There are serious threats to “Your Party” from those attempting to exert undemocratic control, and they attack as trying to destroy the party, anyone who tries to improve things.
The Labour Party is now centre-right and the large majority of us to the left of it were delighted when Jeremy took the plunge to launch a new party. It is not that parties of the left did not exist; it is that only Jeremy Corbyn has the stature to break through into mass voter support. That seems to me undeniable.
My own view is that it would be crazy for anybody other than Jeremy Corbyn to be the first leader of Your Party.
Of course, “left” is a broad concept, and like most of my friends I have signed up for the new project in order to take part democratically and endeavour to shape a party whose policies I can broadly support. If that does not materialise, I can leave, but I do not expect to agree with every single policy. Any party whose members all agree with every policy is deeply unhealthy.
I have friends in Scotland who will not join on the assumption it will be a unionist party. That of course can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I do not think it will be.
The rumours circulating about tensions at the top of “Your Party” are broadly true and often remarkably accurate. I could write a great deal about individuals and their positions, but I want now to issue an urgent alert and call to action, without names.
Simply put, I believe most of us had assumed that Your Party would be a one member, one vote democracy with major decisions taken by all members with online voting. That includes major policy decisions and election to all the main positions in the party, both central and local.
In fact, those in charge are actively working to limit, to an extraordinary degree, one person one vote democracy in the party. That is the major reason why “Your Party” is still not actually a political party and still has zero members. It only has 850,000 people who have signed up to express interest, many of whom have paid money, but none of whom have any legal standing, democratic rights or say in how the money is spent – or crucially whom it employs.
This is not an accident and no, it does not take months to set up a structure to convert these people into members. The delay is absolutely deliberate, preventing any locus standi for democratic control of the establishment process.
Incredibly, this is not an issue that divides the different factions at the top of the party. One thing that unites them is a desire to run the party through easily manipulated structures; they just differ over who should control those structures.
There have been a number of formative meetings held around the country. There is no area in the entire UK where all of those who have signed up and joined the list, or even all those who have paid money, have been invited along to a meeting to discuss setting up the local branch. In every case local members of small political parties and groups within trades unions have hand-picked whom to invite.
The only time that all those in an area who signed up have been invited, has been to a small number of leadership rallies with Jeremy Corbyn.
If I may just give Glasgow as an example. Your Party has 42,000 people signed up in Scotland. We can therefore estimate those signed up in Glasgow as over 5,000 people. But the “founding meeting” of the party in Glasgow was of 120 people, invited by “word of mouth”.
The other 5,000 people who had signed up had not the slightest idea the founding meeting was happening.
On a larger scale this control by selective invitation is to play out at what is billed as the party’s “Founding Conference” in November. Ordinary members will not be able to attend the conference. It will consist of delegates selected by tiny political parties and local groups, most of which the large bulk of the members in that locality will never have heard of.
There will be no way for a member simply to put themselves forward for election by all the other members in their region as a conference delegate. It is entirely a self-selecting process among established left wing factions, just like the Glasgow meeting writ large.
Let me try to bring home to you the vast gap between the membership and those who are manipulating the system. The main organising component in Scotland is a small party that initially stayed (rightly!) loyal to Tommy Sheridan after he was traduced by Murdoch, as part of the split between the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity. This group then split again as a smaller splinter off from Solidarity.
I can’t even recall what they call themselves now – the Socialist Party of Scotland or something – and I have no reason to doubt they are great people. But they and a couple of groups of similar size – groups which without the Corbyn name would not combined be able to fill Blairgowrie town hall for a meeting on a wet Tuesday evening – are attempting to lead by the nose 42,000 people who would like to have a say in the matter.
Those 42,000 in Scotland deserve the rights and privileges of members. Now. As do those who signed up throughout the UK.
I cannot stress to you enough that this is not a glitch; it is a feature. Nor is it a teething problem. Those who currently hold the reins are determined to make sure those reins cannot be voted out of their hands. I have had a number of conversations with people actually in charge of instituting all this, and the prevention of direct democracy and the structuring of the party instead through controlled committees and caucuses is for them a given.
Part of this is because, far from being a fresh start, most of those actually running the putative Your Party come from the byzantine world of the Labour Party. Others come from small parties which are avowedly revolutionary vanguardist and entryist. Large putative memberships willing to pay money are a resource to be exploited and turned to the purpose of the group, rather than comrades to be considered as equals.
Which brings me to the second, and to me more worrying, aspect of Your Party, which is conduct of meetings. Aside from the careful selectivity of who gets to be at the meetings, those currently directing Your Party seek to avoid normal democratic rules of debate and – above all – to avoid votes at their meetings. This is how the local meetings are actually being conducted.
The first method to disempower the membership at a meeting is to disassemble them, into “working groups”. Each working group is led – and the word “led” is important here – by a “moderator” who has been chosen in advance and trained. That “moderator” gives an impression of communitarianism by asking the group what they wish to discuss from a list of prepared topics, or to some degree participants can choose the topic group to join.
The conversation is then led by statements introduced by the moderator. In Glasgow this was done on the basis of WhatsApp messages allegedly sent in – though who had selected the people who sent the WhatsApp messages to this unadvertised meeting was not plain. The moderators then distil the collective view of the participants through a process of alchemy, and later the moderators amalgamate the view of the meeting.
This method of “consensual” discussion of policy, avoiding debate and opposition, echoes the strategies employed within groups like Occupy! and Extinction Rebellion. It draws those who arrive full of idealism into a novel and apparently communitarian process, and anybody wishing to express a radically different opinion – or to challenge the methodology – is immediately not a legitimate member putting an opposing view in debate, but a disruptor and an outcast.
