37.8 %
2.7 %
32.4 %
🧥
8.1 %
8.1 %
:🤗
2.7 %
8.1 %
Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 12:51 pm George Galloway is your made up anal sex man.I was happier before this sentence came into being
In the decade after the Good Friday agreement, I spent some of the most rewarding time of my career in Northern Ireland. Returning now for two days, those vivid memories are tinged with sadness at the loss of progress and the failure of this government in its duty of care.
After nearly three decades of steadily moving forwards, this prime minister has put his own narrow interest above the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. Having refused to take responsibility for his decisions, his dishonesty now risks the stability of the peace process.
My crucial task in Northern Ireland was to advise the Police Board of Northern Ireland as the Royal Ulster Constabulary was transformed into the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I remember the tension etched on the faces of the officers in their command suite as they made split-second decisions about the policing of parades. I saw at once how much was at stake and I have never forgotten the lesson.
But I also saw what is possible when people pull together. The late Mo Mowlam said: “It takes courage to push things forward.” The Good Friday agreement was the sum total of the courage of the communities of the people of Northern Ireland.
And it was a testament to the relentless focus and concentrated effort of a Labour government. It is an achievement of which we are rightly proud. And it is heart-rending to see it come under threat because a new generation of Conservative politicians lacks the courage to push things forward.
Northern Ireland should not be a partisan issue, but Boris Johnson cannot live up to that standard. His custody of the precious Good Friday agreement has been designed to shore up his own party advantage. It is reckless and foolish.
After insisting he would never place barriers down the Irish Sea, Johnson negotiated just that. Now, after a year spent denying what he had done, he has started trying to renege on parts of his own deal. He personally negotiated the Northern Ireland protocol; he has a personal responsibility to make it work. The recent extension of the grace period was welcome but it is not a durable solution. Over a quarter of all trade to Northern Ireland is subject to onerous “SPS” checks, largely on food and agricultural products.
The UK and EU need to work out a veterinary standards agreement to bring assurance to Northern Ireland and benefit food exporters across the UK — the US has been clear that is not a fundamental barrier to a free-trade agreement. The prime minister promised an agreement of this kind during trade negotiations with the EU but has failed to deliver.
Peace in Northern Ireland is still fragile. Twenty-three years on from the agreement, paramilitary activity is still high. Nor is it a coincidence that violence has flared in areas of profound deprivation, where children are educated in segregated schools and educational attainment is too low. Reconciliation and social justice should walk hand in hand.
Trust is fragile in the province and huge challenges lie ahead. Real leadership is needed once again. The people of Northern Ireland deserve no less.
Three weeks ago, Keir Starmer seemed to be heading for another byelection humiliation and a senior Labour official told the Mail on Sunday why. “We’re haemorrhaging votes among Muslim voters, and the reason for that is what Keir has been doing on antisemitism,” the unnamed strategist said. “There’s been a backlash among certain sections of the community.” The Muslims of Batley and Spen were apparently so giddy with hatred of Jews that they couldn’t even vote straight.
Outrage ensued. The party censured the statement and hastily announced an investigation into its source. Then came the sequel.
Last Friday, within hours of Kim Leadbeater scraping home in the West Yorkshire constituency, yet another of Labour’s reserve army of anonymously toxic officials boasted to the Times: “Basically built a new electoral coalition in six weeks. Lost the conservative Muslim vote over gay rights and Palestine, and won back a lot of 2019 Tory voters.” So this is apparently Labour’s new “red wall” playbook: prejudice from some white voters amounts to “legitimate concerns” to be pandered to; prejudice from some Asian Muslim voters is used to tar an entire community. Fans of Nigel Farage must be wooed back into the red corner, while supporters of his old mucker George Galloway are to be castigated for disloyalty.
Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:48 pm There have been some bad things said, in fairness. And no reason to readmit Trevor Phillips.I agree on Phillips and that comment to the Mail on Sunday was out or order but the one about Conservative Muslims was not.
