Labour Uncut

GRASSROOTS: I don’t like the European Parliament or the In campaign. The EU is flawed. But I’m voting to remain

14/03/2016, 10:20:04 PM

by Robin Thorpe

The EU referendum is not really a Left-Right issue; it instead seems to separate groups of people on their age and level of education.

But membership of the EU does accord with one of the core beliefs of the Labour movement: that we achieve more by working together than we do alone. Indeed the Labour Party rule book explicitly states that Labour is committed to co-operating in European institutions as well as the UN, the Commonwealth and other international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all. These are things that can only be achieved by international co-operation.

However, the Labour Party rule book (2013) also states that Labour works for “an open democracy, in which government is held to account by the people; decision are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect; and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed”. The current European Parliament does not correlate with these expectations. I can therefore understand why some Labour supporters may also wish to leave the EU.

David Cameron’s negotiations, although largely insignificant, had one major outcome: that the UK would not be obliged to be a part of “ever closer union”. But for me this misses the fundamental choice that faces not just the citizens of the UK but all of the peoples of Europe.

Do we truly want a common market across Europe, or do we want to remain as independent nations. Because to normalise both access to the market and quality of goods and services across Europe then we will need a common approach to much more than just fishing quotas and standard paper sizes. In my opinion we should either accept that a truly successful European Union would look like a United States of Europe, or we accept that it is flawed and make the best of a bad thing. Which is why I think that Cameron’s negotations were a failure. They didn’t just achieve nothing of use, they focused the purpose of the referendum on immigration.

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UNCUT: Stronger In or Vote Leave: The view from the school mums

11/03/2016, 05:27:20 PM

In the first of a new series, Lucy Ashton gauges the views of people outside of the political bubble, on the EU referendum. This week, its school mums.

The young children in this Sheffield gymnastics class are blissfully unconcerned with politics as they flip over bars and cartwheel along crash mats.

But their mums are starting to give the referendum some thought, although they feel there’s not enough information out there yet.

“I am moving towards voting for us to stay in Europe because it’s a fear of the unknown,” says Dawn, as she watches her daughter handstand in the sports hall.

Perched on a wooden bench, she adds: “I will vote but it does worry me that the general public get to decide something which is much bigger than us – this is why we elected a Government, to make these decisions.”

Her view on the referendum will resonate with those who campaigned for devolution in the UK.

“My concern is that the politicians are very focused on London and the impact that remaining with or leaving Europe will have on the City,” she adds, glancing at her tumbling daughter.

“The politicians all talk about it from the point of view of the City, they don’t look at how it would impact on me as a teacher in Sheffield, or a coal miner in Wales or a small businessman in Scunthorpe.

“They seem so far removed from us and Westminster is a world away from what is reality for a huge amount of the population.”

Dawn is adamant she will mark her X though. “I teach my girls about Emmeline Pankhurst so I will definitely vote.”

Her friend and fellow mum Sharon takes a different view.

“I want us to come out of Europe as I don’t believe people in Brussels should be deciding what we are doing in Britain,” she says, sitting crossed leg on the sports hall floor.

“I will definitely vote but I don’t think there has been enough information about the referendum.”

With divided views such as this, the politicians will have to jump through a few hoops of their own between now and June.

Lucy Ashton is a journalist and former Political Editor

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UNCUT: Dan Jarvis is right. We must show the Tories are the gamblers

10/03/2016, 10:37:13 PM

by David Ward

Maybe I left my Yorkshire tea bag in too long, but on Thursday morning I had a vision. There I was at the kitchen table with the radio on, listening to Labour MPs cheering the defeat of the government on Sunday trading. Fair enough you might think, we’re winning less than Manchester United at the moment.

But then I was transported to 2020. I could hear the next Tory Prime Minister. “At this election we’ve got a choice. Do you want a stable economy, a strong future? Or do you want the danger of the unholy alliance of Jeremy Corbyn and Alex Salmond voting down the will of the country as they’ve done 20 times this parliament. It’s a risk I don’t think we can take.”

Of course it’s right that Labour opposes legislation like this that harms working people. Angela Eagle has done a fantastic job to win the vote. But you don’t have to be a genius to work out the Conservatives will fight the election on security.

