Britain: After the election, which way now?

Tory policies will not improve this situation

This editorial from the UK Website Left Horizons reflects on the recent electoral defeat for the British Labor Party and where socialists and the left activists in the party go from hereon. The editorial makes a point, as Left Horizons has done repeatedly, that Brexit should not have been the main issue rather austerity and the horrors of the Tory government’s assault on the British working class. But with the help of the capitalist press and the LP and Corbyn’s ambivalence on Brexit and the 1^st referendum, Brexit was the decisive factor. The editorial also points out that it was not the radical policies of the Labor Party that were rejected by the public and that in general the nationalization program that was put forward to deal with some of the worst aspects of Tory rule, were popular.  FFWP Admin.

Editorial: after the election, which way now?
December 17 2019

The election result is a serious setback for workers everywhere. It opens the prospect of the most right-wing government for thirty years, an economic catastrophe around Brexit and the further erosion of standards in all local government services and in the NHS. The fear among Labour members and supporters is that we now have a Johnson government with a big enough majority to last for ten years. His victory has been described as seismic, in the same terms as Thatcher’s victory in 1979.

In the Labour Party there will be huge feelings of disappointment, not to say dismay and that will be especially true for the left of the Party. It is not a time for despair, however. It is a time to be angry and to channel that anger into organising and preparing for the future. There will be a radical Labour government elected at some stage – the crisis of British capitalism and the associated collapse in living standards leaves no room for any alternative – and if it takes longer than we hoped, its impetus will be all the greater for the wait.

Johnson has achieved the biggest Tory majority for over thirty years, but that is barely down to any campaign by the Conservative Party or its leader. He  carefully avoided all serious contact with real people on the streets or in workplaces, because so many of his outings turned out to be PR disasters. He dodged TV interviews that might have given him a hard time and stuck rigidly to carefully-arranged photo opportunities. Even some of those he mucked up.

Mainstream media conducted Tories’ campaign

In the streets, Tory Party workers were thin on the ground and far fewer in number than Labour activists, as would be expected from a much smaller and largely geriatric Tory membership. It was the  national press: The Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, The Times, The Daily Telegraph – all owned by tax-dodging billionaires – who did all the heavy lifting for the Tory Party election campaign, day in and day out.

The newspapers were ably backed up by the BBC, with its most partisan coverage for years, even going to the extent of twice doctoring TV footage (later apologising for the ‘mistakes’) to put Boris Johnson in a better light. It should be noted that the total Tory vote rose by only one single percentage point and that by no means indicates a ‘landslide’, although the big parliamentary majority might suggest otherwise.

Nevertheless, the clear majority for Boris Johnson has brought a wave of euphoric relief among the tax-dodgers and coupon-clippers who make their money by having money. The pound immediately rose against the Euro and the Dollar and the FTSE100 index of leading shares jumped two per cent. According to the Financial Times, a mere eight companies – those ear-marked for nationalisation under Labour – saw £6bn added to their share value. BT shares rose 7 per cent, the utility Centrica rose 8.7 per cent, housebuilders – those profiting from the rigged market and the housing shortage – also rose in value. Among the rich and powerful, there were sighs of relief all round.

But Labour Party members cannot put this defeat down to a bad press, because it was expected that the big majority of the press and TV would back the Tories. A Corbyn-led left Labour Party offered a genuine threat to the interests of the ruling elite for the first time in two generations and it was anticipated that the Establishment would use the press to fight back.  Labour, quite properly, relied on its half million membership and its armies of enthusiastic volunteers, far outnumbering the election workers of all the other parties put together.

A re-run of 2016 EU referendum

We have argued that the main issue facing working class people has not been Brexit, but austerity and the fall in living standards. Labour tried hard to keep a focus on the issues that really affect workers on a day-to-day basis: education, housing, local government services, minimum wages and especially the NHS.

However, that strategy failed and by keeping Brexit centre-stage in the election campaign, Boris (“Get Brexit Done”) Johnson effectively turned this election into second EU referendum and that was the fundamental basis of his victory. Brexit was much more of an issue this year compared to 2017, precisely because of the fact that it has dragged on for three and a half years and Euro-sceptics now completely dominate the Tory Party.

In this election, the Tory Party, in effect, became the Brexit Party and for the first time in living memory, in some cases for the first time in the best part of a century, it was able on that basis alone to win seats in what used to be solid Labour areas like Don Valley, Rother Valley, Bolsover, Redcar, Durham North West and Bishop Auckland. In many of these areas Labour is still paying the price for decades of neglect by right-wing Labour councils and Labour MPs and here the election on Thursday was an echo of 2016.

The actual Brexit Party was no more than an auxiliary to the Tory Party, a splinter of the Conservative right wing. Farage had pulled all his candidates from standing in 317 Conservative-held seats to concentrate on those held by Labour. Where this was done, his party successfully drew enough votes away from Labour for it to allow some Tories to win.

According to data compiled by the Financial Times, “the Brexit Party took more votes from Labour than the Conservatives in the election, supporting Nigel Farage’s claim to have helped Boris Johnson defeat the opposition.” (December 14) “…Labour also suffered greater losses on average where the Brexit Party stood than where it did not. This was most evident in Yorkshire and the Humber, where the Brexit Party had their best performances…In the constituency of Don Valley, the Brexit Party picked up 15 per cent of the vote as Labour’s share fell by 19 per cent…”

In Scotland, Labour is still suffering from the legacy of decades of the rotten Labour councils that had governed for decades, while doing nothing for working people. The rise of the SNP, from having only two MPs elected in the 1983 general election, to a position where it completely eclipsed all the other parties, has been largely the result of the failure of Scottish Labour’s right-wing which dominated Scottish politics for so long. The SNP covered itself in fake ‘radicalism’ precisely to win over workers disillusioned with Labour MPs and Labour councils. Labour still has a long way to go to recover in Scotland, now with only 18.6 per cent of the vote and a single MP.

What was different to 2017?

We have to ask the simple question, therefore, ‘what was different to 2017?’ and we have to offer an honest answer. In 2017, there was a huge jump in Corbyn’s Labour vote compared to Ed Miliband’s miserable performance two years earlier. The jump in Labour’s vote, from 30% in 2015, to 40% two years later, was the biggest between two general elections since 1945. In total votes, the increase was from  8.1m to 12.8m, an increase of the best part of 5 million votes.  

