"British Jobs for British Workers” is a xenophobic and racist slogan: the left can debunk it.
In the 2016 EU referendum, opposing the migration of workers from central and eastern Europe into Britain was the key issue for many Leave voters, and one which was highlighted by the xenophobic UKIP party. The Leavers’ arguments were as simple as they were wrong. They said the the migrant workers took away ‘our’ jobs, depress wages and put pressure on housing and other social services. Moreover, they undermine the cultural homogeneity of ‘our’ country.
Essentially this xenophobic/racist argument is the same as the one used to oppose and discriminate against the Catholic Irish in the nineteenth century, Jews escaping pogroms at the beginning of the twentieth, blacks from the West Indies and Asians from Africa and the Indian subcontinent in the post-war period. By contrast, the British moving abroad for economic reasons are never labelled as migrants, but as ‘expats.’
It is completely correct to oppose this racism, to point out that the economy is boosted by young, migrant workers and to defend EU freedom of movement as an essential liberty. But in opposing racist lies, we shouldn’t blind ourselves to truths lurking behind the racist propaganda.
Let’s take a hypothetical case to illustrate the point. What is the sense of school cleaners in an English town commuting monthly from Romania? The workers live in appalling overcrowded conditions and receive no more than the minimum wage, while indigenous people in the town join the lines of the unemployed. At the same time a pressure is put on the local housing stock. Do circumstances such as these prove the xenophobes’ argument?
Not at all. The situation in that English town would be no different if the cleaners came not from Romania, but from Scotland or another part of Britain. The effects on local resources and local unemployment would be the same. The issue for certain jobs is not, as the racists claim, “British jobs for British workers,” but local jobs for local people. There is nothing wrong in principle in offering employment first to people who have lived in the area for a certain amount of time. Nationality has nothing to do with it. If a Romanian has lived in the town for say two years, s/he is at the front of the queue. The Brit from the other end of the country is not.
Once we accept in principle the idea of local jobs for local people in certain limited instances, we solve much of the ‘legitimate’ complaint and reveal the xenophobic and racist character of the slogan, “British jobs for British workers.”
10 October 2017
Should Catalonia declare independence?
Independence for Catalonia is not a principle. It depends on the will of the inhabitants and political realities.
As a socialist I have no fixed principle or view on whether Catalonia should be independent or not. But I do believe two things: first, that Catalonia should have the right to independence if the majority of people living there want it; and second, the behaviour of the Spanish state in violently impeding the October 1st referendum was deplorable.
However, following the chaotic referendum, socialists should not back immediate Catalan independence for two reasons: In the first place,it is far from certain that a majority of Catalonia’s voters support independence. And second, a declaration of independence by the Catalan Parliament would be followed by the forceful suspension of the Catalan administration and the imposition of direct rule from Madrid. Even if independence in these circumstances were achieved, the picture would be far from rosy. No recognition of Catalonia internationally, exclusion from the EU and massive de-investment in Spain’s richest region. There is certainly no public appetite for all this to happen.
If the Catalan government pulls back to fight another day, it is in strong position to win concessions from a Madrid which has no desire to go to war with its rebellious region.
As a socialist I have no fixed principle or view on whether Catalonia should be independent or not. But I do believe two things: first, that Catalonia should have the right to independence if the majority of people living there want it; and second, the behaviour of the Spanish state in violently impeding the October 1st referendum was deplorable.
However, following the chaotic referendum, socialists should not back immediate Catalan independence for two reasons: In the first place,it is far from certain that a majority of Catalonia’s voters support independence. And second, a declaration of independence by the Catalan Parliament would be followed by the forceful suspension of the Catalan administration and the imposition of direct rule from Madrid. Even if independence in these circumstances were achieved, the picture would be far from rosy. No recognition of Catalonia internationally, exclusion from the EU and massive de-investment in Spain’s richest region. There is certainly no public appetite for all this to happen.
If the Catalan government pulls back to fight another day, it is in strong position to win concessions from a Madrid which has no desire to go to war with its rebellious region.
