time” this time. Certainly not from the Guardian. It’s still at it. Hyde wrote a truly vicious article about him the other day. The mods were deleting posts by the dozen and the comments closed very early.
Sparrow called Friday’s debate a draw. He also failed to acknowledge Corbyn twice raising Johnson’s and his Party’s track record on racism yet Robinson wouldn’t let those issues in, nor did he challenge Johnson on them. He also failed to correct Johnson when he claimed his Party is having a n independent inquiry into Islamaphobia. That’s not true. It’s a silly wee internal review. Finally, when someone asked what should happen when politicians lie, Robinson allowed Johnson to turn it into a JOKE!!! All of these things went right over Sparrow’s head. BBC bias strikes again!
The hatred is still there in the Guardian. Big time.
So a slight warming to Labour is detected and the reason is because Labour have sold out in some way? This feels a leap with no evidence but there is an obvious difference between this election and the last and it isn’t Corbyn.
Johnson is a well known liar with no shame and probably the most right wing cabinet ever. This is why Clarke and Major say don’t vote Conservative.
Also the argument doesn’t make sense as Labour are already “compromised” by the PLC and other MPs who do not see eye to eye with Corbyn. If anything the continues AS allegations show that Labour hasn’t sold out.
I have voted Green (I have a postal vote, which I have submitted already). Only the Greens have been CONSISTENTLY opposed to Trident, NATO, Heathrow expansion, and the monarchy. I do not agree with all of the Green party’s policies (I am further to the right politically, but I despise the perverse “socialism for the super-rich, but otherwise every person for himself/herself” that the UK has experienced since the bailout of the banks, which took place under a Labour government), but the party has always had its priorities right, and formulates its policies on principle, rather than changing its mind according to what Murdoch et al. demand. I refuse to vote “tactically” because doing so merely legitimises “first past the post”. I prefer to exemplify the absurdity of the current system (based on the figures given in the Wikipedia article cited in the OffG editorial, in the 2017 election, the Green party had one MP for 525665 votes, whilst Labour had one MP per 49152 votes and the Tories had one MP per 43018 votes; that is, Labour voters were more than 10 times better represented than Green voters, and Tory voters were more than 12 times better represented than Green voters).
I want another referendum on the Alternative Vote option (last put to the vote in 2011) and I want the UK to leave NATO (but remain in the EU). Only the Greens come close to offering either of these.
And the Greens in principle are onto the most important issue, the Environment, the existential issue which transcends mere party politics and national defense.
Usually the bookies are on the mark with gambling odds, but on this election they are way off the measure…
https://www.justbookies.com/election-odds/
They are calling a massive odds-on Tory victory, with Labour at least at 10 to 1.
It’s a good time to put your bet on folks, because the bookies have been knobbled, just like the opinion polls.
Nothing is real in the world we now live in.
Corbyn will walk it next Thursday.
Everyone knows this in their hearts.|
Bookies always win. Their odds reflect betting. That is not s poll.
Just hedging.
Go look at the mathematics of bookmaking if you don’t believe me.
I hope you’re right, I got 16/1 five weeks ago labour win.
I’m not saying that Labour will win a majority. What I am saying is that Corbyn will be the next prime minister, in a hung parliament (with Labour being in coalition with the SNP).
Not in a position to comment very much on your up and coming election but if I may be permitted to express my opinion , PLEASE VOTE FOR CORBYN and change the political landscape .Thank you .
In what way do you think Corbyn wll change the political landscape?
Corbyn, supported by many outside the PLP but with little room for manoeuvre due to the 80% of his own MPs who want him out – the most awkward of positions as the anti-democratic rump still pull the strings; ideology still holds sway over and above human kindness; McDonnell still plotting to oust him; the ludicrousness of the anti-semmitism ‘sham’, poorly handled …. shall I go on …. don’t see much change of anything.
this is the sort of country the UK is – don’t know if many know this – the ‘powers’ that be have changed the May Day bank holiday (2020) into a memorial of VE day, yes, there’s no recognition of ‘workers’ next year rather another ‘grand day out for war’ as the 75th remembrance of VE day relpaces the workers day – bank holiday on Friday rather than Monday next May – we cannot ever not remember the ‘war’ despite all the others we are illegally involved in – a shit country if ever there was one! Corbyn isn’t going to change this either.
An absolute shithole I agree, strange though isn’t nearly every country in the EU has a holiday for remembrance day all we get is a load of hypocrites placing wreaths around a memorial , in this years spectacular the BBC swapped this years ‘celebration’ for one take a couple of tears ago because the fat slob didn’t know how to behave.
what is wrong with zio cons keeping us safe?
already
it has been so since babylon talmud times
we need too succumb
already
You can have a really nice kosher dogshit sandwich.
Or if you prefer it, you can have a really nice kosher catshit sandwich.
Corbyn’s comments on yesterday’s BBC debate vis-a-vis Johnson’s deal impacting NI bowled me over. Brexit’s overarching theme of ‘crossed wires’ seems to have no bounds.
Well this comment managed to get 5 likes and 1 reply before being removed from the Guardian. :-/
“How is Johnson supposedly polling at 42% when major, hesseltine, clarke, greive and swathes of lifelong tories are warning against him, look up Raabs hustings video.
One poll weighted over 65s turnout at 90%, complete nonsense. Similarly selective selecting for yougov debate poll.
Thousands of people turning up wherever Corbyn goes v a couple of dozen mostly party loyalist for Johnson IF he turns up.
Roughly 90% negative comments on Johnsons,cchq/factcheck(!),conservative twitter accounts.
8 Tory adds removed by google for lying, still massive amounts of ‘dark’ money pumped into social media advertising.
The multimillionaire Cotswolds cheese farmer from Blur tweets he’s not supporting Corbyn, hundreds of replies, not a single one agreeing with him.
Despite massive anti Corbyn, pro Johnson media propoganda.
Where are these tories?
Are we being lied to?
Where are all these ‘invisible'”
…. FFS I didn’t even suggest preparing the population for ballot stuffing, which I’m thinking, deliberately!!!
Very strange view if I may say so. The implication is that as the Labour party does not support Brexit, that it can’t also be anti-establishment or that it can now be tolerated by the establishment. The first point to make is this, Brexit is not a leftist or a rightist stance in itself and is not neatly divided between party lines. It is not even neatly divided within the establishment which incidentally as always will come out better off after a disaster than ordinary folks.
Brexit cannot also be taken without considering the setting. The fact of the matter is that the prevailing system is a globalised neoliberal market consensus which is not going to change with Brexit. Brexit in the stage we are in just means alignment, both politically and economically and perhaps, if not for NATO, militarily with Europe with the alternative being an atlanticist or five eyes alliance which is more reminiscent of the old empire which the Atlantacists drool at. So any ‘left wing’ brexiter should heed this that a Brexit under the following system and especially under the aegis of the Tories will really throw us into complete alignment with the US, chlorinated chicken, GM foods, glyphosate and NHS privatisation and so on.
So maybe the leftists should, like St Augustin ask god to grant us Brexit, but not yet.
I’m none too sure what Leftists you are referring too, maybe you are American, but Brexit is the first crack in the dam as far as confronting neoliberalism/globalisation goes, or had you forgotten the EU is at the centre of all this crap, so, as for any Americanisation, strange how the EU favoured a trade deal with the USA that gifted us exactly what you warn against.
The sad fact is, after 3.5 years of hearing only about Brexit in the UK, its difficult to state this Election is not about Brexit, when that’s all we’ve heard, and further, the Establishment, among that group most parliamentarians, have been wholly opposed to Brexit, that is upholding a democratic vote taken in June 2016.
The ERG Group of Rightists is tiny in the UK, the pro-EU Establishment is exactly that, Pro EU and comprised in the majority of the UK Elite, which is why the likes of Farage and the Clown can play the Populist card given many Conservatives, the bulk of Labour MPs, the bulk of the MSM and our deep state are all pro-EU. If you want radical change, this can only come outside of the EU/NATO nexus, with no radical change possible if we tie ourselves to Brussels or Washington.
So again, like it or not, this Election, as with that of 2017 is very much tied up with Brexit, the only significant change being that the Labour Party to all extent and purposes is now a full on Remain Party – this was not the case in June 2017 when the Party garnered more than 40% of the popular vote.
France is now in a state of open revolt, and that also includes Frexit.
The psychopaths who rule us will probably allow Corbyn to win this election, because Corbyn has offered a way out of Brexit and the majority of the PLP are still Blairite headcases.
This all goes back to the Russian Revolution 100 years ago (which was the only real revolution in modern history – forget the French and American revolutions). The psychopaths who rule us were absolutely terrified of the Russian Revolution, which is why they funded Hitler and the Nazis, and it’s why we had the total slaughter of World War Two.
Forgive me for resaying some of what i did on an earlier article
I wrote about how the tory strategy was wrong- we already had the brexit election, 2017 and in effect also 2015, sandwiching the 2016 brexit referendum.
This is NOT a brexit election AGAIN.
It is the end of austerity one.
I have also shared my conjecture of why the tories haven’t bothered to campaign on a manifesto – because the election was going to be rigged using postal votes, controlled msm and alt-media narrative.
The mud slinging and other excuses to explain why Labour would have lost.
I explained why the Labour strategy of dealing with that assault was correct.
Finally I pointed out why the narrative manufacturing becomes almost impossible to get away with when 4 million registered to vote.
Labour were only 800k behind 2 years ago ( when just 2 million were able to register).
And all along I identified the reason why it is all being done.
To grab the illegally won HARD brexit from the jaws of defeat. It has ZERO to do with Corbyn.
The British people once stung will be twice shy. Along with the truism that you can’t fool all of the people all the time are the reasons for the failure to destroy Labour this time.
