Labour’s splits over Brexit and Corbyn are threatening to spiral out of control

by Trevor Fisher

Brexit has been driven off the front pages by Covid 19. This has created what can only be called The Reality Gap. The real world of the negotiation on the Withdrawal Agreement has been overlaid by the determination of the Johnson administration to walk out on January 1st whatever happens. A sensible government would have extended the deadline until after the Pandemic was beaten, but sense and sensibility are absent in an increasingly unreal world where debate is minimal.

The negotiations are clearly posing serious threats, either of a thin agreement – still the most likely outcome – or a No Deal. The slogan which won the 2019 election of an Oven Ready Deal was never realistic. A deal likely to keep the same terms as the UK now enjoy was not on the table. As the pandemic has done major damage to the British economy, a thin deal could create a major recession. No Deal would be worse. But as the British cannot deal with two major threats at the same time, Brexit has become invisible.

The risks were underlined in mid-November by the BBC report that Felixstowe – Britain’s major container port – was blocked and imports were stranded, some having to go to Rotterdam and come in by other ports. The delays will continue through December and into the New Year – withdrawal is not going to help the situation.

In Kent the lorry access through Dover and the Channel ports after January 1st is so problematic that lorry parks for up to 7000 lorries are being built. For the companies that rely on imports and exports, on top of the pandemic, the financial consequences of the Felixstowe bottleneck are already very serious.

Since problems with trade have such major risks, the Labour Party should be putting all its energies into holding the government to account. Sadly it is in danger of lapsing into civil war over the EHRC report and the removal of the parliamentary whip from Jeremy Corbyn. As this could involve legal action -hopefully this will not happen – any discussion of this is inadvisable and could be sub judice.

Indeed some elements of the Left – including Jon Trickett – believe Labour should apologise for backing a confirmatory referendum and not lining up with Farage, Johnson and Cummings in regarding the 2016 vote as the last word. Their views were set out in an article on Labour List on November 12th demonstrating continued fault lines in the Party over the successful attempt by the Tory Right to split progressive forces. However this does not mean that Labour should ignore the problems coming in six weeks time. Certainly the current internal ructions are a further distraction, and if unions do withdraw election funding the next five months up to the May elections this will threaten the basic function of the Labour Party – to fight and win voter support.

The Party is starting to spiral out of control.

Trevor Fisher was a member of the Labour Coordinating Committee executive 1987-90 and secretary of the Labour Reform Group 1995- 2007. He was a member of the Compass Executive 2007-2009


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79 Responses to “Labour’s splits over Brexit and Corbyn are threatening to spiral out of control”

  1. Alf says:

    Labour is going back to just being Tory-lite. it’s an approach which failed in 2010 and 2015 but it might just work in 2024. Third time lucky! I’m sticking with Labour!

  2. Jojn P Reid says:

    The slogan that won the election. – as if the Tories hadn’t had that slogan labour would have won —- ROFL

    If labour hadn’t had the 2nd referendum for remain where it would get a deal then tell the public to vote against it – and accepted it (it was like moving up with farage)
    So if Corbyns wins his legal case , does this mean it’ll see the return to the party or Roger Godsiff deselected for agreeing with the Muslim parents protesting outside their kids schools they don’t want t their kids taught women have or used snd men who say they’re women can go in their daughters changing rooms
    Or Rod liddle suggesting some of the anti semites in the Labour Party are Muslims? See -kerry Ann Mendoza

    There’s nothing progressive about sneering stuff the working class

    I also see John major saying brexit was sold as a lie
    He lied saying labour were gonna out the basic rate of tax up when we werent to win the 1992 election

    The sneers at labour leavers calling us
    Bigots reactionary
    Is getting in to Godwin’s law

    Territory now

  3. A.J. says:

    On Brexit, it is difficult not to agree with what Trevor Fisher is saying. I’ve always had doubts about Rees-Mogg and his claim that food will be cheaper (although I’m sure he said that before Covid-19 was ever heard of).
    My best mate (since 1977) works from home for a Belgian firm and his business is already being affected (shipping recycled UPVC). He also happens to be married to a woman from a country that is still in the EU and they have two children together. He worries about them, not unnaturally.
    Yet the fact remains, the pro-EU faction can be far too smug for its own good, and seem to me to have drifted far from the idealism of a Roy Jenkins or even Ken Clarke.
    As for the Labour Party, it wandered into the woods and shot itself, twice, once in the foot then in the head, before Paul Embery was a twinkle in his father’s eye. It then wandered out of the woods, still bleeding profusely and suffering terminal brain damage. Jeremy Corbyn would still have been a very young man at this point.
    Anyone who can be bothered might try reading (with an open mind) Kingsley Amis’s piece ‘Why Lucky Jim Turned Right’, first published in, I think, 1970. Amis remained a devotee of Attlee, Bevin and Gaitskell for a while longer, yet began voting for a party he saw as lacking a firm ideology. The ‘Left’ was ‘Woke’ by at least the 1960s. The Labour Party was almost certainly contemptuous of the working class even before then, with their vague mumblings about ‘social justice’ and ‘internationalism’ whilst allowing people to live in sub-standard council housing. Try watching an old episode of ‘Z-Cars’ to see how bleak those council estates looked.
    The so-called ‘Conservative Party’ (probably not truly so since Lord Salisbury) has been scarcely better, but the electorate often sees it as the lesser of two evils. Hardly inspirational but the facts of life nonetheless.

