Rob Marchant « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Rob Marchant’

Seven rubbish defences for Labour’s defence policy review

20/01/2016, 09:49:38 PM

by Rob Marchant

While the party membership has been convulsed by the burgeoning civil war over the Corbyn leadership phenomenon, policy has – understandably – taken something of a back seat.

However, in recent weeks it has been in the news over one area. Surely, you say, it must be how to rework Labour’s economic policy to make it more electable? After all, aside from the public’s lack of personal engagement with Ed Miliband, that’s the factor generally accepted (including in Labour’s own post-mortem, the Beckett report) to have essentially lost it the last election?

Oh, how naïve. It’s defence, of course. Not because it was an election-loser for Labour, you understand, or even figured highly in doorstep conversations, but because it is a personal hobby horse of Our Beloved Leader and his entourage (prominent kitchen Cabinet members Andrew Murray and Seumas Milne, for example, being long-time Stop the War Coalition stalwarts).

The original brief for the defence review thus considered everything the Stoppers hold dear, from dumping Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent to leaving NATO. That said, last week the leadership rowed back from the latter and sidelined Ken Livingstone from the defence review, realising that leaving NATO was really a step too far for most.

This “most”, interestingly, includes major unions like Unite and the GMB, who realise that many defence jobs are dependent on Britain’s relatively high world profile on defence, not to mention those at Barrow-in-Furness who work for Vickers on Trident. Here membership realpolitik easily trumps a natural inclination for these unions’ leaderships away from nuclear weapons. We now have the absurd compromise of keeping Trident submarines without the warheads.

The review is however still chaired by Emily Thornberry, a keen unilateralist, so Trident is clearly still in play. If anyone doubts that the Stoppers will have an influence on policy, it is virtually laid out in a quote from her last week:

“We will encourage the widest possible participation of Labour party members and affiliates, as well as defence specialists, NGOs and the armed forces.”

This surely has to be the first time in British political history that an NGO has been consulted on matters of national security, hardly a field for NGOs to start with. And, hmm, I wonder which “NGO” she must be talking about? The Stoppers, of course. A political pressure group is not, of course, anything like an NGO, but hey.

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Labour’s right had better focus on conference

07/01/2016, 10:28:09 AM

by Rob Marchant

The reshuffle resembled nothing more closely than the careful rearrangement of deckchairs on the Titanic. While it is mildly good news that the Corbynistas do not yet feel confident enough for their own Night of the Long Knives, it is hardly going to change much.

So it is now time to look forward to the year ahead and plot – er, think about – a strategy to bring the party gradually back to some semblance of electability and political normality. 2016 is likely to be critical for the future of the party, in that it will most likely determine whether a Corbyn leadership actually has legs and can stumble on until the general election of 2020, or will fizzle out long before.

While common sense would indicate the latter, there is also a strong correlation between the time taken for that meltdown to happen and the cumulative damage wreaked on the party.

Meanwhile, British politics in general this year is likely to be dominated by two stories: the first half by the Scottish elections and the second by the start of the build-up to the EU In-Out referendum, assuming it does not happen earlier. Sadly, there is very little which Labour can do about either.

The Scottish elections are likely be a terrible story for Labour whatever happens: it is clear from the polls and the general election result that it will lose many tens of Holyrood seats (if not all of them, as nearly happened for the Westminster election).

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Twas the night before Christmas (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

24/12/2015, 12:53:59 PM

by Rob Marchant

Twas the night before Christmas, and in Labour’s house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St Jeremy soon would be there.

Corbynistas were nestled all snug in their beds,

Political utopias danced in their heads.

It’s ok, they dreamt, don’t pay heed to the polls,

The party loves Jezza, despite the own goals.

It’s not pesky voters ‘bout whom we should bother,

As Brecht said, dissolve them, then elect another.

Not true that each interview’s now a car-crash,

Or that they didn’t trust us with their hard-earned cash.

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The leader of the Labour party is tainting the rest of us with the toxic Stoppers

10/12/2015, 03:23:18 PM

by Rob Marchant

Once upon a time, the Labour party was an outward-looking, internationalist party which believed in solidarity with peoples across the globe. We have surely seldom been farther from that position than we are right now.

Tomorrow, Jeremy Corbyn will get up to speak at the annual dinner of the organisation which, until three months ago, he chaired. It is, of course, the Stop the War Coalition.

While it was founded in 2001 as a broad-based response to proposed British action in Afghanistan, pulling in a number of mainstream politicians at the time, it was later predictably taken over by the far left and has since wandered so far as to be practically off the political map.

Normal though it may be for the party leader to speak at a wide number of party fringes at annual conference, for example, it is not so normal to speak at an organisation whose affiliations and political positions are so widely criticised, not just by opposing parties but by a good number of his own MPs.

Take, for example, Tristram Hunt’s comment last weekend, that the organisation was “disreputable”. This was no idle criticism, by the way: the Stoppers have recently had to pull two different pieces from their phenomenally ill-edited website, expressing views which are at the very least damaging to it (and by extension Corbyn and the Labour Party), and which many would find abhorrent.

