Tag: Lib Dems

CAN LABOUR STOP A LANDSLIDE?

 

CHANCE TO VOTE FOR SOCIALISM!

Since 1983, socialists have craved a red meat Labour manifesto that they could vote for. Now is the chance for them to come out in their millions and ensure that Mrs May doesn’t achieve a landslide.

Labour has improved its poll rating since the election was called, but the gap remains large. There are many attractive features in the manifesto around energy prices, housing, university fees, nationalising the railways and world peace. Labour is tapping into a feeling that business and the rich should contribute more. After all it is ordinary people who have been paying for the excesses that caused the crash in 2008.

But the party remains vulnerable on the cost of it all. Salford MP Rebecca Long-Bailey is the Shadow Business Secretary, and touted by some as a future leader of the party. She will need to do better than in a radio interview on the manifesto launch day. She was asked how the ending of the benefits freeze, not raising the retirement age beyond 66 and scrapping the housing benefits cap was going to be paid for. In each instance, she casually said they would be subject to review when Labour was in government. It isn’t good enough. The party knew the Tory hawks would be looking for unfunded promises, but Corbyn has gambled that his vision for a socialist Britain will pay off.

Meanwhile the transformation of the Tory Party from an organisation run by posh boys to one where strong and stable Theresa is in charge is well under way. Pledges on workers rights, council house building and intervention in the energy market may seem brazenly opportunistic, but the Prime Minister has forged a link with northern working class people that may pay off spectacularly.

This is because the Regressive Alliance bringing the Tories and UKIP together was demonstrated in the recent local elections, whilst the Progressive Alliance of all those parties representing the centre left isn’t working so far. The rallying point should be around the Lib Dems call for a second EU referendum. Leader Tim Farron should stick to that. Putting the legalisation of cannabis in the manifesto just plays to his enemies stereotyping of the party.

SNAP ELECTION HISTORY.

What does post war history tell us about surprise General Elections? The story is mixed for incumbent Prime Ministers. Clement Attlee came a cropper when, having won narrowly in 1950, he called another election the following year to increase his majority and lost to Winston Churchill. As soon as Anthony Eden succeeded Churchill, he successfully went to the country in 1955 to get his own mandate, a course not followed by Gordon Brown when he took over from Tony Blair in 2007.

Harold Wilson performed the double election trick twice. He increased a small majority in 1964 to a large one in 1966. Then in February 1974 Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath went to the country in a similar manner to Theresa May seeking a specific mandate. Heath’s was to defeat the miners. He lost and Wilson, after a summer of minority government, gained a slim overall majority in the autumn.

More recently the Lib Dems could have refused to serve in a coalition in 2010 but the fear always was that David Cameron would have formed a minority government and won an overall majority in a quick return to the polls.

Would he have done? Will Mrs May’s landslide gamble pay off? We shall soon know.

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STARMER THE APPEASER

 

The Prime Minister has been called an appeaser for her closeness to Donald Trump. That is a result of this country’s desperate search for new friends now that we are shunning our 27 partners in Europe.

So, while Labour are hurling insults with 1930’s echoes in them at Mrs May, let’s see if the same cap fits on Kier Starmer. He’s the Brexit spokesman for Labour. They’ve been assuring us during the passage of the bill triggering our exit from the EU that, whilst respecting the vote to Leave, they would fight hard for concessions. One of these was to get the government to have a vote in parliament at the end of the negotiations with a view to sending Mrs May back to the negotiating table if MPs found the deal unsatisfactory.

What happened in the Commons on Tuesday was frankly an embarrassment and shows the poor quality of Labour’s front bench. As soon as the government announced there would be a vote, Starmer hailed it as a significant victory. All we needed was for him to hold a piece of paper above his head, Neville Chamberlain style, and the image would have been complete. This is because it rapidly became clear that all the government was offering was approval of the package or an exit from Europe with no deal which few would vote for.

A Labour MP last week, who’s a friend, was gently chiding me last week for my view that there should have been a united front by Labour, the SNP and Lib Dems behind a second referendum. Labour’s way was better I was told. Well it clearly isn’t. Labour are constantly being pushed aside and divided by a Tory government where Brexit extremists are making all the running.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Claire Perry, the Conservative MP for Devizes. She said in the debate that she felt she was sitting beside jihadists on the Tory benches for whom no Brexit is hard enough. Their view was “be gone you evil Europeans and don’t darken our doors again.”

One can trace the ascent of this extremism in the Tory Party by listening to Ken Clarke, the only Tory to vote against the bill in principal last week. When he entered parliament in 1970, such people were still clinging on to the British Empire and denounced one nation Conservatives like Iain Macleod for giving away the colonies.

For a while they became less significant as Ted Heath took us into the Common Market and then Margaret Thatcher signed up to the Single Market. Soon after that the tide turned with the very same Margaret Thatcher doing a U turn. They then harried John Major into the biggest defeat the Tories had suffered in decades. In opposition, the scepticism grew and back in government they forced a weak David Cameron to allow a referendum with a ludicrous in/out option. Even though it was narrowly carried, they show no respect for that and are now hell bent on a hard Brexit.

The only choice for Labour was to back the Lib Dems clear position of a second referendum but centre left sectarianism triumphed and there is total disarray in the face of a skilful Prime Minister leading her hard line Brexiteers.

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EU TRIGGER FIRED….NOW THE REALITY.

