Labour Uncut

GRASSROOTS: Letting Farron and Sturgeon lead the pro-European camp is a road to ruin for Labour

02/01/2017, 10:20:09 PM

by Trevor Fisher

2017 will be a more challenging year than 2016, a year when progressives lost on all fronts. In the USA the Democrats lost the Presidency to Trump and in Congressional elections. At home, Labour and pro Europeans lost the popular vote to Remain, and the far right advanced all over the European Union. The trends are ominous.

There is growing evidence that Brexit is now the defining issue in British politics, gridlocking all debates at Westminster and shaping voting attitudes. As commentators have noted, notably the UK in a Changing Europe report, Labour is in danger of slipping into a black hole with pro-Remain Labour voters going Lib Dem, and Leave inclined voters supporting UKIP. Labour could face challenges in England and Wales mirroring those in Scotland, where the political option is now Tory vs SNP on the dominant issue independence.

Some Labour MPs, having noticed a significant number of working class voters opted for Leave, seek an accommodation with Brexit. But there is no political advantage in accepting Brexit. Principled politics already demand rejecting the reactionary Brexit position, but practical politics indicate there is no mileage in betraying the majority of Labour voters who supported its position.

The concerns of those who voted to Leave have to be addressed, but not by accepting Brexit. Keir Starmer and John McDonnell are showing welcome signs that Remain to Reform policy is more than a slogan. But this will be irrelevant unless Labour can hold the line on the key issue – opposition to Brexit.

Political reality is that the vote on June 23^rd, while massive, was effectively suicidal for UK politics and Brexit cannot be delivered without severe damage to the UK in general, and working class people in particular. This will become increasingly clear as Article 50 is triggered.

There will be a second independence referendum in Scotland unless Brexit can be defeated, although a Brexit which does not apply to Scotland is an illusion. Britain will be faced with chaos as its internal politics collapses and the chill winds of political reality bite.

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UNCUT: Uncut predictions for 2017: We are heading for train-wreck Brexit

02/01/2017, 07:00:39 PM

Nigel Farage is pushing for hard Brexit – a rapid severing of all ties between the UK and the EU. George Osborne prefers a soft Brexit – moving at a slower pace to minimise the risk of economic disruption, quite likely entailing an acceptance of some form of ongoing free movement of people between the UK and the EU. Philip Hammond, the man carrying the can for Farage’s push for a referendum and Osborne’s failure to persuade enough to vote Remain in it, is displaying signs of fearing train-wreck Brexit. Under this scenario, we fail to agree terms for the UK’s exit from the EU in the two-year window afforded by Article 50. Neither hard nor soft; just in limbo.

Given that this would only require one of the 28 EU member states to black ball the terms offered to the UK, privileging the capricious whims of domestic politics over economic calm and fidelity to perfidious Albion, the train wreck is not hard to spot. It is generally assumed, though, that the worst that could then happen is that the UK trades on WTO terms with the EU states, meaning that economically damaging tariffs would be paid on goods and services moving from the UK to the continent. It could, however, be worse than that. The UK is only a member of the WTO via EU membership and would, therefore, need to reapply to join the WTO; an application that could be blocked by any WTO member, including Russia, which might make mischief.

Some form of transition arrangements between the UK and EU would help avert this train wreck, which is why Hammond is supposedly sensibly keen on them.

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UNCUT: Uncut predictions for 2017: More moderates will rejoin the frontbench

02/01/2017, 12:03:55 PM

They may not agree about the destination, but more Labour moderates will return to frontbench duties in 2017.

They will come to two inescapable conclusions.

The first is that its essential Labour improves its woeful performance in holding the government to account. The party – actually, the country – deserves a functioning Opposition. The current offering is decidedly Sunday League.

The second conclusion is more personal.

Moderate figures will eventually realise that only someone who has shown they can work with the grain of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership will succeed him, probably after the party loses the 2020 general election, or perhaps earlier Corbyn if calls it a day before then.

They will look at Keir Starmer and see him edging ahead of the pack, using his role shadowing David Davis to good but not spectacular effect (imagine what Robin Cook would do with the job…)

How much longer can figures like Dan Jarvis, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt afford sit on the sidelines and allow their leadership chances to wither?

