It's been a funny old Bank Holiday Monday. Woke and started arguing with some Corbinistas on a Labour Party forum but soon got bored of their delusional world view. I decided not to make Corbyn the subject of yet another post for two reasons.
Firstly there's two weeks to go and I'm sure he or his supporters will commit some atrocity worth commenting on and secondly my good friend Jake Wilde has written an excellent post over at The Gerasites blog.
Here's a short taste:
.....While talk of a Militant Tendency-style purge is certainly premature it will be on the agenda of some of Corbyn’s backers, as seen in the public statements of some union leaders both within and outside the party. More likely to start with is a coordinated influx of new party members into targeted constituency Labour parties (CLPs) in order to take over and put pressure upon MPs who are not sympathetic to the Corbynite agenda. This will include MPs who support Burnham – that won’t afford any protection. What will drive this hit list is where the Corbynites have the numbers.
It is also inevitable that some Labour Party activists will be inclined to retreat from activism when faced with hostility from the new and newly emboldened people in their CLP meetings. The shouting down of opposition is a tried and trusted tactic amongst the far left and there’s only so much hassle that people want from their voluntary work. All the old far left tricks will be used: arranging meetings when only they can make it; dragging meetings out so that the key business occurs when their opponents have gone home; excluding opponents from any decision-making or communications, effectively “disappearing” them from the process.
Read the full article here: It doesn't matter if Corbyn wins or not.
Meanwhile some (c)rap star married to a reality star with the widest derrière in show business has announced he will run for the White House in 2020. I just hope he has better politics than music.
Talking of the USA did you see that nonsense from The University of Tennessee who want to ditch the pronouns "he" and "she" in favour of a supposedly "gender neutral" (and non-existent) term Ze? It's in their new lexicon from the School of "Diversity and Inclusion".
First "trigger warnings" now students will replace she, her,hers and he, him, his with ze, hir, hirs or ze, zir or zirs.
And I thought creationists were the main threat to rational thinking and reason in American education.
I'd say this is bollocks, but try not to swear in my posts so complete nonsense it is then.
So what a day with the terminal crisis in Labour at the forefront of social media here's another funeral sketch this time from Marty Feldman and Spike Milligan.
Might as well have a bit of a laugh eh!
usi
Monday, 31 August 2015
Sunday, 30 August 2015
Tony Blair is right, it's all Alice in Wonderland
In the Alice in Wonderland world this parallel reality has created, it is we who are backward looking for pointing out that the Corbyn programme is exactly what we fought and lost on 30 years ago, not him for having it.
Tony Blair writing in The Observer.
Whatever else one might have thought of Ed Miliband, he was certainly on the generally accepted "left" and had come to the leadership of the Labour Party with the backing of the unions.
He lost.
Back in 1983 Michael Foot was certainly left-wing and the "left" was far stronger back in those days.
He lost.
Very badly indeed.
It was years before Labour was able to take power again and that victory was down to one Tony Blair.
He won three general elections in a row, Labour could have won again but frankly Gordon Brown buggered it up by dithering over an election at a time he may have had the upper hand.
The "lefts" rise and I'm not sure that much of the so called left can really be called that these days with their capitulation to reactionary Islamist movements and a certain Mr Putin including Corbyn himself is a backwards move.
Under Corbyn there will only be one outcome.
Labour will lose.
Only those who really need our help will suffer while the ideologues will wear their outdated ideas on their sleeves.
Mad Hatters Tea Party indeed.
Tony Blair writing in The Observer.
Whatever else one might have thought of Ed Miliband, he was certainly on the generally accepted "left" and had come to the leadership of the Labour Party with the backing of the unions.
He lost.
Back in 1983 Michael Foot was certainly left-wing and the "left" was far stronger back in those days.
He lost.
Very badly indeed.
It was years before Labour was able to take power again and that victory was down to one Tony Blair.
He won three general elections in a row, Labour could have won again but frankly Gordon Brown buggered it up by dithering over an election at a time he may have had the upper hand.