9 October 2017
Zionism: don't leave yourself vulnerable to attack
By banding around the the term Zionism, leftists are being imprecise and unnecessarily leaving themselves open to malicious allegations of antisemitism.
It’s somewhat crazy to deliberately slip on a banana skin just to make the point that somebody else should not have put it there. But that is pretty much what some on the left are doing when they bang on about Zionism, and end up being given the boot by the Labour Party.
Why use the term at all? Zionism was a project, gaining steam around the beginning of the 20th Century, particularly among Jews in the west of the then Russian empire, to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Zionism was never a majority opinion among Jews. Today, Israel is not a project but a regional superpower, whose dissolution is neither desirable nor realistic. Even if the country is a paradise compared with its neighbours, in contrast to other liberal democracies it has two major shortcomings. Israel is based on the supremacy of one ethnic group and relegates its Palestinian citizens to a second-class status. In addition, Israel occupies territories outside its borders and appropriates land for its own citizens and denies many human and civic rights to Palestinians living under permanent military occupation.
Both these things are worthy of hefty criticism, but it is more precise to criticise the Israeli state and successive Israeli governments than to talk in abstractions about Zionism. On top of that references to Zionism carry two further dangers.
First, you and I know that antisemitism (prejudice against an ethnic group) and anti-Zionism (opposition to a political project) are quite different things. And, of course, those in the Labour Party and press throwing around accusations of antisemitism know that too. But the the distinction is lost on many ordinary people, so people opposing Zionism can easily and falsely be labelled as antisemites.
Second, criticising Zionism is in principle OK, but talking about Zionist conspiracies is not. The latter implies that people who are Jewish are all secretly working together with Israel to advance themselves against the interests of the gentile world. That’s pure antisemitic nonsense. You can distinguish, I suppose, between a conspiracy to promote Zionism and a Zionist conspiracy, but why go there? These muddles can be avoided.
Indeed, why negotiate this minefield at all, when you don’t have to. Remember, the Corbyn leadership is now focussed on winning office. If you step on a mine, they are not going to expend political capital to help you.
It’s somewhat crazy to deliberately slip on a banana skin just to make the point that somebody else should not have put it there. But that is pretty much what some on the left are doing when they bang on about Zionism, and end up being given the boot by the Labour Party.
Why use the term at all? Zionism was a project, gaining steam around the beginning of the 20th Century, particularly among Jews in the west of the then Russian empire, to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Zionism was never a majority opinion among Jews. Today, Israel is not a project but a regional superpower, whose dissolution is neither desirable nor realistic. Even if the country is a paradise compared with its neighbours, in contrast to other liberal democracies it has two major shortcomings. Israel is based on the supremacy of one ethnic group and relegates its Palestinian citizens to a second-class status. In addition, Israel occupies territories outside its borders and appropriates land for its own citizens and denies many human and civic rights to Palestinians living under permanent military occupation.
Both these things are worthy of hefty criticism, but it is more precise to criticise the Israeli state and successive Israeli governments than to talk in abstractions about Zionism. On top of that references to Zionism carry two further dangers.
First, you and I know that antisemitism (prejudice against an ethnic group) and anti-Zionism (opposition to a political project) are quite different things. And, of course, those in the Labour Party and press throwing around accusations of antisemitism know that too. But the the distinction is lost on many ordinary people, so people opposing Zionism can easily and falsely be labelled as antisemites.
Second, criticising Zionism is in principle OK, but talking about Zionist conspiracies is not. The latter implies that people who are Jewish are all secretly working together with Israel to advance themselves against the interests of the gentile world. That’s pure antisemitic nonsense. You can distinguish, I suppose, between a conspiracy to promote Zionism and a Zionist conspiracy, but why go there? These muddles can be avoided.
Indeed, why negotiate this minefield at all, when you don’t have to. Remember, the Corbyn leadership is now focussed on winning office. If you step on a mine, they are not going to expend political capital to help you.
