Unfortunately, to get it out the way with we have to begin with Brexit. You're fed up of it, and even for a politics hack like me it's wearing a bit thin. It needs resolving one way or another so we can all move on. Yet despite Boris Johnson's promise to Get Brexit Done, in practice this means nothing of the sort. If he wins on Thursday he'll get parliament to approve his deal so we can formally leave the European Union on 31st January. This will not be the end of it. Over the next year the UK will get embroiled in more negotiations about what sort of trading relationship we should have with this country's closest neighbours and biggest traders. Johnson reckons he can have this wrapped up by next Christmas. Bear in mind it took the EU and Japan five years to get a deal, and eight years to negotiate and implement a EU/Canada agreement. A leaked communique says it can't be done. And so we can expect even more wrangling over Brexit, more arguments, perhaps a knife's edge vote or two, more chaos and uncertainty, and more wall-to-wall coverage.
Labour will avoid this.
If elected, within three months Labour will negotiate a different deal to the one Johnson has presented to the public. Our alternative will put jobs before profit margins, and living standards before loosening worker and consumer protections. This deal will then be put back to the British people in a second referendum vs remain within six months of this Thursday, and its outcome legally binding. Whether we end up leaving or remaining, for the first time since the Tories' chaotic handling of Brexit we'll have certainty about the future.
Yes, the future. If you read the Tory manifesto, there isn't a lot in it. Their tomorrows looks a lot like our todays. Overcrowded classrooms and schools sending begging letters home, no help to get people on the housing ladder, a NHS - according to their own leaked trade documents - ripe for exploitation as the price of a trade deal with Donald Trump, and nothing for people dependent on foodbanks to survive, half of whom are in work and still cannot afford to feed their families.
Labour's manifesto is different. In education and health spending, the UK lags behind most EU countries despite our being the sixth richest nation on Earth. It's not a question of where the money's coming from - there's plenty there - and more of how it is spent. If the economy is roaring ahead like the Tories claim, let's see working people benefit from it for a change. Labour's first budget will increase public sector pay by five per cent, after years of cuts and freezes, and raise the minimum wage to £10/hour without age exceptions. This puts more money into the pockets of millions, meaning they will spend more and businesses will take on more workers to meet rising demand. Labour are going to end the underfunding of schools, ensuring they are properly resourced so they can have the staff they need. Labour will also remove the epidemic levels of pen pushing that get in the way of teaching and make teachers' lives a misery, so they can spend more time in the classroom. Labour will end the fleecing of the NHS by private health interests like Virgin Healthcare, and free up resources by abolishing the wasteful internal market, make sure we recruit and train the nurses and doctors the NHS needs, and invest in cutting edge research to create powerful new treatments.
And lastly, Labour are going to address the climate emergency. The Tory manifesto carries on as if our coastal towns and villages aren't under threat from rising seas and strengthening storms. Their decade of cuts have gutted flood defences and placed hundreds of thousands inland homes at risk. Labour will not only invest to protect the country from climate change, but wants to lead the world in carbon neutral energy generation, expand solar and wind power, plant two billion trees, champion advanced battery technologies, and invest in a cheap, high quality integrated public transport. This is nothing less than a green industrial revolution which would create new jobs, strengthen the economy, mitigate the effects of increasing temperatures, and protect these islands in the face of environmental uncertainty.
These are just some of the differences between the Conservatives and Labour at this election. There are, of course, many more. But there is one last issue, and that's a question of character. Everyone knows Boris Johnson lies, whether it's about the supposed cost of Labour's promises to claiming an increase of 31,000 extra nurses really means 50,000. Married to this is an indifference to the suffering of others. Johnson not only failed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is currently held in an Iranian jail on fictitious charges, he made her situation worse. Or how the Tories so badly bungled the death of Harry Dunn, a motorcyclist who died after getting knocked over by the wife of an American intelligence operative, that the family are suing the government following misleading statements made in the Commons. Or even today how Johnson showed no contrition over a four year old boy with pneumonia forced to sleep on a pile of coats on the floor of Leeds General because of a lack of beds - and even swiped the reporter's phone while mechanically repeating pre-scripted lines. Is he going to change if he gets four or five more years? Would you trust Johnson to do right by your family when the Tories have failed to do so since 2010?
Jeremy Corbyn on the other hand is very different. The reason he gets so much stick and attracts bad press isn't because of who he was photographed with, or has spoken to. It's because Corbyn has spent his career sticking up for the voiceless, for the marginalised, and for working people. With Corbyn as Prime Minister, you know that he cares about jobs being plentiful, that schools and hospitals get the resources they need, and that people will be paid enough so they don't worry about making rent or struggling to put food in front of their children. The needs of the many will come before the needs of the few, to coin a phrase. Corbyn's vision of Britain is a place where people can own their own home, don't have to take out loans to afford a decent life, and where we rise to meet the problem of climate change instead of pleading with polluters to mend their ways. I don't know about you, but I'm fed up of that encroaching sense of dread when thinking about the years to come. For the first time in a long time, if Labour forms the next government we can actually look forward to a better future.