The "lefts" rise and I'm not sure that much of the so called left can really be called that these days with their capitulation to reactionary Islamist movements and a certain Mr Putin including Corbyn himself is a backwards move.
Under Corbyn there will only be one outcome.
Labour will lose.
Only those who really need our help will suffer while the ideologues will wear their outdated ideas on their sleeves.
Mad Hatters Tea Party indeed.
Friday, 28 August 2015
From Howie's Archives: Review of What's Left by Nick Cohen (2007)
The rise of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party leadership election has led many people to read or re-read Nick Cohen's essential book What's Left. When this was originally published I wrote a review of sorts for 4Discussion #8 (March 2007), the internal bulletin of the (now defunct) 4themembers group in the PCS union.
At the time my political activities and outlook were almost solely centred on civil service and PCS related matters as is shown by this piece. However it did bring to my attention that there was a decent "left" out there and as I began reading and later co-operating with others around the excellent blog Harry's Place there was clearly a whole new way of looking a politics. Well for me anyway.
Of course times have changed, and I have have certainly moved on, refining my "world outlook" and taking a firm stand against the reactionary "anti-imperialist" brigade a mixture of the far-left and Islamists.
I should also point out I am no longer a member of PCS and have joined a much better union, Prospect.
Like many people on the “liberal left” I was horrified at the book burning and death threats directed at Salman Rushdie over his Satanic Verses by religious extremists. As a result I sent a cheque to sign up to a statement defending him to a group of lefties seeking to defend Rushdie's right of free speech. A couple of weeks later it was returned with a letter stating that the Statement “might be misinterpreted as being racist” in the conditions surrounding the controversy. How so, I asked myself, Salman Rushdie was a member of an ethnic minority, being threatened by err… extremists within his own community! Since the organising committee included Tariq Ali I was astounded at the political cowardice displayed by these fine men and women of the left.
It was a symptom of a drift away from core democratic and rational principles that the left was supposed to stand for that Cohen precisely seeks to address in his book. In fact it is a good example of the terror of political correctness that permeates the so-called left, as it exists in the 21st Century. For Cohen the defining moment of the lefts degeneration is the second Iraq war. The left marched against democracy he writes in support of Baathist fascism. He questions if the majority of the marchers actually knew how bad the regime under Saddam was. Certainly the traditional left did. Many of them had been involved in campaigns against the Baathist terror.
However when it came to the crunch he argues the left decided their own democratic regimes were the real enemy. A theme that Cohen develops throughout this challenging book. I take issue with the inference that if a regime is bad we have to go to war, where would it end? There are very few true democracies outside the “West”, and yes our Governments have an imperfect record in supporting a number of these regimes.
Supporting reaction
Cohen’s book is not about the war as such, no matter what your local lefty might allege. Its more about the way the left has seemingly lost all reason by supporting some of the most reactionary and fascistic regimes against our own democratic governments and indeed even the rights of indigenous populations. Where indeed are the huge demonstrations against the genocide in Dafur, the repression under Mugabe or the North Korean dictatorship? Where indeed!
The Stop the War Coalition is staffed by the Socialist Workers Party and its fellow travellers and managed to organise the largest political demonstration this country has ever seen. Most of the demonstrators had nothing in common with the politics of the SWP when they called for an end to the war. Most were simply against violence. And yet the SWTC leaders issued a statement, which called for full support to the Iraqi “resistance”. It caused such outrage it had to be almost immediately withdrawn or the whole anti war movement would have fallen apart with the pacifists leaving in droves.
What this incident has shown us is how the lefts mindset actually works. Did it not occur to them for one moment that this so called resistance was made up of Baathists and religious extremists that rejected the very notion of Iraq establishing democracy? The resistance concentrates on killing Iraqi civilians almost exclusively, to create internal strife and a civil war that they hope will take Iraq backwards. There are many supporters of the SWTC and the SWP in PCS, Mark Serwotka amongst them. And yet the attacks on the nascent Trade Union movement, Women and Gay rights organisations in Iraq continue unabated. Their killers are not the coalition forces but reactionaries from the right of the political spectrum.