This election is about the reaffirmation of the 1945 social democratic covenant with the people – expressed as a shortcut, ‘the NHS stupid!’
It is about restoring the basic rights won for the majority and upgrading for the 21st Century and our kids, young families, grandkids our seniors and us.
No more poll balls busting needed now – it’s over.
That’s why the sudden change in media tactics (suddenly ignoring the issues and saying Corbyn has been bought by the establishment (OFF-G) or Putin (Nemo of ii of the Atlantic Council) in the dirtiest election ever.
Looking forward to many a Portillo/ Balls moments on Friday the 13th.
Get out and VOTE and change the World.
Excellent Dungroaning. I think OffGuardian is playing a spoiler here sadly.
If you read what I said properly you would not have come to the conclusion that I am American and maybe also considered better my other points.
The EU has favoured a trade deal with the US as it must, it cannot be without a trade deal with US otherwise it would be a trade war. In doing so the EU being a huge market can ameliorate some of the hegemonic terms the US dictates usually to weaker partners, as it would with isolated brexited UK. The EU has not succumbed to chlorinated chicken and other lowered food standards, nor accepted GM foods and is considering banning glyphosate, are all examples of how a trade deal can be ameliorated by a stronger bloc, something the UK alone will find difficult to resist. From a socialist point the only way forward I can see is fighting within the EU and fighting to transform the EU and strengthening so that it is an independent bloc, both financially, politically and possibly also militarily outside NATO.
I think it is wrong to label this as the Brexit election as its effects go much further than Brexit. This is the battle cry of Johnson and has been driven to it by the extreme right wing such as Farage. His cabinet is full of extreme right wing politicians. To bat on their side and to claim that this Johnson government is not part of the establishment is rather odd. Plus remember that the press and the BBC who were so much in favour of remain are now fighting tooth and nail to prevent a possibility of a Corbyn government.
Brexit can only be achieved in a manner advantageous to the UK if it is in any way possible to be truly a sovereign nation. Unfortunately this train has already left the station and true sovereignty will not be achieved whether with Brexit or remain, nor will Brexit achieve any control on immigration. These are the two main unicorns being sold by Brexiters. If you remove these little benefit is left.
Regrettably Orage, their is a huge difference between a trading Bloc, and what the EU actually is, which is a political entity with growing political aspirations, aspirations that can never be met, unless Germany wishes to be the EU’s banker of last resort.
As for your assertion, and that of Dungroanin that this is not a Brexit Election, well, not too sure which Parliament you’ve been watching since June 2017, or media you’ve been reading since 2017, including this site, but this election is very much about Brexit and the type of country the electorate actually wants. The Remainiacs within the PLP have forced a policy on to Corbyn that alienates many of its traditional core vote and I’m supposed to celebrate said fact – don’t think so I’m afraid.
As for your other outpourings, suffice to say Socialism and membership of the EU post-Lisbon are wholly incompatible – do read the monetary policy, fiscal policy and competition rules within the text of the Lisbon Treaty to gauge how neoliberal said Treaty is – oh, and I’ve already cast my Vote, a vote that went, as usual to the Labour Party, however, not being a Cultist, I criticise where I find fault and the LPs Brexit stance present to the Electorate makes no sense whatsoever, which is why it ain’t flying in those parts of the nation that desperately require meaningful change.
Chris
Thanks for your replies of course they make sense and of course there are different opinions. But one problem for Labour is that 65% of its voters voted remain and therefore what you state as the core labour voters is not accurate. The problem has been that it is a regional vote and it is the important to understand that this is what shaped labour’s nuanced policy of neither ignoring the leavers nor the remainers. (By the way talking of cultusm those who use derogatory terms such as remainiacs and remoaners are the cultists)’ Moreover if you read my post above the matter has not really been settled by the referendum, a workable Brexit has failed to happen and for whatever reason and that is a fact.
Now I understand the difference between trading blocks and political and economic and military units. The EU would have been best if it remained a purely trading bloc but reality has interfered with that because of the post war US dominance and the cold war. The EU lost a lot of its credibility by its association with NATO and its being used as an enticement for former Eastern block countries to enlarge NATO. That is why, in spite of being a pacifist I would support an independent European army.
The sovereignty of any one nation is a myth in this age of globalisation and US hegemony, both economically and militarily. Neoliberal capitalism is the order of the day whether we like it or not. It is therefore a matter of looking at how to achieve a desirable results with existing constraints, rather than opposing one subject with all your might for ideological reasons.
For the same reason as above, the lack of Socialism in the Lisbon treaty is irrelevant. How are you going to achieve anything else by Brexit?
Think you’ll find the supposed figures for Labour Party voters supporting Brussel’s was 63%, I state this as was taken to task big time for being 2% out. Sadly, under FPTP, the majority of Labour constituencies actually voted to Exit the EU, and given these were within the Labour heartland’s, the Ashcroft figures move dramatically, to about a 50/50 split in those areas that elected to Leave within a Labour MP – that even Stephen Kinnock understands that you can’t put two fingers up to your core voting constituency and expect to carry an election says it all – London can vote 100% Labour, this does not transpose into a Labour win if it loses multiple seats in the North East, North West, Midlands and South Wales – all areas that have suffered most from neoliberal economic prescriptions, the very prescriptions now pushed by Brussel’s.