If Labour are going to win we need to do two things. First, deal with our weaknesses. That means stop banging on about Trident, or admitting people with dubious backgrounds. These only give credence to Tory charges against us. As we found in 2015, if people see us or our leader as weak then tactics like the ‘tartan scare’ will work.

Second, we need to reframe the debate so the Conservatives don’t equal stability. That was the case that Dan Jarvis made on Thursday. “When you hear George Osborne say ‘long term economic plan’, what he really means is ‘short term political gain’.”

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UNCUT: The hypocrisy of Brexiteers who moan about Project Fear is ridiculous

09/03/2016, 10:33:56 PM

by Samuel Dale

A few years ago I had an interesting lunch at the East India Club in Pall Mall.

I was a guest of then-Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom and was joined by Janice Atkinson, before she was an MEP.

It was an enjoyable meal and they were both good company.

But look at us now. Bloom was kicked out of UKIP just days later when he hit Channel 4’s Michael Crick over the head and called a room of women sluts.

Atkinson became an MEP but was expelled for expenses irregularities. She had also insulted a Thai constituent as a “ting tong”. She later apologised.

And me? A forlorn Blairite journalist in the era of hard left Corbynite dominance. All of us disgraced within our own parties!

Politically, I couldn’t be further from Atkinson and Bloom but they are not always wrong.

For example, at the said lunch Bloom told me that UKIP should support Scottish independence as so much of the SNP’s arguments resembled Ukip’s anti-EU points.

At the very least, Bloom opposed UKIP campaigning forcefully to keep the UK together.

He pointed out how easy it would be to brand them hypocrites when big business opposed an EU exit in the same way they opposed Scottish independence.

Godfrey, we don’t agree on much but you were right.

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GRASSROOTS: If the Tories are to be beaten, Labour and the Lib Dems need to start working together

07/03/2016, 09:36:35 PM

by George Kendall

2015 was a disaster for the centre-left.

The Liberal Democrats lost a swathe of seats to the Tories. Moderate Labour members lost their party to the far left. Some are in despair, and are considering withdrawal from politics, perhaps to return once a viable moderate opposition to the Tories is re-established.

However, under first-past-the-post, such an opposition isn’t inevitable. Post-war Japan was run by a single right-wing party, almost continuously for fifty years. Nothing is forever, but, if we wait for change, we may wait a very long time.

Do we want to see the Conservatives in power for decades? If that happens, step by step they will shrink the state and cut taxes for the rich. They will edge the country ever closer to a dog-eat-dog capitalism where the rich enjoy fabulous wealth, but the poor endure desperate insecurity. It would not happen overnight, but it could happen.

The far left believe if they control the opposition, it is inevitable that they will eventually take power.

In a perfect storm, with a recession, and if Tories have an unpopular leader and are divided over a controversial policy, it might be possible, but I think it is very unlikely. Even in 1992, when the country was in recession after thirteen years of Tory rule, the Conservatives still won.

However, even if the far left are right about eventually winning power, it would be a disaster. Having raised unrealistic expectations, they would be hit by the harsh reality of our need to trade in a competitive world, and they would damage our economic and our finances by trying to square the impossible. Perhaps worse, their attitude to the USA and NATO would undermine our alliances, just at a time when new powers are emerging which have no respect for the principles of liberal democracy. They would then be decisively defeated, to be followed by another lengthy period of Tory hegemony.

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UNCUT: Time for Hillary to trash Trump. He’s there for the taking

03/03/2016, 09:17:13 PM

by Samuel Dale

So it’s Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump.

The question now is how can Hillary beat the absurdist rise of the Donald?

The answer is simple: attack him, attack him hard and do it again & again.

Trash his character, his business record, his views on women, his lack of policies, his temperament and his bigotry and racism. Earlier today, Mitt Romney of all people showed the way.

Negative campaigning works. It works because the public are more willing to believe the worst in politicians than the best. They will tacitly agree when a politician’s flaws are being highlighted but act like cynics when politicians convey positive messages.

Every successful modern campaign goes negative and stays negative.

Labour did it in 1997 by attacking Tories on the NHS and pensions.

Obama did it in 2008 on Hillary over her support for the Iraq war.