    Time for Labour to lie down, allow its brains to spill on the ground, then hope for a slow recovery.

  4. Ralph Baldwin says:

    Remember the lessons you discussed in the long years following 2010. Of being able to distinguish between the brutal hard left and the soft left. Politics is in flux still with the Conservatives trying to be all things to all people. Politics in the UK and USA is at a crossroads and we cannot afford the luxury of being caught between the binary position of being totally ruthless and ambitious for power without a reason d’etre with a potent long term vision and alternatively being lost in the vain and irrelevant daydreams of Labour in the 1970’s and 1990’s.

    Ambition alone is not enough and neither is looking inwards and neither is closing our minds to the real necessity of our modern time, the necessity of aiming for the stars.

  5. Anne says:

    No, all is not lost. I voted for Starmer, and still believe he is going in the right direction. He was blamed for asking a second referendum prior to the last election – ‘get Brexit done’ slogan gave The Tory Party a big majority. Many of us accepted the decision – let’s get a deal done – we went along with this, but in such a short spell of time there has been much water under the bridge – mainly the pandemic which is still not over. Is it really a good idea now to rush a deal through just for the sake of it, rather than asking for an extension to perhaps get a better deal – even into the customs Union. We, of course know this will never happen – this position does not fit with the British wealth class who are so heavily involved in dodgy off shore dealings and tax avoidance. The timing was wrong to ask for a second referendum- with hindsight and further knowledge of the effects of a no deal the % of people wanting to remain a member of the EU has greatly increased. So what does Labour do – let the country continue to do so much harm to our standing in the world and our economy- the Tory Party must own this disaster – it is of their making.
    Regarding the subject of JC – he must be treated fairly. The good people of Islington north voted him in as a MP and seem more than satisfied with his performance as a Labour MP.

  6. Ralph Baldwin says:

    Worrying times. Country needs Labour go sort itself out.

  7. Dior says:

    Hmm worrying times…Labour needs to soft itself out.

  8. of all the mistakes that is going to destroy Labour, the myth that the next election is 2024 is the easiest to shoot down.

    the Tory manifesto – page 48 – pledges to repeal the fixed term parliament act. It will then call an election.

    The strategy is clear and logical. When it can go early the party has the war chest to take to the ballot box.

    Labour from Starmer down is fixated with 2024

    remember this comment when the election is called. ONly the 1922 committee can stop Johnson going early

    trevor fisher

  9. Tafia says:

    Opinion Polls for November (Westminster Intentions)

    SavantaComRes, 30 Oct-02 Nov
    Con: 40%
    Lab: 40%
    LDem: 7%
    Grn: 3%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 10%

    YouGov, 04-05 Nov
    Con: 35%
    Lab: 40%
    LDem: 7%
    Grn: 4%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 14%

    Survation, 05-06 Nov
    Con: 39%
    Lab: 37%
    LDem: 9%
    Grn: 4%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 11%

    Opinium, 05-06 Nov
    Con: 38%
    Lab: 42%
    LDem: 7%
    Grn: 3%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 10%

    Kantar, 05-09 Nov
    Con: 40%
    Lab: 36%
    LDem: 8%
    Grn: 5%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 11%

    SavantaComRes, 06-09 Nov
    Con: 40%
    Lab: 36%
    LDem: 8%
    Grn: 5%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 11%

    Redfield & Wilton, 11 Nov
    Con: 40%
    Lab: 40%
    LDem: 7%
    Grn: 5%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 8%

    YouGov, 11-12 Nov
    Con: 38%
    Lab: 40%
    LDem: 5%
    Grn: 5%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 12%

    SavantaComRes, 13-15 Nov
    Con: 41%
    Lab: 38%
    LDem: 5%
    Grn: 4%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 12%