The fact remains, the Leave Vote won by a majority of 1 million in June 2016, to deny this vote or rescind it means many don’t have a great appreciation of democracy and democratic outcomes.
If persons oppose the UK leaving the EU, fine by me, alas, by a similar measure its important they uphold democratic outcomes, which means once the UK exits the EU these persons can campaign for the UK to re-join the EU, but to rescind a democratic vote is dangerous ground, and the fact is, the only out and out UK-wide anti-democratic Remain Party is the LibDems, and their vote has collapsed to where it was in the May 2019 EU Parliamentary elections.
Labour should have stuck to its 2017 manifesto commitment, where it gained massive support, not enough to win a GE, but massive nonetheless, that some who voted Labour in 2017 won’t vote Labour today because of Remainic sentiments within the PLP is quite understandable. Also, many who voted Remain in 2016 did so with a peg on their noses, so, lets not overemphasise support for the EU, which in many circles is quite lame shall I say.
Chris
You are obviously very concerned with being accurate. But you cannot be accurate sometimes unless you look at the source of your data. Most data on how individuals voted according to their party voting are estimates. If you look at different sources you will get different results. For example in the Wikipedia article, the estimate is 64% labour voters voted remain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum
On the You Gov website the estimate is 65%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted
So really we can go on pedantically discussing percentage but the message is the same, there are many more labour remain voters than leave voters. This is a fact and labour cannot ignore the majority of its voters.
Orage,
The largest postBrexit Poll was undertaken by Lord Ashcroft, which was of 100,000 persons across the UK, in that sample it was found that 63% of those who associated themselves with Labour voted Remain – I too was taken to task on this subject matter elsewhere for quoting a 65/35 split.
Further, I was supplied with a full Constituency analysis by a University in taxes, courtesy of ‘Damian from Brighton’, this was given to me when having a heated argument with Owen Smith, the pretender heir to the Labour throne, he actually won that particular encounter as I’d forgotten that the former Polytechnic of Wales was actually in his Constituency, which had quite an impact on the Brexit vote when compared to the rest of South Wales – boring stuff, but its the boring stuff that matters I’m afraid.
I should also state clearly, that Labour’s position in 2017 would have delivered a Norway Plus solution, if Brussel’s was also willing to accept this new relationship, which is a policy I certainly support, which makes me an opponent of ERG Brexiteers who favour turning the UK into a mini USA, which is the last thing anyone on the Left desires.
Paul Mason (Karl Marx’s representative on Earth), said something very similar in a Grauniad article, about 3 years, and about 15 changes of direction ago.
No point in waiting for an idea moment for Lexit. If we don’t take this opportunity, we won’t get another chance. Not in my lifetime anyway, and probably not in the lifetime of anyone reading this (child prodigies possibly excepted).
I’m a Lexiter, very reluctantly voting Tory this time (in a marginal-ish Lib-Dem seat with Tories 2nd last time.
“idea moment” -> “ideal moment”
If you are voting Tory this time just because you think Brexit will be a panacea then you will be in for a big shock when you realise that you have voted in a big liar with no ideas about how to run anything and you would have voted for condemning millions of poor people to years of misery. The road to hell is littered with the relics of numerous misconceived ‘good intentions’.
Another hung Parliament is our only hope and our only opportunity to punish the self-appointed political elite is to vote out the incumbent, whatever party they represent and replace them with the candidate most likely to beat them, whatever party they represent.
#VoteTheBumsOut and let the chips fall where they may.
I’m confused. What do you think a hung parliament will achieve?
Can’t agree at all that establishment now favours Corbyn. One simple subject reveals this to be false – Antisemitism. For two months over the summer, AS smears all but disappeared. Why? Anyway, they are back, turbo charged. Fuck the right wing rags, but if Corbyn was the chosen winner, then Guardian and BBC would not keep repeating these AS smears. Full stop. ‘Chief’ Rabbi given free reign on TV and papers, despite the fact that he only speaks for 56% of British Jews, and even then its unclear on his authority to speak on behalf of those 56%. The media could easily make clear that this guy, his position as ‘chief’ Rabbi, is a govt installed position and has been for centuries – designed to make Jews more loyal to the state. They could explain that there is no ‘Jewish community’. The fact that I saw David Graeber on twitter means nowt – has he also been on front page of Guardian or on news at 6?
The reason the AS league went quiet during the summer is because they were all on their jollies, most probably in Israel. Since the Summer they have realised that their lies and smears have missed the target, and backfired badly thanks to all Bojo’s faux pas. So they have had to regroup, and bring out their biggest guns…
This is when Mirvis and Welby cooked up the new two pronged attack…
Mirvis bleated ‘We have learned the hard way that speaking out means that we will be demonised by faceless social-media trolls.. and accused of being partisan.. or acting in bad faith.. by those who still think of this as an orchestrated political smear’.
