Now all of these rights are at risk – which of them do you want to lose? Which do you want other people to lose?
Would you like suspected foreign criminals to be deported without conviction in court?
Would you like to go to prison for crimes you were merely suspected of without being found guilty?
If your answers to those questions are different you’re falling for the propaganda.
Home secretary Priti Patel even stands by a system of immigration that would have excluded her own parents who were kicked out of Uganda during Idi Amin’s purges and fled here for their own safety.
She’s also presiding over the mass deportation of EU and other immigrants, many of whom have lived their entire lives, or close to their entire lives here in the UK.
Those granted leave to remain will be forced to do so under new regulations effectively making them second class citizens in the land they have always called home. Swap the word Jew for Muslim and it’s a move that could have been taken straight from Adolf Hitler’s 25 point plan.
It’s Socialist Sunday. If you don’t know what that means, join Twitter, follow @stuartsorensen and search the hashtag #SocialistSunday. It’s a growing community of socialists who come together to promote compassionate and reasonable politics, equality and to oppose conservative and right wing governments in UK and across the world.
Like many of us, I’m still reeling at the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from the British Labour party. Like many of us I seriously considered leaving the party. Many already have. And that doesn’t make us enemies.
Our response now is crucial. Some will leave Labour & some will stay. Some will change their minds either way later. But we all remain true to Socialism. We mustn’t lose that unity regardless of party.
Whatever you may think of Jeremy or of the decision to suspend him one thing is true…
Jeremy Corbyn united a movement, a groundswell of people across the generations (we’re not all students by a long way). Jeremy Corbyn revitalised Socialism here in UK and for that we must be grateful. Jeremy Corbyn showed us that it’s OK to maintain dignity and decency in the face of a hostile press and a deceitful opposition. And he showed us something else…
Jeremy Corbyn taught us never to give up.
Inside or outside the Labour party, I don’t care right now. Me, I’m staying, at least for the present. But whether you stay or you go, so long as you’re a socialist you remain my brother or my sister.
Leave the party if that’s what your conscience dictates. We must not let this divide us, the people.
Yesterday was hard for me. So is today. It’s extremely difficult to watch the party I support suspend a man I admire for, so far as I can tell, expressing his sincere belief that…
• The labour party has a problem with anti-Semitism. • The problem requires further corrective work. • The labour party has no place for anti-Semites or any form of racism. • The problem (0.3% of the membership under suspicion) was exaggerated by some factions leading to a public perception of 34% of members under suspicion of anti-Semitism (according to a Populus poll in 2018).
My initial knee-jerk response was to cancel my membership of the party that could treat someone so obviously anti-racist in such an appalling way merely for saying what he believed to be true. Something which many others also believe to be true. He didn’t attempt to denigrate the evils of anti-Semitism, after all – he just stated that the extent of the problem within the party’s ranks had been overstated by some. I confess to feeling physically sick when I heard the news and it took me some little time to bring my thoughts back to my duties at work. I’m writing this during my break having regained my equilibrium overnight.
Fortunately I have learned over the years not to react immediately. Knee-jerk reactions are by definition unconsidered and rarely are they the best. My ill-considered thoughts yesterday centred upon notions of the enemy within, of emotively-charged feelings of betrayal and even political ambush, none of which can be helpful in the real task of combatting the enemy without.
The real task is to get the tories out. That’s why Jeremy Corbyn himself isn’t giving up on the Labour party. He’s appealing his suspension and remaining loyal to the party and to the due process that he seems confident will exonerate him. It seems unreasonable to me that I resign my membership of a party in support of a man who has chosen to remain. Like all principled activists Mr. Corbyn seems to have understood instinctively that the task of defeating neoliberalism and returning this country to a fair and equitable state is bigger than any one of us. It’s bigger than Jeremy and it’s bigger than any sense of outrage my bruised feelings might bring up.
If those of us who disagree with this suspension leave the Labour party we will weaken it. I even entertained fantasies of an alternative socialist party and tweeted Jeremy himself to offer my assistance should he choose to form one. I have since removed that tweet and here’s why.
If we form a splinter group we may feel better for a short time but we will also split the vote just at the time when the right has demonstrated the power of maintaining unity and the Tories will get another term. We owe it to that greater cause, to the people of this country not to undermine our greatest chance of electoral success.
Don’t get me wrong though. I am far from happy at this turn of events. I am no less convinced of Jeremy Corbyn’s integrity than I was yesterday or before. But I trust both his judgement and my own intuition that the enemy without, the Tories constitute a far greater threat to our nation than the labour party’s curent poor judgement.
Disappointed though I am at yesterday’s events, I will remain a member. I’ll keep paying my subs and I’ll continue to campaign for the Labour party. I urge you to do the same – not because you agree with the treatment of Jeremy Corbyn but because there is no other way to get the tories out of government in 2024.
Left eye view 