In this election, vote for yourself, your families and your friends. Vote Labour.
Yours sincerely,
Phil
Actually, vote tactically to exclude the Tories. I expect to stay up on Thursday night and watch seat after seat fall to the Tories as a result of split votes. My only hope is voters are more intelligent than the politicians. The only thing that matters is to stop the Tories and their disastrous Brexit. In a fixed system, there is no such thing as principles and to knowingly vote for a party - be it Labour or Lib Dem - with no hope of victory, is effectively a vote for Boris Johnson. No ifs, no buts. And after this election, if Johnson wins, it is game over - for Britain in Europe, for the NHS, for public service broadcasting, for the livelihoods of millions. It is not an exaggeration to say this is the most important election since 1945. A wasted vote is a Boris vote.
ReplyDeleteSpeedy: "to knowingly vote for a party - be it Labour or Lib Dem - with no hope of victory, is effectively a vote for Boris Johnson."
ReplyDelete'No hope' is not much of a "left" vision, so I think I'll ignore your directive to vote for the bourgeois lib dems, who would clearly support a Johnson government in exchange for a sliver of power. I'll put my hope in other working people of this country supporting Labour instead :)
And BTW, if we do lose the election life will go on and so will resistance to a rotten Tory/lib Dem govt and the struggle for socialism.
John McDonnell has also now called on voters to vote tactically to defeat the Tories. It is the only sensible position. The fact is that neither Labour nor the Liberals can win a majority although the combined vote for Remain supporting parties is now a clear majority of around 55%.
ReplyDeleteIn the majority of seats, only Labour can win, and so its sensible for Liberals, Greens and Plaid to vote tactically for Labour to keep the Tories out. There are no seats where Labour has a better chance of beating the Tories than the SNP. Even in Labour held Scottish seats, the SNP are more likely to win, because of the understandable opposition to Labour's vague Brexit stance. But, as McDonnell says, there are also many seats in England and Wales where it is the Liberals, Greens or Plaid that is best placed to beat the Tories. In those seats, its understandable that Labour voters will want to vote for whichever of these other parties can keep the Tories out. Given that the vast majority of Labour voters also back Remain, its not hard for these voters to lend their support to parties with a clear anti-Brexit position.
Indeed, 70% of Labour Remain voters back the Liberals Revoke position rather than labour's absurd second referendum position, which is an indication of where labour could have been had it adopted a principled international socialist position on Brexit in the first place. Even 25% of labour Leave voters think that Revoke would be an acceptable solution!
Whether it is to stop Brexit, or to stop the Tories continued vandalism against the NHS, the only sensible position now is to vote tactically on a seat by seat basis to get the Tories out.
"If elected, within three months Labour will negotiate a different deal to the one Johnson has presented to the public. Our alternative will put jobs before profit margins, and living standards before loosening worker and consumer protections. This deal will then be put back to the British people in a second referendum vs remain within six months of this Thursday, and its outcome legally binding."
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have ignored the fact that the EU will have some say in whether this fantasy Brexit deal can be negotiated or not, and the fact is it can't! If labour really must have a referendum, and really wants to put an end to it all, the simplest answer would be on Day One to put Johnson's Deal to a referendum, and for Labour to then campaign solidly against it, and for Remain.
Of course, if Labour lost that referendum, it simply puts you back to square one, because there is no reason why Labour MP's would push through a Brexit it has just campaigned wholeheartedly against. It would mean calling another General Election on the issue, which is why the whole referendum solution is a nonsense, and Labour should have simply fought he election on the basis of Revoking Article 50, which a majority of its supporters back.
"'No hope' is not much of a "left" vision, so I think I'll ignore your directive to vote for the bourgeois lib dems, who would clearly support a Johnson government in exchange for a sliver of power. I'll put my hope in other working people of this country supporting Labour instead :)"
ReplyDeleteBut, Labour is also bourgeois. Its social-democratic programme is more "left" than in recent years, but it is still social-democratic, and so still bourgeois. It is about trades union style bargaining within the system, not replacing the system. As a general principle, of course, its right that socialists should recommend a vote for this bourgeois workers party, as Lenin called it, but its also necessary to do as Trotsky suggested, and "learn to think" rather than acting like an automaton, simply repeating mantras. There is no reason to leave your common sense at the polling booth, and to vote for parties that have no chance of winning, rather than to vote for a party that might actually be able to beat the Tories.
The truth is that, in this election there is next to no possibility that the Liberals are going to support a Tory government. Even the DUp are likely to desert the Tories, and are talking about supporting another referendum and backing Remain, because they realise that any possible Brexit will be devastating for Northern Ireland, and lead quickly to a United Ireland.
The Liberals will get no more than 35 seats, whilst the SNP are likely to get at least 50. The SNP have said they would back Labour, and so the Liberals would effectively also have to back Labour. I suspect the Tories will be the largest party (about 305-10), with Labour going backwards to around 230 seats. But, labour will be able to form a Minority government.
That will, however, happen only if there is widespread tactical voting. If not the tories will pick up Labour seats, as Remainers vote Liberal et al, or stay at home, and similarly the Liberals et al will fail to take Tory seats, because of a failure to think rationally, in those seats where others have the best chance.