(So there we have it.. the truth of the matter – partisan, bad faith and an orchestrated political smear.)
As it turns out, he was only half-right: the majority of Corbynistas have dismissed him… but many haven’t even bothered hiding behind an avatar. In a since-deleted tweet, Labour activist Holly Rigby dismissed Mirvis as a ‘Boris Johnson supporter’ and ‘uncritical supporter of Netanyahu’. ‘His comments must be taken in this context’, she said.
Proof that Mirvis is a dyed in the wool Tory: Here is a tweet he wrote to Bojo.
“I am delighted to congratulate Boris Johnson, a longstanding friend and champion of the Jewish community, on becoming the next leader of the Conservative Party and our next Prime Minister. As he accepts upon himself the mantle of responsibility to lead our nation, may he be blessed with the wisdom to successfully navigate the political uncertainties we face and bring healing and prosperity to our great country.”
Considering the history of racism, sexism, Islamophobia and – yes – anti-Semitism that Mr Johnson and the Conservative Party trail behind them like a shroud, that is in the worst possible taste….
“The Rabbi, who used to live in Israel and is personal friend of both Boris Johnson as well as Netanyahu, has frequently defended Israel’s right to bomb Palestinians.” It is followed by a series of weblinks in support of the statement.
Not only that – he’s a firm supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, an apartheid state where Palestinians are persecuted.
So it seems Mr Mirvis, happy to tar Labour with the anti-Semitism brush, is a racist himself.
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/11/26/heres-the-real-reason-chief-rabbi-mirvis-attacked-jeremy-corbyn-and-labour-hes-a-tory-and-a-racist-it-seems/
And Justin Welby ought to put his hand over his mouth and shout full up, for his actions and decisions are highly suspect IMO.
”The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has written to a survivor of child sexual abuse (full letter below) to tell her that the clergyman who sexually abused her will remain a clergyman within the Church of England. ‘Reverend’ Guy Bennett was convicted of sexual offences against children in 1999. The ‘Reverend’ Bennett was not convicted for offences committed against the recipient of the letter.”
https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/archbishop-of-canterbury-tells-survivor-that-paedophile-vicar-will-not-be-defrocked/
The BBC did its bit by doing a r4 profile of the racist rabbi. Not surprisingly, a hagiography constantly repeating how good and trustworthy he was. I’m sure it was a coincidence that it was only a couple of days after his attack and during an election campaign.
The state broadcasters in the UK and Australia have thrown journalistic ethics to the winds in their relentless weaponising of the ‘anti-Semitism’ lie against Labour and Corbyn. As a result, former supporters of these ‘news outlets’ have understandably become their permanent enemies.
The first reason for voting Labour is that, by doing so, you are helping to put a nail in the coffin of the mainstream media. Both the Press and the BBC have gone overboard in their campaigns to smear Corbyn and demonstrate that they still decide who governs. If Corbyn loses it will be said, openly, that it was because of the success in confusing opposition to Israeli fascism with anti-semitism. Confidentially the sponsors of the nonsense will tell themselves that their success proves that no lie, if repeated often enough, cannot be imposed on the population.
A vote for Corbyn will be a vote against unalloyed capitalist domination of the media. It will even be a mandate to Labour to put an end to the current regime at the BBC and to break up the media monopolies, which are rapidly turning into a real monopoly in which all the national Press will be owned by one company.
It is also significant that the cries of “They are all the same” “Don’t bother to vote” “There is no difference between a party which privatises everything including the NHS and one with concrete plans to nationalise and purge the profit motive from key industries, including energy utilities and transportation” are precisely the positions that the Tory party, which simply wants abstention from the young, the poor those tempted to vote for Labour, is promoting.
“They are all the same” is currently a reactionary slogan. Those promoting it are working for the Tories, including the Blairites. That they can do so while simultaneously arguing that Corbyn represents a unique threat to property, decency, the economy, national defence and all we hold dear is no mystery.
But there is a more important point that needs to be understood about the “Corbyn’s just another creature of the Deep State. Don’t be fooled reformism never works” proponents. And that is that they either have no understanding of the way that revolutions in society come about or (and perhaps and/or would be more accurate) they are really quite happy with the way that things are. After all they have computers, places to live, internet connections, the leisure to write and are confortable enough to postpone dealing with the facts of 40% child poverty, large scale homelessness and the increasing insecurity of ordinary lives, to some point in the fairly distant future.
Which is when, by some process not clarified-perhaps a secret formula- the people rise up and implement real change of the sort that frightened Thomas Carlyle. The problem with such ‘revolutionaries’, and there are many of them lurking on these discussion boards, is that they do not understand that no revolution ever occurs before petition, peaceful demonstration and political reform agitation has been rejected by the ruling class. Before the mask has been taken off and the naked power, the violence, that is their only real mandate is displayed.
