The second group don't like brown people and think if we're insistent enough they'll let us bring the Empire back again. Fighting against the idea that immigration harms your job, your family and your prospects should be at the very core of what Labour stand for. This "Nige has a a point" capitulation to the far-right agenda on the issue has been disgusting.
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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The second group don't like brown people and think if we're insistent enough they'll let us bring the Empire back again. Fighting against the idea that immigration harms your job, your family and your prospects should be at the very core of what Labour stand for. This "Nige has a a point" capitulation to the far-right agenda on the issue has been disgusting.
I suggest you look at the Blair government's record on immigration policy because basically everything you've written there is nonsense. Miliband's 'controls on immigration' mugs you call 'a disgrace' were a reflection of what had been Labour policy and rhetoric for a decade and a half by that point, thanks largely to Blair.
New Labour's immigration line from 2002 was one of 'Managed Migration'. The Australian-style points system UKIP have campaigned for over the last decade or so was first touted in 2005 as a pre-election policy document by Blair's government. The stated aim of the policy being to 'gain control of borders' and 'manage migration'. Sound familiar?
That policy was fleshed out in 2006 and argued for the creation of a points system based on high-skilled, skilled with job offer, low skilled, students and misc. categories. The IAN act the same year made it more difficult for immigrants to become UK citizens and restricted the right of appeal against immigration rulings. In 2007 the UK Borders Bill proposed giving immigration officers police powers and required that foreign nationals hold a BID (basically an ID card for foreigners). Blair had promised that in a speech to the Labour conference in 2004, vowing that a Labour government re-elected in 2005 would "introduce identity cards and electronic registration of all who cross our borders".
Distrust of the asylum system and of asylum seekers were a hallmark of Blair's domestic policy, to the extent that 'fixing the asylum system' i.e - making it more difficult for asylum seekers to get here and live here, was one of his stated domestic priorities from 2002 onwards. Four acts from 1998 - 2004 were passed specifically to clamp down on asylum claims and restrict the economic activity of those already granted asylum. In the same section of the speech above he also celebrated that "We have cut radically the numbers of failed asylum seekers'" and promised that "by the end of 2005, and for the first time in Britain, we will remove more each month than apply and so restore faith in a system that we know has been abused." Sounds pretty Farage-y doesn't it?
Your last sentence shows a clear lack of knowledge of what Blair actually did when he was in government and the rhetoric he employed, especially after his re-election in 2001. Blair's immigration policy and his rhetoric on asylum/low skilled migrants completely out-flanked the Conservatives on the issue and they were forced to back the whole lot in order to keep face. New Labour's re positioning to the right basically ended the positive vs. critical dichotomy on immigration which existed in mainstream British politics at the time and led to a situation where in the 3 elections between 2005 and 2015 the only party who ran with an unashamedly pro-immigration stance was the Greens, with every other party arguing over the minutiae of which immigrants they'd reject and how they'd do it. The fact that none of them would be able to keep any promise on numbers due to free-movement helped UKIP's case enormously.
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, in fact, they don't like anybody that isn't English.Excellent post. Especially the last part. It baffles me that parties spent so long being hostile to immigration while simultaneously thinking they'd eternally be able to get away with not addressing the issues they were highlighting at all.
Brilliant post.
The second group (in particular the well off ones) tend to favourably perpetuate the scapegoating of immigrants since it diverts the first group from the real underlying causes to their problems - cuts on essential public services, privatisations and tax cuts for the wealthy - ie the same things which keep the gravy train running for them.
You’d be deluded into thinking the right wing bigotry is exclusive to white, working class types, it’s just as prevalent amongst the Tory voting upper echelons, albeit it takes form in a more subtle and indirect manner.
I think that 'right wing bigotry' is the preserve of people further North, like my dad
But, working in London, there are very few of my colleagues and clients, who are pro Brexit.
Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks now comparing Corbyn to Enoch Powell. No agenda here then.
I think that 'right wing bigotry' is the preserve of people further North, like my dad
But, working in London, there are very few of my colleagues and clients, who are pro Brexit.
It really isn't Colin. 3 of the top 5 towns with the highest Brexit voting share we in the South and Kent especially is full of folks with the persuasion you wish to put on Northerner's shoulders exclusively. Shame on you.
London is a bubble. Take a look around.
Frank Field has fecked off.
Wonder if his 'concerns about anti-semitism' will prevent him from joining UKIP?
That depends, are UKIP pro-locking 'unspeakable' families in converted shipping containers or concrete bunkers under the M53?
Well he'd definitely be on the extremist fringe, yeah, but maybe you're right. Britain First's first MP?
Possibly. But, again, are they in favour of letting companies pay disabled employees less than the minimum wage?
I'm pretty sure they're talking about how much work the word 'mentions' is doing in Hadley's woeful tweet. A bit like saying Roy of the Rovers mentions football.
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He has resigned the whip... Not resigned from the party
He says he wants to stand as a Labour MP in the next election... If the party don't allow that (because he has resigned the whip) he says he will stand as an independent labour candidate
He got about 75% if the vote in the last election so not sure how that would split if against an official labour candidate
He'd already lost a vote of no confidence and he's a nasty twat as @Dobba and I were getting at. If the Labour party do have any pretensions of doing the right thing then kicking him out for good is a no brainer.