2 October 2017
The Nation State: facts and desires
The nation state is the prime unit of focus in politics, but should it be?
Despite talk of globalisation, in the developed capitalist world today the nation state remains the key unit of political organisation and identity. It possesses a monopoly of violence over its territory, supported by its legal system, bureaucracy and has control of the vast bulk of money held as public funds. Neither sub-units, such as regional authorities, nor supranational ones, such as the European Union, come anywhere near to outweighing the political might of the nation state. That thesis was never proved more amply than during the Catalan Independence referendum fiasco on 1 October 2017.
Several other West European states (e.g. Britain and Belgium) contain nationalist and separatist tendencies. While such autonomous movements should not be politically underestimated, it should be noted that not one state in western Europe has been broken up in this way since 1945. The devolved units, such as Scotland and Catalonia, remain very much secondary to the old political states of which they are still part.
Nonetheless, the independent power and room for manoeuvre of the nation state has weakened in the last thirty years on account of globalisation - or to say that more precisely, the free movement of financial capital, the growing role of transnational corporations and transnational political agreements (e.g. the Schengen open borders agreement) Yet, that does not change the fundamental power of the nation state, the real power of which was most clearly demonstrated in the near financial meltdown in 2008. Collapsing banks could only be rescued by subsidies from nation states, while supranational bodies such as the EU proved themselves weak and ineffective.
An entirely different question is: should the nation state be the exclusive focus for the political left? The answer is no for at least two reasons: first nationalism by its nature not only creates a community of "insiders," imagined or otherwise, for those who are deemed part of the nation, but by the same token it also identifies and excludes those who are not deemed to part of the nation. The striving for socialism, tactical consideration aside, can never be based on preference for one set of people defined by citizenship or ethnicity at the expense of others, because socialism is properly anchored in principles of universalism and internationalism.
The second reason is practical. Reformism is about progressive change brought about by the state, nearly always with popular pressure from below. It is indeed true that in the so-called Golden Years, late 1940s to the mid 1970s, the nation state in every West European democracy did bring about meaningful reform in favour of working people. Thus we can clearly see that, though the state is an instrument of capitalist power, it also has the ability to regulate capitalism and can do so on occasion against the immediate interests of capitalists. And today, in so far as globalisation has diminished the power of the national state, the space for progressive reform lost to the nation state can only be taken up by supranational bodies – and in Europe that mean the EU. Such reform is, of course, utterly unrealistic if conceived as the EU alone acting against member states, but is perfectly feasible if it were the EU acting in coalition with several of its big member states - even though, sadly, that opportunity has been lost to the British Left on account of Brexit.
Despite talk of globalisation, in the developed capitalist world today the nation state remains the key unit of political organisation and identity. It possesses a monopoly of violence over its territory, supported by its legal system, bureaucracy and has control of the vast bulk of money held as public funds. Neither sub-units, such as regional authorities, nor supranational ones, such as the European Union, come anywhere near to outweighing the political might of the nation state. That thesis was never proved more amply than during the Catalan Independence referendum fiasco on 1 October 2017.
Several other West European states (e.g. Britain and Belgium) contain nationalist and separatist tendencies. While such autonomous movements should not be politically underestimated, it should be noted that not one state in western Europe has been broken up in this way since 1945. The devolved units, such as Scotland and Catalonia, remain very much secondary to the old political states of which they are still part.
Nonetheless, the independent power and room for manoeuvre of the nation state has weakened in the last thirty years on account of globalisation - or to say that more precisely, the free movement of financial capital, the growing role of transnational corporations and transnational political agreements (e.g. the Schengen open borders agreement) Yet, that does not change the fundamental power of the nation state, the real power of which was most clearly demonstrated in the near financial meltdown in 2008. Collapsing banks could only be rescued by subsidies from nation states, while supranational bodies such as the EU proved themselves weak and ineffective.