Elect Corbyn, demand that the Labour manifesto be implemented, be ready to take action to ensure that it is not thwarted by the Establishment, the military, the City, the Civil Service and the Monarchy. Push the challenge, insist that it be met. Then, if Corbyn is assassinated, demonstrators killed by the forces, legislation overturned by the Judiciary. The currency debased by financiers. Imports cut off and people reduced to rationing…then, and each one of these things is very likely to happen (which is why the bourgeoisie is so rattled), we will discover not only what Labour is made of but what the nation is made of.
So whether you support Corbyn or not do not delude yourselves into thinking that the election result will not make an enormous difference. I’m not sure whose history the authors of this piece have been studying but I cannot think of a more consequential election since 1832. And that election featured a tiny, elite electorate.
I live in Canada. And so do many of those posting here. Many others live in the United States. But this is our election too. We know that if Corbyn wins there will be an enormous increase in the energy behind the Medicare for All campaign in the US. And that, if Corbyn is Prime Minister Bernie is very likely to be running for President-as a Democrat if the votes are honestly tabulated, for a Third Party if they are not. I don’t need to tell Canadians what that implies to our politics.
The UK right now is, for a variety of reasons including the leadership of the Tory party and the destabilisation consequent on the Brexit vote, a very weak link in the imperialist chain. And this is a period of unprecedented crisis for the Empire. For the first time since the 1500s Eurasia is seriously challenging the maritime trade system which began with the Portuguese conquests of the east and the Spanish campaigns in America. The alliances between Russia, China and Iran constitute a geopolitical mass which is changing everything. And if Labour, which clearly is not averse to re-examining the links between it and the Empire-and which, whether averse or not, has been forced to re-examine them, by the open and venomous imperial opposition(see anti-semitism campaign above) to Labour and by its campaigns to subvert and dismantle reform governments around the world and particularly in Latin America- takes office there is a chance that real change, in which anti-imperialism is allied to a rejection of neo-liberalism, will be on the agenda.
And it is a long time since anything like that last happened, a century in fact.
I’ll end it there but let nobody suppose that the coming General Election is not a potentially significant event in a time of unprecedented and epochal crisis.
Bevin: ““They are all the same” is currently a reactionary slogan. Those promoting it are working for the Tories, including the Blairites.”
Funny you should say that; I just read it on the BLiar’s Beeb: “Finally… the country remains deeply polarised and the voters profoundly sceptical of not just the politicians but the whole political system.”
Oops! Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50672007
I notice that you do not include “by the EU” in your list of thwarters.
Oh FFS. So you are just a spectator then. You do not say whether you are a UK citizen or not, or whether you have a vote in this election. (I presume not?).
How on Earth do you come to those two conclusions? (and no, it’s not your election, unless you have the right to vote here).
Bevin has a brain. You …the jury is out.
Excellent post bevin,and a grounded repost to what is said above the line,which carried for me more than a hint of right wing libertarianism,and rather juvenile anarchism.
Yes Bevin. I do live here. At thr centre of the empire.
That is why the 35 odd million who might vote here makes it the most important election ever.
Pompeo said it a few months ago.
Sorry: Sanders is a sheepdog socialist …corralling naive socialist lambs for the corporate slaughter. To which you seem fanatically committed. I know none of you will: but check out who was behind Bernie’s ‘Big Organisation’ and what they did next. If you scratch the surface: it is really not too hard to see where the money and impetus is coming from. But that is “beneath me” to say. Or according to Corbyn’s diktat: it is actually ‘antisemitic’ of me to say. Or mention the shadow sovereign Voldemort: “he who shall not be named”.
Why are you so scared of exposing ‘Big Organisation’ for what it is? Is it because the veneer of ‘socialism’ becomes so thin? So that the neoliberal finance-capital cognitive influence machine workings become visible through the transparency? And the dark money nexus of the ‘non-profit industrial complex’ is clear for all to see?
Bernie is a sheepdog. The Big Organisers went on to form the Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress. AOC is a literal fucking actress who is handled by two of the former BO team. Exley set up New Consensus as the “political muscle” behind the GND. AOC is the greenwashed neoliberal leading actress in the US: which I guess makes Long-Bailey her UK counterpart? Exley also trains Momentum (and got Blair re-elected too). Every neoliberal ‘green’ finance capitalist on the planet is behind the GGND: but you are too blind to see it. Every humanitarian interventionist and philanthrocapitalist is also behind the charity regime change Jo Cox Foundation …both of which Corbyn supports to this day.
You’ve been had: and you have been ‘Big Organised’ …and you will not admit it …and you will not even look into it. Lord knows, I’ve posted the documentary evidence enough times. Corbyn is a neoliberal sheepdog too. Scratch the surface and you will find Big Organisation (a Monbiot favourite meme) and perception management and consent manufacturing ‘Theory of Change’ Avaaz affiliates. Which I have been trying to expose for years.
