A nasty little piece by Mujtaba Rahman which contains the unstated assumption that the UK’s political direction and relations with the EU, are fixed and desirable. The other side of the coin is that the EU is about to change up; missing the boat would leave the UK isolated and poorer. The UK shouldn’t apply to rejoin until its ready to be a good citizen and sees the EU as more than a trade club.
Congratulations USA, on your 250th birthday except, the constitution of the republic was ratified 4th March 1789 making it the 237th birthday; it entrenched slavery and excluded native Americans and women, blacks couldn’t vote until 1870 and women until 1920, although this was before the UK permitted women to vote.
They adopted what they saw as the results of the English Civil War albeit with an explicit separation of powers, and guaranteed local democratic powers invested in the constituent states and the people by the 10th Amendment.
The growth of political parties, and the designed unaccountability of the Senate and Supreme Court can be seen today as critical weaknesses which one hopes are not copied by Europe’s constitutional reformers and that democrats in the US are able to fix. …
I went to watch the cruel sea on HMS Belfast on 13th June; the show consisted of the film followed by two selections from the Imperial War museums film archive. There was a question and answer session, chaired by James Taylor and Charlotte Ross of the IWM. During the Q&A, I made a contribution, and have transcribed my notes as a comment on the original article. …
Earlier this month, Michel Barnier made a speech in which he suggested that the European Union would welcome the United Kingdom rejoining the EU even with some of the opt-outs previously negotiated. Barnier is very clear that he is only talking about Schengen and the Euro. The huge problem with the speech and the suggestion that opt-outs remain on the table is this will be interpreted by lukewarm supporters and political weathercocks as permission to haggle on the terms of re-entry.
Michel Barnier – European Parliament cc 2019 BY
The unacceptability of UK opt-outs within the EU, specifically, staying out of Schengen and the Euro, is illustrated in a recent You Gov poll. Unfortunately, for rejoiners, the French and Germans will only accept a UK application if it includes Schengen and the Euro, while support in the UK falls if we do not rejoin on the terms we had. It would be interesting to note what people believe those terms to be, as apart from Schengen and the Euro, they include a partial opt-out from the justice pillar, together with the famous rebate.
I am concerned that while a number of campaigners have been trying to prove their cleverness by suggesting there’s ways to rejoin without agreeing to the Copenhagen Criteria, others have been encouraged to consider EU membership as an a-la-carte process. It is not.
On the question of opt-outs, we, i.e. rejoiners need to show some leadership. Schengen comes with the right to freedom of movement. This is a popular and positive benefit of full membership of the European Union. Politicians, particularly Labour politicians should be showing some leadership. The opt-outs are gone; there may be some technical reasons why Schengen and the Euro will take some time but being a net contributor is one reason why we’re wanted and full membership of the justice pillar gives each citizen access to the Court of Justice of the European Union acting as a backstop against the authoritarian instincts of the British State with judges appointed by the children of opponents of fascism and Stalinism. Being members of the Digital Single Market would have the benefit of defending our democracy against US Oligarchs and Putin.
I want my European citizenship back, I want to vote for MEPs and a Parliament that appoints a Commissioner and Judge, and has a seat on the European Council. And since this is a metaphor in common use, I want it in my lifetime. I also want to participate in improving the democracy of the EU to make it accountable to the views of citizens and residents.
Another reason for pace, is that the EU is about to move on in a big way. Many argue that its changed too much to rejoin anyway; it’s not yet true and just something that Brexiters say but if the industrial policy takes off, it will damage the UK’s ability to export and further damage supply chains. …
Is winning in Makerfield a new dawn for Labour, or just that this time, voters chose Labour as the “Not Farage” candidate. Since they won in Runcorn & Helsby, Reform have failed in Caerphilly, Gorton and Denton, and now Makerfield, losing to Plaid Cymru, the Greens and now to Labour. It was a great victory for Burnham and Labour, but the question has to be asked together with has Labour learnt the lesson that to fight Reform, you need to fight it. (I think not!)
Source: No10@flickr 10th June 2026 CC 2026 BY-ND-NC
Having returned to the House of Commons, Burnham has forced Keir Starmer to resign and a time table for a Party leadership election has been declared.
Much has been written about why he had to go; I have been calling for it since February when the likely defeats in Scotland and Wales became obvious. On the day, Labour also lost three more London Councils.
Starmer’s resignation speech starts in the same way as his election campaign to be leader of the Labour Party, with lies. When Starmer inherited the Labour Party, it was in the strongest financial position it had been for decades and anyone who has closely read the Forde report and the EHRC report knows there is still work to do to eliminate racism from the Labour Party. The focus on macroeconomic statistics repeats the mistakes that Biden made. While I do not subscribe to the meme that “perception is reality”, perhaps it is truer in politics than in engineering. Claiming the credit for growth doesn’t work if income equality remains at the current miserable level and if the growth in the economy goes into the pockets of a few. If people don’t feel better off, then it’s pointless claiming they should. It’s also difficult to understand, how Starmer can claim credit for the abolition of the two child benefit cap when he initially suspended seven MPs for voting for that abolition.