The question is, how was Labour different this year and why was there no repeat of 2017. The key answer must lie in Labour’s position on Brexit. In 2017, Labour stood on a manifesto that accepted the 2016 EU referendum result, but insisted it would fight for guarantees on trade (and therefore jobs), on workers’ rights, and on environmental and food safety regulations. Labour put forward specific conditions to support whatever was negotiated and was opposed to a Tory Brexit, correctly in our view.

By 2019, Labour’s position had changed to one of renegotiation, followed by a second referendum. Even if Corbyn said he would personally remain ‘neutral’ in any second referendum, his position was perceived by many – and emphasised over and over again by Johnson – as either a dither or a closet Remain position. 

Two key players in the shift of Labour’s position were the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry and Shadow Brexit Minister, Keir Starmer. Both of these, from the traditional right of the party, undermined Corbyn’s personal position at Labour Party conference by making it plain in their set speeches that unequivocally they were going to campaign in any second referendum to remain in the EU. Before he resigned, deputy-leader Tom Watson penned a newspaper article that insisted that Labour faced defeat unless it embraced a new referendum. Len McCluskey of Unite has complained over the weekend about a ‘metropolitan elite’ (Starmer and Thornberry are both London MPs) pushing Labour towards the position of a ‘Peoples’ Vote’ and he has a point.

Labour continued to get most support among younger voters, who are more in favour of remaining in the EU. But despite this, Labour’s changed position on the EU has been the key factor in losing it two and a half million of the nearly five million votes it had won back in 2017. That shift had the added effect (combined with the most vicious press campaign against any Labour leader) of undermining Corbyn’s personal standing.

The right wing of the Labour Party are rubbing their hands at this result because, they claim, it demonstrates the failures of radicalism and Corbyn personally. Right-wing commentators have been queuing up to go on TV – where, of course, they are welcomed with open arms – to argue for ‘change’ in the Party. All the usual suspects are jostling to rubbish the Labour manifesto and its radical slant: so we have assorted has-beens like Alan Johnson, Jack Straw and David Blunkett along with current MPs like Wes Streeting, Jess Phillips, Margaret Hodge, and all the usual riff-raff of the right. We even had the spectacle of former Labour general secretary, Iain McNichol, adding his pennyworth. Party members will be wondering why our current general secretary wasn’t on TV instead of a right-wing has-been. Oh, yes, it was the BBC.

Even if Jeremy Corbyn’s personal standing was a factor in the defection of some Labour votes, Left Horizons will not join in the chorus of personal abuse against the man. He has had a dirtier press campaign against him than any Labour leader and that includes Michael Foot and unfortunately, it seems that some of that rubbed off, despite the decline in influence of the mainstream press. In various headlines he has been “anti-British, anti-Semitic, pro-IRA, pro-Hamas, a friend of Putin, a Czech spy” and many other things. No story was too outlandish to make a good headline.

Lowest expense claims of any MP

Party members know that Jeremy Corbyn has consistently fought racism and prejudice all his life; he has opposed overseas military adventures like Iraq and Afghanistan and long before Margaret Hodge saw the need (as leader of Islington council), he fought for the interests of his constituents, including Jewish people, in Islington. Not incidentally, he has the lowest expenses claim of any MP. He has the support of thousands of Jewish members of the Labour Party. The charge that he is “anti-Semitic” is outrageous. But none of this featured, as broadcasters and the press conducted a character assassination, which at least to a degree, was successful on the doorstep.

If Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated any ‘weakness’ in his leadership, it was in his generosity towards the right-wing of the party, and particularly those in the Parliamentary Party, who have never accepted his double mandate from the membership and have never accepted the radicalism of the party’s half million members.

While Boris Johnson dealt ruthlessly with rebels in his own parliamentary party – kicking out twenty one MPs, including the grandson of Winston Churchill – Jeremy did not deal with the relentless sabotage, sniping and undermining from his ‘own’ side in the same way. Many right-wing MPs now calling for his early resignation are the same people who have undermined him non-stop for four and a  half years. Rather than fight back hard against the slanderous accusation of systematic anti-Semitism, as he ought to have done, he simply repeated his opposition to it, appearing to give credence to wildly false allegations.

We need to deal with the quasi-Tories in the PLP

In our period reflection, analysis and discussion in the Labour Party, we have to say loud and clear that the struggle for socialism will not progress as long as quasi-Tories infest the Parliamentary Labour Party. It was the split-off from the Labour Party forming the SDP that contributed to Labour’s defeat in the 1983 general election. Then, under Michael Foot, Labour won 28% of the vote, the SDP and Liberals (then separate parties) got nearly 25 per cent between them. The SDP subsequently disappeared into oblivion, and Labour’s right-wing today has learned a lesson from it. Let us not forget that 172 Labour MPs voted against him in the confidence vote in 2016, defying the mandate of the membership. The majority of these did not split from the party and have been re-elected as MPs. Unlike the SDP or latter-day defectors they are only staying to do damage from the inside.

Labour’s right wing are now demanding Corbyn’s head, but that is only the opening gambit for them. Their main aim is for Labour to row back from its radical reform agenda. It is true that we need to discuss to what degree there was some scepticism among Labour voters about the manifesto. The reforms outlined were aimed to tackle the very urgent problems faced by working class people up and down, but, prompted by the TV and newspapers, many workers asked, ‘how will they pay for it?’.

There is some basis to the doubts, because these very necessary reforms outlined by Labour will not be easily affordable under a capitalist economy, whatever John McDonnell says. Unlike Labour’s right wing, Left Horizons supports all of those reforms, but, as we have argued, they should be the starting point for a wholesale transformation of the economy along socialist lines. A socialist economy, democratically owned and run by the majority can easily afford Labour’s reforms – and much more.

But differences in explaining how these reforms can be brought about are not a reason for ditching them. The manifesto answered very real needs, we could even argue very reasonable needs, of working class people. Labour’s right wing were opposed and still are opposed to the Labour manifesto and the wave of radicalism that has gripped the party in the last four years. They want to roll the back to the Blair years, to Tory-lite, and to the miserable offer of the Ed Miliband ‘tombstone’ that lost us the 2015 election.