This phenomenon of supporting oppressive regimes is not new, and Cohen reminds us of the slavish support given to the Stalinist regimes and their murderous regimes in the last century. They were almost excused at best as many Marxists saw such events as inevitable in their struggle. Yet at the same time would be the first to demonstrate at the perceived inhumanity of the British and Americans in Vietnam or Ireland. And while they marched ordinary people went to the wall in their preferred regimes. Even today sections of the left (enter the New Communist Party) celebrate the birthday of the “Great Leader” of North Korea, a man who keeps his nation starving and oppressed.
Human Rights first
PCS as a union is committed absolutely to Women’s and Gay rights, and rightly so. Equal opportunities has been at the core of the Trade Union movement for many years, yet the so-called left continues to give succour to some of the most reactionary regimes and movements around the world. Case in point is Iran, a theological dictatorship that recently revelled in the organisation of a conference questioning the historical fact of the Holocaust in Europe. Amongst its’ attendees were individuals from extreme right wing organisations in both the UK and Europe.
As Cohen so eloquently puts it;
“Writer after writer was incapable of grasping that people with brown skins were just as capable as people with white skins were of forming a fascistic movement and murdering others”.
Taliban anybody? The well-documented anti-Semitism of sections of the Islamist extremists shows us what people are capable regardless of race or colour. The point is anyone can be an oppressor. Just ask the people of Zimbabwe, starved and beaten down to the point where even their homes are destroyed to alter the countries demographic makeup. Recently Mugabe paid for his birthday by deducting the cost from his Civil Servants wages!
The left in the form of the SWP/Respect has sought to build links with the Muslim association of Britain, a front in the UK for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in many Muslim countries because of its’ extremism. In a leaflet last year they took the view that apostates (atheists) and Muslims who change their religion should be put to death. And yet the formally atheist SWP says not a word, so as not to upset its’ perceived allies in getting more votes.
Galloway’s follies
Of course no one will forget George Galloway and his slavish support for Saddam Hussein “Sir, I salute your courage, strength and indefatigably “, though his impersonation of a cat is probably more prominent in most peoples eyes. For me his comment that “Palestine is occupied by foreigners “ sent a chill down my spine. Formal anti-Zionism coming so close to “drive the Jews (the obvious foreigners to whom he referred) into the sea. He’s not an anti Semite, but political opportunism has consequences. I for one will always live by the slogan“Never Again”, one that incidentally is cynically used by the SWP in its anti BNP work. As a Jew I am entitled to ask, “who is my enemy”, in the midst of all this posturing!
The point of all this and I think Cohen’s basic message is that the left got lost. I like him was once part of the “left”, and it encompasses your whole view of the world. Where the left went wrong will always be a point for debate, but what is not contestable anymore is that the left has got lost and Cohen’s book is a valuable contribution to this debate and the left hate it with a vengeance. Lee Rock’s “Weekly Worker” described it as “poison”, the SWP called it vicious. I call it challenging and well worth reading.
At the time my political activities and outlook were almost solely centred on civil service and PCS related matters as is shown by this piece. However it did bring to my attention that there was a decent "left" out there and as I began reading and later co-operating with others around the excellent blog Harry's Place there was clearly a whole new way of looking a politics. Well for me anyway.
Of course times have changed, and I have have certainly moved on, refining my "world outlook" and taking a firm stand against the reactionary "anti-imperialist" brigade a mixture of the far-left and Islamists.
I should also point out I am no longer a member of PCS and have joined a much better union, Prospect.
Like many people on the “liberal left” I was horrified at the book burning and death threats directed at Salman Rushdie over his Satanic Verses by religious extremists. As a result I sent a cheque to sign up to a statement defending him to a group of lefties seeking to defend Rushdie's right of free speech. A couple of weeks later it was returned with a letter stating that the Statement “might be misinterpreted as being racist” in the conditions surrounding the controversy. How so, I asked myself, Salman Rushdie was a member of an ethnic minority, being threatened by err… extremists within his own community! Since the organising committee included Tariq Ali I was astounded at the political cowardice displayed by these fine men and women of the left.