The neoliberal corporatocracy hasn’t even had to round you all up: you sheepdogged yourselves. You are so blind to the globalised GND: it is passing under the radar. Soros wasted his money. The mass delusion pseudo-socialist imperialists are all too willing to follow the corporate collies. Well, I’m going to my grave saying that the GGND is the mass suicide pact with globalised green-finance neoliberalism. And the Manifesto – with the GND – is the new longest suicide note in history.
One of us is spectacularly wrong. One of us has no handle on reality whatsoever. Either the economy will take off in its new neoliberal state socialist guise: or it will crash and burn …as I predict. That is a zero-sum game: a ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ with no winners. I can only hope that the crash is enough to dispel the mass hallucination. And that the conversation will turn to degrowth and human-scale bio-affordable and intergenerationally sustainable socialism: of the kind no one wants to even imagine right now.
Do you honestly believe in sustainable growth; net zero decarbonisation; and a green industrial revolution under Bernie, AOC, or Corbyn? You’ve been ‘Big Organised’. There are no such things. It is all perception management lies. As we will both see eventually. Let us all hope that there will be adequate resources left to recover from this – the greatest humanitarian disaster yet to happen. The one we voted for (will you even be voting?)
Bevin,
Whilst I’m aware you don’t agree with the general thrust of this article, namely that Corbyn has been captured, the fact remains there is much to concern us about JC, whilst acknowledging the issues he has with the vipers in the PLP nest, which are legion.
My own critiques are simple, a lack of support for those hounded out of the Party on charges of faux Antisemitism, a lack of verbal support for Assange and a compromise on Open Selection, that made it all but impossible for members to rid themselves of said vipers in the PLP ranks – JC promised a grass roots revolution and a Party driven by its grass roots – thus far, after more than 4 years he’s failed to deliver.
I’m also none too happy about the Party’s post September Brexit stance, which seems suicidal to me given how poorly its gone down with Labour’s traditional voting ranks, those that are not liberal progressives, and here I’m referring to the working class, which Blair ignored at his peril. seems like history repeating itself, however, the verdict itself and further analysis won’t be possible until Friday.
Now, that’s the negative, the positive is that he’s forced the Party to abandon its own love affair with austerity and neoliberalism on steroids, whilst at least questioning some of the main strands of the UK’s foreign policy, but far more could have been achieved had he thrown down the gauntlet to the Bitterites within his own ranks after the 2017 Election result, which blew me away.
Re; Labour as a safe alternative. Anyone else noticed the media’s changing attitude towards John McDonnell? A couple of years ago he was a deranged Marxist, now he’s treated like a kindly uncle.
He will be the Chancellor.
Then he will be leader.
You miss the point about Russian involvement. The Russians who are and have been backing Johnson and Toryism are anti-Putin oligarchs, desperately flinging their ill gotten gains into the cause of Yeltsin Restoration. They are the ‘westernisers’, the Fifth Columnists longing for a globalised economy in which they can parlay their control of Russia’s resources into membership of the international ruling class which owns Washington DC.
It is they who have insisted on Tory governments taking the lead in sanctioning and slandering the Russian government. They are the people who are behind the successive “KGB killings” which reached their farcical apotheosis in the Skripal affair.
You appear to be wilfully confusing the Russian origins (cf Khodorkovsky) of the Russophobic anti-Putin campaign, a campaign aimed at defending US imperial hegemony, with the targets of that campaign, which has the object of reducing the Russian people to penury in order to provoke them to rise up against their government and abandon the Eurasian project.
Your entire argument, regarding the Election, is Pharisaic. Evidently you have concluded that a Corbyn victory is unlikely and are reconciled to the inevitable re-Blairisation of the Labour Party. Then you will be back in your political comfort zone, Comment is Free land ca 2010.
Classic: ‘If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. – Emma Goldman
And another classic: George Carlin: why I don’t vote: https://www.icomedytv.com/content/george-carlin-on-voting-transcript
Personally, a hard Brexit could be disastrous for people who live in EU countries like NL. When all the bankers and other rich expats move from London to Amsterdam, house prices will go through the roof, making it even harder for the average citizen to make ends meet. But politicians will rejoice (as they already do here), because all those jobs and institutions are ‘great’ for our ‘economy’!
I cannot further comment on this issue as this is not my election (I am Dutch), it’s yours. Good luck!
Any which way, we are in for a sh*t sandwich, but without the bread.
In a quandary folks. Don’t know what to shoot at and kill – metaphorically.
The Message or the Messenger?
Hmm – if the message could be a bit clearer it would be easier.
Is Off-G saying :
1. vote Labour?
2. Don’t vote Tory?
3. vote Tory?
4. ‘Fuck you all, don’t vote – voting is shite , where’s my fucking Hard brexit’?
Care to confirm Off-G??
Hmm….the message or the messenger… eneey meeny miney mo… maybe both!
