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Showing posts with the label politics

Are Starmer's pledges worth the paper they were written on?

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  The 10 pledges made by Keir Starmer on his way to victory in the Labour leadership election planted his campaign firmly in the ground marked by the 2017 general election manifesto that almost put Corbyn's Labour into government. But six months on, questions are increasingly being asked about whether he intends to stand by them. On both the left and right wings of the party and among some commentators there is a growing belief that the pledges were nothing but a ruse to lure former Corbyn supporters away from his chosen successor Rebecca Long-Bailey, and having served their purpose are now in the process of being quietly dropped to make way for a return to Blair-style centrism.  But is this belief actually true? Approaching this question as a very forensic lawyer might do, let's first consider the case for the prosecution. The belief on the Labour right and among centrist pundits that Starmer is their man is well summed up by Andrew Rawnsley's  recent column on his confere

So You Want To Start a New Centre Party?

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The drumbeat of Centrism is getting louder, if you can imagine such a thing. Current Lib Dem leader Vince Cable embarrassingly missed a crucial Brexit vote in order, it is claimed, to discuss a possible new party with unknown others. Leading Tory "rebel" Dominic Grieve has put it on the record that he will leave his party if Boris Johnson becomes leader. And Chuka Umunna has warned that the Labour party is at breaking point under Corbyn's leadership in comments widely interpreted as a signal that he is on the way out. It's prudent to take some of these public remarks with a pinch of salt of course. After all, it's the same Dominic Grieve who was conned by Tory whips into voting against his own Brexit amendment . And it's the same Chuka Umunna who said in the wake of the referendum that we should be prepared to sacrifice single market membership in order to curtail freedom of movement rights , before deciding that fighting for the single market was a be

What would a Labour Brexit look like?

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Some Remainers are upset at Jeremy Corbyn again, after he apparently ruled out staying in the single market after Brexit . Many have taken umbrage at his claim that single market membership is intrinsically linked to EU membership, pointing to the EFTA countries Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland as counterexamples. But Corbyn is technically correct to say that the single market is not a club that can be joined. You can of course loosely say that the likes of Norway and Switzerland are "in" the single market, but their high level of access comes through the EEA agreement and bilateral treaties respectively, which include exceptions such as agriculture and fisheries. It's not a binary distinction by any means. Rather than argue semantics, a more fruitful exercise is to analyse what Labour would actually hope to achieve if they were in charge of Brexit negotiations. As with the Conservatives , it is clear enough if you take at face value what they say t

The Ukrainian Gambit

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In the phase 1 Brexit agreement , the UK has made a commitment to keep the Irish border open in all circumstances: The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements. The United Kingdom's intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship. Should this not be possible, the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland. In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement. Many commentators have interpreted this to mean that the only destination now possible in phase 2 is a so-called soft Brexit, where to all intents and pur

There are no good arguments against votes at 16

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As someone who was denied the chance to vote in a parliamentary election until I was 21, it might not surprise you that I have every sympathy with 16 and 17 year olds who were similarly denied a chance to vote this year. It was a shame, then, that Jim McMahon's bill to reduce the voting age was not brought to a vote on Friday, and dismaying to discover that there are still plenty of opponents of votes at 16 out there, throwing out the usual tired arguments against change. Most of these arguments tend towards abstract musings on the nature of adulthood, aka "why should we trust 16 year olds with a vote if we don't trust them with a pint?". Which itself raises the question of exactly what kind of damage they are expecting 16 year olds to do with their ballot paper. Give themselves a papercut? The intention of restricting things like alcohol, gambling, smoking, tanning salons, etc. to 18 is clearly to protect children from potentially harming themselves or others

Why a new "centrist" party would probably fail

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It's been heartening to see that the  softening of Labour's Brexit position over the summer has not led to a decline in its polling figures, and may even be driving them up a little. Labour's change was apparently motivated at least in part by the fear that a new "centrist" party would emerge that would hurt them more than the Tories . Certainly, there's been much talk recently of such a party, despite or perhaps because of the lacklustre performance of the existing centrist party, the Lib Dems, in the snap election. The belief that a new centrist party would sweep all before it is based on the idea that if Labour moves left while the Tories move right, a great yawning gap of homeless voters will appear in the middle. Assuming voters are normally distributed across the political spectrum, the picture looks something like this: Which is fine as far as it goes, but the label "centrist" bugs me, both as a tag for the potential new party and in i

Life in Remainville: Episode 3, A New Hope

So it turns out the method of counting window posters is scientific, with Jeff Smith crushing all before him: Party Votes % +/- % Jeff Smith Labour 38,424 71.7 +18.0 John Leech Liberal Democrat 8,549 15.9 -8.0 Sarah Heald Conservative 5,530 10.3 +0.6 Laura Bannister Green 865 1.6 -6.5 Sally Carr Women’s Equality 234 0.4 Far from being a marginal, Withington must now be one of the safest seats in the country. The Lib Dems remain in second place but will surely now turn their attention to more winnable targets. The Greens' collapse mirrors their poor performance nationally, while the Tories have benefitted only marginally from the disappearance of UKIP. What a turnaround we've seen since the start of the campaign, and even the local elections, when it seemed like Big Andy would be the only Labour politi