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UNCUT: Uncut predictions for 2017: Jezza’s going nowhere

01/01/2017, 10:01:19 PM

Like his great hero, Fidel Castro, Jeremy Corbyn has proved adroit at foiling his would be assassins in 2016.

The rash decision by panicky Labour MPs to try and oust him after the Brexit vote was doomed from the start.

Trying to hang the result around the Labour leader’s neck always felt like a losing approach, while the silly and undignified ‘drip, drip’ resignations from the frontbench only provoked his legions of supporters in the membership (and among many non-Corbyn supporters too) to give him another, even more thumping victory (up from 59.5 per cent in 2015 to 61.8 per cent this year).

The would-be challengers in the PLP were painted into a corner as splitters and schemers, while a weak and uninspiring leadership bid by Owen Smith made the result a foregone conclusion.

In one of his many unguarded comments, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell quipped that Labour MPs were “fucking useless” at plotting.

Hard to disagree.

Short of falling into a vat of his own damson jam, Jeremy Corbyn’s going nowhere in 2017.

Jeremy Corbyn consults Labour’s new polling service

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UNCUT: The Uncuts: 2016 political awards (part II)

31/12/2016, 02:47:52 PM

Labour politician of the year – Sadiq Khan

Jeremy Corbyn has had an unprecedented 2016. No one has ever been twice elected Labour party leader – with impressive margins on both occasions. He is entitled to feel tremendous pride. The chord that he has struck is undeniable.

It remains to be seen, though, whether this chord resonates with the wider public. This requires validation in a general election. While Sadiq Khan has not won a general election as Labour leader, his election as Labour Mayor in London is as near as a non-leader can get to these giddy heights.

Belief in clause one socialism, incrementally securing the common good via the tools that elected office affords, demands that Sadiq Khan be recognised as Labour politician of the year.

Khan’s campaign brilliantly weaved biography with policy – the son of a bus driver to fix the buses; the boy from the council estate to sort the houses – and has won a massive mandate for the implementation of progressive politics. At a time when, with Hillary Clinton defeated and Brexit happening, such politics is thought to be in reverse. That Khan made this happen with his status as a Muslim barely commented upon – except, sadly, by his Conservative opponent – is testament not only to his talents but also to the open and tolerant instincts of London, which, with Mayor Khan, London will preserve in the Brexit era.

In a bleak year, Khan’s victory was a beacon of light. For sake of Labour, progressives more generally, and all that is best about London, it is vital that he does not squander the bright future that he has managed to craft for himself.

Contribution to post-truth politics – Jeremy Corbyn

The exponential growth of fact-free politics during 2016 has led the judges to create this new award, and it is an already-crowded field. Clearly Donald Trump’s chutzpah in creating an entire campaign based on manipulating information obtained by Russian hacking, not to mention a swathe of old-fashioned untruths, put him clearly in the running. Then the Brexit campaign’s celebrated “£350m savings for the NHS”, later proven to be utter tosh, brought the whole thing to a new level.

However, the jury felt that it should not just be the degree of economy with the actualité, but also the length of time that the nominee had been involved in the politics of post-truth. And here there was one candidate who was felt to have started long before the others. the Contribution To Post Truth Politics Award for 2016 therefore goes to…Jeremy Corbyn.

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UNCUT: The Uncuts: 2016 political awards (part I)

30/12/2016, 02:04:19 PM

Honorary Order of Suez – David Cameron

From triumph to tragedy, Uncut’s 2015 politician of the year is awarded the Honorary Order of Suez for 2016.

This is an extremely rare accolade, earned only by those politicians whose train-wreck judgement on a career-defining issue doesn’t just end their political life, but tips the country off a precipice into the dangerous unknown.

Anthony Eden is the one other politician to have qualified for this least sought after honorific. At a push, Edward Heath might have been considered in 1974 for calling, and losing, an election while at the mercy of striking unions. But David Cameron is the first politician to unequivocally clear the threshold for this prize since 1956.

Having become Conservative leader with a clear view that the Tories needed to “stop banging on about Europe,” David Cameron departs as Britain prepares to exit the EU with Europe set to dominate the next decade of British politics.