    YouGov, 17-18 Nov
    Con: 38%
    Lab: 37%
    LDem: 7%
    Grn: 6%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 12%

    Redfield & Wilton, 19 Nov
    Con: 40%
    Lab: 39%
    LDem: 8%
    Grn: 4%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 9%

    Opinium, 19-20 Nov
    Con: 41%
    Lab: 38%
    LDem: 6%
    Grn: 4%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 11%

    SavantaComRes, 20-22 Nov
    Con: 39%
    Lab: 37%
    LDem: 7%
    Grn: 4%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 13%

    YouGov, 24-25 Nov
    Con: 37%
    Lab: 40%
    LDem: 5%
    Grn: 5%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 13%

    NCPolitics, 20-28 Nov
    Con: 39%
    Lab: 37%
    LDem: 7%
    Grn: 5%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 10%

    DeltaPoll, 26-28 Nov
    Con: 37%
    Lab: 38%
    LDem: 9%
    Grn: 4%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 12%

    SavantaComRes, 27-29 Nov
    Con: 39%
    Lab: 38%
    LDem: 8%
    Grn: 3%
    Oth/DK/WNV: 12%

  10. richard mackinnon says:

    Trevor,
    Nothing to do with a former Labour Prime Minister’s name that thymes with “bear”?

  11. Tafia says:

    Scotland Only

    Survation, 28 Oct-04 Nov, Scotland Only
    IndyRef2
    Yes: 54%, No: 46%
    Westminster
    Not offered
    Holyrood Const/List
    SNP: 54/43%, SCon: 19/17%, SLab: 18/19%, SLDem: 8/7%, SGrn: -/10%, Oth:2/4%

    PanelBase, 05-11 Nov, Scotland Only
    IndyRef2
    Yes: 56%, No: 44%
    Westminster
    SNP: 50%, SCon: 21%, SLab: 20%, SLDem: 5%, Oth: 4%
    Holyrood Const/List
    SNP: 53/46%, SCon: 21/20%, SLab: 18/17%, SLDem: 5/6%, SGrn: 3/8%, Oth:0/3%

    YouGov, 06-10 Nov, Scotland Only
    IndyRef2
    Yes: 51%, No: 49%
    Westminster
    SNP: 53%, SCon: 19%, SLab: 17%, SLDem: 4%, Oth: 7%
    Holyrood Const/List
    SNP: 56/47%, SCon: 19/20%, SLab: 15/13%, SLDem: 6/6%, SGrn: 2/5%, Oth:2/7%

    (**16/17 year olds can now vote in Holyrood elections and the sample is adjusted to contain a representative sample of those ages for the Holyrood figures)

  12. Tafia says:

    Wales

    YouGov, 26-30 Oct, Wales Only
    Westminster
    Lab: 43%, Con: 32%, Plaid: 13%, BXP: 5%, LDem: 3%, Grn: 3%, Oth: 2%
    Senedd, Const/List**
    Lab: 38/33%, Con: 27/24%, Plaid: 20/20%, LDem: 3/4%, BXP: 5/5%, Grn: 3/4%, Oth: 4/10%
    (**16/17 year olds can now vote in Senedd elections and the sample is adjusted to contain a representative sample of those ages for the Senedd figures)

  13. John P Reid says:

    The point of labour is to get elected ,and If labour was that dedicated to supporting labour way then, The way the Traditional WC were treated poorly by the labour party sneering at them feeling they’re thick and racist, thick person as well they’re common and looking corn in them as if they’re not right and should aspire to be our very own Haicaneth Bouquets
    ,labour has to Win the hearts and minds of Those people who live in the red wall,
    Start criticising anti white racism
    Having a level of victimhood ness
    what about working class women isn’t new labour sneering holding them up in contempt, sexist? If labour hate the working class as much they do , it’s not right to say what they’re doing is to do not bother to knock on a door of a poor, But then trying to do what wouldn’t have got the poor to stop voting labour an labour aren’t listening they carry on sneering, What they would actually do is go over and Stop The suggestion how you treated And they’ve never canvassed in seats where the poor are, but the liberals lied, In the years since labour lost the working class( But the liberals they’ve never canvassed in the times since then, The other lot don’t do it either)    

  14. Jojn P Reid says:

    Anne
    If the Tories get brexit done and people over 50 who ken a home think 15 years from one they can retire sell their home by a place in the Shires half the price, they’ll have 300,000 to play around with for the last 15 years of their lives,
    Excluding covid house prices should be the same

    That’s instantly 40% of the vote
    Look at the polls the Combined Farage/ Tory vote for the last year is 44%
    So yes the combined ski den/ Green/ labour / plaid/ SNP is 56%