Life in Remainville: Smith vs Leech revisited

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In case you were thinking the main contenders had gone quiet, I can assure you that our hallway carpet continues to be submerged in red and yellow leaflets. We've received a CV from John Leech, a personal letter from Jeff Smith, an even more personal psuedo-handwritten letter from the Manchester Mum of the Year describing how Leech helped her child get medical treatment, two reminders to vote on Thursday, and more besides. But rather than attempt to scan all that lot in I'll just share the two which best summarise their respective campaigns. Here's Smith's effort, complete with endorsement from Big Andy and a number of references to police cuts (a growing theme in the Labour material):  (Top prize for misleading stat there with the 93% line) And here is Leech, no longer featuring photos of Corbyn but abstract references to infighting instead. (I'm still trying to understand the logic of the "more spending, more taxes, no pla

Life in Remainville: attack of the nasty old also-rans

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Pantomime villain Sarah Heald finally appears in leaflet form:   One of the most content-free leaflets I've ever seen, though don't worry because Team May is here to explain all... I guess this leaflet was produced back when standing with Theresa May was considered to be an advantage, maybe not so much now. Everything else about it has a distinctly phoned-in quality, not least that the designer couldn't even be bothered to replace "MY CANDIDATE" with the actual name of the candidate. Even if the Tories do end up with a 100+ majority after all, I will at least take solace that Her Candidate is not going to Westminster.

Life in Remainville: a teachable moment

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That must have been a particularly engaged art class...

Life in Remainville: at the Hustings

To St Clements, scene of the 2015 hustings , for a re-run. With the Big Two back again with much the same views I didn't learn a whole lot that would sway my vote, although Jeff Smith's vow to keep fighting for the interests of pro-Europeans was welcome. He had a neat line on a second referendum, being sympathetic to one but noting the necessity of a change in public opinion first, which he predicted would happen. Smith's vote against Article 50 has indeed innoculated him against a clear line of attack from John Leech, and Brexit was far from the dominant theme of the evening, putting a question mark over the very name of this blog series. Much more focus was on questions of tax and spending, which is exactly where Labour needs the debate to be and very bad news for the Lib Dems . Leech's other main attack was that a vote for Smith is a vote for Corbyn Chaos, but the lack of reaction confirmed my feeling that Withington is not the most receptive area in the country to

Life in Remainville: Attack of the All-New Also Rans

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With the resumption of campaigning another three postings from the Lib Dems have arrived, including personal letters addressed personally to me in person from both Tim Farron and John Leech. Nothing new of interest to report in any of them. I would though like to appeal to the party to stop sending me pictures of Nigel Farage laughing maniacally, they're making me feel ill. Much more interesting is the first piece of literature from outside the Big Two. There are three other candidates standing this time, sadly not including the Mysterious Independent, who regular readers will know took a punt on becoming mayor instead. UKIP have also failed to show up, which on the one hand is a marvellous indicator of their continuing decline but on the other hand denies us the satisfaction of seeing them lose their deposit again. Laura Bannister is standing for the Greens (not to be confused with Lucy Bannister from 2015 - are they related?) while Sarah Heald is also new for the Tories. The fi

Life in Remainville: après les vacances, le déluge

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So you turn your back for a week and seven pieces of literature arrive. Far too many to scan, so you'll just have to click-and-squint to get a flavour: After heroically reading all of these I have learned: "Who will stop The Hard Brexit?" - Not the Labour Party, no no no. The Liberal Democrats of course. 8/10 fair point rating, although given how their campaign has gone so far I doubt the Lib Dems will be capable of stopping anything much in the next parliament.  "Who can change the Future of Britain?" - Not Corbyn's Labour Party, no no no. Tim Farron's Liberal Democrats of course. A variation on the same theme but with more boo hiss Corbyn photos. I'm a little bit surprised about the focus on Corbyn as I would have thought Withington would be more sympathetic than most areas to his leadership, but what do I know. John Leech still likes to send us personal letters address personally to us in person. More jabs at Labour regarding Brexit, mix

Life in Remainville

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With the Andy Burnham Show out of the way thoughts turn to the awful looming catastrophe of 8th June. Manchester Withington is all but irrelevant to the national outcome this time, where there is one mission and one mission only: to reduce the scale of the Tory victory. While it is a privilege to live in a constituency where the Tories don't stand a chance, it does render the local contest somehow a bit academic. It goes without saying that Labour and the Lib Dems don't see it that way, and it's clear already that this election is going to be just as closely fought as 2015, even though it is nominally now a safe Labour seat. No complaints from me of course... I'm not going to post every piece of literature I receive before the main event, not least as the exhausting Libdemalanche is continuing unabated, with yet another feature-packed South Manchester News arriving today (complaining about Labour's record on homelessness, on the same day the mayor announced a ne