[Politics] Labour reinstates Jeremy Corbyn after suspension over antisemitism remarks

[Weststander]

Just had a peek at your conversation with JRG. I have a slightly different take wrt labour and the EU. I'd start by saying that industrial relations, in the nation that matters - Germany, has little in common with ours, so workers' right are generally better favoured inside the EU than out. That, of course, is one of the reasons that the likes of Farrage wanted us to leave. But let's go back in time a bit....

Until Thatcher went for Delors and the Sun decided this had a a nice populist twist that the tories could exploit, nobody was really interested in the common market. We joined but then didn't engage. We were notorious for not even bothering to send people to fisheries etc meetings, let alone put people up for chair. As a consequence decisions were made without our input. Then Thatcher woke up and realised what was happening and, again, instead of making an effort to engage, started waving her handbag about to applause from the plebs in the gallery, and some of her more peculiar back benchers realised she was on to a winner.

At the time, there was no populist working class clamour against the EU (or whatever it was called at the time). But some of the 'types' we all know and deride today found that mocking the frogs and eyeties resonated with their general racist attitudes towards our own british blacks, and the anti EU trope was born. I don't include in this critique the people, like a pal of mine, a businessman who found EU paperwork absurd, who voted leave for rational reasons (even so, my pal has since recanted after seeing the mess that has resulted).

But what about labour? I became a member when Mr Tony binned clause 4 (apologies to JRG - we differ in our views on this and have discussed it all previously - not again please). Europe wasn't really an issue. Labour managed to get little Roberston made a commissioner, but we didn't strongly engage. That was a huge error. We should either have full-steam engaged or full-steam backed off. Obviously I would have preferred the former because, as we see now, the efforts to disengage were bound to cause a bloody mess, and we haven't even properly left yet. However by doing not a lot, especially invoking our own laws about non EU migration, Mr Tony allowed his tory opponents to latch onto an anti EU (and foreigner) sentiment to exploit to Mr Tony's disadvantage. He didn't even appear to know how many non EU migrants were coming into the country. Own goal city.

As an aside, of course the massive irony is that after ten years of tory governments, they too have done almost nothing about non EU migration. Migration from the EU fell off after the tories made it clear there was no guarantee that Polish plumber etc would be allowed to stay here after Brexit. But they allowed the status quo to continue so that the fruit could be picked, the pipes mended, the hospitals staffed (!) etc. Cameron knew this and hoped the nation would understand this too if it came to a vote. Perhaps he should have made the point more clearly....

So back to the main issue, what about labour and, especially, what about Corbyn labour, left wing labour, former militant labour? Corbyn summed it up during the Brexit referendum run up. He said he was 70% in favour of remain. FFS. He may as well have said he was 70% in favour of his wife not leaving him. She would have been off the next day!

So why did left labour have a lukewarm attitude to the EU? Because they are stupid. They don't compromise with the electorate. Every decision in politics is a compromise, based on general and specific objectives and best guess estimates of how to achieve them. If your agenda is to create a word wide socialist Utopia then this is clearly not going to be obtained via the EU, so to all intents and purposes the EU is irrelevant. Moreover any power held off our shores (even if the power is shared by our elected and appointed representatives in the EU) is power outside the control of Corbyn labour. So Corbyn labour don't mind the EU but don't see it as a tool to help the cause. And as noted, in a sitiation like this, if you don't offer wholesale whole-hearted support, folk will be encouraged to consider the alternative.

When I'd had a few in the evening, I often felt like voting leave just to stick two fingers up to everything. All rather nebulous. In the morning, however, just like Churchill said in a different context, 'I'll be sober' and was.

I could have supported leave if there was a justifiable cause and an achievable plan. I was never a great EU fan, but it seemed to me that the best plan was to remain, get properly involved, and change the EU from within. Stop being arrogant Brits, not bothering to engage with JF and then wondering why JF was making plans for Nigel without getting Nigel's explicit approval. In other words, it was time for we Brits to grow up. Instead....

The other irony is this. Having decided that having no arrangements with the EU would be a great wheeze, we are now having to cook up last minute arrangements with the EU to secure some sort of continuity. So a decision based on 'we don't want to negociate with you anymore, we want to take back control' has resulted in a government who, until recently, was being managed by someone who properly understood this and deduced, correctly, that the only way to leave te EU is with no deal and no arrangements. Only when fatty panicked at the last minute did the leader, Cummings, wash his hands of it.

Oh, what folly. A shame Mr Tony took his eye of this ball and allowed Murdock and, heaven forfend, the spiv Farrage to steal the agenda. His second big mistake after imagining there was a need for actual evidence of WMD to justify removal of Saddam. A shame. Hopefully Starmer who has a much finer mind and, as we saw recently, the courage and resolve to act decisevely, won't make similar mistakes. Luckily, also, he doesn't appear to have his equivalent of the querulous Brown to placate.

My own views on points raised in there @HWT.

I don’t believe Corbyn when he said he was 70% pro EU membership. I know he’s the ultimate fence sitter, but he was a career strong critic of the EU. I think he said this because the mood music of the 2016 to 2019 Labour Party (senior figures, some of his temporary mates such as Thornberry and Chakrabati, plus the purported Red Wave of 18 year olds) was pro EU and anything to screw up the Tories. His heart and soul was against our membership.

Blair’s greatest blunder (I’m not anti Blair) was to open our borders overnight to unlimited immigration from Eastern Europe. Arrogant, no consultation, surreptitious, only he knows best. It was done to drive the economy, reduce the UK age demographic. With absolutely zero planning on roads, GP places, school places and most telling housing. We now have a colossal housing crisis that’s been brewing for 20 plus years, we cannot pin this at the door of Cameron et al. If only Blair had staged the influx, we had the right to set the dates.

Without that dramatic change to communities away from cozy Brighton and London, imho Farage would’ve been destroyed in an EU referendum. Farage and the racist dog whistlers wouldn’t have had a large audience.