When I gave a talk to the Occupy! encampment at St Paul’s many years ago, I wrote afterward that these trendy methods of decision making actually did the opposite of what they said on the tin. They empowered charismatic individuals to lead the group much more effectively than the structured rules of normal debate, and effectively created a cult following. I was unsurprised shortly afterward to discover that encampment had, precisely through the control of charismatic individuals, seen sexual abuse of female members, resulting in convictions.
The notion that normal debate, with speakers for and against and proper votes, is bourgeois or undemocratic is entirely wrong. The great E P Thompson opened The Making of the English Working Class with the insight that the structure of the London Corresponding Society was in itself an act of working class assertion. An equal subscription and one member one vote was a revolutionary notion in an era where public gatherings consisted of listening to the priest, the magnate or his underlings.
The democratic conduct of meetings is actually embedded in common law, and represents the accumulated achievement of popular control. There is nothing outdated about proper debate and one person one vote.
There is now the opportunity to update this, with online debates available to all members, and online voting on all issues available to all members. When Your Party spoke of a new and modern form of popular democracy, I presumed mass online debate and online one person one vote is what they meant. I did not for a second imagine that replacing voting with New Age cult metaphysics was meant.
I want to emphasise this to you. I have spoken to scores of people, including some very directly involved. The avoidance of debate and of votes is a deliberate policy to maintain the control of a small group of people. In what would already be the UK’s biggest political party if they had allowed people actually to become members.
I am not mentioning names because my motivation is to heal this and make Your Party the force it should be.
I signed up immediately, to support Jeremy, and paid a small sum. I have never at any stage been invited to any of the meetings, steering groups or other activities involved in organising the party. I have never received anything from them except one vague email asking me to suggest the party’s name.
This can all be rescued. But those who have signed up need to get active now. Do these things:
a) Write to the party (reply to the email about the name) asking that formal membership be opened up immediately and stating that you wish to become a member.
b) State that you wish to attend the founding conference or at least to have a vote for delegates to attend the founding conference, with a right to put yourself forward for election if you so choose.
c) State that you wish to be invited to any meetings of the party in your area.
d) If meetings happen without you, kick up a fuss.
e) At those meetings, insist on some general discussion and the right to vote upon things. Resist the splitting up into small groups and manipulation of consensus.
f) In writing, make absolutely plain that you expect Your Party within this calendar year to have online one person one vote elections for all major positions, local and national, within the party. That includes the General Secretary or equivalent position.
g) State that going forward you expect Your Party to enact direct democracy, with one member one vote online on all major policy issues.
A popular movement depends on the people and we have the people. We now need to empower them.
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Speaking of political parties.
“The top funder of Reform UK is Christopher Harbourne, who also has citizenship in Thailand under the name Chakrit Sakunkrit.
He is also the largest single shareholder in arms firm QinetiQ, which exports UAV drones to Israel for use in the Gaza genocide.”
https://nitter.poast.org/Lowkey0nline/status/1966927403428786637#m
Meanwhile events are overtaking deliberations
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5TRxmgjTML4
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TM4a9egkib0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WKVW37RM3VY
Russia and Ukraine are at war. It’s happening now.
Gaza city is being completely flattened. Iran may have something planned for tonight – no idea what.
Peace and Justice? This weekend was the celebration of the start of it all…
It would be great to have a Bluesky sharing option.
You can copy and paste.
Yes, I independently came to thoughts of Occupy after seeing advice to Jeremy Corbyn from Extinction Rebellion. Still there’s a point and right now we don’t need an other party we need Thomas Sanakas at local levels. The shi is sinking. I can also see how people want to maintain their baby until it walks init’. Are you going to demand to input with parents you know to be good people when they’re starting out new and need diapers (nappies). Keep it too rigid and the next thing the whole party will be about getting elected and that will never happen. Everyone gets a vote too. It’s not one person one vote because we have to consider the past and future..everyone gets a vote. Don’t make it this rigid legitimisation of political class and get these folks in their think pods, because they’re not dropping think pods on one man’s word, those think pods will become moronic talk of Proportional Representation. No, no party legitimately represents the voter or themselves. Anyway the issues are serious enough that getting elected might be a cathartic exercise. At this point it’s all or nothing. There’s absolutely no way a party named Your Party is forming a government via usual political routes.
There is a risk this descends into a huge introspective exercise, in which everyone has an opinion and nobody actually decides anything. Its opponents would love that.
I was involved in a community-led game project – as opposed to purely studio developed. There was loads of initial enthusiasm, but the project stalled due to internal squabbles. Because before the thing we were trying to build was even built, everyone wanted input into its construction and the coders, level designers and other developers were receiving hateful flak. There were heated debates about all sorts of minutiae; such game mechanics, dodge length and movement speed i.e., all the things that are normally decided by the game devs in studio development. The lesson being : It’s far better to build and complete a project, and then have the ability for the community to change it, than try involve everyone in on the construction process and have it never built because it descends into acrimony. At some level you have to trust the founders’ vision and those around them. Ask only, are these good people? The academic, David Miller, has dismissed this new party, as he is hypercritical of ex-Corbyn staffers’ involvement, wanting only proven anti-Zionist involvement. But it should be judged it by what it does and its policy platform; nobody is forcing anyone to join or vote for it and we are hardly flush with alternatives.
“Ask only, are these good people?”