The first, on Nov 15 after the Paris attacks, read “Paris reaps whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East”. In other words, it was the French’s fault for trying to stop ISIS. It was, as Mary Creagh MP pointed out, “a masterclass in woolly thinking, reflexive anti-Americanism and victim blaming”.

The second, on Dec 4, praised the “internationalism and solidarity” of – you’ve guessed it – ISIS, the same genocidal death cult. Luckily, on both occasions, screenshots and web caches were saved before they were deleted.

But this is not the first time the Stoppers have pulled pieces: last year I wrote about a similar example of a similarly ghastly text, accusing Western governments of creating “a false story of a massive Yazidi crisis”. False, of course, until incontrovertible evidence emerged of mass killing, raping and abduction of Yazidis.

The Stoppers inevitably hide behind the fact they are a collective, with individual contributors, whose views do not represent those of the organisation, and so on and so forth. This “cell division” always serves the far left well in terms of abdicating responsibility for any outcry when their members say unpardonable things. As they invariably do.

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Labour has reached peak groupthink

26/11/2015, 10:28:35 PM

by Rob Marchant

groupthink, n., [grüp-ˌthiŋk]: a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics

Merriam-Webster online dictionary

The saddest thing about party conference this year, as commentator Iain Martin remarked, was “otherwise nice/sensible people trying to persuade themselves it will be ok”.

If there were a fortnight to convince the world otherwise, this must surely have been it.

Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of Labour’s position on bombing Isil, the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris and the rebellion on an actual vote for renewal of Britain’s nuclear deterrent, have all been an unmitigated shambles.

Most immediately, there’s Corbyn’s amazing letter outlining his personal position on British involvement in bombing Isil, pre-empting Monday’s shadow cabinet discussion, astounding shadow ministers and MPs alike.

Then there was his refusal to condemn Stop the War Coalition’s toe-curling and hastily-retracted blog post, blaming the Paris attacks on France and her Western allies. Not to mention a subsequent mauling by his own MPs at the regular PLP meeting, over that, Jihadi John and the government’s shoot-to-kill policy. Then the unprecedented event of Labour MPs criticising their own leader in the Commons and his links to the Stoppers.

In the case of the vote to keep Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent, we had centrist MPs in the bizarre (and surely also unprecedented) position of defying the whip to vote for party policy, as Ben Bradshaw MP drily noted.

And let’s not forget (just 24 hours ago although it already seems longer) the unedifying spectacle of attempted political theatre gone badly wrong. John McDonnell MP – for it was he – chose to respond to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement by waving a copy of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. Yes, that Mao, the 20^th century’s greatest mass-murderer.

And thus did the tragedy of Labour’s last few months descend into farce.

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Labour moderates should stop worrying about strategy, get off their arses and start organising

11/11/2015, 11:57:30 AM

by Rob Marchant

It’s easy to read the politics pages of national newspapers and think that the real problem of Labour’s moderates is that they’ve got to get a shiny new strategy together that is neither New Labour nor Miliband Labour, but something which will get Labour back in power. That, in short, it doesn’t really know what it stands for and therefore this needs to be its first priority.

While it is a problem, it is certainly not the immediate problem.

The reason for this is simple: the media generally sees politics through the prism of Westminster, not just Parliament but the plethora of think-tanks and lobbying firms that hang around it. Policy and political strategy are the glue which holds that world together, without it we are nothing.

But Labour, we should take pains to remember is first and foremost a party (and a movement, although with the current radical state of the leadership of most major unions, that may not be of much immediate help to the moderates right now). It is a living, breathing thing, made up of hundreds of thousands of activists. Right now, it’s all over the shop.

Which is more important during opposition, particularly during a crucial battle for the soul of the party?

It’s the party, stupid. And that means organisation on the ground, in the CLPs and Labour group meetings across the country.

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Seumas Milne turned the Guardian’s comment section into a polarising bear pit. God help the Labour party

28/10/2015, 10:04:05 PM

by Rob Marchant

It is now commonplace, even among journalists who should know better, to conclude that the current criticisms of the Corbyn leadership come exclusively from a hard knot of diehard centrists who refuse to accept that the new regime could win an election.

While it is clear that it cannot and it is also true that many sensible activists would rather die in a ditch than attempt to fight the hopeless battle of a general election under the current leadership, the reality is that there is really a much wider concern about the party’s current trajectory, and not just among Labour MPs. Even Tories and Lib Dems worry about the absence of a viable opposition.

To recap: we now have a party led by a man who never expected to leave the back benches; a shadow chancellor best described as “maverick”, with a treasure trove of past quotes already carefully dug up and filed at Tory HQ, providing a handy media drip-feed for the next five years.

But even though Corbyn’s win and McDonnell’s appointment were shocks, the shocks show no signs of abating. And for those few who have studied the hard left over recent years, inside and outside the party, it is difficult to find a more disturbing appointment than that of Seumas Milne as Director of Communications and Strategy. Disturbing first, if not surprising, because he appears to share pretty much the same views as his leader but a little more extreme.