 

OVER THE EDGE

as like the old days in the House of Commons this week. I observed MPs debating till midnight, the corridors full of people, Whips working overtime. They need not have worried. The vote to take us out of the European Union was easily passed as we moved from being a representative democracy to a plebiscitary one. Perhaps next we could have a referendum on hanging. That could bring us into line with Donald Trump’s America and its position on capital punishment.

The Donald may soon be at Westminster on a State Visit if the government ignore the will of the people. Two million petition signatories oppose it, nearly the same as the margin that will take us out of the EU. But there are times to pray in aid the people’s view and times to ignore it.

There were some impressive speeches in the two-day debate that triggered article 50. The chamber was well attended hour after hour. But for me the most significant proceedings took place in a committee room on Wednesday. Sir Ivan Rogers was the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU until he resigned in January amid suggestions he was opposed to Brexit.

He faced the European Scrutiny Committee which was stuffed with arch Eurosceptic MPs waiting to get their teeth into this example of the smug European elite that have been ruling us for decades. Actually, by the end of proceedings even Sir Bill Cash, who’s devoted his life to achieve what happened in the Commons this week, had to thank Sir Ivan for what he had said.

Why was that? Well the former envoy gave a very skilful performance. He insisted he was the servant of his political masters but he also spelt out some hard truths that those who are caught up in the euphoria of triggering Article 50 need to think about.

Sir Ivan is steeped in the workings of the EU and pleaded with MPs to understand the mindset of the 27 countries as they approached these Brexit negotiations. They were alarmed, saddened and bewildered by the decision. The UK has put a bomb under the current 5 year carefully crafted EU budget. For instance, one Eastern European country would see 12% cut from its structural funding budget. Promises made to its people would be broken.

Although there was clamour to get on with it, Sir Ivan suggested talks might not get properly underway until after the French elections. Then there is the huge issue of whether the divorce talks can run in parallel with the discussions on future treaty arrangements.

There is a big agenda just separating from the EU, never mind the future. Among the issues, the status of EU nationals in Britain and Europe, the location of UK based EU institutions, the status of international treaties dependent on our EU membership and most contentious of all the financial settlement. There have been suggestions this is £30bn covering matters like our final budget settlement and pension payments.

Discussion of what comes after may have to wait till all that is settled. Then there will be the whole question of giving us a worse deal than a member of the EU to preserve its existence. This was all too much for Manchester Labour MP, the Eurosceptic Graham Stringer. He wanted to know what would happen if we quickly concluded that no deal was possible and we just walked away.

Sir Ivan said the consequences could be very serious. For instance, British medicines could not be sold in Europe because all the underpinning regulatory structures would no longer exist.

With Labour all over the place, it is only the Lib Dems offering a clear line that whatever comes out of these negotiations, must be put to the British people giving us a chance to think again.

 

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HOUSING ROW EXPOSES DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT IN GREATER MANCHESTER

 

 

CITY REGION NEEDS DIRECTLY ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES.

 

Andy Burnham is right. The Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) has been top down rather than bottom up. This dry sounding document is set to make serious inroads into the greenbelt in the county for housing development.

One needs to take into account the rampant opportunism that most politicians display ahead of elections; that said the dismay of three of the candidates standing for elected mayor of the Manchester City Region over the housing plan is notable.

There were widespread demonstrations as the consultation period closed with claims that people were unaware of what was being proposed.

There has been an opportunity to put viewpoints on line and there have been drop in sessions across Greater Manchester for people to state their case. However, many feel that the exercise was cosmetic and a product of the Combined Authority, a body mainly consisting of the ten leaders of the councils in the area.

Will the elected mayor change this perception? Will the new post herald an era where there is full democratic debate on issues like housing, the congestion charge and health? The jury is out but talk of making the elected mayor “the eleventh member of the family” suggests that Manchester City Council in particular will want to prevent the elected mayor being truly independent. The model is flawed. District council leaders sit on the Combined Authority with no direct mandate from the people. The Local Enterprise Partnerships are business organisations and strategic bodies like Transport For The North do not open their meetings to the public.

Real devolution requires politicians directly elected for the purpose of making big decisions on housing, transport, skills and health. We have Police Commissioner elections in an area of policy where there is little controversy. Why can’t debate over issues like greenbelt and hospitals be argued back and forth in election campaigns for a regional or sub regional assembly?

There need not be more politicians, the number of district councillors could be cut (Manchester has 96) and replaced with directly elected assembly people.

CENTRE LEFT CIVIL WAR CONTINUES.

I went to the Fabian conference in London last week to see if there was any sign of the Greens, Lib Dems and the anti Corbyn forces getting their act together. I was once more disappointed as they continue to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Amidst self indulgent in fighting, there were small signs that thinking is being done about local deals to allow the strongest of the opposition parties in a particular area to fight the Tories. But mostly people remained in their trenches with the Greens being attacked by Labour for standing a candidate in Copeland where the issue of nuclear power is a key one in the by election.

One red faced Labour purist, Luke Akehurst of Labour First claimed the Lib Dems should pay the price for many elections for going into coalition with the Tories in 2010 rather than support a rainbow coalition under Gordon Brown. Supporting him was Johanna Baxter of Scottish Labour saying she would never work with the SNP. It didn’t seem to occur to them that the rainbow coalition would have needed SNP support to make it remotely stable.

At the same conference, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn made a better speech. He’s hired John Prescott’s son apparently as a writer. Consequently, it had more North of England references than north London for a change. His theme that the system is rigged against ordinary people has potential.

 

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