I can’t make up my mind – hungry, no breakfast, some idiots have decided locals xmas lunch should be early this afternoon – so am starving myself till then – don’t know if that can be used as an allegory…heads a bit woozy … let you peeps know later if not too boozy!
———-
Just a quick debunk of the OffG supposition that the Establishment is suddenly supporting ‘their’ man Corbyn.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-12-04-how-the-uk-military-and-intelligence-establishment-is-working-to-stop-jeremy-corbyn-from-becoming-prime-minister
Flippety floppity Gobshite Toynbee does not count. If Cohen, Rawnsley, Hyde had changed tunes then maybe that position would not be so ridiculous.
———–
Oh and never mind the insta-poll by youGove last night also gleefully instantly reported by the Groaniad.
Here are some real numbers.
Who won the last debate?
Britain Elects 33,000 votes
Corbyn 57% Johnson 28%
Paul Brand ITV 30,000 votes
Corbyn 78% Johnson 22%
Martin Lewis 23,000 votes
Corbyn 47% Johnson 25%
The Times 8,000 votes
Corbyn 63% Johnson 37%
YouGov 1,646 polled
Corbyn 48% Johnson 51%
PANIC!!
Lol. Laters.
From the article:
I take that as a half-hearted recommendation to vote Labour. (Which I will ignore, as my vote would not help them win in this constituency, even if I wanted them to).
Yup thoroughly half hearted at best.
Doesn’t answer my question does it?
Imagining the show master announcing “The 2019 UK General Elections”
(with lots of effects, glitter and stars) with this election’s competing teams.
Somehow, this spectacle appears to be of the same significance as a soccer
game, a boxing match with five contenders, or the races at Escot. While this
is not about who wears the most outlandish outfit, but the most ‘promising’
solutions to problems these twats created in the first place.
The one aspect these spectacles have in common is that they are often rigged.
Quite often at that.
Just reading this headline:
“Leaked NHS documents presented by Corbyn are linked to Russian hackers”
It’s going to be very entertaining – if that is the correct word.
I just cannot stand the anti-democratic authoritarian Swinson who lies through every breath. I hope her constituents get rid of her. Thinking a minority can give her enough votes to overturn a majority is the reasoning of a simpleton but yet she does it. Or maybe she believes in magic and only has to wish it three times every night before bed to make it happen?
I think the elite plan to steal the election for the Tories but I’m fairly confident the numbers turning out for Corbyn will make the results too big to rig.
“why we aren’t running daily campaign updates on this”
You’re also not reporting on the near-miss of rocks hurling towards Earth. Their number has been on the increase lately. I suspect, a tax will be collected soon to ‘protect’ us from these rocks.
Let’s send Greta to sea in a yacht again. That should “save the planet”.
People need to recalibrate expectations.
A man who loves nothing more than pottering around his allotment simply does not have the power, or party support to seriously thwart the engine of Britains post-war political identity (the financial needs of the City of London) or the powerful corporate and banking entities that call the shots in the EU.
I mean wake the fuck up: the current parliamentary system virtually guarantees that any shiny-eyed idealism must be sacrficed in order to play the game of party politics.
The 2008 crash and decade of austerity that followed it has merely magnified these basic dynamics.
In essence the best mean-income families can hope for is a little bit of push back against the venal system that rewards a tiny minority at the expense of everyone else, and the only politician committed to such ideology is Corbyn.
Personally it amazes me that he doesn’t just throw in the towel.
The media hates him.
Jews hate him.
Blairites hate him.
Right wing politicians hate him.
Meanwhile much of the alterntive media has been throwing a hissy fit because Corbyn (or the handful of MPs who genuinely support him) have not mounted a sufficiently meaningful threat to deeply embedded forces that have been riding rough-shod over the rest of us for decades.
If you want more hungry school children eating of out of bins or homeless people freezing to death in parliament square, or regime change wars, or the ‘Uber-isation’ of employment conditions rolled out across the workplace then don’t vote for Corbyn.
Gaslighting bollocks.
Sorry i didn’t get past a man who likes pottering about his allotment.
A bit light headed at moment – see my latestt post above. No offence meant.
None taken – the charge against Corbyn is that he has not single-handedly defeated the British establishment: the banks, the corporations, the military, and of course right wing opponents in the House of Commons complicit with Britains horrible lurch toward extreme wealth inequality.
And that’s before we get to so-called colleagues labelling him ‘a fucking antisemite and a racist’ or the long smear campaign conducted by Britains fetid media: especially the usual gang of apartheid apologists at the Guardian.
Support for Corbyn has been limp across some of the alternative media.
OK he’s not the messiah, far from it, but take him out of the equation and what alternative does that actually leave in the political mainstream?
By the way, Off-G is wrong to underestimate the arrival of fascism (IMO) – the form of corporate facism that evolved from neoliberalism has racked up a fair few casualities through illegal wars and economic privations.
Assuming Corbyn loses on the 12th the shackles will be off and Britains descent into a feudal state will almost certainly gather pace.