Tom Harris MP is, of course, right to point out the dangerously narrow appeal of Corbyn/Milne viewpoint: that traditional Labour voters, who might have sons and daughters fighting in Britain’s armed forces, could be massively turned off by the idea that their sacrifices are for nothing; and all in the name of a monarch whom the leadership might dislike but whom those same voters are actually rather fond of.

But it is much more than that: the naked anti-West sentiment propagated by Corbyn, Milne and their pals in the Stop the War Coalition is anathema to the majority of the British public, even those who might have had mixed feelings about the results of the country’s intervention in Iraq. And even on much of the left and centre-left.

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Why “wait and see” is a fool’s strategy

14/10/2015, 07:45:44 PM

by Rob Marchant

It is now taken as accepted everywhere in British politics, with the exception of some parts of the Labour Party’s rank and file, that Labour cannot win an election with Corbyn at the helm. You can attempt to argue with this premise, but you’ll find few allies outside of the echo chamber of party activists and three-pound associate members who voted for him.

This leaves sensible members with two options: engage and hope things get better, or reject and look for a new plan. Many MPs are, in good faith, choosing the former option.

But as Ben Bradshaw MP must have seen on Tuesday night, any decent attempt to play ball with the new leadership seems doomed to end in the frustrating realisation that it is hopeless. MPs in the Parliamentary Labour Party looked on in dismay, as the party’s flagship economic policy did an unceremonious U-turn.

Within two weeks of its announcement.

And here is the problem with “wait and see”: with every day that passes, the political situation gets progressively worse, not better. It is not enough to merely let Corbynism burn itself out, or let it be comprehensively defeated in five years’ time. Here’s why.

One. The obvious: the general shambles of the party’s policy and appearances on the media is undoubtedly further damaging the party’s image, to the extent that that is still possible. Corbyn has the worst ratings of any incoming leader since such polling began in 1955. This alone is enough to make waiting and seeing untenable.

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Labour, this is what you chose

30/09/2015, 02:22:15 PM

by Rob Marchant

The two important days of conference, the first two, have now passed. We have pinched ourselves. We have pinched ourselves again. But no, that really was John McDonnell outlining a fantasy financial plan on Monday, and Jeremy Corbyn giving the Leader’s Speech on Tuesday.

Let me just say that again. Jeremy Corbyn giving the leader’s Speech. Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour party.

No matter how many times we say those words, it still beggars belief. Only four months ago, it would have been inconceivable.

How long ago that now seems. What happy, carefree days were those.

For those of us who have sat and watched dozens of leader’s speeches, mostly at times when Labour was actually running the country, it seems a strange, parallel universe. You get to know when a party is at a low ebb, just as when William Hague suffered his disastrous four years at the helm of the Tories.

But this is different: Labour’s current convulsions have not resulted in a moderate leader trying to rein in restive backbenchers on the fringes of the party. They have resulted in the election of a leader who is from those fringes. And a kitchen cabinet involving Unite and members of the hard left from outside the Labour party, which is likely to be more extreme – and certainly more brutal – than the man himself.

The Tories managed to pull themselves back, although it took most of a decade. But Labour’s case is that much worse, one wonders if they can pull it off at all.

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Looking-glass Labour: what happens next

16/09/2015, 10:42:43 AM

by Rob Marchant

On Monday, a smiling photo was published of the first Cabinet meeting. A plucky attempt at “business as usual”. But business is now anything but usual, as the disarray at his first parliamentary meeting showed.

As John Slinger wrote at Uncut back in July, we are now in the realm, not of New Labour or Blue Labour, but “looking-glass Labour”. A strange, almost psychedelic parody of what chimes with the public and wins elections for Labour.

Just like with Alice, from the other side of the mirror things look as if the looking-glass side is exactly the same. But it is only when you get through to the other side of the looking-glass, that you see the parts which you could not see so easily before. The bit behind the mantelpiece. The part through the parlour door. They are different.

This is not a prediction. Things will happen at different speeds, and perhaps some will not happen at all. But, according to well-travelled historical precedent, the following is what generally happens in this party, when it develops a critical mass from the far left, as it did in the 1980s; it is essentially the manner of warring factions and coups on which the SWP runs. It is effectively what is happening now within Labour.

One. Corbyn is not a leader. The people around Corbyn now hold the power, he does not. The kitchen cabinet. They are likely to start to agitate early on, in terms of policy and running the party machine. When we talk about the leadership, we therefore mean the leader’s Office, trusted hard-left MPs inside and outside the shadow cabinet, selected members of the NEC and the main trade union leaders, particularly Unite. These people will collectively call the shots, not Corbyn.

Two. There will be an attempt to take over party machinery, as there was a more modest attempt under Miliband: the NEC and the party staff. Many of the party’s longest-serving staff are Blairites and Brownites, and may well be forced out.

Three. Policy will, at the beginning, be a disorganised free-for-all. After the new cabinet have spent some months looking like a rabble, things will settle down, as sensible voices are drowned out, side-lined or reshuffled out, to give way to reliable hard-left thinking. As to the direction of policy, the death of public-sector reform, fairy-tale economics and isolationist foreign policy is probably a good bet.

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