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Not sure this is right really, Colin. There's an overlap in both directions. Plenty of working class kids end up in middle class professions with almost middle class lives. There's plenty that fall somewhere in between and could easily have connections or a pull to either way. Most that aren't pompous or racist go Labour though, in my experience, and a lot of those I know simply want what's best for most people, which also heavily leans towards Labour.
if we're actually actually averaging them out your brexit voter is a brainworm conservative in retirement home
the average remain voter is an early thirties professional living in their parents attic
the average remain voter is an early thirties professional living in their parents attic
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Has anyone seen Labour Friends of Apar...Israel's response to Netanyahu's speech from Wednesday yet?
Not yet.
Does anyone understand what the whole LFI is really about? Why would there be such a cluster of this particular brand of ambitious/empathy lacking Labour MPs who are all members and spend all day attacking Corbyn?
Seems bizarre that so many of them would be so motivated by that one cause that they’d allow it to overshadow anything else - even handing advantage to the Tories.
Should we believe the conspiracy theories about the Israeli government buying them off?
Can anyone briefly summarise what's going on anyway? I'm barely up to date with this.
Is it the usual backstabbing shithousery and media manipulation winning or something else?
Is it the usual backstabbing shithousery and media manipulation winning or something else?
Frank Field has quit. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.
And the leadership has walked into his trap.
He'll probably trigger a by-election which he will win.
He resigned over anti-Semitism, knowing that the rules of the Party would force him to resign his membership. He chose not to, trying to make the Party look like it cared more about kicking out an MP for 40 years than with dealing with anti- Semitism. Sadly, the leadership walked into the trap.
It always was a mainstream grouping of Labour MPs and Peers designed to strengthen UK-Israeli relations, separate from the JLM, set up after Suez and supporting a two-state solution, the official policy of the Labour Party. Tony Benn was a member, so it did not neatly fit on the left-right division.
Support for Israel does not overshadow anything else. It has been since Corbyn's election to the leadership that real tensions have been brewing between the Corbyn-supporters positions on the Palestinian conflict and the issue of anti-Semitism in the Party.
Just on the LFI again, they have a number of supporters who are in the Shadow Cabinet and others who are supportive of the leadership:
http://www.lfi.org.uk/in-parliament/
Labour Friends of Palestine (set up as a private company), aims to counter the pro-Israel lobby's influence (their words), and includes members such as Chris Leslie and Chuka Umunna. Again, this isn't as easy as a left-right or pro-/anti-Corbyn issue:
https://www.lfpme.org/supporters
There are large numbers of organisations affliated to the Labour Party, many of whom are funded from outside sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisations_associated_with_the_British_Labour_Party
http://www.lfi.org.uk/in-parliament/
Labour Friends of Palestine (set up as a private company), aims to counter the pro-Israel lobby's influence (their words), and includes members such as Chris Leslie and Chuka Umunna. Again, this isn't as easy as a left-right or pro-/anti-Corbyn issue:
https://www.lfpme.org/supporters
There are large numbers of organisations affliated to the Labour Party, many of whom are funded from outside sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisations_associated_with_the_British_Labour_Party
Yeah, just like Simon Danczuk did.
I suspect Labour would take the seat, but Field would be going into any by-election with roughly 30% more of the vote share than Danczuk had, and has served a lot longer. Plus Danczuk (I imagine) was disadvantaged by the fact his eventual challenge as an independent came during the election itself, when the focus was largely on the parties as a whole. Field would struggle to win but would probably stand a better chance of doing so, if only slightly.
His constituency was on the Wirral and he took a job at the Sun. He’s not got a hope in hell of winning as an independent.
I follow politics very closely and couldn’t name you a single policy proposed by Jess Philips or John Mann in the last year aside from the AS issue. If there are any, they’ve been abysmal at letting the electorate know.
Yeah, just like Simon Danczuk did.
Danczuk didn't trigger a by election. He ran as an independent at a GE. And he was a weak candidate and an MP for a fraction of the time of Field.
He does. If we are talking a by-election he does. Labour could pick a useless candidate (such as Dan Carden) and Field has name recognition and local constituency popularity amongst Tories and independents too. It isn't cut and dried.
Well that is fair enough. Although Phillips has campaigned on women's issues and domestic violence in her time in the Commons.
And to be fair to Mann he has been involved in the fight against AS since 2005 and has been consistently outspoken about it since that time. He has got more press now Corbyn is leader but that isn't his fault. He has led campaigns to shed light on child sexual abuse cover ups and has been a prominent Leaver on EU issues.
When the Mail et al make plagiarism stories, i expect credit!
There's definitely a Corbyn apathy now. Aside from his hardcore support who think shit polling, awful party management and an antisemisim row is evidence of him doing a sterling job, but for everyone else there's a sense that he/Labour have become so peripheral to anything that matters that they've just stopped caring. The June Sarpong of political parties - turns up on the telly occasionally discussing issues but nobody's entirely sure what the point of them is.
Imagine if we had an opposition that had its shit together and a leader who's every flaw, mishap and PR disaster wasn't constantly excused as being the fault of everyone else but him.
Imagine if we had an opposition that had its shit together and a leader who's every flaw, mishap and PR disaster wasn't constantly excused as being the fault of everyone else but him.
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Come on, Jess Phillips!
He's under no obligation to call a by election
I suspect he will remain an MP ... Most probably he will stand as an independent in the next ge (in the meantime I suspect he will champion a number of local issues and most probably also call out Corbyn in the commons over Europe and anti semitism repeatedly)
He got about75% if the vote in the last one... Not sure how that will split down if he is up against an official labour candidate