An entirely different question is: should the nation state be the exclusive focus for the political left? The answer is no for at least two reasons: first nationalism by its nature not only creates a community of "insiders," imagined or otherwise, for those who are deemed part of the nation, but by the same token it also identifies and excludes those who are not deemed to part of the nation. The striving for socialism, tactical consideration aside, can never be based on preference for one set of people defined by citizenship or ethnicity at the expense of others, because socialism is properly anchored in principles of universalism and internationalism.
The second reason is practical. Reformism is about progressive change brought about by the state, nearly always with popular pressure from below. It is indeed true that in the so-called Golden Years, late 1940s to the mid 1970s, the nation state in every West European democracy did bring about meaningful reform in favour of working people. Thus we can clearly see that, though the state is an instrument of capitalist power, it also has the ability to regulate capitalism and can do so on occasion against the immediate interests of capitalists. And today, in so far as globalisation has diminished the power of the national state, the space for progressive reform lost to the nation state can only be taken up by supranational bodies – and in Europe that mean the EU. Such reform is, of course, utterly unrealistic if conceived as the EU alone acting against member states, but is perfectly feasible if it were the EU acting in coalition with several of its big member states - even though, sadly, that opportunity has been lost to the British Left on account of Brexit.
28 September 2017
The Tatras radiate their beauty in autumn
The High Tatra Mountains in Slovakia are among the most beautiful on earth
Trails fan out in various directions from Stary Smokovec, and within a few minutes you have left behind the world of concrete and polluting motor vehicles. It took some time last Saturday for me to expel the dense town air and the stubborn inflexibility of my limbs. But then I was at one with the wonder of nature.
The path was steep. My legs ached, and the heat of my exertion met the cool, moist pine-fragranced breeze that gently massaged my face. An autumnal sun danced between the trees and magnified the greens, yellows and reds of the foliage. From time to time the path crossed clear turquoise mountain streams that battled their way past granite boulders in their descent down the mountain. If I believed in Him, I would have said God had made this paradise.
And then we passed the tree line and entered a bleak but beautiful void. The majestic wonder of rugged mountain peaks, dense valleys and far away villages and fields filled the panorama. But ahead was a chata with its sweet Tatra tea, and if my wife allowed it, mad’arsky gulas a kndede.
Trails fan out in various directions from Stary Smokovec, and within a few minutes you have left behind the world of concrete and polluting motor vehicles. It took some time last Saturday for me to expel the dense town air and the stubborn inflexibility of my limbs. But then I was at one with the wonder of nature.
The path was steep. My legs ached, and the heat of my exertion met the cool, moist pine-fragranced breeze that gently massaged my face. An autumnal sun danced between the trees and magnified the greens, yellows and reds of the foliage. From time to time the path crossed clear turquoise mountain streams that battled their way past granite boulders in their descent down the mountain. If I believed in Him, I would have said God had made this paradise.
And then we passed the tree line and entered a bleak but beautiful void. The majestic wonder of rugged mountain peaks, dense valleys and far away villages and fields filled the panorama. But ahead was a chata with its sweet Tatra tea, and if my wife allowed it, mad’arsky gulas a kndede.
25 August 2017
End Labour’s Brexit Incoherence
Opposing Hard Brexit is not issue-number-one for Labour, but we still need coherence
In the June 2017 General Election Jeremy Corbyn was completely correct to emphasise the bread-and-butter issues that impact directly on working people’s lives: eternal austerity, mushrooming inequality, the running down of public services in health education and transport, and the unaffordability of housing - ideas encapsulated in the slogan “For the Many Not the Few.” The Liberal Democrats highlighted opposition to Brexit and flopped.
The reason is clear. The vast majority of British voters are not affected directly by Brexit. Most do not live or work in the EU27, nor did they ever plan to do so. Few have family members with other EU passports.The loss of European political rights is prioritised only by politically conscious progressives; and the negative economic impact of Brexit for most people is indistinguishable from the other failings of British capitalism.