Many asked that question immediately and the answer is at the root of all the concerns being expressed about this new party.
Craig won’t name the people you’re referring to but they include the chief spokesperson of Your Party and Corbyn’s chief advisor, James Schneider. Last time, when Corbyn was Labour leader, Schneider pushed a zionist ‘antisemitism’ scam and persuaded Corbyn to adopt the zionist ICHR definition of antisemitism. He’s married to Keir Starmer’s head of comms and is a close friend of Lammy’s chief advisor, the spook Ben Judah.
Then there’s the secretary of Your Party Adnan Hussain, a man who appeared out of nowhere when Craig announced he was standing for Parliament in Blackburn and had his campaign run by Jack Straw’s campaign manager. It’s since emerged he is a landlord who is a big fan of private schools and the ISIS kingpin Jolani.
There are several other advisors surrounding Corbyn whose behaviour when he was Labour leader offers no more reason for confidence. What is your evident trust in these people based on?
zoot
The objections to James Schneider seem to be based on his associations. Not defending him, I don’t know him. But for all we know, he may now disagree profoundly with some of those individuals, on Israel? And more importantly, it can’t be seen as a single-issue political party. It has to be inclusive, and Schneider is a good media performer on programmes like Question Time et al. The media : online, TV & radio is going to be vital to success.
I don’t see how everyone can be subjected to the sort of rigorous purity tests on a single-issue, David Miller and yourself are implying are necessary. In Labour, the vast bulk of the PLP were Zionists, that isn’t going to be a problem in Your Party .
Look at the example of Owen Jones. Some still maintain he’s secretly a Zionist, because he momentarily jumped on the anti-Corbyn, bandwagon, and even questioned whether the party had a problem with antisemitism. IIrc, after poor Local election results in 2017. The results were so bad Theresa May called a general election on the assumption the Tory majority would surely increase.
Would anyone claim that Jones is supportive of Israel now? Views do change and we, as a population, were subjected to a media gaslighting campaign the likes of which hasn’t been seen before.
Yes, another one who when it mattered most became a witchfinder general of the zionist ‘antisemitism’ scam, smearing anybody who questioned it a ‘crank’.
Consider every left media gatekeeper who is demanding that people trust James Schneider and Owen Jones and you will find somebody who enthusiastically promoted the zionist ‘antisemitism’ scam when Corbyn became Labour leader. Without exception. Every single one of them participated in the most unscrupulous and glaringly obvious establishment scam of your lifetime, knowing quite well it was solely intended to wreck and destroy the Corbyn movement.
There is a determined effort to try and delegitimise any questioning from the left of this clique of proven wreckers. According to themselves and their acolytes, they have earned unquestioning trust.
zoot
If the party has a written constitution, it could state its avowedly anti-Zionist stance there.
And to avoid a Blair Clause IV type scenario, have a ‘three-quarters of members’ threshold for any constitutional changes – including any change that involves lowering the three-quarters rule itself. So any infiltration effort by centrist Zionists will fail.
You can’t have a minority veto in a democratic party.
“You can’t have a minority veto in a democratic party”
Requiring three-quarters of the existing(total) membership to vote to approve party constitutional changes is a minority, how? Normally it’s two-thirds(66%) for such things, but three-quarters offers more protection for the founding principles of the party. Some believe the Brexit referendum should have had a similar hurdle, rather than the simple 50% +1 vote rule they implemented along with no turnout requirements. Though it should be said, turnout was in fact very high.
You. can’t. have. a. minority. veto. in. a. democratic. party. QED
No, the objections are also based on his record. That record and those associates are the very reason why you see so much of Schneider on mainstream TV. The media know very well who they are dealing with.
zoot
I get what you are saying, and no doubt some will have ulterior motives for being involved. However, where we differ, is I believe any who’ll turn out to be bad actors are manageable. Many want to shun Novara media too, because of the same idealism. But this party can’t operate like a holy order or sect – based on purity of belief. If it’s to have broad electoral appeal it needs to court everyone on the left.
King Charles III didn’t mention Gaza once in his state banquet speech, just Ukraine. What is it with the British establishment’s obsession with Ukraine?
They once laid all the state trappings on for Putin :
State Visit from the President of Russia: June 24-27, 2003
Extract…
But at a state banquet last night the Queen made the first inroads into patching up the divide.
She said: “Mr President, it is I believe a sign of genuine friendship that we are able to have disagreements but remain firm partners.
“It is no secret that there were significant differences between our two countries earlier this year on how best to handle Iraq.
“But we are now able to look forward together, firmly in agreement on the route we have decided in the United Nations.”
After guests had enjoyed truffles, salmon and chicken in champagne, the Queen also praised Mr Putin’s record at home. She said: “You personally have been energetic and determined in promoting reform in Russia.
“In particular, your dedication to the task of reforming and strengthening Russia’s economy, so improving the quality of life for ordinary Russians, wins our real admiration.
“We support your efforts to create a modern, prosperous and dynamic state.”
Anyone reading that account of Putin’s state visit would have to conclude the British elite are masters of hypocrisy and revisionism. The late Queen highlights Russia’s opposition to the disastrous Iraq invasion/occupation in 2003 – then in its early months – as if Russia’s opposition was a bad thing. Up to two million citizens took to London’s streets, marching in opposition. earlier that same year. Has the monarchy always been so profoundly out of touch?
I’m not sure I share your faith they are manageable. None of them has expressed regret about their actions last time and there is no evidence they have changed.