It was a symptom of a drift away from core democratic and rational principles that the left was supposed to stand for that Cohen precisely seeks to address in his book. In fact it is a good example of the terror of political correctness that permeates the so-called left, as it exists in the 21st Century. For Cohen the defining moment of the lefts degeneration is the second Iraq war. The left marched against democracy he writes in support of Baathist fascism. He questions if the majority of the marchers actually knew how bad the regime under Saddam was. Certainly the traditional left did. Many of them had been involved in campaigns against the Baathist terror.
However when it came to the crunch he argues the left decided their own democratic regimes were the real enemy. A theme that Cohen develops throughout this challenging book. I take issue with the inference that if a regime is bad we have to go to war, where would it end? There are very few true democracies outside the “West”, and yes our Governments have an imperfect record in supporting a number of these regimes.
Supporting reaction
Cohen’s book is not about the war as such, no matter what your local lefty might allege. Its more about the way the left has seemingly lost all reason by supporting some of the most reactionary and fascistic regimes against our own democratic governments and indeed even the rights of indigenous populations. Where indeed are the huge demonstrations against the genocide in Dafur, the repression under Mugabe or the North Korean dictatorship? Where indeed!
The Stop the War Coalition is staffed by the Socialist Workers Party and its fellow travellers and managed to organise the largest political demonstration this country has ever seen. Most of the demonstrators had nothing in common with the politics of the SWP when they called for an end to the war. Most were simply against violence. And yet the SWTC leaders issued a statement, which called for full support to the Iraqi “resistance”. It caused such outrage it had to be almost immediately withdrawn or the whole anti war movement would have fallen apart with the pacifists leaving in droves.
What this incident has shown us is how the lefts mindset actually works. Did it not occur to them for one moment that this so called resistance was made up of Baathists and religious extremists that rejected the very notion of Iraq establishing democracy? The resistance concentrates on killing Iraqi civilians almost exclusively, to create internal strife and a civil war that they hope will take Iraq backwards. There are many supporters of the SWTC and the SWP in PCS, Mark Serwotka amongst them. And yet the attacks on the nascent Trade Union movement, Women and Gay rights organisations in Iraq continue unabated. Their killers are not the coalition forces but reactionaries from the right of the political spectrum.
This phenomenon of supporting oppressive regimes is not new, and Cohen reminds us of the slavish support given to the Stalinist regimes and their murderous regimes in the last century. They were almost excused at best as many Marxists saw such events as inevitable in their struggle. Yet at the same time would be the first to demonstrate at the perceived inhumanity of the British and Americans in Vietnam or Ireland. And while they marched ordinary people went to the wall in their preferred regimes. Even today sections of the left (enter the New Communist Party) celebrate the birthday of the “Great Leader” of North Korea, a man who keeps his nation starving and oppressed.
Human Rights first
PCS as a union is committed absolutely to Women’s and Gay rights, and rightly so. Equal opportunities has been at the core of the Trade Union movement for many years, yet the so-called left continues to give succour to some of the most reactionary regimes and movements around the world. Case in point is Iran, a theological dictatorship that recently revelled in the organisation of a conference questioning the historical fact of the Holocaust in Europe. Amongst its’ attendees were individuals from extreme right wing organisations in both the UK and Europe.
As Cohen so eloquently puts it;
“Writer after writer was incapable of grasping that people with brown skins were just as capable as people with white skins were of forming a fascistic movement and murdering others”.
Taliban anybody? The well-documented anti-Semitism of sections of the Islamist extremists shows us what people are capable regardless of race or colour. The point is anyone can be an oppressor. Just ask the people of Zimbabwe, starved and beaten down to the point where even their homes are destroyed to alter the countries demographic makeup. Recently Mugabe paid for his birthday by deducting the cost from his Civil Servants wages!
The left in the form of the SWP/Respect has sought to build links with the Muslim association of Britain, a front in the UK for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in many Muslim countries because of its’ extremism. In a leaflet last year they took the view that apostates (atheists) and Muslims who change their religion should be put to death. And yet the formally atheist SWP says not a word, so as not to upset its’ perceived allies in getting more votes.
