Tag: Jeremy Corbyn

Vote Labour for Hope and all our Futures!

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I voted Labour on 12 December 2019 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🌹🌹🌹

Because I believe in social justice and a fair and equal society.

Because I want to stop the right-wing’s Brexit project and remain in Europe
Because I want to live in a progressive, outward-looking country
  • where we don’t fear others and welcome migrants
  • where we don’t just want but can expand our horizons and aspirations,
  • where we work together to stop our planet being destroyed to enrich selfish billionaires and corporations
  • where everyone has a right to a warm, secure home, where mums don’t go without to feed their kids, where we don’t get ripped off by privatised utility companies and unscrupulous landlords, where debt isn’t a way of life
  • where our NHS works for all of us and nobody fears a visit to A&E lest they get left for hours in pain without a bed
  • where I don’t look out of my window at homeless people sleeping and begging, and a sign stuck to the wall advising them how to register to vote
  • where I don’t have to keep telling my landlord that only a third of social tenants can afford broadband and therefore can’t access their services
  • where we restore the welfare state I was born into and have benefited from all my life
  • where our leaders aren’t racist, sexist and homophobic bigots and liars
  • where we aren’t faced with the prospect of incipient fascism.

Vote Labour today for hope and for all our futures!

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

 

Only Labour Can Stop Brexit

Only a vote for Labour in Thursday’s European elections can stop the Brexit Party topping the polls.

A ‘tactical’ ‘protest’ vote in these elections is not an option. Remainers must support Labour.

Allowing the Brexit Party to top the poll will not bring about a People’s Vote. The opposite. It will send a message to Europe and the world that a bunch of anti-European right-wing little-Englander charlatans speak for this country, and it will strengthen both their neo-fascist friends across Europe and the No Deal Brexiteers in the Tory Party.

Farage said yesterday “If we win on Thursday, we kill off any chance of them forcing a second referendum on us”. He went on to demand a place in the EU negotiating team.

 Only Labour can beat the Faragists.

 Only Labour can stop Boris and Nigel taking the UK out of the EU on Hallowe’en with No Deal.

 I share the frustration of so many Labour members at the Leadership’s ambiguity on Brexit. But we have to acknowledge that they have pursued the policy agreed unanimously at last year’s Conference – to call for a General Election and for “all options to remain on the table, including campaigning for a public vote”.

There were many shortcomings to that composite motion, not least its failure to spell out that Labour is fundamentally a Remain Party, but the way to change that is not desertion but to use every avenue within the Party to effect policy change, in particular by motions to this year’s Annual Conference as well as supporting calls for a Special Emergency Conference on Brexit now.

I’ve criticised the lack of Labour campaigning in this election. But JeremyCorbyn, accompanied by many Shadow Ministers, was out in Vauxhall yesterday, meeting members, knocking on doors and talking about Labour’s positive vision, including:

“If we can’t get a sensible compromise or a General Election, we’ll back a public vote”. (here) 

Voting anything but Labour may make you feel ‘better’, but it is a wasted vote. None of the smaller parties are in a position to deliver the public vote on Brexit of their claims – only Labour can do that. Nor are they in a position to influence the policies and practices of the EU – only Labour and its allies in the S&D can challenge for the Commission Presidency and affect the EU’s attitude not just to the UK but to a range of policies in respect of austerity, migration and the climate crisis.

Instead of using these elections to send a message to Jeremy Corbyn, our message has to be that fascists of the neo-, alt- or any other variety, are not welcome here, and that only Labour can stop Brexit.

Joan

Photos: @JohnStuttle with thanks - Vauxhall Park, 21 May 2019

How to lose votes and alienate EU-friends

 

love corbyn hate brexitDear Jeremy and Labour Party comrades

I have decades of experience campaigning in Lambeth and across London. I am currently a member of Vauxhall CLP EC and a coordinator for the local Momentum group. I am writing to share my concerns about how the current EU election is being run.

The  day after I received my postal voting form I received a personalised letter from the Lib Dem’s Mayoral candidate. I see from Facebook that lots of other postal voters have received similar from the Brexits. But nothing from Labour. We wouldn’t know an election is going on!