Here’s Aaron Bastani of Novara Media claiming the UN definition of genocide is too expansive and trying to diminish Britain’s role in the ongoing Gaza Genocide.
https://x.com/lesthecroc/status/1930383455398809968
This was in reaction to Corbyn calling for an independent inquiry into Britain’s role in the Genocide.
“What is it with the British establishment’s obsession with Ukraine?”
Probably because today’s Ukraine is very much a British Establishment project. They have never forgiven Putin for booting out all the British “investors” who were making large amounts of money from Russian natural resources, such “investors” being members of the Establishment.
It serves as a reminder, amid the mutual backslapping on these State occasions, that the US and UK elites have made atrocious decisions over the decades : Iraq – total fiasco; a fruitless hunt for WMD that they knew full well didn’t exist; dodgy dossiers speak to that fact, and even the UN Weapons inspector, Hans Blix, on the ground in Iraq, was telling them too. Afghanistan – a 20-year, 2 trillion dollar US/UK occupation, that ultimately only succeeded in rearming the Taliban.
And because the media/press are complicit there is never any apology, no Japanese-style bowing out and mass resignation, zero accountability. So nobody is held to account and no lessons are ever learnt. Both countries need completely different political and media systems.
“US and UK elites have made atrocious decisions over the decades”
Atrocious for whom? Not them.
The current criticism of a selected group is repeating last year´s towards German BSW.
Same reasons now for the party to do it. Same reactions.
We will see.
The fears of rogues undermining this new project are beyond any question justified.
Be it Corbyn 1.0 or the most recent revelations of WIRED on the US DEMS PR brigades getting 8 quid/month for lying, or even the BS of the entire covert NGO set up within EU frameworks up to the embarrassingly obvious Soros incursions. Not to speak of the CIA and post- CIA NED fun&games.
You sometimes have to ask yourself as a genuine leftist: What the fuck is or was ever real?
p.s. To this day almost nobody in Germany has acknowledged the Al Jazeera “Labour Files” revelations.
You make a lot of sense with your most interesting story about a community-led game project. The founders of the new party don’t seem to be sure what they stand for (or why try to recruit members of the public to help them decide?). Hence, from what you say, I predict that, like your game project, it will descend into acrimony, and stall and sink. Then it will be back to business as usual for parliament and British politics. 😁
If people want to argue about minutiae, then let them.
Provided that you have a multi threaded platform, those debates need not detract from debating more important issues.
All that’s needed is a mechanism whereby decisions can be decided. That can be done most simply by the person responsible for dealing with whatever issue it is being discussed, or by a vote, whichever is more appropriate.
I would be interested in Joining “Your Party” but I’m already a fully paid-up member of the Apathy Party. Or rather, I would be if I could be bothered to renew my membership.
Fnar!
Anti-Trump demo.
Capitalists in crisis,
Choose fascism
Fascist /fascism has to be the most abused word in the English language at the current time. Everyone, left and right, seems to be throwing it around to insult opponents.
Its etymology is interesting:
fascist(adj.)
1921, from Italian partito nazionale fascista, the anti-communist political movement organized 1919 under Benito Mussolini (1883-1945); from Italian fascio “group, association,” literally “bundle,” from Latin fasces (see fasces).
Fasci “groups of men organized for political purposes” had been a feature of Sicily since c. 1895, and the 20c. totalitarian sense probably came directly from this but was influenced by the historical Roman fasces, which became the party symbol. As a noun from 1922 in English, earlier in Italian plural fascisti (1921), and until 1923 in English it often appeared in its Italian form, as an Italian word.
“Fascist /fascism has to be the most abused word in the English language at the current time. Everyone, left and right, seems to be throwing it around to insult opponents.”
Probably because there is a lot of it about and there always has been every since the European oligarchs changed from being the landed aristocracy to the captains of industry. Fascism, as the seamless merger between commerce and government, behind a figleaf of “democracy”, is the default state of Europe and its ex-colonies. It helps to remember that the idea that WWII was a “war against fascism” is a post-war myth. It was a war against two European states and one Asian one, two of which happened to be fascist. Ask yourself the question, “if the Axis powers had been socialist, but still did what they did, would the Allies have still fought them?” The answer has to be yes and going by what had just happened in Spain, a damn sight sooner, too.
Goose:
Interesting point.
In the 1930s who was in the bundle ? Looking comtemporaneously who is in there now ?
Goose
I believe MussolinI as a young man was a fully signed up member of The Italian Communist Party.
Which goes go show ( bearing all the comments above) that sometimes you think you know someone and…………………
There’s always someone who writes that in a discussion like this.
“Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction; from the point of view of the proletariat the difference between the types of reaction is meaningless.” Leon Trotsky, What Next? (1932)
Best to avoid hair-splitting.
The Fascist leaders in most European countries were Socialist “splitters” who saw that the “Red Terror” excesses of the Bolshevists were putting off anyone who had any property.
“Home owner? Shopkeep/owner? Industrialist Farm owner? Fancy handing over your hard-earned property to the Government, or being lined up against a wall if you’re determined to be a ‘Kulak’? No? Then vote Fascist, a third way between Capitalism on the Right and Communism on the Left”.
Almost a haiku. If the last line were e.g. ‘Sadly go fascist’ that would do it, making 5 syllables.
I can’t resist trying to make up a couple:
What’s a right-winger?
Liberals who have been mugged
Go conservative
How Brits deal with Trump
Lay it on with a trowel
The Disraeli way
M.J:
Everyday is a school day ! Thanks.
