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Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Links - 20th November 2019 (3) (Labour UK/Jeremy Corbyn)

Climate change: Firms failing to tackle crisis will be delisted from stock exchange, Labour says - "Companies that fail to act on the climate change they cause will be axed from the stock exchange, under radical Labour plans."

Concerns about antisemitism mean we cannot vote Labour - "nder Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour has come under formal investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for institutional racism against Jews. Two Jewish MPs have been bullied out of the party. Mr Corbyn has a long record of embracing antisemites as comrades... We refuse to vote Labour on 12 December. John le Carré (David Cornwell), Fay Weldon, Joanna Lumley, William Boyd, Simon Callow, Antony Beevor, Sathnam Sanghera, Janina Ramirez, Trevor Phillips, Jimmy Wales, Suzannah Lipscomb, Tom Holland, Frederick Forsyth, Peter Frankopan, Ghanem Nuseibeh, Dan Snow, Fiyaz Mughal, Tony Parsons, Dan Jones, Maajid Nawaz, Oz Katerji, Nick Hewer, Ed Husain, Terry Jervis"
Of course there're still people claiming Labour's anti-Semitism problem is fake and concoted by the right wing tabloid press

Labour councillor suspended over claims she called Hitler 'the greatest man in history' - "A Labour councillor has been suspended after a series of anti-Semitic tweets were found on her Twitter account.Aysegul Gurbuz, 20, is the latest name drawn into a row threatening to divide the party following claims of harassment of Jewish students at Oxford University... Another tweet hoped that Iran would use a "nuclear weapon" to "wipe Israel off the map".Other tweets expressed "disgust" that "Jews are so powerful", and one even stated "Ed Miliband is Jewish. He will never become prime minister of Britain."... Among the most shocking tweets was one that began: "Jews cannot expect us to sympathise with their history under Hitler."Gurbuz was also a candidate for Warwick Student Union’s Ethnic Minorities Officer, listing in her manifesto a commitment to “Increase awareness of Holocaust Memorial Day”, as well as serving on the Executive Committee of the Warwick Friends of Palestine Society... "How many more cases must we see before the Labour Party takes action?"  Miss Gurbuz denied she had written the tweets and claimed her sister may have posted them"
Amazingly, this is from April 2016, showing how deeprooted the problem is

Momentum activists blamed for rise of anti-semitism at Oxford Labour Club, a senior source has claimed - "Activists linked with the Jeremy Corbyn's hard leftist Momentum group are partly to blame for a rise in anti-semitism at Oxford, a senior source at the Oxford University Labour Club has alleged. It comes after a former co-chairman of the club claimed the infiltration of ‘hard leftists’ at the Oxford University Labour Club has led to a ‘vicious culture of personal attacks’, including the recent anti-semitic incidents. It also follows the resignation of the co-chairman of the organisation, Alex Chalmers, earlier this week after accusing a large proportion of members of having “some kind of problems with Jews”. It is alleged the hard leftists are members with links to Momentum, the hard-Left group backed by Jeremy Corbyn, and are claimed to be advancing an “authoritarian and intolerant” Marxist tradition that “punishes dissent”."

Is the Labour Party's problem with racism beyond repair? - "senior members of the Labour club liked to regale listeners with a song called “Rockets over Tel Aviv” and endorse Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. They were in the habit of casually referring to Jewish students as “Zio”. They repeated tropes about the “Zionist lobby” and “high net worth Jewish individuals”. They stated all Jews should be required to denounce Zionism and the state of Israel, and that those who refused to do so should be shunned. And they had arranged for a group of students to harass a Jewish student and shout “filthy Zionist” at her."