Galloway’s follies
Of course no one will forget George Galloway and his slavish support for Saddam Hussein “Sir, I salute your courage, strength and indefatigably “, though his impersonation of a cat is probably more prominent in most peoples eyes. For me his comment that “Palestine is occupied by foreigners “ sent a chill down my spine. Formal anti-Zionism coming so close to “drive the Jews (the obvious foreigners to whom he referred) into the sea. He’s not an anti Semite, but political opportunism has consequences. I for one will always live by the slogan“Never Again”, one that incidentally is cynically used by the SWP in its anti BNP work. As a Jew I am entitled to ask, “who is my enemy”, in the midst of all this posturing!
The point of all this and I think Cohen’s basic message is that the left got lost. I like him was once part of the “left”, and it encompasses your whole view of the world. Where the left went wrong will always be a point for debate, but what is not contestable anymore is that the left has got lost and Cohen’s book is a valuable contribution to this debate and the left hate it with a vengeance. Lee Rock’s “Weekly Worker” described it as “poison”, the SWP called it vicious. I call it challenging and well worth reading.
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Mark Serwotka correctly excluded from Labour leadership election
The farcical election organised by the Labour Party took another twist last night as news emerged that the far-left General Secretary of the civil service union PCS had been excluded from the vote.
The Independent reported:
The leader of one of Britain’s major trade unions has been banned from voting in the Labour Party’s leadership election.
Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the PCS union, which represents civil servants, had his ballot retroactively revoked after having voted online earlier this month.
The trade unionist was a member of the Labour party until the 1980s; his union says he has not been a member of another political party since.
…we need the trade unions to be involved to give us bedrock on which to build. Already we see the FBU and the RMT, no longer affiliated to Labour, looking around to see how they can take forward issues politically, possibly even standing and supporting candidates.
The decision of PCS Conference to pass a resolution that includes a policy for PCS, as a Trade Union to run candidates in Parliamentary Elections is a radical departure from the norms of this and other Civil Service Unions. It is the continuation of a long term project by the General Secretary Mark Serwotka and his left-wing allies on the national executive Committee that begun with the so called Make Your Vote Campaign, an expensive white elephant trumpeted by our leaders for the last few years.
It actually comes as no surprise that the PCS leadership has taken this route since most of them have been involved in one project or another to create a new Left-Wing Party “predicated on the Trade Unions” as John McInally put it in his article in The Socialist newspaper last year.
The Independent reported:
The leader of one of Britain’s major trade unions has been banned from voting in the Labour Party’s leadership election.
Serwotka's response was somewhat disengenuous to say the elast. At the time he was in the Labour Party he was (cough) "associated" with Socialist Organiser, a Trotskyist entrist group inside Labour now known as the Alliance for Workers Liberty. The AWL you will recall was calling for a purge of non-Corbyn supporting MP's only days ago, but I digress.
When the 12 Respect councillors were elected in Tower Hamlets, Serwotka welcomed this development and appeared on Respect platforms mainly at the behest of the Socialist Workers Party with whom he had very good ties with. His main contact was former CPSA activist Martin Smith.
When the SWP fell out with Galloway, Serwotka sided with them and denounced the "witchunting" of socialists. The SWP's attempt to replace Respect floundered and disappeared.
Enter the Socialist Party (Militant) with their latest attempt to supplant the Labour Party and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition was born (via the clumslily named Campaign for a new workers Party). In 2007 Serwotka wrote in The Socialist newspaper:
The TUSC publicised it's two biggest backers, the late Bob Crow and Mark Serwotka at every opportunity. For Serwotka this included the last general election when every habd was needed to stop the return of the Tories, he was opposing the Labour Party.
Further back in 2009 Serwotka along with the Socialist Party pushed the PCS union itself to a position of actually standing candidates (against Labour).
In an article for 4Discussion, Bulletin of the 4themembers group in PCS #39 (June 2009) I reported:
Labour are well aware of Serwotka's high profile antics aimed at undermining and replacing their party. He is no friend of Labour has no right to expect a vote after all the damage he has done over the years.
