I made a storify about the Leave Campaign’s funding and the legal pursuit of the potential criminals. I transferred this to the blog, as at the original date of publication, once Storify announced they were abandoning the service.
Project Fear or Project Reality about Brexit continues and while risks to banking, air travel, radio-therapy and the pan-European integrated manufacturing supply chains are all making the headlines, there is also a serious problem with maintaining data flows particularly of personal data, which underpins both secondary & tertiary sector industries. This article looks at the threat to trade involving data flows posed by Brexit and looks at the likely shape of US/EU data flow and privacy regulation. …
I made a storify about the Crisis in Catalonia when the Spanish Police disrupted the Referendum in Catalonia. This story includes an article by Owen Jones and two by Craig Murray, together with one or two other articles that I hoped might help me understand what was happening. I transferred this to the blog, as at the original date of publication, once Storify announced they were abandoning the service. …
Last night’s General Committee was due to catch up on the motions backlog and receive reports from our Conference delegates. The agenda was packed as usual with the addition of a guest speaker from Unite who spoke mainly about Racism in the SE London NHS. ...
At #lab17, new policy on housing was passed, including most dramatically the promise to ballot existing tenants and leaseholders before destroying current social housing stock. The text of the motion, Composite 5, is posted below with a YouTube clip from Jeremy Corbyn’s Leaders speech in which he refers to the new policies. …
I made a storify about the Tidemill Gardens and the plans to build houses over it. I transferred it to this blog, as at the original date of publication, once Storify announced they were abandoning the service.
I got to Conference early today to watch the debate on finance and the rules. This article talks about the rules debates, the balance of forces on Conference floor, what I hope is the end of the debate on racism in the Labour Party and a footnote on the continuing arguments about expulsions, purges and justice. …
Today, Labour Conference debated the International Report of the National Policy Forum and a statement on Brexit from the National Executive Committee. I believe the NEC statement was issued to delegates only, on the morning of the debate, which while not unusual is unacceptable. A campaigning comrade, Sacha Ismail posted the words to his Facebook timeline, and I have posted them below. Kier Starmer summed up the debate, and I have posted a video of his speech, which I then comment on. It was a weak speech, which disguises the weakening of Labour’s policy and moves it towards a pro-Brexit position. …
As the results from the German election trickle through, it’s not good news for many. The headline results are that the “at best” right wing populists, the Alternative for Germany has entered the Bundestag. Merkel’s centre right alliance, CSU/CDU and their government partners the centre left Social Democrats (SPD) both lost seats with the latter announcing that despite the arithmetic working that they would look to return to opposition. This leaves Merkel looking to form a “Jamaica” coalition with the Free Democrats & Greens. We’ll see. I wonder if this like the wake up call in the UK, at the 2014 European Parliamentary elections is a signpost of worse to come. …
There’s been a bit of a fuss over the Labour Party’s decision not to prioritise i.e. choose to discuss motions submitted by the membership and affiliates on Brexit. There were proposals to support the single market/customs union and to support free movement of labour. The Trade Unions agreed to ensure debates on the economy, Grenfall and industrial policy took place and it was left to the CLP delegates to determine if Brexit would make it to Conference floor. CLPD & Momentum, claiming to be supporting the Leadership, asked that four, admittedly important, subjects were debated and not Brexit. Many of my friends argue that the Brexit debate was being engineered by Corbyn’s opponents to embarrass him. It’s not true of all who argue for Labour’s current policy, defined in Lab16 Composite 1, of defining red lines and obtaining a second mandate if those lines were not met, are looking to embarrass the leadership. … …