    Labour need tory votes to win
    Assuming that there’s some plaid/ libdem voters who’d second choice is Tory

    Labour can’t win the next election even with boundary changes not happening
    Labour won’t get back the working class while the London elite think working class Tories are thick and racist

  15. John P Reid says:

    When People say Starmer had marginalised core labour voters, they’re implying its special needs identity politics victims, who consider themselves labours core vote, actually
    Yes Starmer did alienate labours core vote the traditional Working Class who voted Brexit who, were put off by the 2nd referendum for remain, the only reason labour added the 2nd referendum for remain in the 2019 Gen Election was so many Identity politics victims( mostly Middle class) were saying we’ll vote green unless you give us a 2nd Referendum for remain

  16. A.J. says:

    In ‘The Spectator’: ‘Why Is Labour Sticking Up For Foreign Criminals’?

    I would suggest Boris Johnson could take a decisive step to the right over an issue like this. Labour has a track record of absolute stupidity.

  17. A.J. says:

    A good deal of balls at the moment, even from the likes of Malone in the ‘Daily Express’, about the so-called ‘Windrush Generation’. A huge amount more balls – needless to say – from certain thick Labour figures defending black criminals. Sends out all the right signals to the white working class, doesn’t it? Asylum-seekers on the one hand, illegal immigrants on the other, all attracting the usual luvvie love-in. I don’t have a huge amount of time for Patel but she seems to be made of the right stuff on this issue and my Conservative MP might get my vote next time round if Patel displaces Johnson.

  18. Tafia says:

    So, Mayor Joe Anderson released on bail. I notice one of the other 4 is described as “a 72-year-old man”

    On other matters, I notice that well known Liverpool Militant and property developer Derek Hatton was born in 1948.

  19. So-so says:

    About polling and Scotland… Nicola Sturgeon now has higher approval rating than BoJo and Starmer IN ENGLAND. Basically she is the most popular politician in the UK right now.

  20. A.J. says:

    Just looking at the latest drivel on – ‘Squawkbox’, is it called? What kind of mental case, even on the Left, could conjure up a name like that? Apparently Stormzy, Rayner, Miliband, Lammy etc. should have added their names to the assorted list of fruitcakes, including – yawn, yawn – Corbyn, Burgon and Abbott. Also the dippy Layla Moran and Caroline Lucas. Seems to sum up perfectly the present demeanour of a substantial section of the so-called ‘Labour Party’ and some of its goofy fellow travellers. They will already be feigning surprise and outrage at Millwall fans but eagerly looking forward to the ‘Vicar Of Dibley’, in which the impartial BBC will allow Dawn French to ‘take the knee’. More seriously, they will be ‘alarmed’ and ‘outraged’ when some ‘far-right’ organization like the National Front once again begins to make threatening noises.

  21. A.J. says:

    My wife has seen a bit of this ‘You Might Not Be A Racist But Are You An Anti-Racist?’ drivel floating about. She has yet, however, being still weakened from the after-effects of breast cancer, to seize a placard from the back of the cupboard and ran amok with it in our quiet little market-place. How long before Clive Lewis asks the police to knock on the door and ‘check our thinking’?
    BLM-Windrush-‘hostile environment’. Any thoughts? Surely there must be a Jamaican radical trans activist with high blood pressure who can be written up by Owen Jones? If there isn’t I’m sure Jones and Toynbee can get together with their counterparts on ‘The Independent’ and invent something in time for Christmas.

  22. A.J. says:

    Returning to Mr.Fisher’s article, we seem to be witnessing the usual French arrogance and stupidity – and it hurts me to say that because I love France, what I’ve seen of it, almost as much as I love Italy – and a certain amount of German pragmatism. Who can possibly be surprised? The French, however, are pretty good at taking care of themselves, and De Gaulle was probably right to try and block we stroppy Anglo-Saxons from entering the Common Market. Now, the sooner we’re done with it all the better. The impression I get – even from my EU-tolerant mate – is that the faults lie mainly with the UK. And I don’t – can’t – buy that, not when observing the likes of Junker, Barnier and Tusk. I’ve never been a fundamentalist over leaving (unlike my wife) but I think we were unwise to become involved whilst we were still harping on about the ‘Commonwealth’ AKA the long-lost areas of imperial influence. Trying to ride two horses at once.
    Now Gordon Brown is sticking his unwanted nose in again!