Tuesday, 25 August 2015
Unions face decline in support whilst Labour implodes
A rather disturbing report appeared on the front page of the London Evening Standard stating that a poll backs the Tory plans to introduce thresholds on trade unions right to strike. Joe Murphy & Dick Murray write
With unions threatening four more days of crippling Tube strikes in two weeks, the YouGov survey for the Evening Standard found a clear majority in the capital backing tougher laws.
The new Trade Union Bill would set a 50 per cent minimum turnout for any strike ballots — and in the public sector would require 40 per cent support from all members eligible to vote, not just those who do. The clause was approved of by 53 per cent of Londoners.
Only 26 per cent opposed the crackdown, while 22 per cent were undecided — a two-to-one majority in favour.
Moreover, the crackdown was backed on balance by young and old, men and women and among both the better-off ABC1 social classes and the poorer C2DEs.
Business Secretary Sajid Javid hailed the result as a “clear majority” for the biggest union reforms for 30 years.
With unions threatening four more days of crippling Tube strikes in two weeks, the YouGov survey for the Evening Standard found a clear majority in the capital backing tougher laws.
The new Trade Union Bill would set a 50 per cent minimum turnout for any strike ballots — and in the public sector would require 40 per cent support from all members eligible to vote, not just those who do. The clause was approved of by 53 per cent of Londoners.
Only 26 per cent opposed the crackdown, while 22 per cent were undecided — a two-to-one majority in favour.
Moreover, the crackdown was backed on balance by young and old, men and women and among both the better-off ABC1 social classes and the poorer C2DEs.
Business Secretary Sajid Javid hailed the result as a “clear majority” for the biggest union reforms for 30 years.
The problem for the unions involved is that their members are not seen as low paid, far from it tube drivers receive very high wages, more than most tube users make. The reaction reported by the Standard certainly seems to tie in with casual observations in the street. This all comes at a time when we face nearly five more years of Tory government and the only opposition party is heading for disaster as the leadership election farce continues.
Let's be clear. Working people need trade unions, well organised and able to take action to defend their members.
Frankly working people also need a political party that is electable.
Both these vital institutions are under threat from the right and the left.
Over the past few years the Tories have been gradually whittling away at union rights, particularly in the Civil Service, where the far-left led union PCS has handed the excuse after excuse on a plate much to the chagrin of the other, smaller unions.
The whole question of turnouts was pushed to the forefront of Tory thinking by Mark Serwotka's ridiculous threat to bring out Border Staff on the eve of the Olympics when it had the support of just 11% of those eligible.
From there facility time cuts, an end to the "check off" arrangements have led to this pivitol moment.
The restriction of the right to strike.
Of course the left argue that politicians don't achieve such thresholds and there is a point here, but the analogy does not quite hit the mark. MP's fight multiple opponents and the vote is divided far more than a simple yes/no vote could ever be.
This where being realistic and rational before ideological should be at the forefront od union leaders thinking. Why is it that so many members don't vote and in the case of PCS when there has been a national dispute the union has never achieved a majority turnout despite the claims of their leadership?
Certainly when the turnout and majority is low there needs to be more self reflection by the union leaders. So many, Serwotka in particualr, put ideological considerations before realism they fail to achieve even their basic aims before they start. Hence that union is in severe and probably permanent decline despite a staffing crisis in the large departments like the DWP and HMRC.
The threatened trade union legislation is getting closer and with the rise of Corbyn in the leadership stakes the party that could reverse this trend is becoming more unelectable by the day.
According to one union member I spoke to today none of the candidates is inspiring and all are flawed. Despite the fraught atmosphere on social media Labour is not winning over the necessary support it needs to win in 2020. In fact I fear it has already lost.
The Corbyn campaign has merely united most, but not all of the rent a mob crowds that can be used to fill the streets for those big, but ineffectual demonstrations we see from time to time.
If there is to be change for the better than it is the left that needs to change. Celebrating the death of long gone Russians (Trotsky was murdered in Mexico 75 years ago today as the AWL remind us), it needs to adjust it's outlook. Dusty old tomes by outdated and thoroughly discredited revolutionaries have led to nowhere.
