Tag: Tories

The enemy without

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.

A little graph

If you’re one of those people who thinks Boris & co have handled Covid-19 well, have a look at this. Bear in mind that we’ve known about this for months, since well before we had our first cases here in UK. While the rest of the world, including Italy and even the World Health Organisation were telling us to prepare, Boris was advocating we just ‘take the hit’.

This Financial Times graph isn’t ‘real time’. It’s been adjusted to track each country’s progress since they reached 3 deaths per day. That means we’re all assessed on an equal footing – equal until you realise how much more warning the UK had than some other countries. Of course other countries did have a couple of distinct advantages…

Their health services hadn’t been crippled by 10 years of Tory underfunding. Our NHS went into this crisis with fewer beds than we had when the service began in 1948 due to conservative savagery. The tories opposed and argued against the creation of the NHS in the 1940s and they oppose it now, they just won’t admit it so openly in 2020.

Their political leaders didn’t see Covid-19 as an excuse to reduce the welfare bill by getting rid of their ‘useless eaters’.

In the 24 hours since this graph was produced the UK has overtaken even Italy. Do you still think Boris is handling things well?

Mark Jenkinson: Workington man

An interview with the potato!

Mark Jenkinson is the Tory candidate for Workington. In the past he’s supported Labour, the Conservatives, stood for parliament with UKIP and now for the Tories.

This is the ’empty chair’ interview he wouldn’t agree to take part in.

Labour’s Brexit confusion?

For months now people have been telling me that Labour is confused about Brexit. The argument goes something like this…

Labour wants to negotiate a new Brexit deal with the EU and then vote against it. They can’t make up their minds what they want.

This argument is often persuasive but it’s also just plain wrong.

Labour’s confused Brexit from Left eye view on Vimeo.