  23. John P Reid says:

    A year in from The most ridiculous manifesto,
    The labour manifesto policy of having a second referendum with remain on the ballot paper wouldn’t mean anything to reverse article 50 would of taken ages so there then could’ve been a proposal to have a third referendum
    And then to be neutral
    Isnt taking a position it’s standing to say it didn’t have a policy

  24. Tafia says:

    Len McCluskey tells Times Radio:-

    “Everybody wants Brexit done and the quicker we get it out of the way the better. The uncertainty that exists is damaging all of the major companies that I deal with.”

  25. Rallan says:

    The first two paragraphs of this article are foolish, inaccurate and arrogant.

    An electorally suicidal government would have extended the deadline. The Oven Ready Deal was the Withdrawal Agreement which came into effect in January 2020. A deal likely to keep the same terms as the UK now enjoy has been repeatedly rejected by the electorate since 2016. The British actually can deal with two major threats at the same time, but not with sneering lefties talking down to them.

    I stopped reading after the first two paragraphs. You totally deserved to lose in 2019.

  26. A.J. says:

    The Left have been having a lovely time over the past few days, what with the only partially-successful deportation of foreign criminals, a heaven-sent opportunity for grandstanding over Millwall fans being pissed off over virtue-signalling on the hallowed turf and the ongoing face-off between the UK and the French over fishing and whatever else Macron fancies causing a nuisance about. I’m sure things, as someone once said, can only get better.
    As for the ‘centrists’ (or whatever they choose to call themselves) there has been a silence like Siberia over more or less everything. So, business as usual.
    There was a bright spot, though, when apparently some TV personality (not Gary Lineker for a change, mercifully) advised Tony Blair to find himself a retirement home. Perhaps Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson could be persuaded to join him there, and they can have discussions until twilight over whether they are ‘racist’ or ‘anti-racist’.

  27. A.J. says:

    Hilarious nonsense from someone called Nesrine Malik in ‘The Guardian’ (let us not forget, the quality newspaper that told its readership there would be no war in 1914) today, not only concerning the alleged inadequacies of President-Elect Biden but also emptying a small bucket of shit over Barack Obama (‘disappointing’ – well, we tried telling you at the time) before moving on to tell us that the likes of Kemi Badenoch have been ‘recruited’ to the cause of shoring up white privilege. Oh. I wondered what was going on.
    How interesting it must be to write for a newspaper that is consistently on the wrong side of each and every argument, never saying anything plausible or interesting, simply parroting the fashionable nonsense of the moment.
    Priti Patel, aren’t you ashamed of yourself for being Home Secretary, when you could be making tea for Clive Lewis?

  28. A.J. says:

    A new song for Labour to sing at party gatherings:

    ‘No-one likes us, we don’t care…’

  29. A.J. says:

    Gosh, somebody called Julian Coman in ‘The Guardian’ is almost talking sense about the trials and tribulations of the modern Left AKA the Labour Party. He’s even read Paul Embery’s book, parts of which he describes as ‘glib’. Fat chance, though, of anyone sitting up and taking notice. Coman had previously imagined that the future for Labour was in embracing ‘diversity’- blacks, gays etc. etc. come one, come all, definitely calculated to appeal to the kind of working class young men I went to school with, who once voted Labour because granddad did but finally drifted off in the direction of UKIP, Boris Johnson or simply not bothering and going to the pub instead.
    Next up: Polly Toynbee finds virtue in Brexit and Blue Labour.

  30. A.J. says:

    Away from Corbyn and Brexit, it was interesting this morning to find a Millwall supporter in ‘The Guardian’ and Richard Littlejohn in the ‘DM’ both spouting nonsense about BLM and ‘racism’. People have already made up their minds after what happened in places like Bristol during the summer.

    Wonder what Harry The Dog would have made of it all.

  31. A.J. says:

    Is anybody at all cheered by these latest opinion polls, considering that polling is being constantly criticized both here and in the USA? It’ll be interesting to see what happens in Scotland next year.
    The Corbyn business seems to have gone quiet – but wasn’t some kind of deadline set for December 10th?

  32. A.J. says:

    A Tory ‘attack’ on Human Rights. Gosh. Or is it just David Lammy making a cock of himself as usual? Back in the early 80s, when the younger, more liberal me was doing a bit for Amnesty International (and looking for any fit women at the same time), Human Rights was about torture and detention without trial. That sort of thing, you know, that tended to take place in countries where the notion of individual liberty didn’t carry much weight. Now, of course, the violation of your ‘uman rights is when someone kicks up a fuss about you thinking you can commit a crime because of the colour of your skin. Never mind, some white idiot will always promote your cause (and doubtless donate their fat fee to some worthy cause).
    They have a saying in Jamaica:
    De law don hang
    De cops don bang
    Lock em up
    Not lang

    The UK is seen as being a good place to do your business.