In fact much of the left has developed a soft and sometimes supportive attitude to political movements that are thoroughly reactionary as we see with not just Corbyn's so-called friends but the in the antics of the misnamed Stop the War Campaign and the racists around the BDS movement.
I despair for the future. The writing has been on the wall for some time but the words "heads" and "buried in the sand" come to mind.
I am not so arrogant to claim I have the answer, though the left will claim socialism (whatever that is) is the answer their response is so religious in it's intensity and irrationality that the ease with which they adapt to reactionary Islamism is clear to all.
What I do know is the future is bleak and will remain so until today's radicals take their blinkers off.
Sunday, 23 August 2015
Far left group calls for purges after Corbyn wins
The battle for control of the Labour Party took yet another sinister turn as one of the Trotskyist groups, the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) involved in backing Jeremy Corbyn called or a purge of "irreconcilable" MP's after Corbyn wins.
Their long term guru Sean Matgamna writes:
If Jeremy Corbyn wins, it won't be the end but the beginning of the fight.
A leader of the French Revolution once observed that “those who make half a revolution, only dig their own graves”. A Corbyn victory will at best be only half a revolution. It will energise the PLP and its backers in the press for a serious fight back. If we don't respond blow for blow, with determination to win, then the right-wing counterrevolution will win. There will be a severe repression of the left. The chance of a new beginning for working-class politics will be squandered.
If Corbyn wins, then the left should immediately go on the offensive. Irreconcilable MPs should be de-selected.
A leader of the French Revolution once observed that “those who make half a revolution, only dig their own graves”. A Corbyn victory will at best be only half a revolution. It will energise the PLP and its backers in the press for a serious fight back. If we don't respond blow for blow, with determination to win, then the right-wing counterrevolution will win. There will be a severe repression of the left. The chance of a new beginning for working-class politics will be squandered.
If Corbyn wins, then the left should immediately go on the offensive. Irreconcilable MPs should be de-selected.
By "irreconcilable" they mean those that do not agree with the far-lefts line. Labour will cease to be a broad coalition of various traditions and will be purged Stalinist style.
The Corbinista's are a threat to the survival of the only remaining opposition party in British politics.
The only winners in this debacle are the Tories.
Corbyn and his rent a mob supporters must be stopped.
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Sparts, terrorists, Amnesty and Corbyn
There are times when reading the websites or press of the far-left nothing surprises me these days. There have been members of the newly founded Left Unity organisation backing ISIS as anti-imperialist, but the laughably names Spartacist League takes a different view that is even more bewildering:
The US, supported by Britain, is now at war with the Islamic State (ISIS), which was initially funded by extremist Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. [An IS motion of 23 October 2014 said:] “We have a military side with the reactionary ISIL when it engages in military conflict with the imperialists and their local forces on the ground, including the Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga, the Baghdad government, Shi’ite militias and the Syrian Kurds. We give no political support to any of these retrograde forces.”...
It would be interesting to see how long these godless trots would survive alongside ISIS.
Mad anti-imperialism at it's worse.
Meanwhile Corbyns "friends" in Hamas have taken umbrage over a report from Amnesty. Yahoo News reports:
Such deadly attacks on civilians on both sides constituted "a war crime," it said.
The damning report urged armed Palestinian groups to end attacks on civilians in Israel and to protect those in the Gaza Strip from the effects of such attacks.
That didn't go down well with the Islamist terrorist group:
The Islamist movement further called Amnesty a "Zionist organisation".
The silence from the anti-imperialists is deafening.....
Of course Jeremy Corbyn isn't much better as his interview on the state controlled Russian propaganda channel RT shows. Buzzfeed reports
He said he was concerned that western forces might intervene and that a “political compromise” was preferable.
These would be the cities conquered at gunpoint and all opposition is put to the sword whilst women are enslaved & raped.
Not my definition of "accepted".
There can be no compromise with the fascists of ISIS.
Corbyn is so obviously unfit for government. Full stop.
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