It’s hard to conceive of a greater or more personal political disaster for him. His manifold political successes – from beating David Davis for the Tory leadership to becoming Prime Minister in 2010, turning back Scottish independence in 2014 and winning an unprecedented majority at the 2015 election – will be wiped from the historical record. David Cameron will be remembered for one thing and one thing alone.

It is quite an extraordinary and dizzying fall.

British politician of the year – Theresa May

Getting to the top of the greasy pole merits recognition. Theresa May has hankered after the top job for many years and amidst the carnage of the post-Brexit Tory leadership campaign (see below Political suicide bomber of the year and Media moment of the year) she was literally the last candidate standing.

May’s ascent might have been comparative – less her rise, more others’ fall – but she is now resident in Number 10 and has the opportunity to define her governing creed.

Her challenges are plentiful and the whispers flowing out of Whitehall about micro-management and institutional sclerosis do not augur well. Her very Brownite journey to the top, defined by studied inaction, seems to have extended into a quintessentially Brownite management approach to the Number 10 in-tray.

Nevertheless, for the good of the country, Uncut wishes her well in understanding how Downing Street differs from every other department of state and a better fate than 2015’s Uncut British politician of the year.

Political suicide bomber of the year – Michael Gove

This is a special category created to recognise the extraordinary endeavours of Michael Gove in 2016.

He started the year as a family friend of the Camerons, a close political confidant of the Prime Minister Cameron and widely regarded as one of the smartest in the Cabinet with impeccable personal connections across the parliamentary party.

He ends it estranged from the Camerons, shunned by Prime Minister May, out of the Cabinet and with a new cadre of lifelong political enemies from the Boris Johnson campaign, sitting along-side him on the backbenches.

In 2016, Michael Gove couldn’t pass a bridge without burning it.

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UNCUT: How to fight hard Brexit: Step 2 – Learn from the Brexiteers, use their tactics against them

29/12/2016, 04:23:00 PM

In a series of three pieces, Atul Hatwal sets out how hard Brexit can be fought in the coming years. Today he looks at the political tactics needed to control the debate

The unwritten story of the past twenty years of British politics is the triumph of the nutter. Or at least, those who were once commonly described as such.

I started working for the Labour party in the mid-1990s. Back then, the Maastricht rebels – the political forbears of today’s Brexiteers – were regarded as fringe loons yearning for pre-Suez Britain, while hard left refuseniks such as Jeremy Corbyn were similarly dismissed as deluded Bennite voices from a long dead past.

In possibly the quote of the decade, John Major’s press secretary, Tim Collins, described John Redwood’s supporters in the 1995 Tory leadership contest as the “swivel-eyed barmy army, from ward eight at Broadmoor.”

How times change.

Many centrist words have been expended bemoaning the triumph of yesterday’s nutters, not enough understanding why they have been successful.

The journey from margin to mainstream for Brexiteers and hard left alike has been driven by a common political tactic, a tactic which pro-Europeans should repeat in the fight against hard Brexit: co-ordination between ultras and moderates.

Campaigns to move opinion on big issues are won by tag teams. Ultras and moderates working together, wittingly or otherwise.

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UNCUT: How to fight hard Brexit: Step 1 – Understand why Remain lost. Spoiler: It’s not what Westminster thinks

28/12/2016, 11:04:18 AM

In a series of three pieces, Atul Hatwal sets out how hard Brexit can be fought in the coming years. Today he looks at why Remain lost and the implications for the battle to shape Brexit

Why did Remain lose? Since the referendum Brexiteers have been assiduous in asserting their narrative: immigration trumped the economy, emotion won over facts and these are the new rules of the political game.

The Brexiteer version of history is now the accepted consensus at Westminster, virtually unchallenged by pro-Europeans, often meekly accepted.

The state of the pro-EU camp feels very familiar, certainly to a Labour member. All very mid-1992 when following a fourth electoral defeat, the best that many senior leaders of the party had to offer by way of strategy was “one more heave.”

It wasn’t good enough then, it isn’t now.

The starting point for pro-Europeans is to ask the right question.

Not just why Leave won but why a Remain campaign built around familiar economic beats failed when the same backing track had proved so persuasive at the general election and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

At the election and referendum, campaigns targeting concerns about the economy had convincingly defeated Scottish nationalism in 2014 and crushed Ukip’s English anti-migrant nationalism in 2015.