    Even the ‘Daily Telegraph’ is providing space for Lammy to his bit of showboating.

  33. A.J. says:

    I fear there will be little to celebrate this Christmas, and what there may be will be reflected through the prism of our increasingly puerile media. This government dearly deserves to lose the next General Election – for a number of reasons – but will Labour deserve to win it? No. Nor, very likely, will they.
    I wonder what the Northern Irish Unionists are making of the proposal to allow EU officials permission to play and roam in their backyard? As usual, I suppose, no-one on the mainland cares much about what happens in what is all too often regarded as a foreign country, in spite of anything Enoch Powell may have said to the contrary.

  34. A.J. says:

    It was once said of Anthony Eden that he planned the invasion of the Suez zone because he wanted to prove he had a real moustache. Now, it appears, Priti Patel is keen to persuade us she’s wearing the Iron Lady’s knickers, by wanting to hand extra powers to the police to crack down on anyone who disagrees with her. This should provide ammunition for the lawyers on the Labour benches to bang the drum for civil liberties as opposed to going in for the usual turgid showboating. Don’t hold your breath.

    Ironic, considering the current ongoing position with the Jews, that Tony Benn once compared Enoch Powell with the NSDAP. The Starmer/Corbyn stand-off seems to have gone rather quiet. Is a Christmas truce in the offing?

  35. A.J. says:

    ‘The Guardian’ today (9th December) shows what a worthwhile newspaper it can still sometimes be (they are lucky to have Simon Jenkins writing for them) by publishing two articles suggesting that the so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats may have slipped from Labour’s grasp for good; including Leigh.
    I’ve just been enjoying a biography of Enoch Powell. The author, a former Conservative MP (not a Powellite) provides strong evidence that Labour was already losing working class voters during Harold Wilson’s time (after the 1966 GE), at least partly (possibly strongly) because of immigration. Trevor Fisher, who I think is something of an admirer of Wilson, may well have a view on this.
    When I lived in Stoke South, on the other hand, I came across Tories who voted for Jack Ashley (a very popular MP), just as I did Tories in Derby North who voted for Philip Whitehead.
    Interesting that Enoch Powell called the Conservative Party a ‘hollowed-out shell’ by 1974-5.
    Voters in the north still seem inclined to give Boris Johnson the benefit of the doubt.
    Starmer is only cutting through in a very limited way and memories of Corbyn are not yet fading. I suspect many northern Brexiteers will reject Starmer at the ballot box, even though he should be unafraid to project his point of view on the EU and our forthcoming relationship with those people. He must take his chances, I suppose, like anyone else in his position. A difficult figure to warm to, though – ‘looks as though he’s prosecuting a murder case’.
    I still think Bridget Phillipson should stand at the ready, possibly backed by David Lammy.

  36. A.J. says:

    Many who write in ‘The Guardian’ (and, I would hazard a guess, the so-called ‘Independent’) seem addicted to the use of the word ‘populism’. Owen Jones uses it at least once today, Timothy Garton Ash at least twice, whilst attacking not only the UK (or, rather, something called the ‘Conservative’ or ‘Tory’ Party) but also the leaders of Poland and Hungary. Both Jones and Garton Ash doubtless roost in fairly comfortable ivory towers – albeit Jones is a bit of a nerd and Garton Ash is an intellectual who is occasionally worth reading.
    The left-wing consensus, though, appears to be something along the lines of: only racist, ‘populist’ right wingers voted in the referendum of 2016; nothing to do with us or our mates on the Corbynite wing of the Labour Party, guv, honest to God. Now, it is all the fault of that shifty so-and-so Boris Johnson and his far right stormtroopers. Oh dear.
    My best friend’s late father used to claim that de Gaulle was the best friend Britain ever had. Heath is saying something rather similiar in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ this morning. Should we ever have become involved to begin with? Evidence suggests that a more Whiggish Conservative Prime Minister very much wanted post-imperial Britain still to be part of ‘something big’. Then why not the entire world? Most Labour figures who counted were, of course, anti-EEC, Common Market or whatever you choose to call it – Attlee and Gaitskell to begin with. Even Enoch Powell changed his mind, shifting from pro to anti. As for Margaret Thatcher…
    But ‘The Guardian’ continues to clutch at straws, as if hoping that the ground can still be cut from beneath Johnson’s feet. I wonder how it must feel to be a journalist on the wrong side of virtually every argument.