What the right wing will never accept is the fact that Labour’s policies – particularly re-nationalisation of rail and public utilities – have been shown by one opinion poll after another to be popular. According to a poll by Opinium, after the election, the main reasons given for the desertion of Labour voters were Corbyn’s leadership (37%) and Brexit (21%). Only 6% cited “economic policies” as their reason for switching. (Financial Times, December 14)

The right will now argue – and the BBC is offering the maximum platform for the idea – that Labour’s defeat was the worst for generations. In fact it was not. Labour’s share of the vote under Michael Foot was 27.6 % to be exact. Under Gordon Brown, Tony Blair’s successor in 2010, it was 29%. Under Ed Miliband in 2015, it was 30.4%. As bad as it was last Thursday, and faced with unprecedented hostility by the media and systematic sabotage by the right wing, it was still better than these results, at 32 %.

Even in terms of seats won, if we take into account Labour’s demise in Scotland, the result is by no means the worst. In 1983, Michael Foot won 209 seats, but this included 41 (out of 72) seats in Scotland where last Thursday, Labour only managed to hang on to one.

Brexit will be a disaster

So what is likely to happen now, in society at large and in the Labour Party in particular. One thing is for sure, we need to steel ourselves for a fight. The main enemy, as always, is the Tory government and it goes without saying that we will fight against all the policies and measures that Johnson will try to implement in the next few years. Brexit will be a disaster, bringing economic chaos and dislocation. Moreover, this will be taking place in the context of a looming world recession which will hit the UK economy particularly hard.

We now have a prime minister who has made a political career out of lying and the idea of a “smooth transition” out of the EU is only the latest lie. Even a columnist in the Financial Times (July 26), asked what the Tories’ answer was to the most “profound crisis” in modern peacetime thought they had put a “second rate huckster” in 10 Downing Street. Johnson is a man, the same newspaper’s sketch-writer says, “whose campaign involved inventing statistics, dodging interviews and hiding in a fridge.” He is a man, acknowledged by even Tories, as someone with only a passing acquaintance with the truth.

Whatever Johnson is now saying about healing and reconciliation after Brexit, there is not a snowball in Hell’s chance, that austerity will be “over” for the overwhelming majority of working class people and young people especially will continue to suffer the insecurities and uncertainties of life in Tory Britain. Johnson has admitted that Labour supporters have only “lent” their votes to him, but the promises of an end to austerity will turn to ash in their mouths. Homelessness will continue to rise. Low pay will plague millions of workers. Food banks will multiply, along with poverty and squalor in the private rented sector. The dismay of the millions of young voters who voted Labour will turn to anger in a measurable period of time and then we will see some serious opposition to the Tories.

Although the Fixed-term Parliament Act and Johnson’s comfortable majority, would appear to suggest that there may not be another election until 2024, it does not mean an earlier election is ruled out or that there will not be a crescendo of opposition to the government. Those who voted for him in former Labour areas will be expecting genuine improvement in their lives and prospects, investment in infrastructure, relief for local authorities, schools and the NHS – and none of these things are going to happen beyond cosmetic measures.

Young voters particularly angry

The first preliminary analysis of voting by age has been produced by the polling organisation of Lord Ashcroft, former Tory Party chairman. Even his poll shows that there was approximately the same gradient that we had in 2017, where the younger the voter the greater the likelihood to vote Labour. According to Ashcroft, 57% of 18-24 year olds voted Labour and only 19% Tory. Among 25-34 year-olds, the figures were 55% and 23% and for 35-44 year-olds 45% and 30%. This chimes with anecdotal evidence from election day itself. For the first time that anyone can remember in British politics there were long queues of voters at polling stations and a large majority of these were younger voters.

This information has profound implications for the future, because, when faced with years of Tory rule, these young voters will not shrug their shoulders and switch to the Conservatives. On the contrary, they will become increasingly angry at the economic and social outcomes they face. The long-term prospects for the British economy, as the article by Marxist economist, Michael Roberts explains here, are dismal.

Having failed on the electoral front, we may well see a move of workers and youth into struggles on the industrial front and on the streets. The pent-up frustrations and anger among workers in many industries and services – education, local government, NHS, rail, Royal Mail – will not vanish overnight and they are likely to exacerbated in the coming months and spill over into industrial disputes.

‘parliamentary democracy’ is discredited

Depending on what the leadership of the Scottish National Party does and the outcome of next year’s Scottish Assembly elections, the government in Westminster may also face an unprecedented constitutional crisis not dissimilar to the crisis in Spain over Catalonia. After the sweeping gains of the SNP there will be some considerable momentum towards another Scottish independence referendum and Johnson and the Tories, however big their majority in London, will be unable to deal with it.

As for the sanctity of ‘parliamentary democracy’ Johnson himself has diminished the status and reputation of the ‘mother of parliaments’ by his cavalier approach to its suspension, by the Tories’ hooligan behaviour in the chamber of the House of Commons and by the abandonment of ‘constitutional norms’ and custom and practice.  What could better demonstrate the Tories’ contempt for parliament than the image of Jacob Rees-Mogg arrogantly lounging full-length, eyes-closed, in the chamber of the House of Commons. Among young people especially, the Tories have set a certain tone – that parliament doesn’t really matter – and so the focus of opposition to the government will move outside and onto the streets.

But if we have a struggle on our hands against a rampant right-wing government, for the left of the Labour Party there is another fight. We will need to defend the radical shift of the party in the last four years and to vigorously oppose any attempt to shift the party back to the non-existent political ‘centre’, into Tory-lite territory.

Jeremy Corbyn is right to stay on as leader in a period of ‘reflection’ as he put it. But the right wing will be clamouring for his resignation as early as possible and they are already touting alternatives like Kier Starmer, Lisa Nandy or Jess Phillips, all of whom supported the leadership ‘no-confidence’ vote in 2016. Emily Thornberry’s acceptance speech in the early hours of Friday morning apparently sounded like an opener in her own leadership bid, but the Labour Party needs a right-wing leader from another London seat like it needs a hole in the head.

Open selection needs to be brought back on the agenda

We need to resurrect the idea of Open Selection – something favoured at Labour conference in 2018 by the majority of Constituency Labour Party delegates, but voted down by the trade unions and Momentum-supporting CLP delegates. Serious steps need to be taken to bring the parliamentary Labour Party to heel – to bring it into line with the aspirations and wishes of the majority of members. Labour MPs are in office to fight for Labour policy, for the hopes and aspirations of party members and for policies in the interests of workers in general. They are not there to feather their own nests or further their own personal careers. There should be no more allowing the NEC to parachute chosen candidates into safe seats where they have no connections, often against left candidates with a track-record of campaigning in the local area. Selections need to be entirely transparent, locally-managed and fully democratic.

Supporters of Left Horizons will participate in the debate and discussion that will inevitably grip the party in the coming months. We will be arguing in favour of Open Selection for a left candidate in any forthcoming leadership election and, above all, for the consolidation of socialist policies in Labour’s commitments for the future.

It will be interesting to see where some of the forces of the ‘left’ make their stand. The leadership of Momentum has shown itself to be unable to run its own organisation democratically and has used its authority to bend and give ground at every push from the right wing. Momentum and a lot of the so-called ‘lefts’ will no doubt draw entirely wrong conclusions from the general election and will support the dilution of radical policies. That must be opposed.

We must also fight and campaign for socialist ideas in the trades unions  affiliated to the party. Too many union representatives – at Labour conference and on Labour’s NEC – take decisions that fly in the face of the best interests of their members and often against their own expressed union policy. We must demand that union delegates to Labour meetings, at all levels, are fully accountable for their actions to the members they purport to represent.

There will be a lot to do and a lot to fight for. We might be bloody but we are  unbowed. We fight on.

-->

British Politics: Election Diary WEEK 5

Election Diary Week 5 is reprinted from Left Horizons UK

by John Pickard

In the week 4 diary, we mentioned the unreliability of opinion polls. It is highly likely that the main parties will have their own private polling organisations, and particularly the Tories, given their better resources and connections. Despite the public statements that almost suggest it’s already in the bag for Johnson, behind the scenes there is some wobble in the Tories’ confidence.

How else can we explain the warning issued by special-adviser-in-chief Dominic Cummings in his personal blog last week (November 27)? “If Boris doesn’t get a majority” Cummings writes, “then Corbyn will take control of No10 on Friday 13th in alliance with Sturgeon plus the Liberal Democrats…” This was all in bold in the original.

He then goes on, “You will see many polls in the coming days. Some will say Boris will win. Trust me, as someone who has worked on lots of campaigns, things are MUCH tighter than they seem and there is a very real possibility of a hung parliament.”

The Tories will be dismayed and Labour heartened by the surge in voter registrations in the period running up to the closing date. Labour party members everywhere and the party officially, put a lot of time and effort into getting the greatest-possible number of registrations. The Tories did absolutely nothing…because they want a low rate of registration and a low turnout, in the knowledge that it is the most disadvantaged and least organised parts of the population – overwhelming ‘natural Labour supporters – who are most likely to miss out.

Record number of recent voter registrations

But official government figures show a surge in registrations even greater than there was in 2017. History never repeats itself, of course, and Labour may not have such an overwhelming lead among younger voters as it did two and a half years ago, but there is still a clear advantage for Labour among younger voters. More than three million registered to vote in the month leading up to the closing date on November 26^th.

According to official figures, two thirds of these were from under 35 year-olds, among whom, according to YouGov, Labour commands something like 46-50 per cent of the vote, compared to the Tories’ 25 per cent. Of the new registrations, an incredible 660,000 came on the final day. This is good news for Labour, although not a reason for complacency, because being on the voting register is not a guarantee of a positive vote.

We reported last week on the bias shown in the BBC coverage of the election campaign. There have now been two incidents of film footage of Johnson being tampered with, in order to put him in a better light.

Then the intervention of the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, gave the BBC the opportunity to give an anti-Corbyn story top news billing in all TV and radio broadcasts for the best part of two days. But, on the other hand, the BBC coverage of the British Council of Muslims complaints about Tory Islamophobia was not given anything like the same publicity.

Neither was the letter to Jeremy Corbyn from a Director of the UK Rabbinical Executive Board, on behalf of the United European Jews organisation (UEJ). The letter completely exonerated Corbyn of anti-Semitism and saying that they “reject and condemn in no uncertain terms” the recent comments in the media claiming that the “majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety” at the prospect of a Labour government. The letter went on to say that the media commentary – ultimately from Rabbi Mirvis – “does not represent the views of mainstream Chareidi [Orthodox] Jews who live in the UK.”

Those in glass houses….

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, threw his meagre weight behind Rabbi Mirvis and that was also well-reported. In reply, Gus John, a well respected author, resigned from the Church of England’s national advisory panel on ethnic minorities. “…those who occupy houses clad with stained glass”, he complained, “…should perhaps be a trifle more careful when they join others in throwing stones”. He specifically criticised Welby’s response the Rabbi Mirvis, “as if he were the pope speaking for all British Jews…secular Jews and those who do not hold with the views of Jews for Labour are considered not to matter.”

The mid-week highlight of the BBC News Corbyn-bashing was the Andrew Neil interview with Jeremy Corbyn. Neil, a long-standing hatchet-man for Rupert Murdoch and well-known for his strident right-wing views, asked the Labour leader to apologise for the charges (from the Chief Rabbi) that Corbyn rejected. Neil, oblivious to the absurdity of asking someone to apologise for something they were denying, was very persistent. Of course the BBC and Tory newspapers gleefully lapped this up…in the knowledge that Johnson wouldn’t face the same treatment, because was desperately avoiding being interviewed by the same hack.

Leaders’ debate on climate change, Channel 4.

Unsurprisingly, neither the Tories nor the Brexit Party were prepared to be represented in a debate about climate change because both are still in state of semi- or outright denial about climate change in the first place. They have nothing to offer on the issue at all and that fact will not be lost on the big majority of young voters for whom climate change is a central issue. Farage and Johnson were substituted on the stage set by melting blocks of ice. 

For Lib-Dem leader Jo Swinson, the issue revolved around staying in the EU; for Nicola Sturgeon no sentence left her mouth without the words ‘Scotland’ or ‘Scottish’ at least three times in it, but Jeremy Corbyn, once again, showed a grasp of the issues – and the detail – that is completely lost on his main opponent, Absentee Johnson. 

