thoughts

In 1944, the UK elected a Labour Government ushering in a 35 year social democratic hegemony, broken i 1979 by the Thatcher government which started a 37 year neo-liberal consensus. Are we at another inflection point? …

The LP’s legal advice on a challenger induced leadership contest is allegedly posted here, on scribd, which is a subscription service. Bottom line, where there is no vacancy, the 20% threshold applies only to the challenger(s). I particularly like the idea that rules can’t be rubbish and because what they are trying, i.e. to apply a higher threshold of parliamentary support to a re-election is not in the rules and is rubbish, it can’t be done. It also notes that all the “is final” clauses, do not exclude the courts and cannot exclude access to the courts. …

If we are to Remain in the EU, we must consider, a revised regional fund, which we got when we arrived but it seems to have atrophied, a common welfare “floor” and reciprocal subsidiarity agreements. The last of these might embed local democracy into the UK’s constitution. The other issue is the Euro, but the UK is about to show that deficit hawkishness is a choice, not a necessity. …

Farage resigns as UKIP Leader, Charlotte Church comments,

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The role of the Labour Party’s Compliance Unit should be to ensure the Labour Party obeys the law, not to act as thought police on the membership. Furthermore the Chakrabarti inquiry states they don’t have the legal skills to perform its proper function. …

Boris has withdrawn from the race to replace Cameron. Who’d have thunk? Ewan McGregor speaks for me with this witty tweet.

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Another article in the papers, and on Facebook, suggesting the Labour MPs have a mandate from 9½ million voters. But it’s only because they’re Labour candidates, the mandate is shared between them and the Party. (I’ve been here before). …

I went to a Lewisham Momentum meeting last night; about 90 people, over 97% of attendees were Labour Party members with appeals to get friends to join. Much anger at the manoeuvring of the PLP, a big determination to ensure justice and that the membership views prevail. …

A good and large meeting of the New Cross branch of the Labour Party occurred last night. It was the biggest meeting of the branch since the enthusiasm generate by the leadership elections; wonder why. We discussed the results of the referendum, the de-facto validation of racism, the increase in racists attacks (two restaurants in Deptford have been attacked) and the fact that Labour voters split 2-1 for Remain. There are two theories as to why that might be. Firstly that globalisation has created losers which since 1997, Labour has stopped speaking to them. The other is that Jeremy Corbyn didn’t campaign hard enough. Most speakers  at the meeting, including me, thought the former was the problem not the latter.

More speakers opposed the coup than supported it, and several attendees had been at the demo the day before. One comrade asked what Vicky had done in the vote of confidence, but no-one knew. …