How Labour's Left has stitched up selection - "Since 2015, the Left has won victory after victory within the Labour Party. The leadership, the National Executive Committee and the general-secretaryship have all been won, leaving only one last bastion of resistance to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and the Left project. The Parliamentary Labour Party has had a core of MPs prepared to fight the leadership over antisemitism and obfuscation on Brexit. In a hung parliament it has acted as a powerful bloc of votes and an alternative voice whose public face has been the deputy leader, Tom Watson.  Now Watson has gone. Last week he resigned his Parliamentary candidacy and the deputy leadership... every constituency that wanted an open selection process with voting by local members lost its power. The NEC, controlled by the Left, now could impose or remove candidates at will. Of course it is the same Left that for 45 years has preached the virtues of internal democracy and membership power within the Labour Party. This seems to have been temporarily forgotten in the exercise of power... The profile and politics of the new PLP would be much more aligned to the membership of the party since 2015 — more radical, more diverse, much younger and mainly supporters of Momentum... In Coventry’s two rock solid Labour seats, Geoffrey Robinson and Jim Cunningham — two white male MPs born in 1938 and 1941 respectively — have been replaced by Taiwo Owateni and Zarah Sultana — both female, BAME candidates who are likely to be in the House of Commons for decades to come. Sultana, who is 26, has already got into trouble over tweets when she was a student in 2015 declaring her desire to celebrate the deaths of Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu. Sultana’s tweets have put her under pressure but she survives. Every day there are stories emanating from social media that in earlier times would have ended careers. But loyalty to the leadership is now enough to put you in place and keep you there."

Labour candidates deny anti-Semitism and attack the Poppy Appeal - "A Labour candidate described the party’s anti-Semitism problem as “racism smears” that were “politically motivated”.  Mark McDonald, candidate for Stoke on Trent South, claimed that the scandal was the result of an “unholy alliance” between the Conservative party and a “small group” of Labour MPs... Labour's Paul Farmer, who secured the candidacy for Camborne and Redruth, praised socialist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as “the most elected leader in the world”.  He also suggested that governments did not need to balance the books as they could “always print more money”.  Kate Osborne, who was selected as the Labour party candidate for Jarrow on Saturday, has been criticised for sharing an image of Theresa May with a gun pointing at her head. Liz Kendall, Jess Phillips, Yvette Cooper, Lucy Powell, Cat Smith and Vicky Foxcroft have written to the party’s powerful ruling National Executive Committee demanding action.  In a statement they said: “The impact of such images are clear – they incite intimidation and violence against female politicians.”  The party's candidate for Filton and Bradley Stoke previously attacked the Poppy Appeal saying supporters are backing the “blatant glorification of war”.  Mhairi Threlfall believes the public should wear their poppy if they want to cheer on the “continued legalised mass murder”."

The implosion of Labour is a historic milestone in our politics - "I can remember a number of occasions when major political parties simply fell apart – most commonly after a spectacular defeat – but never before in the opening days of a general election campaign. It is impossible to exaggerate the political significance, not to say the emotional impact, of lifelong Labour stalwarts actually advising their supporters to vote Conservative: to commit, in effect, what would once have been seen as mortal sin. The broadcast news may have tried to present (perhaps in the interests of a confused notion of “balance”?) the cataclysmic testimony from Ian Austin and the resignation of Tom Watson as the electoral equivalent of Jacob Rees Mogg’s infelicitous phrasing. But even the BBC seemed to get it in the end. Somehow the story “Top Tory Inadvertently Says Something Tasteless”, didn’t quite match up to the extraordinarily moving testimony of a man who had been devoted, man and boy, to the Labour cause – and now felt morally compelled to renounce it. This is not just a campaign mishap. It is a historic milestone in our national politics. The major Opposition party is no longer functional. The governing party – whatever your view of it – is the only credible one that can be supported.This is the view not only of the high-profile figures who have resigned from Labour but of a large number of those who will continue to run and campaign for the party with varying degrees of despair and desperation – quite a few of them scarcely bothering to conceal their hope that the Corbyn junta will be crushed by a massive election defeat... What Corbyn and his more hard-headed comrade, John McDonnell, are advocating is the programme of the British communist (not Trotskyist) movement. The headline plans include renationalising private industries with compensation to shareholders decided arbitrarily by the government rather than at market value, which is to say the state seizing the means of production on whatever terms it chooses.There will be the introduction of taxes on assets (like private homes) as well as income, which amounts to the seizure of individual savings and the financial security they provide. Then there is the apparent intention to eliminate the existence of billionaires from the country – which effectively exports all their tax liability to some other jurisdiction, thereby losing vast amounts of revenue that might have been spent on, as Mr McDonnell would say, our Northern infrastructure... Under a Labour government, employees would have a legal right to choose (not to “request” – to choose) their hours of work.Seriously enforced, this would produce such ungovernable chaos that the efficient management of businesses would be virtually impossible. But the problems of running a business are precisely not what Labour wants to be seen as understanding.Private bosses are the class enemy... the Corbyn-McDonnell doctrine rejects free market economics precisely because it creates mass prosperity – which it always describes as “greed”. In fact, individual prosperity offers the possibility of self-determination: the freedom to move on, to escape the passivity and defeatism of poverty... ut that argument would cut no ice with the McDonnell-ites because they aren’t champions of individual freedom which depends on having choices. They are advocating clear, defining steps toward a command economy as outlined in the essential Stalin-era doctrine of the British communists. Perhaps this explains their bizarre sentimental attachment to Russia.Why on earth, in the post-Soviet age, defend Putin against accusations of attempted assassination in the Salisbury poisoning outrage? (Note to Seamus Milne: you do know that Russia isn’t a socialist country anymore, right?) I suppose old loyalties die hard.Oddly, Corbyn seems to have the same soft spot for Putin as Donald Trump"