A new green policy is absolutely essential and Left Horizons has carried many articles on this question, but it also needs an associated economic and industrial policy that puts it into effect. Labour is quite correctly opposed to ‘green’ policies that put the onus for change on the living standards of ordinary working class people.

The most traumatic event of the week, of course, was the terror attack on Friday at London Bridge. Sadly, it is almost a routine event to have a terror attack just prior to an election. As would have been expected from the most vicious and right-wing Tory leadership in generations, Johnson and his leading ministers attempted to make some political capital out of the murder of two young people by Usman Khan. He was quickly knocked down by the father of one of the victims and Johnson’s pompous and inaccurate attempt to blame the Labour government for Khan’s early release from prison was somewhat punctured by the revelation that among the heroic people who tackled Khan there were a number of immigrants and one man who was himself out on early release. Johnson and the Tories did not profit from the event, much to their disappointment.

Most vicious press campaign in living memory

Once this election campaign in done and dusted, there may well be academic investigations of the role played by the press and the BBC in rubbishing Corbyn. In living memory, there has not been a campaign of lies, disinformation and vilification like the one directed at Jeremy Corbyn.

The last time there was an academic study of media bias, it was done by the Media Reform Coalition, in conjunction with Birkbeck University, London, in 2016. This study, of 465 online articles and 40 prime time news bulletins, was not in an election period, but it examined news over the ten-day period following the coordinated resignations of Labour shadow cabinet members and the beginning of the failed coup against Corbyn. The study found (from its executive summary):

·Twice as much airtime given to critical, rather than supportive voices

·Huge imbalance in favour of issues pushed by Corbyn critics on early evening BBC and ITV bulletins –especially pronounced in headline stories

·A strong tendency within BBC main evening news for reporters to use pejorative language when describing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters

·Domination of views opposed to the Labour leadership in all but one of the online outlets sampled, and across both left and right-leaning titles

·Online-only news sites relatively balanced in their coverage, as well as the BBC online

Labour can only rely on its members, nothing else

In the main body of the report, the study concluded, “The BBC evening news bulletins gave nearly twice as much unchallenged airtime to sources critical of Corbyn compared to those that supported him (an imbalance that was not matched by ITV which gave considerably more equal attention to opposing voices).” (Emphasis in the original)

The bias unearthed in this academic study has been multiplied ten-fold in the past few weeks, but we cannot claim to be surprised at this. It was anticipated that the media, including the BBC, would fight hard and dirty against the election of a Corbyn government. Whatever the outcome of the election, one lesson that Labour Party members must learn is this: that Labour can never rely upon ‘fairness’ in the media owned and controlled by the ruling elite. The party can only rely on the massed ranks of its members, reaching down into every workplace and community to fight for socialist policies in the interests of working class people. No-one else will do it for them. 

-->

UK Politics: Election diary, WEEK 4

Jeremy Corbyn

From the UK Website Left Horizons

By John Pickard

November 27, 2019 

This was the week that the two main parties launched their election manifestos, although the Tories’ was much less weighty and, as one wag described it, more of a “minifesto.” Labour’s manifesto is the most radical since 1945.

The crisis of British capitalism is so deep and entrenched that a Labour government will have an enormous task implementing its policies. This is explained elsewhere, in an excellent article by the Marxist economist Michael Roberts. But the  manifesto is genuinely seeking to address all the day-to-day problems of austerity faced by the overwhelming majority of the population and it will be welcomed by all Party members. Entitled It’s Time for Real Change, it chimes with the gut feeling of millions of people, offering as it does policies like these:

·  
*Increasing health budget and bringing all NHS services and employment back in house

·    *Nationalising key utilities to stop profiteering from public services

·    *Raising the national minimum wage and scrapping Universal Credit

·    *Blocking the increase in the age of the state pension

·    *Building 100,000 homes a year and controls on rented accommodation.

As one Labour supporter put it, “what’s not to like?” The Financial Times (and other Tory newspapers) were predictably scathing about what they saw as an anti-business raft of policies, but this august paper of British capitalism couldn’t fail to put its finger on exactly why the political ground is moving below its feet:

We know about austerity…we just have no answers

 “…real wages have still not returned to their pre-crisis peak. Homelessness has risen. Basic public services such as the criminal justice system, social care and local government are dire. Privatised water and rail companies are not delivering for users. Large parts of the population feel excluded from the bright spots of prosperity, mainly in the south-east.” Thus, the Financial Times is able and willing to list the problems, but unwilling to accept that the system the paper defends is incapable of solving them.

The Financial Times is not unique. Even the Mail on Sunday was forced to bend to public sentiment, at least a little bit, by echoing the outrage of million of people about the tax-dodging that is endemic in capitalism. “One in four of the UK's top companies pay no tax,” its headline shouted out last weekend, “while we give THEM millions in credits”.

It went on: “Almost one in four of Britain’s biggest listed companies paid no corporation tax in this country last year – and almost half fail to disclose their tax payments to the UK at all, according to research by The Mail on Sunday. Analysis of the latest annual reports and accounts of all the companies in the FTSE 100 found that 47 companies gave no obvious figures for tax paid in Britain. Of the 53 who did, 12 showed they paid no tax at all and, of these, six actually received a tax credit.” It is very surprising for the Sunday Mail to even mention these facts, although they don’t explain the full extent of the problem – for the rich and super-rich (including the owner of the Mail newspapers) income tax is optional and usually avoided – and nor can they offer any solutions.

Tories offering nothing beyond ‘getting Brexit done’ 

In contrast to Labour’s manifesto, genuinely offering improvements in the lives of the big majority of the population, the Tory manifesto predictably focused on ‘getting Brexit done’. Beyond that there was nothing on offer for ordinary people, except jam tomorrow: it was a real minifesto. Even the Financial Times thought the Tory manifesto was a “leap of faith”.

Another thing we learned last week was that the political donations to the Tories have leapt ahead of Labour, and that they were overwhelmingly from rich backers. The Tories took in £5.67m, according to Electoral Commission, and that was only from donations of above £7,500. On the same measure, Labour only took in £219,000, less than a twentieth of the Tories’ big donations, but they would have received a lot more in small donations from ordinary working people, with not a penny from private equity tycoons, property moguls or theatre impresarios or Russian exile pals of Putin.