In my constituency the chance to get out on the doorstep and explain that our unrepresentative hard Brexiteer MP, Kate Hoey, does not represent the views of local Party members has been seized by all wings of the Party with enthusiasm. Three of London’s MEP candidates are members of this constituency. Again, all wings of what is often depicted as a politically split CLP have welcomed their nominations and are eager to campaign for them.

But – along with the lack of attention being given to the thousands of postal voters, who faced with a long and complicated ballot form let alone a short and ‘complicated’ (in the Facebook sense of the word) campaign really need some guidance – the Labour Party machinery has not just been unhelpful but at worst has pushed activists away.

I manage a Community Centre but was quickly told that it would be impossible to host any kind of rally or meeting there because, even if I personally donated the cost, it would not be permitted as it would be charged against election expenses. I have even been told that putting up a Labour poster is banned. (By the way, I have no intention of obeying that edict – and if it is true then I would like to see it in writing.)

It does not help that this lacklustre attitude to campaigning – so unlike the spirit of the 2017 campaign – is reflected in the paucity of literature that has been produced. What has been produced is dire. Instead of suggesting that the European Parliament funds the Met Police, the NHS and schools (and is therefore responsible for the current cuts), why haven’t the policies contained in the excellent PES manifesto, which Labour signed up to some months ago, been used as the basis for spelling out what our MEPs can do; why hasn’t the excellent record of what socialist MEPs have achieved contained in Labour’s own European Manifesto been mentioned? That Manifesto is great – but who’s going to know that. It’s top secret.

Instead we get the fluffy Hallmark slogan of ‘bringing our country together again’. To do that requires honesty, bravery and a clear position on Brexit. These elections are about Europe. The issue cannot be ignored. It has to be confronted head on. Is it any surprise that the two parties who are rising in the polls are the two who are campaigning with the clearest message in respect of Brexit.  A clear strong message will do more to bring the country together than woolly ambiguity.

And what about social media ? From voter registration drives, to enthusiastically selling the messages in the Manifesto across Facebook and Twitter, the Party could be doing so much more. More than nothing, that is. In 2017 Labour dominated social media – why are we not doing the same by recapturing the spirit we found then? Labour’s posts don’t even mention the elections. It is being left to individual candidates to wage an air war on their own. And to individual CLPs like my own to organise doorstepping, canvassing, and photo ops with the candidates and the rare Shadow Cabinet Minister who is actively campaigning to get across Labour’s internationalist message.

Having seen the complexity of the ballot paper, with 10 Parties and 11 independents standing in London, the party needs to at least be explaining the voting system! Will there be ‘Get-out-the-vote’ leaflets doing that or will it, like everything else about this campaign, be left to individual candidates and grassroots members to do that. Without spending any money?

I gather the spending restrictions are because any expenditure now may get charged against a future early general election. But it won’t be spending too much at the GE which will lose us votes. It will be not campaigning now. We are losing the General Election campaign on the doorstep today . Once voters – and members (a third of Labour List readers!) – abandon Labour to vote for another party they rarely come back. The majority of Labour members and voters in London support remaining in the EU, and we have been losing members and voters in my constituency for months because of our MP’s and the Leader’s positions on Brexit. If Labour does badly on 23 May because of the lack of campaign support already unhappy members will be even further demotivated.

Complex messages need to be got across in this election. We need to be explaining how voting for other smaller parties is a wasted vote as they are not in a position to either deliver the public vote on Brexit of their claims – only Labour can do that – nor are they in a position to influence the policies and practices of the European Union – only Labour and its allies in the S&D can challenge for the Commission Presidency and affect the EU’s attitude to the UK. And we need to be spelling out that only Labour is committed to challenging the growth of fascist and alt-right populism across Europe and in the UK.

London is a great working class city and the majority of its diverse, multi-national residents want to stay in the European Union. We have great candidates who will represent this city and its people heart and soul.  Let’s please tell Londoners who they are, how to vote, and why, above all, they should vote Labour. Against austerity, for real action against climate catastrophe, for peace and prosperity across our continent.