  37. A.J. says:

    The ‘Daily Mail’ today reports what ‘The Guardian’ was onto yesterday (although, to be fair, ‘The Guardian’ is given a mention) concerning the so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats. Does anyone imagine that issuing a ‘Northern Manifesto’ would impress anyone who has seen the disappearance of their corner shop, post office, local pub, local market etc. etc.? But then we have – apparently – the impudence of a supposedly ‘Conservative’ government pursuing a ‘Green’ agenda which involves telling people to cut meat and dairy products from their diet. We devourers of a full Scottish breakfast – steak sausages, polony, black pudding – would rather die of heart disease than risk a warning letter from the NHS. I detect Gove’s hand at the back of this.
    More likely, by 2024 (if that’s when the next General Election is held) the so-called ‘Conservative’ and ‘Labour’ Parties, plus God knows how many others, will be competing for a dwindling number of votes as people decide they’d rather watch Netflix than trudge to the polling station to wield a stubby pencil. There’s your choice: a ‘Northern Manifesto’ promising more in the way of ‘diversity’ or Johnson’s ‘Green’ agenda, promising more in the way of ‘diversity’. I’m even thinking of taking up smoking again, just to have some handy weapon with which to poke the Woke in the eye.
    Mostly whoops of delight from the ‘Daily Mail’ readership, all sitting comfortably inside Paul Embery’s new echo-chamber. But all a weakened Labour Party achieves is ensuring an inept ‘Conservative’ Party carries on gaining big majorities. No decent government, no effective Opposition. If Labour should lose five times in a row, the Party must surely reinvent itself in some other guise. But how? That long talked-about ‘Rainbow Coalition’? (Was that Hobsbawm?) Of course, that would be no guarantee of anything other than electoral disaster, either, but at least it would bring together a good many disaffected on the Centre Left. The current ‘Labour Party’ is nothing but a shadow of a shadow of its former self. Try asking the good people of Leigh instead of Islington.

  38. A.J. says:

    Far from Labour ‘spiralling out of control’ the Party seems to be winding down for Christmas, doubtless looking collectively forward to the ‘Vicar Of Dibley’. Does anyone actually find Dawn French funny or in any way talented? But the sound and fury over her character ‘taking the knee’ etc. signifies nothing much. Most clergymen I’ve ever known – not to mention their wives – would do exactly that, particularly if they thought they had an appreciative audience. Woke before it became fashionable, I dare say.
    I thought today was supposed to be some kind of deadline for Starmer to announce ‘robust strategies’ or some other cock for dealing with the anti-Jewish zealots that still infest ‘his’ Party. No? As for Brexit, might he not have enjoyed tucking into the steamed turbot with the rather attractive Ursula?

  39. A.J. says:

    A lot of arrests announced in Yorkshire. Not before time. Now we wait to see which Labour MP is the first to make a complete idiot of themselves as a post-script to the recent Jamaican stupidity. Well done, though, to those Labour MPs who stood their ground against the bullies.

  40. A.J. says:

    I suspect Joe Anderson and Chris Bryant, each in their different way, have done Labour a power of good. Anderson is a character straight out of central casting – like McCluskey. Each would make a great GRU colonel. Did I read somewhere that Derek Hatton had also had his collar felt? He was another – like his mate Mulhearn – who guaranteed that Neil Kinnock would get nowhere near Downing Street in 1987. Mass expulsions all round in time for Christmas, please, Keir! – and a cooling-off period for Bryant. Mind you, Hoyle is a bore…

  41. A.J. says:

    The ‘Conservative’ and ‘Labour’ parties. The political equivalent of a pack of Richmond sausages.

  42. A.J. says:

    Speaking of Covid-19 – which Trevor Fisher was – the right-leaning papers are having a lovely time telling its readership the stupidities of the moment are unprecedented in British history, e.g. the Covid Marshal and the scotch eggs in Norfolk. But has Richard Littlejohn never heard of Cooper’s Snoopers, which made the lives of diners and caterers a misery during World War Two? And that was under a coalition government made up, as we know, of the likes of Churchill, Attlee, Ernie Bevin, Herbert Morrison etc. etc. Truth is, I think, the concept of civil liberties in the UK is of greater fragility than the man on the Clapham omnibus might suppose. 1914 was, as the kids say, something of a ‘game-changer’. Any frequent pubgoer will tell you that as he lays a curse upon Lloyd George.

  43. A.J. says:

    I see little chance of the Labour Party’s prospects in 2021 improving if the ‘centrists’ have to rely on the likes of Wes Streeting (who, to be honest, always comes across as fairly thick). We hear the same tired old twaddle about ‘racism’ we’ve been hearing from his kind since Noah floated his ark. Labour might just as well use Alexa when on Question Time.
    Meanwhile, a significant number of voters still seem inclined to give Boris Johnson the benefit of the doubt.
    I’m not one of them. If Anne and Alf and one or two others on here were to come round to my place for nibbles and drinks we might not agree on much but we’d be united in our dislike of Johnson. I’m convinced of that.

