Skip to main content

The Labour Party - Rosettes and Placards in the Face of a Hurricane

Today I received an email from the Labour party, which is not unusual as I'm a member. Given the likely disaster looming for the country, and the party in the coming local elections I felt compelled to respond. The content of my letter to them is below.

Brexit is no longer "the will of the people" but the party's continuing strategic ambiguity means hard-won Labour support is draining away. The most inept, incompetent and cruel Tory government in living memory are, incredibly, level in polls with Labour. I fear that upcoming Local Government elections will show very badly for the party. When people feel abandoned by their party they will vote elsewhere, or not at all. Members will leave in large numbers and sadly that may include myself. 

Catastrophic economic assessments have emerged this week showing all sectors of the economy and all regions will be grievously affected by any form of Brexit. Those areas containing Labour supporters will be among the worst hit. The hard working many who suffered under a succession of Tory attacks were told that Brexit would cure their ills and improve their lot, but now the Brexiter narrative has shifted towards "we always knew there'd be an economic downside but it'll be worth it". It has now been clearly shown by government's own figures that the economic damage will be terrible and long-lasting. Brexiter response is to attack the reliability of their own figures.

Brexit was never about empowering "the people" except for already rich disaster capitalists and those who wish to seize power from government rather than return sovereignty to it. Regulations that protect consumers and workers will be slashed, NHS privatisation will accelerate and the UK will become a tax haven and a dumping ground for US exports. Do Labour wish to fight this future, or to tacitly support it?

A "Brexit that works for everyone" was always a meaningless phrase and is now looking increasingly lame. The time has come for Labour to take a stand for the people they truly represent, win what should now be a straightforward argument and oppose all forms of Brexit. Failing that we should fight to keep Britain in the Single Market and Customs Union. To their credit, some Labour MPs including Chuka Unmunna are leading such a push in this direction and I urge our party leadership to follow - or to lead.

In time to come people will look back on this disaster and remember who opposed Brexit and who didn't. For the sake of the country and the party I hope we put ourselves on the right side of history.

Mike Holden 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forget Fake News, Headline of the Day is where the Real News happens

You may have noticed there’s been a lot of news in 2017. But UK news headlines have been swamped by Brexit and Trump, two stories straddling the news landscape like the Petronas Twin Towers. But like Kuala Lumpur itself, tucked away beneath the behemoths there are plenty of smaller and more interesting places to be found.  So journalist Michael Moran (@TheMichaelMoran) plus myself and a few like-minded souls have focussed on the quirkier side of the news this year, in a competitive search for #HeadineOfTheDay material which we exchange on Twitter (Michael acts as chief gatekeeper and distributor). Clickbait is a staple of online news but a good headline has always been used to grab a reader’s interest. There’s little point in carefully crafting an elegant and revealing article, then putting “ Man Does Thing ” in 100pt bold letters at the top – the attention (and more importantly the quantity) of readers depends on a good headline.  Sometimes the story turns out...
Post a Comment
Read more

Texas Court Battles Put Democracy on Trial

                               In the last few days a handful of Republican activists have gone to the courts in Texas, in what can only be described as an attack on the democratic process which manages the US Presidential Election. This weekend, representatives from the Republican party went to the Texas Supreme Court to request that ballots cast in drive-thru centres in Harris County in the state should be discounted. When the Supreme Court rejected their request they immediately took their case to the federal court. Anyone old enough to remember Bush v Gore will know that in a US election the courts are often used to decide state elections, and the Electoral College system means this can affect the national result. But the Texas case is different – Republicans aren’t suggesting that specific votes should be invalid, they are objecting to an entire method of voting which has already been in use for...
Post a Comment
Read more

#FBPE is More than Merely a Meme

Twitter is no stranger to a hashtag or a meme – many know the hashtag was invented  on Twitter, and anyone who has had Twitter “conversations” with the Trump fanbase soon realises that memes (plus profanity and #MAGA of course) are literally all the language they have. Twitter, certainly Pre Trump/Brexit, was to quite a large extent cat videos, short jokes (don’t get me started on 280 characters – RUINED it they have, I tell you) and memes. But in the last few weeks, Twitter has gained a new meme - the hashtag #FBPE. When this one popped up in my feed, it was a curious thing. Firstly, hashtags are usually things like #MakeAMiserableFilm or #WallpaperWednedsay so their meaning is obvious(ish). They’re also often fairly short lived, being of their time, serve their purpose and quietly disappear from Twitter trends. But this one didn’t immediately make sense to me, it lasted more than a day or two – and, unusually, it was being added to Twitter users’ display names as well as twe...
1 comment
Read more