But, because Brexit is not issue-number-one, that can’t justify Labour’s obscurantism. There seem to me to be three possible reasons (none of them good) why Jeremy lines up by default behind the Tory Brexiteers and doesn’t clearly call for retaining membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union. Remaining in these institutions would remove the economic cost of withdrawal from the EU and keep Freedom of Movement. What are Corbyn’s not-very-good reasons?
First, by not saying anything coherent, Labour keeps the focus on the Tory Government. Brexit is likely to be a disaster, mainly economic, leading to division within, and opposition to, the Tories. Labour, it could be argued, will benefit in the 2022 election.
Second, Hard Brexit will remove any legal restrictions on Britain. A future majority Labour Government could then start implementing ‘socialism in one country.’
Third, that minority of Labour voters, and potential voters, who are ardent Leave supporters, would be so incensed by retaining freedom of movement that they would be able to prevent the election of a Labour Government.
For me none of these arguments adds up, nor do they justify Labour’s muddled messages on Brexit and on freedom of movement in particular.
As things are going at present, from the end of March 2019 Freedom of Movement will exist from Donegal to Athens, from the Arctic Circle to Sicily and from Tallinn to Lisbon, with just the UK excluded. Britons will be locked in - lacking the right to retire to Spain, study in Berlin or work in Paris. The Polish plumber in London may be able to stay with “settled status” as a second class citizen, but his younger brother can’t come to work with him. No socialist should be muddled about opposing such a state of affairs.
Postscript: At the end of August 2017, the Labour leadership let it be known that now Labour would support continued membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union for at least between two and four years after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019. The issue of permanent membership would be left open. On the desirability of freedom of movement, Labour's message remains muddled.
In the June 2017 General Election Jeremy Corbyn was completely correct to emphasise the bread-and-butter issues that impact directly on working people’s lives: eternal austerity, mushrooming inequality, the running down of public services in health education and transport, and the unaffordability of housing - ideas encapsulated in the slogan “For the Many Not the Few.” The Liberal Democrats highlighted opposition to Brexit and flopped.
The reason is clear. The vast majority of British voters are not affected directly by Brexit. Most do not live or work in the EU27, nor did they ever plan to do so. Few have family members with other EU passports.The loss of European political rights is prioritised only by politically conscious progressives; and the negative economic impact of Brexit for most people is indistinguishable from the other failings of British capitalism.
But, because Brexit is not issue-number-one, that can’t justify Labour’s obscurantism. There seem to me to be three possible reasons (none of them good) why Jeremy lines up by default behind the Tory Brexiteers and doesn’t clearly call for retaining membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union. Remaining in these institutions would remove the economic cost of withdrawal from the EU and keep Freedom of Movement. What are Corbyn’s not-very-good reasons?
First, by not saying anything coherent, Labour keeps the focus on the Tory Government. Brexit is likely to be a disaster, mainly economic, leading to division within, and opposition to, the Tories. Labour, it could be argued, will benefit in the 2022 election.
Second, Hard Brexit will remove any legal restrictions on Britain. A future majority Labour Government could then start implementing ‘socialism in one country.’
Third, that minority of Labour voters, and potential voters, who are ardent Leave supporters, would be so incensed by retaining freedom of movement that they would be able to prevent the election of a Labour Government.
For me none of these arguments adds up, nor do they justify Labour’s muddled messages on Brexit and on freedom of movement in particular.
As things are going at present, from the end of March 2019 Freedom of Movement will exist from Donegal to Athens, from the Arctic Circle to Sicily and from Tallinn to Lisbon, with just the UK excluded. Britons will be locked in - lacking the right to retire to Spain, study in Berlin or work in Paris. The Polish plumber in London may be able to stay with “settled status” as a second class citizen, but his younger brother can’t come to work with him. No socialist should be muddled about opposing such a state of affairs.
Postscript: At the end of August 2017, the Labour leadership let it be known that now Labour would support continued membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union for at least between two and four years after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019. The issue of permanent membership would be left open. On the desirability of freedom of movement, Labour's message remains muddled.
15 July 2017
Dialectics Explained Simply
In Marxism the concept of dialectics is often complicated and mystified. It needs stating simply.
