Election 2024

Change say Labour. In fact they are saying little else. But as a buzzword I like it. It really is a great slogan to use for an election. Simple & effective. I have to say if I didn’t know what had been going on the for last 5 years I would be very happy with it. But the trouble is there’s one hell of a massive problem with it. Because that’s all it is. It’s an empty slogan, a hollow catchphrase, a soundbite with no meat on the bones.

When I think of Labour’s Manifestos in 2017 & 2019 they were transformative documents that not only was I excited to vote for but proud to campaign for as well. In the last 45 years our country has been an experiment for a Neo Liberal project that makes the rich even richer & the poor poorer. We have been told for most of the time in those 45 years that basically there’s no alternative that this is how it’s got to be to remain economically sound & competitive . Since I was a late teenager I have always rejected that narrative but I have always voted Labour because there wasn’t any realistic alternative. That meant even though I had to hold my nose voting for Blair in 1997 & 2001.

So I was one of those people who was excited when Jeremy Corbyn stood for leader in 2015 & ecstatic when he became leader. I won’t rewrite history I’m proud to say I joined the Labour Party and campaigned for them because at last there was a real alternative. There was at last hope that things could be different like I always believed. Importantly I also discovered to my delight that I wasn’t some old out of touch fossil Socialist lots of people thought the same as me.

So without going into the Corbyn era with the election of Keir Starmer as leader although I didn’t vote for him I was going to stay a member & fight for the continuation of transformative policies which Starmer pledged to keep. However it didn’t take long for these policies to be dropped one by one while at the same time expelling & suspending Socialists. I left because I couldn’t stomach it anymore. That sounds like it was an easy decision it wasn’t. It took me months to make up my mind but when I did the relief I felt was tremendous.

So back to the Labour Manifesto. It has over 20 photos of Starmer in it. I mean why? That seems to me to be someone who’s got a massive ego. When you start to read it you can see it’s professionally written but what is it actually saying? Unfortunately there’s not a lot of substance, it’s empty, hollow & boring. So boring I actually fell asleep reading it I kid you not. There’s nothing there to inspire or give hope for the future. Labour have tied themselves in knots to show they are financially prudent & won’t overspend. The big problem with that is it means they are promising to do very little.

One of the narratives that has been used a lot over the last 45 years is that we have maxed out our Credit Card as a nation. That there isn’t any money left & the old classic that the economy is like a household budget. None of this is true but it’s been used as a very effective device to con people. The British Economy is not at all comparable to a household budget & we haven’t ran out of money. We are after all the 6th richest country in the world. So yet again Labour are pandering to the right wing in saying we have to be financially & fiscally responsible.

If we go back to 1945 when Labour won it’s first majority Government it was the end of World War 2. The country really was in a mess after 6 years of fighting. But this didn’t stop Labour transforming the Country by creating the NHS, taking Gas, Electric, Coal, Rail & Water into Public Ownership. So now when we are told we can’t afford to do anything I simply don’t believe it. What Labour mean is they won’t because they don’t want to which is very different.

The sad truth is that Starmer has changed the Labour Party but not for the many. What he is doing is turning Labour into the Conservative Party Mark 2. It says it all when billionaire’s like Jim Radcliffe & John Caldwell say they are voting Labour & cosying up to Starmer. It says it all when Labour refuse to scrape the 2 Child Benefit cap but refuse to put any cap on Bankers Bonus. It says it all when all Labour can say is Israel have a right to defend themselves without any criticism of Israel committing Genocide in Gaza against the Palestinians. It says it all when Labour’s Green New Deal has been reduced from 28 billion to under 5 billion. This is a party that has lost its way & forgotten why it was created for. Starmer is that desperate for power he will say literally anything to help get it.

Another important point is that I think it’s really bad for Democracy when the 2 main parties are so similar to each other. Now what I really fear is after 5 years of a Starmer Government the public will be even more fed up of politics because 5 years of Labour is going to be basically the same as the last 14 years of the Tories. Where do we go then ? While I think that will be a great opportunity for the Greens & Left parties to realign what we have to be aware of this will also be a huge opportunity for far right parties to grow as well. It looks like Reform are going to do well this Election as it is & we simply can’t afford for the right’s hateful & divisive agenda to grow.

All I’ve ever wanted is to get a fairer & more equal society. That’s what I thought the aims of the Labour Party were too but those objectives have been binned. That’s why for this Election & for the first time I will be voting Green because they are offering hope instead of more of the same. I’m hoping they get a few MP’s elected. Also I’m supporting various Independent Socialist candidates like Jeremy Corbyn but there are many others. I’m really hoping a couple of those get elected too. With them in Parliament & us outside my hope is we can at least pressurise the Labour Government not to do some of the right wing things I think they’ll try to do.

Also in these next few years us on the left need to work together more so by the next Election we don’t have cases like we have this year of places where there is a Green candidate & 2 Independent Socialists. This only splits the vote & plays into Labour & Tory hands which must change. We also need to get PR more of an issue because I really think we have to get rid of this first past the post system which thrives on the duopoly we have now.

So when we get told by the main parties we can’t afford to do this or that I will simply point out that we can & what’s more the bigger point is there’s so much we simply can’t afford not to do. The future has got to be for us all not for just the super rich elite. Please vote on July 4th. Vote Green or Independent Socialist.

Election Reflections

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I’m trying to get my thoughts together on the General Election result. We are all devastated not just because we lost but because we know that for the next 5 years life is going to be hell for so many. I don’t want this to sound bitter or like sour grapes either. So many of us tried our best and we are all hurting now. But what we have to do is dust ourselves down and fight again. We may need a break I know I do but we can’t give up because there’s so much at stake.
So what went wrong?

Well from my point of view it was our Brexit position. Of course there were other factors too we and particularly that Jeremy Corbyn has been demonised and smeared like no other Labour leader. Yes no Labour leader has had good press except Blair at certain times. Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock were both treated particularly bad. It goes with the terrain of radically trying to change Society and is a badge of honour in a way. But Corbyn has been accused of being numerous things he’s not with make no mistake the sole purpose of damaging him and Labour electorally. And to some extent it has worked. How much it’s really difficult to say but I don’t think at the moment it’s the main thing to focus on. Because since 2017 we have lost 2 and half million votes. Those people were prepared to vote for us then after 2 years of lies and smears about Corbyn then so what’s changed?

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Well that brings me back to Brexit and I think it’s undeniable that it was the major factor in our devastating defeat. It’s so frustrating because we were warned about this earlier in the year with the rise of the Brexit party. Their huge success in the Euro Elections should have been a warning shot across the bow. But too many in the party thought it was just a protest vote and that most would come back to us. They didn’t get how deep the feeling was in parts of the Midlands and North and it was ignored that 70% of our seats voted leave. Well a lot haven’t come back to us and we have a lot of work to do to win them back. I have to say this but some London centric lefties really don’t seem to get it. Some seem to think that working class people who voted Brexit have not only got it wrong but imply they are stupid or racist. So many already felt that they weren’t being listened to and when the referendum came they voted against staying in the EU as a rejection of the neo liberal establishment elite. But 3 and half years later Brexit has stalled and to put it bluntly we have took the blame and we are the ones who have been punished. People who voted Brexit really want it done and some leavers think we have betrayed them. They didn’t want a second referendum they wanted the result of the first carried out.

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Before anyone thinks I’m a ardent leaver I voted remain in 2016. But the major difference between the Election 2 years ago and now is that then we said we would honour the result of the referendum, now we were offering a another one. Like it or not people who voted leave didn’t like that, so much so many were even prepared to vote Tory who of course were saying they were going to get Brexit done. So no matter how many great policies we have it was always going to be a major uphill battle to win people over when as they see it they had won the referendum result and we had helped to block it in parliament. Many of us on the left warned about this happening but we lost the battle.

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I have to say again as well that certain figures on the London left in their bubble didn’t help with their sneering patronising attitude. And the constant manoeuvring by some to not accept the result of the democratic referendum result has cost us dear. We may have not liked the result in 2016 but we should have accepted the democratic mandate after all that’s what democracy is. This attitude that some show that we know best really doesn’t go down well.

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Let’s be honest in some of our heartlands our vote has been going down for a long time way before Corbyn became leader. This has just been the final straw. It was always going to be difficult for us because opinion varies so much around the country. We tried to unite leave and remain but to many our policy was a fudge. I admit I wanted us to adopt this policy at conference myself but only because the other option of us being a full remain party would have been an even bigger disaster for us I believe. That would have been unforgivable to many at least now we have a fighting chance of winning these people back to us. We have had the massive misfortune of having to deal with the Brexit issue at this particular time in history, things could have been so different without it but it’s proven to be such a divisive issue. Hopefully by the next Election it won’t be the issue it is now.
I think Jeremy is right to not rush into going as leader, we have to choose our next leader carefully. It would also be a mistake in my view to back track on our policies or water them down. We have to offer a radical alternative and next time we will be better placed after 5 years of Tory rule hopefully. These are the times for radical Socialist policies because the problems we face as a country and indeed in the world as they are the best solutions to the crisis we face. As I have said before time is running out but we mustn’t give up because of this gigantic setback. We have to learn from this and learn fast. We are all hurting now but the fight goes on. Who’s up for it?

Running Out of Time

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We are in the middle of another General Election and Jeremy Corbyn has said this is an once in a generation chance to change things and I agree. Because this Election isn’t just about Brexit. It’s about the future direction of travel about everything facing us and that is a hell of a lot.

Everything the Tories want to do is about doing things short term and looking after their own and friends vested interests. It’s what they do and they haven’t got the vision or inclination to do what’s needed.
To put it bluntly we are running out of time. I don’t say that to just gain your attention I’m simply stating a fact. Last year the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brought out a report stating that we had only 12 years left to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. The Tories so called plans to limit Climate Change do nowhere near enough. Because as always they put big business first not the people or the planet. They can’t really conceive of the enormity of the task ahead because they are quite happy with how things are and deep down don’t want to change much at all. Now it’s 11 years the clock is ticking and what have the Tories done? Nothing

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They say the NHS is safe with them but it’s a lie. The Tories have been running it down and opening it up to the market the last 9 years. President Trump and his big pharma cronies are waiting in the wings for the post Brexit trade deal where they will want to carve up the most profitable bits of the NHS. This isn’t scaremongering but something that is increasingly believed by many. The brutal truth is the NHS won’t be able to survive another 5 years of Conservative Government. It’s running out of time.
The same with Education. The Tories have pushed their Academy policy which is wrecking Schools by making them more like a businesses instead of putting children first. For example my eldest daughter’s School became a Academy while she was there. The trust reduced the Special Educational Needs Department to one person who had to teach part time. The well being of our Children is being hit as well as their Education.

There are plenty of other things that worry me about the future under the Tories like Obscene Inequality and their consciously cruel policies on the poorest and most vulnerable in society for example. The Tories have done all this deliberately. They are short sighted, have a narrow vision and are only interested in benefiting things for their rich mates. The country has gone backwards in recent years with them in Government.

In the last few years though politics has changed. For far too long we had been told that nothing can change that we have to accept that the wealth will trickle down to benefit us. This has proven to be rubbish. The wealthy are getting even more obscenely rich while the rest of us are struggling ever more.
Only 2 parties can form a Government and you have to ask yourself what future do you want for you and your family. I would argue that a vote for the Tories is a vote for no future because everything will get worse for ordinary people if they win the election. More Food banks, more poverty the destruction of the NHS it’s a depressing thought. But a better future is within reach and is entirely possible. I predict there will be lots of smears and scare stories the next couple of weeks. The official CONservative Party are already doctoring videos and pedaling fake news. Ignore them because they will be biased rubbish that has the sole objective of lessening the chances of Corbyn’s Labour being elected. The establishment are running scared and that’s good news for you and me.
In case you haven’t noticed the Labour Party has changed the last few years. No longer can the main parties be accused of being nearly the same. Now the Labour Party has a vision of a better fairer future for all and what’s more it’s got the will to make it happen. We will implement a Green New Deal giving us a better chance of a green future and will lobby for it worldwide. We will save the NHS by making it a completely public service again, by in its future and stopping any grubby deal with Trump’s big pharma mates. Most important we will put the c and s back into Government. C is for caring and S is for socialism, they actually go together because creating a fairer, greener more equal society is what it’s all about. As Barry Gardiner said it’s Labour who will transform the country and make life better for the majority of people.
I said earlier we are running out of time and it’s likely it will be another 5 years until the next Election. All Elections are important of course but I’m not exaggerating to say this one is absolutely vital to the future of the country and indeed the world. That’s why I’m asking everyone to vote and to make sure you vote for Labour. Because only Labour can and will make the changes we need to rebalance society and combat Climate Change. Did I mention we are running out of time?

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