State of the UK Labour Party

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Two articles about the UK Labour Party, Craig Murray discusses the pointless Keir Starmer:

Starmer’s role has been simply to emasculate the Labour Party, and to purge it of any elements that might seek to pose a threat to rampant neo-liberalism and wealth inequality. His efforts to ban Labour MPs from supporting striking railway workers must be anathema to anybody who has the slightest feel for the history and traditions of that party and indeed the most basic understanding of its very raison d’etre.

This Tony Benn quote from the 1980’s has come into vogue because it is prophetic, and the process appears now complete:

If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media – having tasted blood – would demand next that it expelled all its Socialists and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which could then be allowed to take office now and then when the Conservatives fell out of favour with the public. Thus British Capitalism, it is argued, will be made safe forever, and socialism would be squeezed off the National agenda. But if such a strategy were to succeed… it would in fact profoundly endanger British society. For it would open up the danger of a swing to the far-right, as we have seen in Europe over the last 50 years.

Starmer is in one sense the apotheosis of this process. Not only has he acted to purge the Labour Party of socialism, he also offers so very little of a meaningful alternative to the Tories that there is very little danger of the Tories being voted out of office. Not only is he a safe right-wing backstop, he is a self-redundant safe right-wing backstop.

Jeremy Corbyn Sophie BrownCC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

and Jeremy Corbyn openly discusses the many parties that obstructed him. The article also discusses Julian Assange.

The Guardian has long been viewed as the voice of the liberal-left in Britain, so it surprised many during the Corbyn leadership to see it act as one of the main media vehicles through which the campaign to bring him down was fought. 

The paper was a key part of the “anti-semitism crisis” that engulfed Corbyn’s leadership. From 2016-19, the Guardian published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-semitism, an average of around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles. 

In the same period, the Guardian published just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party’s much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example, found that nearly half of the Tory party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister. 

The Guardian’s coverage of anti-semitism in Labour was suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggested that the issue was being used politically.

The late Jewish anthropologist David Graeber commented after the 2019 election: “As for the Guardian, we will never forget that during the ‘Labour antisemitism controversy’, they beat even the Daily Mail to include the largest percentage of false statements, pretty much every one, mysteriously, an accidental error to Labour’s disadvantage”.

Keir Starmer says he is scrapping Labour’s manifesto and ‘starting from scratch’ on policy

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Jeremy Corbyn unites with direct action group Just Stop Oil

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/16/jeremy-corbyn-unites-with-direct-action-group-just-stop-oil

Jeremy Corbyn Sophie Brown, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has teamed up with direct action campaigners to form a new “red/green” climate and social justice movement which aims to stage a “major wave of popular mass action” later this year.

Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, which he set up in 2021, is joining forces with Just Stop Oil campaigners who have staged a series of disruptive climate actions over the past six months.

The new movement – which also includes trade unionists, civil society organisations and leftwing activists – argues that the current “destructive economic model” is the root cause of the cost of living crisis as well as the climate crisis.

New red green coalition forms to confront cost of living and climate crisis through a “major wave of mass popular action”

Lawrence Leather, 22 a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil, said:

“It’s been over a year since Sir David King, the former UK chief scientific adviser warned the ‘next three to four years will determine the future of humanity”. But still the government refuses to do anything.

“As the climate breaks down, the cost of everything will rise. That’s why we want to bring together the broadest coalition we can, including the trade unions, Britain’s biggest social movement, around concrete demands that decarbonise and put money back in people’s pockets.

“We are encouraging everyone to step up now and join the movement. The politicians won’t save us. It’s on us to change history. Their time is up. Our time is now.”

Jeremy Corbyn, the founder of the Peace and Justice Project, said:

“Movements are the motor of change in history. When we come together, we can transform the world. And we must because those in power – the fossil fuel giants, the billionaires and the governments they own – are picking our pockets and stealing our future.

“That’s the crisis. You can’t separate out the cost of living and climate crises. The whole system, which creates billionaires and starves hundreds of millions, is the crisis. It can’t be resolved, it must be overcome and transformed.”

Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn unites with direct action group Just Stop Oil

Are we forced to have a revo?

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The problem is 1. that we have been warned that the climate crisis must be addressed urgently, and 2. that governments and climate-killers e.g. big industry and the rich, are not addressing the climate crisis and there is no indication that they intend to.

It’s a serious step to attempt to usurp an elected government, elected governments in fact. To try to prevent planetary destruction is a valid and adequate reason. What do you think?

ed: Kwasi Kwarteng, some minister or other responsible for granting licences for fossil fuel exploitation even refuses to address the issues and instead repeatedly poses a strawman.

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Governments and fossil fuel companies accelerate fecking the planet

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The Guardian has a very disturbing article reporting it’s research that it’s full speed ahead for climate destroying governments and fossil fuel companies and that there is no regard for the climate destruction that they are causing. It’s also bad news that there was no mention of the climate in the UK’s Queen’s Speech (the UK government giving notice of it’s intentions) other than harsher laws against climate protestors. Kwasi Kwarteng has already said as much – that the UK is aggressively pursuing exploitation of fossil fuels disregarding climate concerns “… we took steps to remove obstacles to accelerate production …”.

I find it difficult to understand how these people are so determined to feck the planet tbh. I know that they are Capitalists and mad Tories but is logic and reason totally alien to them? Don’t they care for their own children and grandchildren? I suppose that they can get into the habit of just following orders but just following orders has been dismissed as a defence.

We have to defeat these cnuts but have very little time to do it …

Continue ReadingGovernments and fossil fuel companies accelerate fecking the planet