Dialectical theory describes and explains the development of systems which exist in the world. Here I will try to explain dialectics as a conceptual tool for understanding society.
What society is: a sketch map
To start, we have to answer another question: what is society? For Marxists – and indeed most other sociologists – society is conceived as a system made up of a complex network of interactive causes and effects. A change in any one element in the social system affects the others. For instance, a rise in unemployment causes an increase crime, which in turn changes the role of police, which has further effects, and so on.
If society is thought of as containing all the causes of change in society, then it follows that change originates from within the social system itself. In other words, at any given point, society contains within itself tensions and pressures (often called contradictions) which are the cause of social change. And when a new situation has established itself, there are yet again new tensions and pressures which lead to further social change, and so on.
A metaphor for understanding all of this is to see society as a huge piece of fungus, constantly changing over time because of developments from within.
Dialectics
The traditional explanation of dialectical change (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) is only a linguistic re-organisation of the points above. The argument is like this. Everything in a social system at any point in time is either a something (i.e. a thesis) or not that thing (i.e. its antitheses). As a result of the interaction of thesis and antithesis a new situation in society (i.e. synthesis) emerges for which the original thesis and antithesis have interacted and merged.
I think, however, that the theory of dialectics is better thought of as a summary or abstraction of the rules for understanding change in a social system. Dialectical analysis identifies pairs of social elements which co-exist, are dependent on one another and which interact with each other. Let us take an example.
Human beings and nature. We can clearly conceptualise everything that exists as either human beings or as nature minus human beings. We cannot imagine society without people, nor could we have a society without things (food, cupboards, water, etc). Nature affects us and we affect nature through building dams, houses, etc. Thus, it is said that the relationship between human beings and nature is dialectical.
Marxists in their analysis do not identify dialectical pairs (i.e. theses and antitheses) on an arbitrary basis, nor do they see the direction of historical change as entirely arbitrary or accidental, but what drives history forward is beyond the scope of this discussion.
To sum up, a dialectical analysis of society recognises that social change comes from tensions or pressures within the existing state of things. And when a new state of affairs has been created, then that too is subject to change for the same reason. When explained like this, dialectical theory can be seen as something which is almost certainly correct, but if not linked to other theories and observations, it is not very revealing.
Why dialectics is a dirty word
The theory of dialectics provides a number of valuable observations about the functioning of a any living system - be it the social system, or of the cosmos itself. But during the years of historical communism 1917-89, and particularly during the years of Joseph Stalin’s rule from the end of the 1920s till his death in 1953, dialectics was misused to explain and justify the decisions and dogmas of the Communist Parties in the World. After that the dialectical baby was thrown out with the Stalinist bathwater and people were reluctant to use the term.
In many instances, to avoid summoning up prejudice unnecessarily, the use of the term interaction will effectively substitute for dialectical; and, in addition, it is more easily understood. Of course they are not quite the same: dialectics implies a whole theory, whereas interaction merely means that X affects Y and vice versa.
5 June 2017
"Post War" by Tony Judt
Tony Judt (1948-2010) created a masterpiece with his history of Europe, Post War, published in 2005.
Though now twelve years old, I couldn’t recommend this book more highly; it should be compulsory reading for everyone who is interested in the society in which we live.
Judt sets out in this massive enterprise to tell the history of Europe (both east and west) from 1945. The book is both thematically and chronologically organised. While the focus is on political, and to a lesser extent economic, history, Judt also covers culture and especially film in some detail, all of which helps give the reader an all-round understanding of period and place. Judt’s approach is not to dryly list facts and dates, but to link events into meaningful narratives.
The great advantage of Judt’s book is that it enables reader to set his or her historical prejudices against Judt’s erudite judgments. As Judt says so much in this book, there will be times when you think his assessments are wrong, but often you will be convinced by his argument. Being persuaded is also a matter of perspective. Most English readers will have become politically and socially aware in the Wilson to Blair years, and Judt enables us to conceptualise and comprehend the period as a whole, not just as British history, but also as a part of a wider European canvass.