Labour would ban billionaires, says prominent Corbyn supporter - "Lloyd Russell-Moyles, the MP for Brighton Kemptown, signalled a Corbyn government would “redistribute” the assets of the most wealthy.Citing “tax-dodgers” and “bad landlords”, he told the Emma Barnett Show: “I don’t think anyone in this country should be a billionaire”... The radical stance appears to have the backing of the party leadership, with a Labour source saying last night: “Every billionaire is a policy failure.“We will put wealth and power in the hands of the many not the few.”It came as Mr Corbyn launched Labour’s election campaign along traditional class lines, seeing to set up the contest as a choice between the struggling and the well off."
The Labour way of achieving equality - cut down people at the top, so they're as badly off as people at the bottom

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Election campaigns - "‘Will Boris Johnson apologize today for making the same promise repeatedly and failing to deliver it?’
‘I think most people listening to this are thinking, actually it's quite clearly Parliament that's failed to deliver it. He after all, did absolutely everything in his power to get Parliament to come to its  senses and Parliament... went about deciding not to vote for the program motion... unless you want us to start breaking the law that Parliament sets, there’s just nothing that you can do when Parliament is so dithering and delaying’...
'The truth is that the country voted to leave. I think it took the establishment by surprise, certainly took Parliament by surprise, who'd voted overwhelmingly to have that referendum and to honour it and then decided not to when push came to shove'...
[On Diane Abbott] ‘You are someone who in the last election received almost half of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs, more than 10 times as much as we received by any other female MP, according to a study that was done by Amnesty International.’...
‘The huge rise in online abuse and obviously, it's addressed more than anybody else has to do the anonymity online. And my view is, we should make it harder for people to be anonymous online. They can have an anonymous identity. But the website, twitter, facebook should have their real name and address… I believe that the fact that people are completely anonymous has made this problem worse. When we try, when the police try and track down people abusing me, they find they can’t identify them. If Twitter, Facebook and online had the people's real name and address, I think we'd be able to crack down on this much more.’"
Yet another reason Labour is a horrible choice for the UK

Labour conference approves motion to extend free movement - "Labour conference has approved a radical policy motion advocating the extension of free movement, the closure of all detention centres and the awarding of equal voting rights to all UK residents... In the UK, full voting rights are currently limited to citizens of the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries. EU citizens living in the UK can vote in local and European elections, but not general elections.The motion seeks to instruct the next Labour government to change the situation, such that non-EU and non-Commonwealth citizens are awarded the right to vote in all elections. Nondiscriminatory national voting rights are rare, with New Zealand being a notable exception."