The Tories hit Ed Miliband’s leadership & economic competence for four years to bear the fruits of victory last May. Miliband ran a positive campaign.

Obama went negative again even more successfully against Mitt Romney in 2012.

Romney was attacked remorselessly in negative ads on his business record at Bain Capital, the private equity manager.

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UNCUT: The slow, inexorable hard left takeover of the party machine is a disaster for Labour

03/03/2016, 12:19:53 PM

by Rob Marchant

And so it was that, last Thursday, we learned that John McDonnell MP wanted to abolish Labour’s Compliance Unit (£), which deals with constitutional and disciplinary issues.

“The NEC of the Labour Party are looking at the whole exercise — how we can move away from this regime that expels people, prevents people joining.”

Not exactly front-page news, of course. Dull, internal workings of the party machine.

But it turns out it is rather important. And it is only the most recent in a number of such events.

The basic point is this: McDonnell wants to make it harder to expel people from the party and, by extension, easier for others – and clearly here he means previously expelled or suspended people –to re-enter.

Now why, one wonders, might anyone want to do that? Is it because the Compliance Unit is a group of over-zealous thought police, imposing a rigid discipline and barring entry to all but the most blind followers of the faith?

If only it were resourced up to be even close to that. It is a handful of people who try to keep the party in roughly sensible shape, by dealing with those whose presence is actually harmful to its body politic. Those who actually belong to another party, for example, or campaign for one. The actual number of cases dealt with is small and expulsions are pretty rare occurrences.

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UNCUT: Voters want security at home, at work and for the country. Right now, Labour’s not offering it

02/03/2016, 02:18:22 PM

by Ian Moss

The course to the next election seems set, unless the Labour party decides to re-engage with the basics of being a political party. The Conservatives will have a significant majority whoever leads them and the opposition vote will splinter – to the SNP in Scotland and in the rest of the country a smattering to Labour, a rump to UKIP and loose change to a Liberal Democrat party that left power regretting it so much that it fled without a credible position to challenge from.

Historic generational support for Labour has been broken in Scotland. The Midlands is also weak for Labour, and the north will go next. Voters that would have turned out for “anything with a red rosette on” are taking a look at Labour and will decide it is time to give up their unconditional support. Instead of having a healthy core to build on, Labour is redefining its core. It risks setting a ceiling on its support through its ongoing mission to alienate voters that disagree with the narrow, ideological view of the world its leadership has championed since 1980.

The first past the post system means parties have to build a coalition before they go to the polls. The only way back to victory for Labour is working across the soft left to the centre to build an electoral block that can challenge for 35-40% of the votes. The Conservative party attracted UKIP voters back to its own coalition with the threat of a Miliband government. Labour has its own UKIP problem which is currently more intractable unless it can re-connect with the working class, small businesses and people who work in trades in its heartlands.

The Conservative party has set its strategy for Labour under Corbyn in one slogan: a “threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security”. Slogans don’t work if they don’t go with the grain of people’s thoughts.

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UNCUT: If the mood changes, Labour need to shape up quickly

01/03/2016, 08:38:32 PM

by David Ward

As Eminem asked us, “Look If you had one shot. Or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment. Would you capture it. Or just let it slip?”

Recent weeks have seen a palpable change in mood to that of last May. Front pages have been filled news of market crashes, while financial commentators debate if a new recession is on the way. Meanwhile the Prime Minister and most of his cabinet are at risk of winning a referendum but losing the support of large sections of their party, as well as the right wing press.

Granted, there is no guarantee of an economic downturn or of the Conservative party tearing each other apart over Europe. Nevertheless, any self-respecting political party should be thinking about how significant events could help remove their opponents from office.

Sadly, evidence of the current leadership’s capability in this regard seems lacking. The most remarkable thing about the current Labour party is the lack of any ability to capitalise on events or stories.

Perhaps nowhere is this better illustrated than Prime Minister’s Questions. Nick Tyrone compared Cameron on Corbyn’s first outing at PMQs to an opening batsman. Tamely patting back gentle half volleys in case there was some trap waiting. By now he’s worked out there is no trap. Corbyn’s buffet bowling courtesy of Rosie or Jim is dispatched to the boundary with almost humiliating ease.

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