To conform as required I’d now ammend it as Choose Autumn’s fascism
PS I thought the second line of a haiku was seven syllables ? Your “Liberals who have been mugged ” is eight ?
You’re right about the second line in a haiku having 7 syllables. Possibly you counted mugged as 2 syllables, if you added a vowel before the final d sound to make it sound like mugg-ed or mugg-ud? (I would say it as “mugg’d”, so no vowel before the d).
MJ
Interesting. Therefore mug and mugged each have one syllable? As you can tell I am not a linguist but in terms of pronunciation the d in mugged sounds stronger almost like de. In terms of my hearing one could make a case for d’feat rather than defeat. Thanks for taking time to respond.
JohnnyOH45:
That’s right, as I understand a syllable is a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, so mug and mugged would each have one syllable, unless someone pronounced mugged as if it rhymed with bless-ed. Maybe there are places where this is done, I’m not enough of an expert in regional English dialects to know!
As opposed to the difference between, say, rug and rugged
Of course, parties participating in a democracy don’t themselves have to be democratically organized. They can set themselves up however they want, then present themselves to the electorate for consideration.
But that produces the biggest problem for current, perverted democracies – we all get a vote, but we don’t get any say in the choice of candidates we can vote for. Basically either red or blue Tories, but they mostly smell like Tory troughers to me.
So how would a truly democratically formed party function? “Your Party” does now have a chance to find out. An exciting chance with 850,000 people already expressing an interest, but unfortunately not a chance that any of those setting up the party really want to take. They want to take the more accepted route of setting up a party based on what they believe, then campaigning for people to join and vote for them. Why would they invest their time and effort into setting up a party that may then be taken over by people who believe in different things?
These initial “Your Party” meetings Mr Murray describes, splitting participants into groups with moderators testing and collecting ideas, are then more like a marketing focus group exercise than a decision-making apparatus.
Another thought – Someone wanting to set up a truly democratically organized party would have to be motivated simply by a belief in the democratic process, not a particular political persuasion like most party organizers. Then what if you started setting up your party with 850,000 people expressing interest, and found a majority of them wanted to recriminalize homosexuality and bring back hanging?
Perhaps related to Mr Murray’s previous posting on altruism and empathy. You’d hope with a truly democratically organized party, those kinder expressions of humanity are going to come out. Right? Maybe?
Proper democracy is about doing what is right, not what is popular, so it shouldn’t matter if a majority want to hang homosexuals unless they can make an argument which stands up, which they won’t be able to do.
“Basically either red or blue Tories, but they mostly smell like Tory troughers to me.”
It does seem to me that, whilst there are some principled figures in Your Party, most of the organisers simply want to get their trotters back into the Westminster trough.
That’s definitely an issue.
All the high-minded idealism here, promoting direct democracy systems, democratic purity and transparency, meets the reality that is the mindset of the professional, careerist politician. In this regard, Corbyn is selfless to a fault, a truly honest man, but his goodness is a very rare trait in politicians. Politics these days, typically attracts talentless egotists with a sky-high opinion of themselves, people like the horrible Badenoch and the gawd awful effin’ Jenrick.
Our appallingly unrepresentative FPTP voting system, is why Labour MPs are reportedly not all that keen on Andy Burnham; he’s an advocate of PR for Westminster and German-style federalism – devolving of real power to the regions and Scotland/Wales/N.I. Despite Reform’s rise, most Labour MPs still think they have a pretty good shot at retaining their seats under FPTP because of Labour’s local campaign capabilities: its voter database / messaging, emailing activities, and sketchy postal vote shenanigans. For Farage to become PM, Reform have to go from five seats to 326 seats to get a majority of one – a tall order indeed. A hung parliament seems the most likely outcome of the next GE.
I’m not a fan of PR as it entrenches the party system and disadvantages independents. Much more democratic is multi-member constituencies. Most of what is wrong with representative “democracy” is caused by the party system.
Bayard
Best to look at which countries have the highest satisfaction levels in terms of people feeling their democracy is fair and representative. They are typically the Scandinavian countries, they also top the life satisfaction index scores too.
The roadblock to moving to PR in the UK, is the military and security establishment. Unlike Scandinavia, we involve ourselves in foreign wars, usually alongside the US, and as Paul Mason alluded to, the security services and military fear proportional representation would produce multiparty coalitions which would make votes authorising military action, nigh on impossible to achieve. That’s why we are stuck with shitty, unrepresentative FPTP, with its vast majorities built on a 33% vote share, as per the current govt’s.
I’m not saying that PR is not a better system than FPTP, but it has this major disadvantage. Beans on toast is better than bread and water, but that doesn’t make it cordon bleu. Multi-member constituencies (MMC) does everything that PR does without entrenching the party system. The parties don’t want to lose any of their importance, so MMC is never presented as an option, it’s always some, usually highly complicated form of PR and one that requires some sort of electronic voting, the ballot-rigger’s friend. With MMC nothing needs to be changed, not the way we vote,not the ballot paper, not the way the votes are counted. It’s a system used in the past and still in use in Britain and works without problems. What’s not to like?
Britain is not and never has been a democracy of any sort. The only democratic vote in my life was the Euro referendum and the democratic result has been vilified ever since by liberals. I’m still laughing.
But a 52-48 result cries out for a compromise, doesn’t it? Instead, what was an almost tied Brexit referendum result was hijacked by the far-right and other powerful elements in the British state and the US to force the UK into the hardest Brexit imaginable. I don’t call that a meaningfully democratic outcome.