The writing is sharp and engaging throughout. The only disadvantage of the book is the weight of its 890 pages which make it hard to read in bed.
Judt, Tony: Post War: Heinemann 2005
Though now twelve years old, I couldn’t recommend this book more highly; it should be compulsory reading for everyone who is interested in the society in which we live.
Judt sets out in this massive enterprise to tell the history of Europe (both east and west) from 1945. The book is both thematically and chronologically organised. While the focus is on political, and to a lesser extent economic, history, Judt also covers culture and especially film in some detail, all of which helps give the reader an all-round understanding of period and place. Judt’s approach is not to dryly list facts and dates, but to link events into meaningful narratives.
The great advantage of Judt’s book is that it enables reader to set his or her historical prejudices against Judt’s erudite judgments. As Judt says so much in this book, there will be times when you think his assessments are wrong, but often you will be convinced by his argument. Being persuaded is also a matter of perspective. Most English readers will have become politically and socially aware in the Wilson to Blair years, and Judt enables us to conceptualise and comprehend the period as a whole, not just as British history, but also as a part of a wider European canvass.
The writing is sharp and engaging throughout. The only disadvantage of the book is the weight of its 890 pages which make it hard to read in bed.
Judt, Tony: Post War: Heinemann 2005
11 May 2017
Will Ben Bradshaw support Jeremy Corbyn for Prime Minister?
Ben Bradshaw, Exeter's Labour MP, is a known opponent of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
Will Ben Bradshaw support Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister? Apparently yes – although I am completely sure that Ben doesn’t believe for a single moment that Labour will emerge from the election with a majority. So the undertaking is costless.
Corbyn made a grave error in voting for this election – and without Labour’s votes the two-thirds majority to trigger it would not have been achieved. The vast bulk of the PLP do not support Corbyn and voted for the election not to get rid of the Tories, but to get rid of the current leader of the Labour Party.
The choice for the left is capitulation or implosion. Labour will lose in June. If Corbyn stays on – and I hope he does – it is probable that the Blairites in the rump PLP will defect. If that happens, it happens, but socialists should not capitulate to Blairite threats, and we will just have to pick up the pieces from where we find ourselves.
Will Ben Bradshaw support Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister? Apparently yes – although I am completely sure that Ben doesn’t believe for a single moment that Labour will emerge from the election with a majority. So the undertaking is costless.
Corbyn made a grave error in voting for this election – and without Labour’s votes the two-thirds majority to trigger it would not have been achieved. The vast bulk of the PLP do not support Corbyn and voted for the election not to get rid of the Tories, but to get rid of the current leader of the Labour Party.
The choice for the left is capitulation or implosion. Labour will lose in June. If Corbyn stays on – and I hope he does – it is probable that the Blairites in the rump PLP will defect. If that happens, it happens, but socialists should not capitulate to Blairite threats, and we will just have to pick up the pieces from where we find ourselves.
9 May 2017
John Lloyd (died 7 May 2017)
 |
| John Lloyd writing on front page of first issue of Devon Labour Briefing |
I remember John from one incident in circa.1984.
At the time I was the membership secretary for the Pennsylvania / St. Davids branch of Exeter Labour Party. On my rounds to collect subs, I called in at a shared house, inhabited by several animal rights activists. To my misfortune, I arrived just as a police raid was taking place. It was quickly established that I had nothing to do with the house, nor the animal rights movement. I was sent away, but all my Labour Party cards and membership lists were confiscated.
I immediately went to the Heavitree Police Station to complain. Again, I was treated extremely impolitely, before being sent away empty-handed. The following morning after explaining the situation at the Clifton Hill Party HQ, I met up with John, and, in his capacity as a Councillor and member of the Police Authority, he made the complaints. The documents were returned later that day, no doubt after having been photocopied.
John even went on to write an article on excessive police powers for the first issue of Devon Labour Briefing.
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