I feel obliged to complain like this because if ordinary members like me don’t, then nothing will change.90a243ae-cfe8-4112-8830-0dc546ce0e45

In hope and solidarity

Joan

 

 

Footnote:

I’m pleased to say that after I wrote this the Labour Party machinery swung into action – in London at least – and has produced election material, including on social media. Hundreds of Party members have enthusiastically accompanied our candidates on the doorstep. But, as the same time, far too many members are saying they are voting for one of the smaller Remain parties. A wasted vote, which could allow Farage’s Party to top the poll and send a message to Europe and the world that a bunch of anti-European, anti-migrant right-wing little-Englander charlatans represent the values and opinions of this country.

I will be voting Labour on Thursday and I call on all socialist Remainers to do the same.

Joan, 19 May 2019 

I wrote to Jeremy this morning. Here’s what I said –

Dear Jeremy

I was appalled to wake up to hear the Tory spin that you might accept the paltry concessions offered by the PM to push Brexit through Parliament.

Concessions on things which should be happening anyway. And even if the Tories are prepared to row back on a few workplace rights they have spent the last decades demolishing, and offer some more Sports Direct depots to the former coalfield communities, what about our environmental rights, what about our consumer rights, what about our rights as European citizens to travel, study, work, live, and love across our neighbouring continent, what about the rights of EU citizens in this country, what about all of our rights to free movement across the world – or is that just for the rich? Where are your demands on these rights? Where are the Tories’ concessions on these?

The fact that I could believe this possible is an indictment of the position you have taken on Brexit ever since the referendum – indeed during it when I was told by your staff that you felt you had done enough meetings on Europe after just doing a couple, and therefore could not do one in south London with me.

You are making it impossible for comrades like myself to defend your Leadership. Brexit is an anti-internationalist, anti-solidarity, anti-peace, anti-immigrant right-wing project – there is no fantasy Lexit which will overturn austerity; indeed, the reverse as the country is impoverished and the NHS crumbles for lack of staff, medicines and funding.

Good comrades are leaving the Party in Vauxhall because you have not only failed to provide clear and decisive leadership against Brexit but also because you have failed to take any action against our MP, who has been consistently allowed to break the whip and collude with the most rabidly right-wing of Brexiteers such as Nigel Farage and Arron Banks. Motions of no confidence in Kate Hoey have won unanimous support across the Party here, but nothing ever happens; but it is more than clear that nobody here will campaign for her if she is allowed to restand as our PPC. The trade union sponsorship the CLP has received for her for the last 30 years has recently been stopped. It is time the Party did the same.

Criticism of the institutions of the EU is fine. But you have to make them in the light of the objective circumstances of the time; and the objective circumstances now are that the right are advancing across the world and we – you – need to be leading the fightback against them. Rather than bunkering into a ‘socialism in one country’ world view, the fight needs to be taken into Europe, where we need to be working with socialists, not against them.

I hate referendums. But I believe that another is unavoidable if the anti-Europe vote in the first one is to be overturned. You need to not just support another vote, but make it very, very clear that you will campaign and fight to challenge the original decision and support Remain and Reform loudly and proudly.

I believe the advice you are receiving is wrong. You need to get out of the bunker and the Westminster bubble and talk to comrades who take a pro-European view. More than happy to get on the bus and come and chat any time.

Comradely greetings

Joan

THE ROAD TO STASILAND

I was expelled from the Labour Party without warning at lunchtime on Bank Holiday Monday – and unexpelled at teatime the next day.

“Dear Joan, It has been brought to our attention that you have stood as a candidate for the Socialist Unity Party against Labour….”

What! Who? Where? When?

Unlike most people, I know the answers to these questions, not because I’ve ever stood in an election as anyone other than the Labour Party Candidate, but because it was one of three accusations levelled against me last year when I was blocked from rejoining the Party after years of serious illness. SU stood candidates in the 1979 General Election. That’s right – 1979. 37 years ago. I was not one of them, and I can prove it from public records. Indeed, I proved it last year, just as I proved that I am not a previously expelled Trot entryist.

neighbourhood-witch-i7631They’ve been witch-hunting me for 25 years. This is their third attempt to throw me out of the Party.