Much has been written about Starmer’s weaknesses as a politician and Prime Minister. For a lot more words you can check out Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian, who focuses on personality and the politics of Downing St., and fails to mention Gaza and the Middle East, and alternatively, Phil Burton Cartledge, who does mention them, together with the dishonesty of his mandate within the Party. Phil also repeats his accusation that Starmer and McSweeney deliberately sought to break up Corbyn’s electoral coalition.
Although some would seek to claim he’s been good on the world stage; this does need to be contrasted with his speeches and actions on Gaza, which is one of the primary causes for Labour’s loss of political support. Labour started the general election campaign with a poll score of 44%, finished with a vote of 34% which has since collapsed to a score in the high teens.
Source: politico.eu – British polls 24 June 2026
It is expected that Burnham will be crowned as Labour’s new leader. If so he will be beholden to the fixers and not the membership and his retreats from his beliefs in order to win Makerfield are worrying because Labour and the country need a change of direction not a change of personnel.
The new leader also needs to turn Labour’s democracy back on. It is clear from the ending of Blair’s New Labour government that this Government and Labour leadership have run out intellectual steam; the Party needs debate and new ideas to sustain its relevance and energy. We can also see by observing the last two years of the PLP what happens when MPs fear their whip more than their members and voters.
Clive Lewis, in an article entitled, ‘After Burnham’s Win in Makerfield, the Answer Cannot be Managerial Politics with a Different Accent’, speaks for me, when he says,
“Climate breakdown, war, energy insecurity, financial shocks, technological upheaval, and democratic decay are here. They will not wait for Labour to finish its management seminar.”
The ECI “Stop killing video games” was accepted as having reached its one million signature threshold earlier this year. The initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by their publishers. They also say, this prohibition can be met by providing means for the game to continue functioning independent of publisher. This article looks at the Commission response, the campaign’s next steps and questions the Commission’s strategy in responding to ECIs. …
And I travelled home. My thoughts about the congress as an ordinary member of the London Region delegation is that it was a strong and and articulate delegation well rooted in strong large branches, for once the count of first time delegates represents something powerful about growth. .Unusually the CEC was overturned several times which is unusual; let’s hope they learn. The London Region’s AI fringe was good, with good speakers; people want to do something and given we have policy that this is an organising problem I hope we develop a meaningful action plan.
It was Sonya Davies’ first conference in the chair.
There were a large number of Emergency Motions tabled. The key rules are that it relates to an event occurring after the closing date for motions which is the end of January.
In this blog post, I identify what I consider the important emergency motions, two because they are important statements of policy and one because it managed o raise an issue nearly 50 years old. This is an important issue to me as I sought to get an Emergency Motion tabled on the basis of an event two months old and was told that it wasn’t an emergency.
EM6 dealt with the scandal of the forced adoptions for single mothers that occurred in between 1949 and the eighties. The issue had become live due to a Parliamentary Education Select Committee where the Government had raised the issue of an apology. The debate is on the feed, and I have posted the motion to this blog.
The new guidance is discriminatory, unworkable and effectively excludes trans, non binary and gender diverse people from swathes of public life including working life the Lords. The law must be changed.
The motion notes that the law not only oppresses trans people but also places a duty on managers and workers that may breach their free speech rights. It also noted that the advice becomes law after a scrutiny period and called for action to oppose its passage in Parliament. The debate is on the video feed.
On the 9th June, riots broke out in Northern Ireland where the victims/targets were immigrants. Further protests occurred in Glasgow, Scotland and Southampton. At Congress, one of the delegates present made a fabulous and well received speech expressing the Union’s intolerance of racial hatred and solidarity with the communities effected. (I am looking for the video feed URL). We also debated an Emergency Motion, the text of which is on this blog. A critical quote is,
We say no to racism, we say no to violence incited by those who do not live in or care a one bit for our communities.
Due to the high number of EM’s neither the agenda document nor the time tables were amended, and at the time of posting there was no single document containing the emergency motions. I hope to take better notes next year if fortunate enough to be elected a delegate. I have obtained a copy of the emergency motions. …
My branch proposed M262, on IMPRISONMENT FOR PUBLIC PROTECTION.
The motion says,
Imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences were introduced in 2005 and abolished in 2012. The application of this law was not backdated, so thousands are still behind bars indefinitely. Those released live with the threat of a return to indefinite incarceration for misdemeanour offences or more concerning if a relapse in their mental health proves a perceived risk to the public.
Without adequate access to rehabilitation and in the latter case denial of care provision in the most appropriate place (hospital than prison), The European Court of human rights ruled in 2012 that this practice violated of human rights under Article 5. It is time this practice decried by the United Nations as “inhumane” was ended.
We call upon the Government to:
1. Prioritise the review, and re-sentencing of all prisoners currently under an IPP, noting that around 70% have served 10 years more than the sentencing tariff.
2. Take all reasonable steps to ensure that prisoners under an IPP have access to adequate support and appropriate healthcare provision to reduce their risk to the public allowing safe release.
3. Allow urgent re-sentencing and risk assessment of those for whom the continuation of the IPP sentence has been deemed by a medical professional to be a specific barrier to the delivery of effective health care provision and recovery.
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