  44. A.J. says:

    Is the UK really going to be brought to its knees because of a shortage of broccoli and French cheeses? Even my vegetarian, Leave-voting wife doesn’t seem too worried about the first, and I can heartily recommended a variety of cheeses produced in Lincolnshire. It’s as though – if you take notice of the likes of Andy Beckett and his supporters in ‘The Guardian’ – the UK has become wholly incapable of doing itself any good, whether in the matter of, say, fruit-picking or wheeling trolleys around hospital corridors. Possibly some of our complacent young people will have to learn to stop idling around and get their fingers out. I cannot imagine what my youngest daughter expects to do with her life other than gawp at Japanese cartoons. Most of my generation were doing jobs well before they officially left school at sixteen.
    Of course, the middle-classes did go into meltdown a year or two back over a shortage of courgettes, didn’t they? Possibly that was when they learned how to smash avocado in North London. We consumers of Scottish black pudding and traditional sausages can find little sympathy in our hearts for them.

  45. A.J. says:

    Just for the record, for what it’s worth, it is strongly suggested in Robert Shepherd’s biography of Enoch Powell that the British electorate cared little about sovereignty during the period of pre-Common Market/EEC wrangling, only about whether prices would rise – meaning, one assumes at that point, food prices. Well: I seem to remember reading somewhere that we were importing millions of eggs from France by the time Gladstone was in office. So – will Rees-Mogg prove to be right or wrong?

  46. John P Reid says:

    AJ no fan of blair but if labour does win 5 times in a row it will make the people who said after 4 defeats, anyone could have own for labour in 1997, claim wrong

  47. Tafia says:

    AJ “Did I read somewhere that Derek Hatton had also had his collar felt? “

    The list was Joe Anderson, Derek Hatton and three others – a senior planning officer, a business associate of both Hatton and Anderson, and Hatton’s son ( who works with the business associate)

    Since December 2019 town hall figures, a £1bn developer and several influential city personalities have been taken into custody. Detectives have so far questioned 11 people and search teams have visited 10 homes across two counties. Hundreds of thousands of pounds seized from suspects is currently being held by Merseyside Police. It was recovered in multiple currencies (The ‘vehicle of choice’ by organised crime is €500 notes, hence why banks and ForEx in UK will not change them.) It involves in the main, developments in the Toxteth area. Allegations across the entire investigation include preferential awarding of works, preferential treatment regarding planning, bribery, money laundering and witness intimidation.

  48. A.J. says:

    Those who cast their votes for the ‘Conservative Party’ for the first time last December (whatever their motives may have been) would do well to read the article on Bishop Auckland in today’s ‘Independent’ (11th December) then study the comments beneath, in which they stand accused of being thick racist scum etc. etc. Will those on the Left never learn? Will newspapers like the ‘Independent’ never learn? Labour canvassers often used to be a bit like this, rolling their eyes, shaking their heads, disbelieving that someone on the doorstep might disagree with their often absurd views. Like Chris Williamson, the disgraced former MP for Derby North, who a friend of mine had to tell to fuck off, so insistent and wild-eyed was that dedicated Corbynite. Bob Laxton – a lovely man who was an MP for a few years under Blair (or possibly Brown) told us never, ever to argue or try to convert anyone. ‘And always shut the gate behind you in case the dog gets out’.

  49. A.J. says:

    Lo and behold, an article in ‘The Guardian’ suggests that Labour could win the next election simply by reaching out and giving the Lib Dems and Greens a nice cuddle – in other words, the ‘Rainbow Coalition’. Expect renewed calls for PR any time soon.
    Also, in an accompanying article, Corbynite oddballs are in a sulk, yet looking back with affection to Jez wooing the hordes at Glastonbury.
    Not a glimmer of realism on the horizon, then, only wishful thinking and navel-gazing. Difficult to believe this is the same party that once boasted the likes of Ernie Bevin.

  50. A.J. says:

    Those of you who embrace the Guardianista/Indie/Sturgeon view of the world will doubtless be thrilled to bits that the Royal Navy might get involving in any potential new cod war – the EU is still fishing for compliments. About time, I think, Macron had a smack on the nose. The French have always been a thorn in the European side. Is Boris Johnson more cool and calculating than I generally give him credit for? Is looking and sounding like a Grade A imbecile really just an act?
    Meanwhile, claims pile up that Nicola Sturgeon is now the single most popular politician in these islands. Have people begun their Christmas tippling early?

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