Its not just a question of if you want to stop the Tories and stop Brexit voting tactically, but also if you want to get a Labour government of some sort. That is why John McDonnell is also arguing for such a course of action.
We have to make clear why a Labour Brexit deal can be finished quickly when the Johnson deal cannot. Off-the-shelf Norway models and so on. If that was offered to a public who wanted it then I would accept it and I hope Labour MPs would too. But as Speedy says, if Johnson wins outright it is game over - for democracy. He'll fiddle the constituency boundaries and restrict unbiased broadcasters. I dread the worst.
ReplyDeleteGood post. I hope I'm not breaching blogger's etiquette by also recommending Sam Kriss's blog post in a similar vein. I also hope you're not both pushing at open doors as your respective readerships are more likely to vote Labour anyway but even so it's always good to have it spelled out. I fear we won't get this chance again to install a truly progressive government.
ReplyDeletehttps://samkriss.com/2019/12/08/for-the-many/
The idea that the Lib Dems will work with a genuine socialist leaning Labour leader is as fanciful as imagining the Blairites would! The Lib Dems are far closer politically to the Tories.
ReplyDeleteOf course Brexit muddies the water somewhat, but on policies the Lib Dems won’t back Labour; I think if it wasn’t for Brexit I would back Labour to win. The picture of the white (call me cynical) boy on a NHS floor would have done real damage to the Tories in normal times but too many people feel betrayed by Brexit.
As much as I see a vote for the Tories as a provocation the Brexiters see it the other way, they will see remain as a betrayal and they will feel cheated. So on the one side a vote for the Tories will be voting for the biggest terrorists while not voting for the Tories will be seen as an affront to ‘democracy’.
Actually voting for the Tories is an individual declaring war against everyone, as someone once said, capitalism is the war of all against all and a Tory victory would be further proof of that. Talk about catch 22 for the left!
Incidentally the privatisation of the NHS isn’t some conspiracy theory it is already happening. US companies are already setting up base in the UK, they are offering, for a monthly subscription, to provide GP consultation online (each consultation being chargeable separately, the monthly subscription being a standing charge). They are only doing this because they know the future direction of the NHS, i.e. not free at the point of use.
There are countless more examples of this. You might have noticed the proliferation of medical adverts in recent years, this is no accident.
The fact that people are debating whether or not Labour’s leaked memo is fake or not is because our corporate media can’t do journalism, they can’t investigate and join the dots. They are not journalists but merely the stenographers of the ruling class.
This is another reason the Tories are favourites to win.
Of all the institutions in this country I would put the media as the worst and most destructive.
Still as Michael D said win or lose we still continue the fight against the Tory/lib Dem govt, though I would say Tory/lib Dem\Blairite.
"We have to make clear why a Labour Brexit deal can be finished quickly when the Johnson deal cannot. Off-the-shelf Norway models and so on. If that was offered to a public who wanted it then I would accept it and I hope Labour MPs would too."
ReplyDeleteBut a Norway deal isn't what Labour is asking for. Labour wants a Norway Deal that would also allow Britain to have a say in determining the CU rules, the Single Market rules and so on. The EU will not allow that, because it would destroy the EU itself. No one would want to be a member and have to abide by the rules, pay into the budgets and so on, if instead they could be outside and simply have all the privileges of membership! A trades union wouldn't allow that, and neither will the EU.
And Labour also wants to be able to negotiate its own separate trade deals, which is fundamentally in contradiction to being a member of a CU, and Single market. Its just a version of Johnson's have cake and eat it fantasy.
But, if Labour were going to go for an actual Norway Deal, in which it doesn't get a say in the decision making and so on, what on Earth is the point? It would still damage Britain, and certainly damage the interests of workers, as a result of the separation, but would now have the downside that Britain and its workers lost any say, any democratic input into the politics of the EU, which for all intents and purposes it would have remained a member!
Norway does that - though a large number of people in Norway think it gives them the worst of both worlds - because Norway is a tiny country of around 7 million people, or less than that of London. It has large North Sea Oil and gas reserves, and revenues, which are even larger per capita, compaed to Britain, because of its small population, which it uses to finance its public services, and to build up its sovereign wealth fund for future years.
Norway's economy is highly determined by these North Sea resources. It has every incentive in wanting to retain control over them, and not to have to pay a portion of the revenues from them into the EU budget. But, it does want to be able to be sell its oil and gas unfettered to the EU.
This is a completely different situation to that facing Britain and its population of nearly 70 million, and its dependence on trade in goods, and particularly services. Having a say in the rules, regulations, tariffs and trade agreements in relation to all that trade is vital.
"Having a say in the rules, regulations, tariffs and trade agreements in relation to all that trade is vital."
ReplyDeleteAll Britain has been doing for the past 30 years in this regard is to water down every legislation that has improved workers rights.
Britain has always ensured the legislation favours the boss class.
The worst that can happen with Britain outside the EU is that the legislation gets more progressive. I mean would the green new deal get passed if Britain had any say in the matter.
Good riddance I would say.