Democracy babe, you lost, stop whining and get with the programme. ;O)
People are beginning to realise that a system that allows majorities to kick minorities in the teeth may not always be a good idea.
is that why you’re against abortion?
What has abortion got to do with anything and why do you think I am against it?
I think you don’t understand the meaning of that word.
Is it fair to say that it was hijacked when Mr Corbyn gave it to them on a plate?
The consequences of notifying Article 50 without a plan were obvious and inevitable.
“But a 52-48 result cries out for a compromise, doesn’t it?”
As I recall, the original ’70s vote to join the EU (or “EC” as it was known then) was based on a simple 50%+1 vote, so why wouldn’t leaving it be the same?
The democratic result of the EU referendum was set aside on favour of the autocratic result.
The People voted in an advisory referendum in the expectation that the result would be dealt with according to the law and constitution.
Parliament couldn’t handle the democratic result so they retrospectively and surreptitiously changed the law to make it binding, following the diktat of David Cameron.
One test to apply to Corbyn’s new party, and which they should be required to be very clear about, should be whether they are for a one-state solution in Palestine (i.e. a complete end to apartheid), with a right of return to all Palestinian refugees from 1948, or a so-called two-state solution, i.e. grand apartheid and a Palestinian bantustan, and therefore no right to return for Palestinian refugees to pre-1949 Palestine, i.e. Zionism as David Ben-Gurion understood it when he was PM. In the latter case, people to whom this issue is important might want to support another party.
The two state solution is a political device to ensure that there never is a Palestinian state. Anyone and everyone pushing a two state solution should be dismissed out of hand as a zionist agent.
The only feasible solution is a single Palestinian state, fully democratic, equal rights for all, secular, and for existing Israelis to have a right of abode in Palestine as a Palestinian Jew, ie. a jew with a Palestinian passport. Also, for Palestinians displaced since 1948, the right to return.
Of course, Corbyn would revert to a mealy mouthed appeaser and support a two state solution. So no change there IMO.
Stevie Boy.
Yep – the TWO State Solution is a liberal sop to Israel and will not stop them from their brutality as their aim is a ONE State Solution.
Occupying Zionism for THE Jewish State only.
The above is why Norman Finkelstein rightly goes off on one when that is said.
How close are we to a one-state solution? Be realistic.
At this time it really is pie-in-the-sky idealism, as Netanyahu sends in the bulldozers, and prepares his people, in a television address, for the coming storm of international sanctions and isolation. This, as he sets his sights on grabbing the lot; both Gaza + West Bank, with the forced removal of millions. Supporting recognition is vital at this time, otherwise there will literally be nothing left. The US administration – Trump and Rubio – are playing a despicable role here; calling for there to be no recognition in the hope there will be no buildings and no population left to recognise.
Then there’s the pathetic spectacle of a UK PM and the King hosting these people, it’s vexing. Starmer is such a unctuous Uriah Heep groveller around the powerful, I’m sure he’d take the knee before Trump, if Trump so asked. They say we get security from the special relationship. But we are only militarily insecure and threatened, because we chose to make adversaries of Russia and China, at the US’s behest. We could quickly improve relations with both, were we to end the subservience to Washington.
Britain is facilitating the genocide in Gaza in its own right. Something Sir Ed Davey and the entire British political and media class know very well.
So this suggestion that Starmer and co care about the Palestinian people and a Palestinian state is a deliberate insult to everybody’s intelligence.
zoot
I know the motivations behind the recognition are face-saving on this govt’s part. They can see Netanyahu’s ‘end game’ here, supported by Trump. And the recognition move is a panic move, because they know voters will destroy them for acquiescing to ethnic cleansing.
There was a sudden change in tone from Labour ministers about Israel’s conduct, as if the the entire FCDO had a collective ‘Oh shit’ moment, realising Netanyahu is in fact insane enough to try ethnically cleansing both Gaza and the Wast Bank, supported by the US. The UK is a signatory to the ICC too, so maybe that played into their thinking ?
Much as I detest Netanyahu (and his ethnosupremacist coalation partners), why are you calling him “insane”?
He appears to have “our” leaders by the short ‘n curlies – and is about to sweep the tables. Zion is on the brink of its biggest win since 1948, thanks to Netanyahu’s machinations.
Yes, Israel’s reputation is in tatters, but the Masters of Narrative will swing into action and within a generation anyone who is even remotely Zio-sceptical will be considered a rancid “antisemite” again.
Recognising Palestine as a state is purely performative, and will be veto’d by the US in the UNSC anyway. Given that “our” leaders must know this, their endless prevarications to make even this feeble gesture underscores just how much “our” leaders are all terrified of incurring Zion’s wrath
An unbreakable UK – US bond, the Guardian reports today.
What does this mean for democracy in the UK? You’ve got military cooperation and integrated NATO structures; missile defence – early warning infrastructure in the UK; shared technology and production interdependence(BAE F-35), FVEYs, the list goes on and on. Would the military /security apparatus in the UK ever allow a dovish political party that opposes the special relationship/NATO, to come to power? If not, are we a democracy?
The security services clearly have the ear of Charles III. It’s not conspiracism to say the monarchy is clearly more politically influential in the UK than our unwritten constitution suggests.
Despite it shaping our foreign policy, the relationship with the US is never debated in parliament. But there again, nothing of importance is debated in parliament these days. There is hardly any debate at all.
Your Party need to take these questions seriously. Because this is what they’ll be up against if they become a powerful political player. It’s not just media hostility they’ll face.
