Labour’s membership

a red rose

The Labour Party staff stopped reporting membership to  the NEC earlier this year, but they reported the end of year membership to Annual Conference and of course the electoral commission.

A number of years ago, I made  a chart  showing Labour’s membership from 1989 to 2021; I have just updated it using the end of 2024 figures.

There are stories published that Reform have overtaken Labour in terms of membership numbers; it would take an extraordinary amount of departures for this to be true. This article in the New Statesman published under a pseudonym as a gossip column is headlined as such and points at Labour List reporting the membership in Feb as 309,000. …

The downsides of the A.I. industry.

Karen Hao in front of a book shelf

I have recently, watched the YouTube video, “How tech CEOs are lying to you”, where Karen Hao is interviewed by  Aaron Bastani on Novara Media's channel. Ms Hao has just published a book, “Empire of AI” and the interview covers the topics of the book.

At the centre of her arguments are, that large language modules aka AI, and their use of resources, water, power, land and rare metals are a choice, and one that society cannot afford. She questions the business model of the AI industry, sees it as a threat to [US] wealth and notes its scofflaw approach to its own regulation and its oppression of poor and vulnerable communities. She is highly critical of the motivations of the oligarchs funding the AI bubble.

The remainder of this article, which is over 2000 words is overleaf, use the "Read More" button ....

How much has Brexit cost us?

Reuters Square, if its still called that in black and white.

While posting my notes on my reference back for Labour Conference I fell back on the OBR statistic that Brexit had cost the UK 4% of GDP. I thought a chart would have been helpful and so went looking for one.

The NIESR published an article, Revisiting the effects of Brexit, which now they’ve archived it, no longer has the chart they made from the model, but google search can still find it today.

Their model tries to disentangle the effects of the COVID slump, and the article, dated 2023, says,

These estimates suggest that Brexit had already reduced UK real GDP relative to the baseline by just under one per cent in 2020 as consumers and businesses adapted their expectations even before the TCA came into force. Our estimates further suggest that three years after the transition period, UK real GDP is some 2-3 per cent lower due to Brexit, compared to a scenario where the United Kingdom retained EU membership.

 …

Today’s issues for Labour

Portraits, Powell and Phillipson

Labour is holding an election for the position of Deputy Leader, I have five questions I want to ask them.

  1. Where do you stand on immigration and the fact that copying Reform legitimises and emboldens them?
  2. Where do you stand on closer relations with the EU on defence, trade and economic co-operation? Where do you stand on rejoining the single-market?
  3. Where do you stand on fiscal/monetary policy? How can we end austerity and make people feel better off and what will you do?
  4. Where do you stand on Welfare reform? Why are we increasing poverty?
  5. What do you think the Government should do about Gaza and Palestine?
  6. I believe a Deputy Leader, in fact all MPs, should represent the Party membership to the PLP and its leadership, will you start to do this?
  7. What measures will you take to turn the Party’s democracy back on?

Now how to put these questions to them. …

#Lab25 will get to debate rejoining the EU

Labour Conference 2019 from the balcony

At the General Committee of Lewisham North last night we agreed to send a motion calling for the abolition of the two child benefit cap, and also proposed a reference back of the NPF report. I intiallly proposed the words in a blog article posted last week. This article repeats some of the text of the reference back and my notes for my moving speech, and right of reply, as it was opposed by both those who think that being outside the EU is a good thing, and those who fear Farage and think the time is wrong. For those details, read overleaf ...

Thoughts on Labour’s NPF Report ’25

Thoughts on Labour’s NPF Report ’25

This article looks at the development of Labour's Policy as its annual Conference approaches. It looks at the rules commitment to "voting in parts", and reproduces an NPF report reference back motion on the subject of the relationship with the EU that I shall take to my local party. My motion calls to rejoin the single market immediately and to promise to rejoin the EU in the next manifesto. To read the whole article, use the "Read More" button ...

More on the ‘great reset’ meeting

Kier Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen in a conference room

In an article/podcast in inews, entitled "Starmer's Government sees closer ties with the EU as a key part of plans to ramp up economic growth",  the issue of deals with global partners to be a key part of trying to make Britain a more attractive destination for investment is allegedly discussed. See the full article at 'RemovePaywalls.com'. I made some notes inspired or provoked by this article, which was published in late July. Although much of this is extracted quotes, I make some comments. For more, use the 'Read More' button ...

Tariffs and other trade barriers

image of the alaskan highway

Last night I watched a video about Canada raising a large toll on lorries travelling from the Lower 48 to Alaska, and it documents and forecast the impact on the fragile Alaskan economy. It reminded me of the trade barriers that the UK has put in place due to Brexit. This is potentially disastrous for Alaska, and is clearly so for the UK where today the FT reports that according to the ONS, the UK economy shrank for the second quarter in a row.

The trade to GDP rate in the UK is 63%, which seems enormous to me, but it seems to be merely above average and yet it illustrates the UK’s dependency on the rest of the world to feed itself and keep itself warm and sheltered. The US rate is 25% which is low by international comparison and may be one of the reasons that Trump can afford to be as foolish as he is with his tariff policies, noting that it’s the US consumers who ultimately pay his tariffs. Source: World Bank.

The EU flag, before castor and pollux,

But for the UK, this is another piece of evidence that the UK needs to rejoin the EU’s single market, but even if this common sense actually strikes this Labour government, I doubt that the Eire/Holland/France traffic will return to the UK. …

Human Rights

Image Sign in front of the CJEU's Palais de la Cour de Justice

At a meeting yesterday, I asked about/EU/UK cooperation within the justice pillar.  I asked if in order to develop further cooperation, the UK would need to sign up to the EU’s charter of fundamental rights. The senior MEP present stated that they thought that self-exclusion was a barrier to fuller cooperation; the Labour minister present confused the Charter of Fundamental Rights with the European Convention on Human Rights and stated that non-compliance, particularly on issues of the right to family life were reasonable. This is a proof point of the consensus in Westminster that haggling with the EU ‘to win’ all the time, is acceptable behaviour of good citizenship.

The reason we had so many opt-outs from the Justice Pillar is that the New Labour governmentdidn’t want their immigration and trade union laws tested by the CJEU and as reprise act, I read that ‘blue labour’ are questioning whether we should remain signatories to the ECHR.

In 2024, there were three cases at the ECtHR, and the UK lost one; the plaintiff was the Daily Mail who were complaining about lawyers’ fees in cases where they settled, they claimed it was in breach of their rights of free speech. The last time I looked this up, the problem was within the administration of justice and prisons if I remember correctly. The Tories harsh environment in prisons was considered in conflict to human rights law.

But the reason we should remain members is that human rights are a benefit to all citizens and residents.

Image Credit : Luxofluxo, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons …