In sticking to his guns over a second referendum on EU membership, Jeremy Corbyn has indicated that he is not afraid of the CUKs, behind the Brexit Party in the polls as they are even in London. It is also clear that the voices of the several parts of the Labour Movement predominantly agree with him.
Nevertheless, every European Election candidate favours a second referendum and would vote Remain. Some of them are friends of mine, but this is politics. Add in today's sentence handed down to Julian Assange, and it is time to send a message. Not least because the usual forces of Lexit have opted to boycott the European Elections, for understandable but mistaken reasons, the way to send that message is to vote for the Brexit Party.
Corbyn has opened up the debate on economic and foreign policy for the first time in a generation. Before the summer of 2015, Britain had an unquestionable State ideology in international affairs and in relation to the architecture of the economy. It was occasionally possible to make a small and probably jocular criticism of the Government. But it was effectively forbidden to criticise the State. Corbyn has brought onto the platform the voices of opposition in principle to politically chosen austerity and to wars of political choice.
Nevertheless, Corbyn has overlooked his supporters by appointing his enemies to front bench and other positions. He has permitted a free vote on Syria. He has whipped an abstention on Trident. He has never brought the arming of the Saudi war in Yemen back to the floor of the House of Commons for another vote. His housing and transport policies go nowhere near far enough. He supports the Government's indulgence of gender self-identification. He sides with neoliberal capitalism on the issues of drugs and prostitution.
He wants a Customs Union with the European Union, possibly even at the price of accepting its State Aid rules. He is open to a second referendum on EU membership under at least some conceivable circumstance, whereas he ought to have ruled it out as a matter of principle. He has accepted some of the Government's baseless and collapsed claims about Salisbury, Amesbury, and Douma.
He has acted against the social and ethnic cleansing of Labour Haringey, but not to secure justice for the 472 Teaching Assistants in Labour Durham. He has failed to prevent the expulsion of distinguished black activists from the Labour Party on trumped up charges of anti-Semitism. He has failed to defend either Kelvin Hopkins or Chris Williamson.
He has walked into the Government's trap over Donald Trump's State Visit, a Visit that is being held purely in order to elicit such responses and thus to shore up what would once have been the Conservative core vote. And he has failed to oppose without compromise any extradition of Assange to anywhere, on any pretext.
So send a signal by voting for the Brexit Party. Labour should have come first this time. But keep it on its toes by making it come second for the fifth time in a row, over 20 years and under four very different Leaders. Beyond that, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.
It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
Corbyn has opened up the debate on economic and foreign policy for the first time in a generation. Before the summer of 2015, Britain had an unquestionable State ideology in international affairs and in relation to the architecture of the economy. It was occasionally possible to make a small and probably jocular criticism of the Government. But it was effectively forbidden to criticise the State. Corbyn has brought onto the platform the voices of opposition in principle to politically chosen austerity and to wars of political choice.
Nevertheless, Corbyn has overlooked his supporters by appointing his enemies to front bench and other positions. He has permitted a free vote on Syria. He has whipped an abstention on Trident. He has never brought the arming of the Saudi war in Yemen back to the floor of the House of Commons for another vote. His housing and transport policies go nowhere near far enough. He supports the Government's indulgence of gender self-identification. He sides with neoliberal capitalism on the issues of drugs and prostitution.
He wants a Customs Union with the European Union, possibly even at the price of accepting its State Aid rules. He is open to a second referendum on EU membership under at least some conceivable circumstance, whereas he ought to have ruled it out as a matter of principle. He has accepted some of the Government's baseless and collapsed claims about Salisbury, Amesbury, and Douma.
He has acted against the social and ethnic cleansing of Labour Haringey, but not to secure justice for the 472 Teaching Assistants in Labour Durham. He has failed to prevent the expulsion of distinguished black activists from the Labour Party on trumped up charges of anti-Semitism. He has failed to defend either Kelvin Hopkins or Chris Williamson.
He has walked into the Government's trap over Donald Trump's State Visit, a Visit that is being held purely in order to elicit such responses and thus to shore up what would once have been the Conservative core vote. And he has failed to oppose without compromise any extradition of Assange to anywhere, on any pretext.
So send a signal by voting for the Brexit Party. Labour should have come first this time. But keep it on its toes by making it come second for the fifth time in a row, over 20 years and under four very different Leaders. Beyond that, another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it.
It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
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