If you read Zarah’s explanation, it looks like her move was a last ditch effort to wrest control from the London office, staffed by the old Corbyn apparatchiks. She explicitly says that she thinks members would not want the money raised to be under the control of Karie Murphy, who has a murky past behind the scenes. If you believe the people who control the purse strings have the power, then Zarah’s pre-emptive strike was to place the funds in an independent account, subject to democratic control once the conference decides on party structure. And thus the London faction would not have a controlling influence, particularly away from scrutiny. If you believe Zarah’s account then she was very determined to have an open, accountable, democratic party. Perhaps it was foolhardy, maybe it was her last desperate effort to have some say, because she is also quite forthright about the lack of representation on the current organising committee.
The other question is that once this happened, was it really necessary for Corbyn (presumably after the internal ‘caucus’ delegated him) to blow up with threats of legal action etc – because the money would ring-fenced and not going to his comrades coffers? I would assume that had he reached out to her, she would have said that the money will be under party control once the party is formed properly, with elected officers. Is that why they have gone full nuclear?
Who knows, but what a mess. Corbyn, for all his qualities, is very stubborn, as well as loyal to his gang of backers, nearly all of whom are veterans of the Labour years – which doesn’t bode well.
I think the party needs some fresh faces like Zarah, who is not afraid to go out fighting, unlike the timid, tepid, backstairs sniping of the Corbyn brigade when under fire. But if it is to be the Corbyn Party, Mk2, then I can’t find much enthusiasm for a rerun of those years. Shame.
@ Ian, If what you wrote is accurate, as well as being the betrayer of his allies, Corbyn is loyal to the arseholes who helped him to throw the 2019 election.
Ian
Corbyn’s reaction along with the legal threats is bizarre and totally out of character. Worst-case scenario, the payments are cancelled and returned and the whole thing could’ve been laughed off as a false start. Getting into trading hostile statements on X, just turns the party into a source of ridicule. I bet the opponents of Corbyn, Zarah and this project, can barely believe their luck.
“How close are we to a one-state solution? Be realistic.”
Very close, but that state would be a Jewish state. What we are getting further away from is any sort of viable two-state solution, in the sense it was ever viable. It is much more likely that the whole of historic Palestine would become a state where all enjoy equal rights and there is no religious supremacy, even if that state is still called Israel than a state called Palestine would be carved out of what is currently Israel.
A Jewish one-state solution called Israel, and not Palestine, would still be a Jewish ethnocracy, with superior rights for that community, and less for any remaining Palestinians.
By the way, I would go for a two-state solution, as the democratic one-state solution with equal rights for everyone will never be accepted by Israel. The point about a two-state solution is not that it is satisfactory, but it keeps Palestine alive as a temporary measure, until the inevitable decolonisation happens, and the Ashkenazis find life better in the US or Europe, and no longer want to pass their nights under the missiles.
“the democratic one-state solution with equal rights for everyone will never be accepted by Israel.”
There’s probably more chance of that happening some time in the future than the settlers giving up their encroachments on the West Bank now.
Goose
From where I the Gazans and The Palestinians in general sit – very very close.
Do you honestly see a reproachment between Israel and Palestine?
Particularly when the Israelis gave a great big thumbs down by blowing up not
only Hamas negotiators but their ‘ friends in Qatar as well.
The actions being carried out by Israel and its backer the US is to clear all Palestinians
out of Palestine so as then there will be no Palestinians around to have a State.
No Palestine ( or Palestinians ) – Ergo – no other state to have Two State Solution with.
The BBC call this ‘re-locating’ others call it Genocide.
If we are all relying on the US to have sudden bout of conscience then Hell will Freeze over
before that happens.
It’s simple:
If the US didn’t agree with all this it wouldn’t be happening.
Therefore- it’s happening so it does agree.
Stevie it’s not for you to dictate to the Palestinians the nature of their country. If I were a Palestinian I’d want the zionazis out, bags and baggage; it’s their decision, like voting Hamas in via the only democratic election there has ever been in the Middle East (and much of the rest of the world too).
Trump just replied on this issue at the Q&A with Starmer.
It’s clear that Trump is being heavily manipulated and wrapped tightly around the finger of Netanyahu, Jared Kushner and co. He talked about how a hostage told him they’d seen no humanity from their captors – this despite the fact they were released alive. He repeated the Israeli line by implying Israel doesn’t want to kill hundreds of thousands and flatten Gaza, but are having to, because Hamas are using the population as human shields. Where are the people supposed to go? Why won’t those fighting the IDF just stand in a field to be massacred, I wonder? He talked about October 7 being among the worst days in human history., he’d seen graphic videos. No mention of the historical context here; no mention of the daily indignities and the oppression, the death and starvation which is probably kept from him.
“Why won’t those fighting the IDF just stand in a field to be massacred, I wonder? ”
“Members of the corps,
All hate the thought of war,
They’d rather kill them off by peaceful means…”
Tom Lehrer, “Send the Marines” 1965
Plus ca change..
“He talked about October 7 being among the worst days in human history., he’d seen graphic videos. ”
In that case he must have been shown faked videos, as no such videos exist of the claimed atrocities. Very likely he was indeed shown faked videos, served up by Israel.
” it’s not for you to dictate to the Palestinians the nature of their country”. Agree 100%, Squeeth.
“Those are my
principlesopinions, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others” 🙂This is what Israel and their zionist fan club: Starmer, Trump, etc. frame as the right to defend. This is civilisation in 2025. This is what Corbyn won’t unequivocally stand against.
https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2025/09/17/ali-tahrawi-doctor-gaza-child/
SB,
That video clip is truly horrifying. Poor little kid. Every Israeli citizen and all their apologists around the world should be forced to watch that to see what is being done in their name.