In 1991 I was Leader of Lambeth Council when we opposed the poll tax and the first Gulf War. Word came down from on high: ‘Thou shalt have no foreign policy other than mine’! 13 of us were banned from the Labour Group and, after months of investigations and hearings, six were expelled and seven suspended. I was NOT one of those expelled – I was suspended from the Labour Group for 12 months.

In 2015 my application to rejoin the Party I had left in 2000 was rejected because I had ‘previously been expelled’. I had to send the Party its own letter spelling out the decisions of its own National Constitutional Committee. It took six months, but I was finally allowed to rejoin.

And now this! No right of appeal – you may apply again in five years’ time…..

To say I was angry is a gross understatement. But because I’ve been there before… and before… I was able to reach out to comrades at the highest levels of the Party and my expulsion was withdrawn within hours. I received an apology for the ‘error’ and my full membership rights were reinstated. Ten days later I received my ballot.

I am told that I should not have been reinvestigated because I won my appeal last year.

Ewan Gibbs in Glasgow got his expulsion retracted for the same reason and because, like me, he was able to contact leading members. But others are less fortunate. Over 3,000 others, including undoubtedly some who won appeals last year and should not have been included.

The Party’s conduct is making people ill and very, very angry. Removing members’ right to vote won’t just affect this Leadership election. Why should anyone who has been treated in this way support the Party in the future? We should be welcoming new members and rejoicing in their enthusiasm, not driving them away.

Of course, a membership organisation like Labour must have the right to check that applicants support its aims and values, and no member should be engaged in any sexist or racist threats or abuse. But such vetting has to be carried out on the basis of openness, clear criteria and due process, not anonymous allegations about retweets and ‘likes’. That is the road to Stasiland.

A Party dedicated to justice, rights and due process has to show that it practises those values in the way it conducts itself and treats its members if it is to have any credibility. There has been little evidence of that this summer. We can and must never let that happen again.

I believe the incoming NEC must launch a thorough investigation into this year’s Purge as well as implementing the Chakrabarti Inquiry’s recommendations in respect of clear and transparent compliance procedures, in advance of an in-depth and long overdue review of the Party’s disciplinary and complaints procedures.

This article has been published in the October 2016 edition of Labour Briefing

http://labourbriefing.squarespace.com/home/

 

Jeremy Corbyn for Change, for Hope!

This is the speech I would have made in support of Jeremy Corbyn at Vauxhall CLP’s nomination meeting on 28 June 2016 if I had been called to speak. Seems a pity to let it go to waste. 

JCorbyn1It’s clear from the referendum result that the country is split down the middle – and very dangerously split.

Before allocating blame, let’s remember it was a Tory referendum and that 58% of Tories voted Leave compared with just 37% of Labour voters.

But it’s that 37% we need to worry about, because the areas and demographics where they are concentrated are UKIP target areas and we cannot even begin to build the massive coalition of interests we must build – and build quickly – to win the next General Election without them.

This Leadership election needs to start with the policies which will ensure the 37% – and of course millions more – support Labour. It has to be about who can give HOPE that their lives can and will CHANGE. And change for the better.

The alienation of these areas is deep rooted – it hasn’t just materialised since the 2008 crash. It has its roots in the deindustrialisation of the 80s and the globalisation of the 90s, in the neoliberal policies which were embedded under Thatcher and followed on through the New Labour years. Policies based on laissez faire economics, a small state, the transfer of public assets to the private sector.

We see its effects in the rise of inequality, the destruction of the NHS through cuts, privatisation and PFI, the failure to build public housing, the disintegration of our community education system and our universities, the shocking employment practices which have been allowed to spread, and the drip drip drip attacks on benefit claimants, people with disabilities and migrants. And now we see its effects in the spike in hate crime since the referendum legitimised it.

From November the benefit cap will cut housing benefit to families by a massive £75 per week. Half a million children could face eviction in the next year.