Rich donating to the Tories’ coffers

We got some idea where the funds are going as well, because the three main parties are now well into six-figure sums for their spending on social media advertisements. Up to last weekend, most money had been spent on Facebook and Instagram ads (Twitter having banned political ads). Labour had spent up to that time £128,000 on Facebook and Instagram and £15,000; the Tories £143,000 on Facebook and much less, £3200, on Snapchat. It also seems that the Labour were massively outspending the Tories on Google ads, with £64,000-worth placed, compared to Tories £12,500, although that may well change.

We can’t let this go by without mentioning the dirty tricks the Tories have got up to on social media. On the day of the launch of Labour’s manifesto, they published a video of Labour MP Jess Phillips appearing to rubbish the manifesto. She was quoted as saying, "You can never, ever deliver all of those things that you are pretending to deliver when you go to the electorate." In fact she had said those things, but it was in an old interview, on October 3, when she was speaking in general terms about election promises, and before the election was even called. That did not stop Tory Central Office issuing this video in such a way as to give the impression it was said on November 22, in response to Labour’s manifesto.

Dirty Tory tricks again

Not content with this deliberate lie, the Tories also launched a fake website with the domain name labourmanifesto.com, which they proceeded to circulate on Twitter. It looked Labour – with a picture of Corbyn and the right colours – but it carried anti-Labour slogans. Someone handy with the internet turned the tables on the Tories and took the domain Torymanifesto.com, to do the same to them. The latter person had their Twitter account blocked, but the Tories, predictably, did not.

It is far too early to draw any conclusions from opinion polls and we know, in any case, that they are partial and biased. They take no account of swings of moods and changes taking place quite rapidly. On the eve of the general election of 2017, the latest poll predicted that Theresa May was going to get a 78-seat majority, on the basis of a 10-point lead. History will not repeat itself, but there is no reason to doubt that the polls will close as we get nearer to December 12^th. In the meantime, view them with caution.

It was interesting that after the first two-way TV debate, most polls thought that Corbyn had come out a clear winner. Britain Elects polled 33,000 people and the result was Corbyn 57% and Johnson 28%. An ITV poll of 30,000 gave a similar result: Corbyn 78%, Johnson 22%. A Martin Lewis poll of 23,000 gave the result: Corbyn 47%, Johnson 25%. The Times polled 8,000 and got: Corbyn 63%, Johnson 37%. Even LBC, no friend of Labour, showed a poll on Twitter of over 9,000 respondents, with Corbyn ahead by 49% to 29%. Only YouGov, polling a measly 1,646 came out for Johnson, with 51% against 49% for Corbyn. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to guess which poll was being quoted on the BBC – yes, you’ve guessed it, the YouGov poll.

Another, much larger poll, also by YouGov, has been kept out of the news bulletins (see chart above). In 2017 there was a clear majority for Labour among all younger age groups. That pattern is less stark today, but it is still basically intact. Labour is polling as follows: 18-29 year olds, 51%, 30-39 year olds, 41%, 40-49 year olds, 32% - and this was before the manifesto commitments on pensions  

We see this week that the BBC are up to their dirty tricks again. Two weeks ago, they aired film of Boris laying a wreath at the cenotaph in 2016, no doubt out of embarrassment over his dishevelled look this year. They claimed it was a “mistake” to show 2016 instead of 2019 footage, although it would have needed an editor or producer to order the older footage from the archives. Now they’ve made another “mistake” by editing out laughter during the two-way TV debate. The audience laughed at (not with) Johnson when he muttered something about truthfulness being important. In a later review of the programme, the BBC edited the laughter out, “to save time” they said. We know that it was no “accident” but a deliberate ploy for Johnson’s benefit, to “save face” not time.

The safety, security and well-being of Jews are not threatened

The Tory BBC had a pretext all day yesterday to flag up the fake “anti-Semitism” pervading the Labour Party, in all the prime spots in all their radio and TV news broadcasts. In fact, it was almost impossible to turn on the news on that day and not see a discussion on anti-Semitism, with well-chosen anti-Labour ‘experts’ interviewed. This was all thanks to the intervention of Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. We knew this was going to be a dirty election campaign and the Chief Rabbi just turned it up a notch. It is notable that the Mirvis made no criticism of the anti-Semitism of Tory candidates and seems to take little interest in Islamophobia (again, rife in the Tory Party) or any other form of racism. No MP has a record of combatting racism and anti-Semitism like Jeremy Corbyn and the Chief Rabbi knows this. The idea that the safety, security and well-being of Jewish people are somehow threatened by Labour is an outright lie and the Chief Rabbi knows this too.

Chief Rabbi welcomed Johnson’s election as PM 

So what do we have? We have a long-standing opponent of socialism and an on-the-record supporter of Boris Johnson who is abusing his position as a religious ‘leader’ to intervene. He deliberately chose the day when Labour was launching its anti-racist manifest. The ‘Tweetosphere’ and social media in general was been full of Jewish Labour Party members that day, denouncing the intervention of Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, but they will not get the same exposure on the BBC or in the papers as the Chief Rabbi. Nor has there been much attention paid to the British Council of Muslims explicitly condemning the Tories for fostering Islamophobia.

We will not be dismayed by this. Labour members know that “anti-Semitism” is just not an issue on the doorstep. Austerity is. The NHS is. We can also take some comfort in the idea that when the establishment – a pillar of which is the Chief Rabbi – begin to create fictitious religious divisions to win the argument, they are clearly getting worried.

Labour Party member stands in Northern Ireland

Reprinted from Left Horizons UK

By Mick Craig, Labour Party Northern Ireland
November 18, 2019

I went to the launch of Caroline Wheeler's election campaign in Enniskillen on Saturday.  Caroline, an executive member of the Labour Party in Northern Ireland, is standing as an independent for the Fermanagh South Tyrone constituency in the forthcoming General Election.

The first thing readers will ask is, 'why is a member of the Labour Party standing as an independent?' I hope this will become clear as you read on.

The speakers on the panel at the launch meeting included Boyd Black, Secretary of LPNI, Padraig Murphy of Save Our Services, Donal O'Cofaigh, Cross-community Labour-Alternative local councillor and Carmel Gates, Deputy General Secretary of NIPSA, the largest public sector union in Northern Ireland.