If you vote for an anti-Semite Assadist, blasphemy law supporter lying his arse off about what kids learn about gays in primary schools, then you don't exactly signal "we want to vote Labour". Sure lots of people will have voted for Galloway without supporting that, and Kim Leadbetter is already focusing on them
Are Labour really going after Farage supporters? More of a sense they're after Remain Tories.
And wasn't Corbyn hailed in 2017 for getting Kippers to vote for him?
Labour didn’t lose its ‘red wall’ – it never had oneBut it strongly identifies Red Wall with working class. Is that what was meant by it? I thought the point was that the Red Wall voted Labour despite having lots of white home owners- people who don't vote Labour in other areas?
The phenomenon of a working-class red wall is an ideological concoction that benefits Labour’s enemies. It makes little sociological or psephological sense today, and the fragment of the past it reflects is one of Tory working classes. Yet this group has come to define how Labour thinks of the working classAgree the first part- the Tories are getting away with overstating their working class support, and Kippers like talking this bollocks. But is Labour really "defining the working class"? Isn't it just saying "we lost a lot of votes from these places, let's try and get them back"? What are they supposed to do? Lots of those voters liked Brexit and didn't like Corbyn.
Indeed, once we look beyond the fallacious, Westminster-centric view of elections, which measures the popularity of a party according to how many seats they get rather than their share of the vote, a very different story of Labour leaders’ political success emerges. In 1997 Tony Blair did as well (but no better) than Hugh Gaitskill did in 1959, but Blair won a huge parliamentary majority whereas Gaitskell lost seats.Fallacious Westminster centric? As my old teacher used to say when confronted by a particularly lame explanation for fucking homework up, "Write that on your GCSE paper". And there's no account of third parties there. The Lib Dems got loads of votes in 1997-2005 from people who would, one presumes, have voted Labour if they'd been the close local competitor. Above all, the Tories matter. Lots of the electorate aren't sitting around waiting to hear from the Labour leader.
And since 1970 there have been two powerful upswings in Labour’s vote share, which increased from 1983 to a peak in 1997 (44%), and from a nadir in 2010 to the second peak in 2017 (41%). Blair and Corbyn both increased Labour’s share nationally, and in all kinds of seats. In Hartlepool Labour’s recent vote share peaked in 1997 and 2017, in Batley and Spen in 2001 and 2017. There were deep troughs in 1983 and 2010. It is, tellingly, the same story in southern Chesham and Amersham – troughs in 1983 and 2010 and peaks in 1997 and 2017.No surprise that voteshare goes up everywhere when a party does well- who said that it didn't? But what about distribution? Lots of people called out from the start that Corbyn was going to be bad for vote distribution. Sure, Hartlepool and Batley-Spen went well in 2017. Lots of other seats swung Tory and some were gained by them. A lot more would have been too, if May hadn't fucked up more than any campaign ever.
Labour undoubtedly still needs the working-class vote. Winning this means creating a Labour party for workers and trade unionists in the present day, not those of a mythologised past.Corbyn certainly sought to give them this, I don't know how he explains the poor performance in lots of "Red Wall" seats, if it isn't Corbyn and Brexit. What was it?
Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 12, 2021 10:50 pm I think it's hard not to say that Brexit and Corbyn hurt Labour in lots of seats in 2019. I don't really get what "nobody works in mines any more" or "lots of working class people vote Tory" really adds to anything.It's hardly rocket science. Corbyn couldn't be trusted and Boris would get Brexit done.
Labour undoubtedly still needs the working-class vote. Winning this means creating a Labour party for workers and trade unionists in the present day, not those of a mythologised past.Corbyn certainly sought to give them this, I don't know how he explains the poor performance in lots of "Red Wall" seats, if it isn't Corbyn and Brexit. What was it?
NEWS
Keir Starmer set to expel 1,000 far left Labour members in four ‘poisonous’ groups
EXCLUSIVE
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... 557627.amp
We have created lots of YouTube videos just so you can achieve [...]
The best flat phpBB theme around. Period. Fine craftmanship and [...]
All you need is right here. Content tag, SEO, listing, Pizza and spaghetti [...]
this should be fantastic. but what about links,images, bbcodes etc etc? [...]
