PARLIAMENTARIANS CALL FOR HALT TO ARMS SALES TO ISRAEL

Extract from the joint letter from Zarah Sultana MP, and 130 or so Parliamentarians, calling for a halt to arms sales to Israel:

“‘Business as usual’ for UK arms exports to Israel is totally unacceptable. Both domestic and international law require the government to prevent the transfer of military equipment where there is a clear or overriding risk that such exports might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law or international human rights law.

UK-made weapons are being used in Gaza. In previous escalations in Gaza:

• in 2009, under a Labour government, the UK suspended arms licenses for equipment likely to be used in Gaza;
• in 2014 under a Conservative-led government, the UK said it would suspend licenses if hostilities resumed in Gaza.

Today, the scale of of violence committed by the Israeli military is vastly more deadly, but the UK government has failed to act.

Other countries are taking action – their response follows the UN’s investigators calling on arms exports to Israel to be immediately stopped.

The UK must immediately suspend export licenses for arms transfer to Israel.”

On 2 April 2024 on Sky News, Shadow Minister Pat McFadden, stated that “Labour is not in favour of a boycott of selling arms to Israel” and “Israel is abiding by international huminatarian law”.

SOLIDARITY WITH DIANE

From the supportive UCU statement:

The University and College Union (UCU) sends full solidarity to Diane Abbott, whose treatment has been nothing short of a national disgrace. In the Commons Diane stood up to speak 46 times, only to be ignored by the Speaker. Diane’s treatment at the hands of her own party over several years, is also deeply concerning.

We condemn the blatant double standards being applied to Diane by politicians on both sides of the House, and the actions of this cruel and divisive government in whipping up racial and misogynistic tensions, year after year for their own gain. Enough is enough.

We stand with Diane in her long-standing fight against racism and misogyny, just as Diane has stood unwaveringly with Trade Unions for decades.

AN EFFECTIVE GROWTH STRATEGY FOR THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT – GORDON SPELLS IT OUT

The following is an extract from Gordon Brown’s speech to the Institute for Government on 11 March 2024.

”The way we govern will have to be radically transformed – and government put on a warfooting – if Britain is to break free from the vicious low-growth, low-productivity, and low-wage cycle that has seen annual growth halve in the last decade, investment levels stagnate at levels far below our main competitors, the worst productivity performance – less than 0.5% a year – since the Industrial Revolution, and the deepest regional economic inequalities in Western Europe… A myriad of improvisations have been tried and failed to turbocharge British economic growth, from the ill- fated Department of Economic Affairs of the 1960s, the National Enterprise Board of the 1970s, and Mrs Thatcher’s anointing of Sir Alan Walters in opposition to the chancellor Nigel Lawson in the 1980s…But for a growth strategy to work, the Treasury has to be at the centre of a coordinated framework of economic policy making and implementation led by it and No 10 which involves all relevant economic departments… The Treasury has to avoid the temptation to retreat into its comfort zone, which is a department with an almost exclusive focus on debt and and deficit reduction”.

Gordon proposed an industrial strategy founded on green, digital and medical technologies, linked to an employment and anti-poverty strategy focused on better jobs, skills and services.

QUESTION:Will Starmer / Reeves be radical enough to adopt Gordon’s programme?

THE TORIES BROKE THE GOLDEN RULE AND LABOUR WILL DO THE SAME!!

“When the Conservatives brought in the two-child limit to deny benefits to third and subsequent children in a family, they broke the golden rule that, however much one harmed parents and other adults, one did not harm children who were in no way responsible for their poverty.

It is beyond belief that the Labour Party should want to retain this damaging policy”.

Michael Meadowcroft, The Guardian.

LABOUR MUST BE LABOUR!!

From articles in the Guardian by Nesrine Malik and George Monbiot:

Keir Starmer’s dropping of policy after policy has been  described in the press as the erasure of “radical” policies.

“But there is nothing radical about a wealth tax, a national care service or an ambitious insulation programme; this is mainstream social democracy. By deleting these policies Starmer is not bowing down to ‘centrism’, but to an extreme agenda of austerity, privatisation, poverty and environmental destruction”.

George Monbiot

“It is easy to conflate Labour’s lead, and the predicted wipeout of the Tories and assume that Labour is winning over voters rather than picking up support by default as a result of the Conservative party’s colossal collapse. Years of economic and political mismanagement, hastened by Brexit-relatated party breakdown, became unspinnable failings.

Labour is in a precarious position in the longer term unless it mounts its own majority-creation exercise by taking on fiscal and cultural orthodoxies. A recent study of European electoral data found that adopting rightwing policies on immigration and the economy ‘does not help the centre-left win votes’ and in fact may alienate progressive voters – voters tend to prefer the original to the copy.

The next election may be won by Labour, but that’s all that will be settled, unless it has an original agenda and fights to build a nation in its image “.

Nesrine Malik

Labour must work at building its own majority – Labour must be Labour.

DEFEND LABOUR’S NEW DEAL FOR WORKING PEOPLE FROM LOBBYING BY BOSSES

This is a rejigged extract from an article by Jon Trickett MP – see Labour Outlook 27 March 2024.

The New Deal package of employment rights is an attempt to address the structural unfairness and inequality that exists in Britain’s workplaces. At its core are pledges to strengthen rights at work from day one on the job; end fire and retire; ban zero hour contracts; repeal anti-trade union (TU) legislation since 2010 and replace it with TU laws. Labour could and should go further than this for example by introducing sectoral collective bargaining and create a single status of ‘worker’. Also there should be full compliance with the conditions laid down by the International Labour Organisation.

It is very concerning that Labour Party figures closely connected to the Party leadership, are publicly seeking to restrict the remit of the New Deal.

All those seeking to undermine the New Deal need to be reminded of the founding resolution of the Labour Party at the founding conference in 1900: ‘This conference is in favour of working class opinion being represented in the House of Commons by those sympathetic with the aims and demands of the Labour Movement”.

The next Labour Government must deliver change.

THE WEALTHY USE THE JUSTICE  SYSTEM TO INTIMIDATE AND SUPPRESS

This was spelt out very clearly in a speech in the House of Commons by David Davis, a Tory MP but a ferocious champion of free speech.

In his speech, Davis said “There are those with exceptionally deep pockets and exceptionally questionable ethics (who) use our justice system to threaten, intimidate, and put the fear of God into British journalists, citizens, officials and media organisations. What results is injustice, intimidation, suppression of free speech, the crushing of a free press, bullying and bankruptcy. It results in protection from investigation and gives encouragement to fraudsters, crooks and money launderers. It has turned London into the global capital of dirty money. In extreme cases, it can undermine the security of the state by allowing people to act as extensions of foreign powers”.

A TORY IS SPOT-ON

“What we’re seeing now is the Tories flailing around, trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel with some messaging that is divisive, and is more about what they are against, rather than what they stand for.”

Chris Skidmore, former Tory MP.