Do you think a candidate who supports such a measure because it’s ‘popular’ can inspire HOPE?

Do you think a candidate who will be perceived – whether it’s true or not – as continuity New Labour, another Westminster suit, can inspire HOPE?

citizen smith (2)I’m told Citizen Smith has borrowed a load of new policies and that he’s now following the Marxist doctrine of ‘these are my policies, if you don’t like them, I have others…..’

Of course it’s not just that 37% we need to inspire. But without them we haven’t got a chance. And in any case we have a moral duty to change lives for the better – it is what Labour has to be about.

Jeremy doesn’t just talk opposition to neoliberalism and austerity when it suits him – he means it. And people know that. He has shifted Labour’s policies over the past year away from austerity and benefit cuts, and different economic and social policies are being developed. We should all be supporting that, helping it along, having our say.

There’s a lot of talented people in the Party and we need to work together FOR CHANGE, FOR HOPE – and Jeremy Corbyn is the Leader who can deliver that CHANGE, that HOPE.

SUPPORT JEREMY CORBYN!

#KEEP CORBYN? – HERE’S WHY!

In the wake of the Brexit vote, the Labour Party is in a state of civil war and its very survival must be in doubt.

Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters are mobilising in his defence. Here are some reasons why his continuing Leadership of the Party is worthy of support.

  • Won the Leadership with biggest mandate from Party members that any leader has ever won – 59.5% – more than all the other candidates put together.
  • Placed anti-austerity at the heart of Labour’s policies.
  • Adopted popular policies such as building public housing and renationalising the railways.
  • Increased Labour’s membership dramatically – now over 380,000 members.
  • Won every by-election contested since he became leader, three with increased majorities.
  • Won all four Mayoral elections in May 2016 ­– London, Bristol, Salford and Liverpool.
  • In the 2016 local elections performed as well as 2001 when Labour won a second landslide in the general election.
  • Repeatedly ahead of the Tories in the polls since the start of 2016.
  • Fought off cuts to tax credits and benefits, scoring significant blows against the Tories’ austerity agenda.
  • Delivered 63% of its 2015 voters to vote REMAIN, compared to the SNP’s 64% and the Tories 42%.

ALL this despite constant sniping, undermining and media misrepresentation.

WHAT HE HAS NOT DONE is

  • Lose the 2010 and 2015 general elections.
  • Lose 3.9 million voters between 1997 and 2005.
  • Lose 228,000 Party members between 1997 and 2008.

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The coup against Corbyn has absolutely nothing to do with the result of the EU referendum and was reported in the Daily Telegraph on 3 May, 8 weeks before it happened. Despite having been planned for months, the plotters have no agreed candidate, nor policy platform.

Its participants have pursued their plan in total disregard of the seismic shock Brexit is causing the economy, politics and society. When Labour should be seizing the opportunity to destroy the Tories, the coup plotters have seized it to try to destroy their own Party.

It is a political coup against the left of the Party and the policies Corbyn represents– against austerity, war, and Trident; for immigration, nationalisation, a publicly owned NHS and a fully funded welfare state.

Its timing has much to do with the imminent publication of the Chilcot Report and, if it succeeds, Labour Party democracy will be curtailed, Party members will lose their say over policy and representation, and it will mean Labour will continue on its rightward trajectory, alienating its traditional voters and ultimately destroying the Party.

We have been here before – in 1981 when, in opposition to a left-wing leader, the right split and doomed us to 16 more years of Thatcher and Major. Some of the same people are still involved.

The nearly quarter of a million people (235,757 at last count) who have signed 38 Degrees’ petition expressing their confidence in Jeremy Corbyn as Leader need to be listened to by the 176 before they plunge us into an internecine battle where the only winners will be the reactionary right-wing of the Tory Party, the rich and the corporations. The losers will be refugees, migrants, the poor, the sick, the disabled. and the working and middle classes of this country – the very people you were elected to represent.

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This is the work of several talented writers and political thinkers. Many thanks to Simon H and James G for sharing their ideas and words.

Part 2 of my Rant – The Carnival of Reaction is Turning the World Upside Down will follow soon.

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