More immigration raids? Really?

More immigration raids? Really?

So Labour’s 2nd immigration policy is, it seems to increase raids; not to establish safe routes for asylum seekers, not to recruit more staff to process the asylum claims backlog, not to repeal the litany of the Tories’ appalling laws, not to vacate the Bibby Stockholm & not to abolish the hostile environment.  😭 How does this help “smash the gangs”? One other thing to note, is that people don’t like immigration raids, it’s been very difficult to do them in Glasgow and South London.

Labour’s rhetoric has been and now its policy is about triangulating with and encouraging the racists in Reform and the Tory Party. We shouldn’t be doing this, it’s morally wrong and there are more important jobs to do within the Home Office.  …

Labour landslide

Labour landslide

While as argued elsewhere, the story of the night is that the election result is a tremendous victory for Labour, but on examination the voting coalition is small and potentially fractious. Those who fear a timid one-term Labour government to be replaced by an ethno-nationalist majority, either led by Reform or consisting of a populist rump of the Tory party in coalition with Reform may be justified. For more, use the "Read More" button ...

And in France

And in France

The French election results do not look pretty. There is a second round but the Le Pen’s National Rally have gain 33% of the voters share.

Macron’s strategy, “apres Moi la deluge” is entering its endgame.  Macron’s project was always based on presenting himself as the only bulwark against France’s far-right yet holding the threat of “La France Insoumise” as somehow equally unacceptable. It has always been both an anti-left and a personal vanity project.

Michael Chessum in this article, powerfully argues that right wing populism, fundamentally based upon racism and the dehumanisation of others has been allowed to breed by the neoliberal policies of austerity, the natural consequence of which is the cost of living crisis. The centre’s desire to triangulate is a fatal and dangerous approach. The far-right’s racism must be opposed, and it seems that the British and European left is not up to the task; in the UK for instance Labour’s decision to pull its campaign in Clacton vs Farage and the comments on immigration and returning illegal entrants to Bangladesh underline “changed” Labour’s continued pandering to the racist right.

The Spectator argues that a Le Pen government in alliance with the populist right in Europe, particularly Italy, may well be part of an end game for the EU and Von der Leyen is not the leader to stop this. The Spectator article also suggest that a change of government in France will also make life difficult on defence and trade for what we assume is an incoming Labour government.

Image Credit: NA Paris from flickr CC 2009 elliotbrown BY, w750 cropped …

What the polls are saying!

What the polls are saying!

Some clever person or several has made a page categorising and displaying the results of the various MRPs that have been undertaken. They have posted their results here. I made a chart allowing a comparison of the various forecasts, it makes astonishing reading. The original post allows each British seat to be examined.

Everyone thinks there will be a large Labour Majority, only Electoral Calculus thinks Corbyn will win in Islington North and they i.e. electoral calculus have some other interesting outlier results, inc. that the Libdems beating the Tories. The Reform predictions vary from 19 seats to none and the Greens from four to none.

Labour’s majority is forecast to vary between 382 seats to 214 seats.

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The EU’s politics for the next mandate

The EU’s politics for the next mandate

The European Parliament election results were disappointing for democrats and progressives. The Greens and ALDE/Renew both lost seats and the ECR are now the 3rd largest party group. The most shocking results were in France and Germany. The National Rally in France won the most seats and President Macron’s response was to call a snap election, in the hope that once presented with the precipice, the French people would step back. In Germany, the SPD, the senior partner in the Government Coalition came 3rd with 13.9% of the vote with the AfD coming second.

However, it looks like Von der Leyen has won nomination for a continued mandate as President of the Commission together with Antonio Costa (S&D) as Council President and Kaja Kallas (Renew) for External Affairs. Now we’ll have to see if, she can win a majority in the Parliament.

The full article, includes charts and maps illustrating the results and can be viewed using the 'Read More' button. ... ...

The colour of my passport

The colour of my passport

I’m losing hope on my next passport being burgundy.

The only way the UK will rejoin the European Union he’s when it’s ready to be a good citizen.

It is clear that Labour’s leadership despite the opinion polls, have a view that better terms short of membership can be obtained. Firstly, i don’t think it’s desirable, and secondly, I’m not sure it’s available. All the intelligence suggests that the EU has no interest in replicating the Swiss arrangement and that the single market is indivisible.  

Pretending that the Tory deal has failed due to its design and that all it needs is “grown ups in the room”, a view reinforced by numerous academics attempting to prove how clever they are by designing a new relationship, Is unlikely to succeed.

At the moment EU accession requires a unanimous vote on the EU council; this would mean the UK reacquires its political rights and full access to the subsidy programmes. This is unlikely to happen while we have a big bill poster signposts that we proposed to continue to behave as we did before we left.

It looks as if the people are ready to rejoin, but without leadership and a vigorous explanation that the opt-outs have gone and we need to be good citizens within the union I think it unlikely we will persuade the EU that we are suitable candidates.

The EU would almost certainly require a referendum to show that the government mandates is supported. It’s been said many times, that the EU don’t wish to play okie cokie with us.

It is sad that the elections to the European Parliament will have damaged both programmes for reform of the European Union. The Federalist proposition will have been weakened by the losses to the Greens and ALDE (Liberals) in the EP, and the growth of the ECR, who are campaigning to return competencies to the member states, and the alternative, “Sailing the High Seas”, which I characterise as Prix Fixé as opposed to a-la-carte, will have its support weakened by the French and German results where the sponsoring Governments both lost support.

I am of the view that StHS with it flexibility would be a better target to rejoin than the current EU or the Federalist alternative but rejoining the EU is needed to fix our economy and our democracy. People’s sovereignty requires access to human rights courts, and the UK needs an internal subsidiarity agreement, which I hope implementing the Brown Commission proposals will give us although the Labour manifesto promises  the devolution without the funding and structural reform to embed such devolution. …

The GMB & LME

The GMB & LME

At the GMB Congress, my Region, London, organised a fringe meeting on the “The rise of the far right and worker’s rights“. This was jointly organised with the Labour Movement for Europe who had planned to put their President, Stella Creasy, up to speak. I had originally planned to use the meeting and Congress as a last attempt to get better policy on trade and relations with the EU but the announcement of the election obviously changed this, and meant that Stella could not make it. My speech to the fringe, spoke of workers rights, sovereignty and its constraints and looked at the European Parliament results which has occurred on the previous weekend. You will find below my speech notes, although I did not use them all as I was unable to time the speech in practice and had too cut the speech short. …