That Caroline's campaign is supported by Labour's Norther Ireland executive and the largest trade union is significant. Caroline is an executive member of Unite Ireland, which also endorses her candidacy. No other candidate in this election in Northern Ireland has the support of leading trade unions. There are other socialist candidates standing here but none have this degree of support from workers' organisations, and importantly, they do not belong to a party which has the potential to form the Government in Westminster.

One CLP exists, instead of eighteen
Boyd Black spoke on the issue of Labour being prevented from standing candidates in elections here. He explained that because of a court case back in 2003 we were allowed to organise as part of the UK Labour Party, and due to a further case 5 years later, we were allowed to form a single Constituency Labour Party, although there should be 18 as there are 18 constituencies here.

Both of these cases were based on the fact that in legal terms, the population of Northern Ireland has a unique ethnic identity. Since this identity is recognised in law, the UK labour Party was found to have discriminated against the electorate of Northern Ireland. It follows then that the UK Labour Party continues to break the law by preventing us from having a CLP in every constituency and from standing candidates in elections. Boyd went on to declare that the LPNI fully endorsed Caroline as candidate and dismissed UK Labour's stance as racist and illegal.

The Labour hierarchy argue that for the party to organise here would be taking sides in a divided society. We point out that we recognise that a large section of this society identifies as being 'Irish' and that their aspiration is for the unity of Ireland under one jurisdiction and the ending of British influence.

The reality is however that Northern Ireland is part of the UK and while we continue to elect parties whose only remit is to unite Ireland we are denying ourselves a say in how we are currently governed – we are disenfranchising ourselves. While UK Labour continues to dictate that we can't stand candidates it is illegally endorsing this disenfranchisement.

The immediate problems of austerity and privatisation which have brought misery to the lives of many here are not going to be solved by moving the border to the Irish Sea. Since partition southern Ireland has been ruled by successive governments which have been, and remain, just as conservative as the UK Tories. The Republic of Ireland does not have a health service free at the point of need and has one of the worst housing problems in Europe. The levels of inequality and corruption in Southern Ireland beggar belief and we believe that these problems need to be tackled within that state before there would any move to unite it with Northern Ireland.

Read the Left Horizons Editorial on this issue

History of non-sectarian labour activity
Carmel Gates pointed out that the people of this constituency have a history of Labour and trade union activity which cut across the sectarian divide, and that Fermanagh Trades Union Council had just celebrated its centenary. She welcomed the news that the RCN had voted overwhelmingly for strike action in a recent ballot, this being the first such action in that Union's history.

Padraig Murphy and Caroline both pointed out that their Save Our Services had been very successful and received a lot of public support. The campaign managed to save the essential stroke services, among others in the local area.

Donal O'Cofaigh, who was elected to the local council in May this year listed all of campaigns in which Caroline had been involved over the years, which all began when she fought for better support for carers of disabled children, being a carer of a disabled son herself.

In her speech, Caroline Wheeler pledged to fight 'For The Many Not The Few' whether elected or not. She strongly supports getting rid of all traces of privatisation of the NHS and bringing all major services and industries back into public ownership, and scrapping Universal Credit as well as bogus medical testing for ESA and PIP. She called for the immediate implementation of a £10 minimum wage and an end to zero-hour employment contracts.

The meeting was well attended, especially for such a remote rural area with a widely dispersed population. Many of those present are members of the cross-community Labour Alternative, who set out to begin canvassing when the meeting ended. Not only is this campaign anti-sectarian in the Northern Ireland sense but it also cuts across any divisions in left politics.

Caroline Wheeler is an independent standing on a Labour Manifesto and if elected has committed to take the Labour whip in Parliament. We could transform politics here if we had a candidate like her in all 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland.

Since this campaign isn't being funded by centrally by the Labour Party, I appeal to all comrades to contribute financially to its fighting fund. This is a link to PayPal for this purpose. Any donation is welcome no matter how small.

More on British Elections. Editorial: we can win this election!

March 2019: Thousands call for a second referendum (Image not with original article)

The following is the editorial on the British Election from the British Website Left Horizons

Editorial: we can win this election!

October 30, 2019 

After months of speculation, a general election has finally been called for December 12. This election will be a decisive turning point in British politics and it is a contest that Labour can win. The half-million strong Labour membership, bigger by far than the geriatric membership of the Tory Party, will be straining every sinew to make sure the Tories are defeated and Jeremy Corbyn is catapulted into power at the head of a radical Labour government.

It is the first general election in December for nearly a century and the latest in the calendar in more than a century. Elections are not normally held in December, and for good reason, given the possibility of wintry weather affecting the turnout. But that is precisely Boris Johnson’s calculation in holding a short, sharp election. He even opposed an election on December 9 rather than December 12, not because he has a sentimental attachment to Thursdays, but in the hope that the later the date the more likely that tens of thousands of student votes will go missing. In 2017, the student vote was overwhelmingly Labour and proved decisive in many constituencies, notably in Canterbury, where the seat went to Labour for the first time ever. Johnson’s own seat, Ruislip South in West London, includes Brunel University, with 10,000 students and staff. Johnson is hoping that students broken up from university or on their way home will not vote.

Potential of Brexit monopolising the election

The Tory Party relies upon the active support of the press and mass media rather than any campaigning by their membership, so no doubt Johnson is hoping that poor weather and the darker nights will deter Labour’s legions of workers from effectively working on the ground.

One thing that is different to the 2017 election, however, is the potential for Brexit to monopolise the entire campaign. As we have argued, the trading relationship between the UK and the EU is not and has never been the decisive question facing the working class. That issue is austerity and the drive to the bottom in wages, services, working conditions and in all the normal securities of life.

Nevertheless, the press and BBC will be doing their best to keep the Brexit as much as possible at the centre of the campaign in the next six weeks. That will chime precisely with the Tories’ main slogan, which will be to “get Brexit done”. Johnson is hoping to cut across the support in the polls for the Brexit Party and the only way he can do that is for the Tories to become the Brexit Party and make it the only issue in the campaign.

A means to drive living standards down further

Johnson is indeed aiming for a majority to ram through his Brexit deal. But it is what is behind it that matters. A Tory Brexit is nothing more than a means of driving down living standards even further. Johnson’s deal is worse than the miserable arrangement that Theresa May cobbled together. What environmental protections and food standards there are now will be ditched. Previously vague commitments to maintain working standards and workers’ rights – the so-called “level playing field” – have been explicitly jettisoned by Johnson. The NHS will be chewed to bits by big American medical corporations and pharmaceutical companies. The Tories, if they are allowed to leave the EU on their terms, will try to turn the UK into a low-pay, low-tax and low-skill economy off the shores of Europe. This is a plan that has been described as “Singapore on Thames”, where inward investment will be attracted by the opportunity to exploit the lowest-paid workers in Europe.

The Labour Party is absolutely right to oppose this Tory Brexit, but it is vital that the election campaign goes outside and beyond that issue and raises the class issues that affect the majority of the population.  A recent tweet from TUC pointed out that from 1997 to 2008, the average UK worker’s wage rose by £4772 a year, but in the ten years that followed, from 2008 to 2019, the average fell by £705 a year. This is the reality of Tory Britain…low pay, insecurity, uncertainty, a shortage of affordable housing, the disintegration of the NHS, education and local services and a relentless drive to the bottom. These are the real issues that affect millions of working people and their families. And it is on these issues that Labour has a clear advantage because the Tories have nothing to offer.

As Jeremy Corbyn said recently, “The real divide in our society is not between people who voted Leave or Remain in 2016. It’s between the many who do the work, create the wealth, and pay their taxes, and the few, who set the rules, reap the rewards and dodge their taxes.” The potential is there for a Labour campaign on the real issues. According to the Daily Mirror this week, almost half of people polled think Boris Johnson is lying about the NHS and a US trade deal. As well they might.

This will be a vicious election campaign and the press attacks on Corbyn and the Labour left which we have seen in the past will be multiplied ten-fold. No lie will be too big, no exaggeration too great, no slander too outrageous for the national press to repeat and for the BBC to echo. We expect nothing else from the Tories, but we should not be surprised if they are assisted from time to time by the barbs of some right-wing Labour MPs. These people have learnt nothing from the experience of 2017, when they demanded that Corbyn stand aside as leader who was “unelectable”, but then found their majorities increased as a result of Corbyn’s campaign.

Labour’s fifth column is still in place

Many of the old Blairite MPs are still in place as candidates and will be elected as MPs. We have to say, as an aside, that many of them would have been de-selected in the last year if the soft-left of the Labour Party, notably the Momentum leadership, hadn’t caved in to the right of the party and ditched Open Selection at the 2018 Labour conference. Labour’s right wing are a fifth column who are capable of sabotaging the election campaign. As long as their own seats are safe, many of them would be happy to see a Tory administration rather than a radical Labour government led by Corbyn.

Politics is more unpredictable and volatile than it has been for generations and it would be rash to predict the outcome of the election at such an early stage. But Boris Johnson’s calculations may well backfire as Theresa May’s did in 2017. The Brexit Party, starting off in the polls at around 10-11 per cent, is likely to be squeezed by the Tories. The Liberal-Democrats, supporters of the Tory coalition from 2010 to 2015 and therefore among the architects of drastic cuts in welfare and services, have made remaining in the EU their only policy, and in truth they have nothing else to offer. It remains to be seen whether or not they can get over the stigma of supporting the Tories on all of their flagship policies in the first half of the decade.

Two million registered to vote in eight weeks

What will be the decisive factors at play in the election? It is notable that according to official government figures, nearly two million people have applied to register to vote in the past eight weeks. This is almost double the number of the previous eight weeks. Out of the two million recent registrations, more than half (58 per cent) were from people under 34 and only 7% were from those 65 and over. This follows a spike in September, when there was speculation about an Autumn election and 200,000 people applied to register in just 72 hours, again more than half of them under 35.

In the 2017 general election, according to the Guardian, 55% of 25-34 year-olds voted Labour and among 33 to 44 year-olds, it was still 50%. A YouGov survey was even better for Labour: 18-19 year-olds were 66% for Labour, 20-24 year-olds 62%, 25-29 year-olds 63% and 30-39 year-olds 55%. It is true that there is no guarantee that history will repeat itself, but Labour can at least be confident that it can win the majority of young voters again. It is still the case that Labour is stronger, the younger the age of voters polled. This election will therefore be as much about voter registration as it will be about voting.

Labour’s mass membership can be decisive

Another important factor in Labour’s favour is its half million members, overwhelmingly supporting Jeremy Corbyn. Most of these have not been active in terms of participation in meetings and that is the only reason why right-wing Labour candidates have withstood trigger ballots. But the three big influxes of membership in two leadership campaigns and the 2017 general election campaign, have left a permanent mark. Labour won the recent Peterborough bye-election, against the odds, precisely because it was able to mobilise hundreds of party workers one weekend after another in the run-up to the vote.

Even if only a fraction of Labour’s membership turn out to work in the election, it will completely eclipse anything the other parties can do. If the Labour Party supplements the work of its large membership with mass rallies up and down the country, as it did in 2017, it will not only by-pass the hostility of the media and TV, it will help to galvanise and energise the membership.

But the key question, as ever, is what is in the Labour manifesto and how this is put across to the electorate. The more radical it is and the more it addresses the day-to-day needs of ordinary workers and their families, the better Labour’s results will be. Labour’s manifesto commitments from 2017 – and we hope and expect they will be even better this year – were extremely popular, as one opinion poll after another shows.

Labour regained 3 million votes in 2017

An energised Labour Party can do again what it did in 2017. In that election, Labour won back three million votes that had been lost by Tony Blair and New Labour. The jump in Labour’s support in 2017, by nearly 10 per cent from the 2015 election, was the biggest jump in Labour votes since 1945. Labour began 20 points behind in the polls and came within a whisker of winning. If the campaign had gone another two weeks Labour might have won.

Unfortunately, there are some even on the left of the Labour Party who are already wringing their hands in despair. We say to them, remember 2017. Left Horizons supporters will be out in the streets and on the door-knockers with other Labour Party members and we will fight like never before. Capitalism offers nothing to working class people, except more blood, toil, tears and sweat. We need a Labour government that looks to socialist solutions for all the ills of society. Let us work, fight and campaign for the next six weeks to put Boris Johnson and his rich elite where they belong: in the dustbin of history.