The conventional wisdom is that immigration was more potent as an issue in 2016.

Fortunately for those who want to prevent a hard Brexit, this is wrong.

The British Election Study (BES), which surveyed a huge panel of 30,000 voters before and after the referendum, sheds some light on what actually happened.

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UNCUT: Uncut’s festive top ten for 2016

27/12/2016, 12:16:55 PM

by Rob Marchant

In perhaps an early premonition of the 2020 election result, Labour Uncut regrets to announce that the truly terrible ‘JC for PM for me’ by Robb Johnson and the Corbynistas has not ultimately made the Xmas no. 1, nor apparently the top 100. However, we thought it fitting to note that there are still a number of other Christmas songs made popular over the years which perhaps fit even better with the party’s current zeitgeist. Here are our favourites for Labour’s top ten this Xmas:

Mistletoe and Whine – The Corbynites
Hot into the Top Ten, this festive tune respects the time-honoured, hard-left concept that it’s always someone else’s fault.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (But Not Any That Involve Russia, They’re Ok) – The Stop The War Singers
At number 9, the Stoppers continue their age-old formula of nice-sounding tunes with a side order of staggering hypocrisy.

S**te Christmas – The Labour Pollsters
At number 8, fresh from their Xmas party, the party’s polling gurus reportedly recorded this in a Westminster pub: a poignant, whisky-fuelled counsel of despair at the party’s current polling being regularly in the twenties. And polling has also proved a popular theme, in at number 7:

December Will Be Tragic (In The Polls) Again – Kate Bush
Oh, why doesn’t she just go and join the Tories!

Santa Corbs Is Coming To Town – The Cultists
Yes, he’s making a list, he’s checking it twice. He’s going to give everyone exactly what they want from a Christmas list of ten impossibly vaguely-described presents known as “pledges”. Read ‘em and weep.

Stop The Cavalry (And Start The Hand-Wringing) – Syria’s Fair-Weather Friends
In this season of goodwill to all, a wonderful, irony-free message of “if only something could be done” about the world’s biggest refugee crisis, recorded by the very people whose actions have helped make that impossible.

I Believe In Father Xmas (In Fact, He’s My Party Leader) – The Momentum Chorus
And at number 4, our friends at Momentum really know how to do suspension of disbelief, don’t they? Whether it’s denial of entryism, denial of anti-Semitism or the impossibility of winning a general election from here. Literally blinding.

Fairytale of New Economics – The Rogues ft Johnny McDonnell
A beautiful Christmas duet about how Labour’s pledges will be paid for by the universal money tree. Gut-wrenching.

Not Tonight Santa – The Great British Public
At number 2: fast-forward to 2020, and the public delivers its verdict on the man with the beard.

Do They Know It’s Not 1984? – The Moderates
And finally, the Christmas number 1! In an echo of the celebrated single by Band Aid, a number of well-known political faces get together for another charity single, this time to try and save the life of a party in danger of vote-starvation this Christmas. Heart-rending.

Rob Marchant is an activist and former Labour party manager who blogs at The Centre Left

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UNCUT: 2016: disastrous for the world, more so for Labour

23/12/2016, 11:50:33 AM

by Rob Marchant

It’s clear that 2016 is unlikely to go down in history as one of the world’s much-loved years, one at which people look back with fond memories. Brexit (UK), Trump (US/the world), the death of a seemingly disproportionate number of the world’s best-loved stars. And a general political shift towards a fact-free, far-right (or, occasionally, far-left) populism which, it is no exaggeration to say, could soon pose a genuine threat to freedom and democracy in the West, as it is already doing in younger democracies such as Poland, Turkey or Hungary.

We start 2017 with perhaps the most ugly and uncertain foreign policy landscape since the fall of the Berlin Wall: drifting into a second Cold War but without any of the bilateral balance that characterised the first one. And with a US, formerly the guardian of world order, moving from being a poor and ineffectual geopolitical player under Obama to a who-knows-what under Trump. The world has suddenly become a frighteningly uncertain place.

The vote for Brexit has left Britain, in the eyes of its friends and neighbours at least, hobbled by uncertainty and the promise of a difficult decade ahead as it struggles to adjust. It has also seemingly done for a whole raft of politicians associated with it, mostly Tory.

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