I’m glad the Tories filibustered the youth vote bill. If we can’t trust 16-year-olds with a pint, why should we trust them with a vote? - "a private members’ bill introduced by Labour MP’s, seeking to reduce the voting age to 16, got its second reading in the House of Commons. As well as Labour, it received the backing of the Liberal Democrats, Green Party, SNP and Plaid Cymru, and was championed by such luminaries as Vince Cable and Lord Adonis.The Tories filibustered the debate, meaning that there was no time for a vote on the voting age being reduced to 16. However, the question remains as to why left-leaning parties are so determined to let under-18s vote.It has been touted as something to bring younger people into society earlier, giving them a say over their futures, recognising they can be responsible. But rather than welcome this idea, the public should view it with real caution. Though it appears a liberal policy to widen the reach of democracy, the reality is that it is patronising and opportunistic.Though wanting 16-year-olds to vote, the parties arrayed in favour of it remain staunchly opposed to legalising a raft of other things they currently cannot do. Below the age of 18, it is illegal for people to smoke, vape, drink alcohol, buy fireworks, knives, gamble, get a tattoo or even use a sun bed. You cannot inherit money, nor can you buy a house. Below the age of 17, of course, you also cannot drive, whilst until you are 18 you can’t be sent to an adult prison. None of the parties plan on changing that any time soon, whilst plenty of government bodies actively encourage raising some of these age limits. How can it be that a 16-year-old is mature enough to make head or tail of complex political decisions, but immature enough to be prevented from buying a pint, learning to drive a car, getting on the property ladder, or just getting a tan? If 16-years-olds are to be allowed to vote like adults, they should receive all the other freedoms voting adults receive... If political parties distrust the young so much, why are they so keen to give them the vote? The answer is the same as why they want to keep them away from drink and fireworks: they think they’re immature, making them easier to mislead... Young people vote overwhelmingly for left wing parties and policies, so it’s no wonder these parties want to give 1.5 million more of them the vote. Cable, Adonis and Labour’s Jim McMahon see them as easy prey, in much the same way as Jeremy Corbyn did at the last election, with his promise to reduce tuition fees, or Nick Clegg when he promised to oppose raising them. In both cases, the politicians went back on their word, but no doubt, come the next election, the same impossible bribes will be dangled in front of them again. If Labour and the Lib Dems seriously thought these people were mature enough, they’d never dare to mislead voters in such a way. This isn’t empowering, it’s child exploitation. Giving youngsters a vote doesn’t involve them in society. By accident or design, most are blissfully naive about politics. It is, in fact, a trick to give paternalistic politicians more power over the young. All that will happen is that they’ll be screwed by the same politicians – they just won’t be able to drown their sorrows afterwards."

BBC World Service - The World This Week, Iran in the crosshairs - "[On the Labour Party and people leaving] So, Tom Watson, well, he says it wasn't for political reasons. But I mean, clearly, the fact that he is seen as being on the moderate anti Corbin wing of the Labour Party is not a great look. And then of course, you had somebody else leaving the party, a former MP, saying that Jeremy Corbyn was completely unfit to lead the country. You also had Britain's most famous newspaper for the Jewish community, urging non Jews to look at Labour's record on anti semitism. I mean, you just couldn't make this stuff up. What you can point to is Mr. Corbyn’s standing in the opinion polls, and they suggest that he is the most unpopular leader of Her Majesty's opposition since polling of that question began. And I suspect a number of things have happened since the last general election in 2017. I think number one, there are these allegations of anti semitism that come one after another, and from the people inside the party, people leaving the party with great emotion after the treatment that they have received. But I think it also comes because in the last two years, I guess an awful lot of people who've been watching the political process, and my goodness there’s been lots to watch. And maybe thought actually, given the extraordinary difficulties of two conservative governments, Mr. Corbyn, they would think, hasn't provided a very forensic critique. And I think all of that has combined to really damage him"
Yet online it's like Labour supporters are living in a different universe, claiming anti-Semitism is made up by right wing tabloids etc

Jeremy Corbyn on Twitter "Boris Johnson does not care about violence on our streets. #Marr #Ridge"

Jeremy Corbyn has blood on his hands from IRA support, former terrorist says - "A former IRA terrorist said Jeremy Corbyn's support for the group gave its members "great encouragement" and claimed the Labour leader and shadow chancellor John McDonnell have "blood on their own hands". Sean O'Callaghan said the support of the Labour leader and Mr McDonnell had "made it easier" for the republican terror group to carry out atrocities."

Right Wing Political Bible - Posts - "Conservative's mental gymnastics:
Brexit means Brexit
Lib Dem's mental gymnastics:
Fuck your democracy
Labour's mental gymnastics:
We accept the result
But we'll block all attempts to leave
Get a better deal and hold another referendum
Allow foreign nationals the right to vote
And campaign to remain"
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