They should be forced to watch it?
They actually get off on this stuff! It’s high entertainment for them.
On reflection, yes my post is probably a bit naive. Your post is probably not an exaggeration.
I joined your party this morning and it already seems to have imploded…
I got two emails this afternoon, one minute apart, and it seems Sultana and Corbyn and the independent alliance MPs have fallen out and she launched the membership on her own.
https://nitter.poast.org/jeremycorbyn/status/1968663293314097545#m
https://nitter.poast.org/zarahsultana/status/1968672534087229592#m
Embarrassing…
That was a quick fall out! My reaction is similar to that of Muttley.
How satisfying to see a prediction come true. 😁
Teething troubles.
On the available information, I think I’m on Zarah’s side. Why not just go with Zarah’s launch?
Why is Corbyn prevaricating?
Is it those ex-Labour sketchy independents who objected? The guy who emerged from nowhere to stand against Craig?
Zarah had to initiate this project from the get-go due to Corbyn’s heel-dragging remember.
I don’t understand why Corbyn hasn’t resolved this privately. Going public with communication via X/twitter and issuing a hostile statement is pathetic. And apart from Corbyn, the independent MPs are a bunch of pathetic nonentities. None have made any impact in the HoC whatsoever; Craig would’ve been an infinitely better, more high-profile MP than the invisible, Adnan Hussain. A man who popped up from nowhere, seemingly just to prevent Craig’s good shot at taking that Blackburn seat.
Yes, like Shane MacGowan had teething troubles!
So depressing, and excruciatingly embarrassing.
It’s your cue, Squeeth! 🙂
I told you so ;O)
Me too David. A bit of a shit show. Much as I love Corbyn, from reading around the views of people I trust, I think Zarah is on the right track. They’d better sort it out quick or there won’t be a party.
The visit by Trump is focussed on the Ukraine and Russia escalation. Our planes have gone to Poland, which has closed railway lines to Belarus, which has taken part in tactical war games with Russia regarding deployment of nuclear weapons. Above I posted links to events on the ground in Ukraine. I understand also that Ukraine has actively targeted Russian oil and gas terminals, military ships, and Russian positions in Donetsk.
The Unite demonstration served its purpose, even if one 5 mile stretch of road had 300 white flags with red crosses tied to every lamp post. (Source BBC) I would still like to know who paid for all the flags and who okayed the saturation of public spaces with them. But the march showed peaceful, gentle, people in huge numbers being patriotic just before Trump’s visit, and the date also marked the start of the Russia versus Europe phase. European countries will not get Russian oil and gas this winter and this will cause hardship.
WWIII will not be televised but we have tested the personalised air raid sirens we carry in our pockets.
National unity is perhaps even more urgent now, since the alternative has been starkly declared by Musk and his cohort. Most of the peaceful attendees on Saturday didn’t hear the speeches. Yesterday’s news.
A new political party, coalesced around Corbyn’s lifelong principles and values, could hold the middle ground of the political spectrum. But events have overtaken theoretical positions on international relations. The proscribing of direct action groups which damage our Defence capabilities makes sense now. Europe is speaking out against Israel’s genocide. Israeli drone companies are moving out, Ukraine owned drone companies are moving in. Just a name change? Under new management? The attention is now on Russia. The Middle East is weighing its own national interests against opposing Israel. The gas under Gaza is a factor. Trump has tried to pressure Britain to allow very damaging fracking in the British countryside for American companies to profit from.
Defence is the priority now, sadly, and we are all in this together.
Trump claims the UK and US have done a great deal of good in the world. Aside from WW2 and the recovery of post-war Germany and Japan, I’d like to know where? Very few recent examples from laughably titled ‘liberal interventions’ in : Iraq, Afghanistan; Libya or Syria.
I can’t even think of one example where the British Empire left a positive legacy either. It left a legacy of slaughtered native populations; exploitation, stolen territory for white settlers, war or warring factions, everywhere.
Democracy, education, healthcare, infrastructure, communications.
Your Party not off to a good start.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgkn3v1e7g3o
Reading the latest developments it does seem chaotic.
Zarah and Jeremy need to sort this out fast. And some of those independent MPs around Corbyn are a bit sus to say the least. The guy who beat Craig , talked of a Jewish homeland recently, which is bizarre wording, coming from a Muslim, who campaigned heavily on the Gaza issue, who you’d assume would favour a one-state solution?
This would be Adnam Hussain who’s already upset Your Party leaders by being gender critical. He’s also a landlord, owns property in Burnley, which isn’t going to make him popular with Corbyn and Sultana let alone Fiona Lali who’s a leading light in the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Here’s some more takes on this implosion …
“Over 20,000 people had become members of Your Party on Thursday after an email went out to supporters announcing that membership was open. It came only a few days after Your Party announced a road map leading to a founding conference in November.
Yet no sooner as it was announced, the Independent Alliance MPs put out a statement—“Urgent email to all yourparty.uk supporters”.
It read, “This morning, an unauthorised email was sent to all yourparty.uk supporters with details of a supposed membership portal hosted in a new domain name. Legal advice is being taken.
“That email should be ignored by all supporters. If any direct debits have been set up, they should be immediately cancelled.”
The statement is signed by all the Independent Alliance MPs—except Zarah Sultana.
Soon after, Sultana released a statement in response. She said, “After being sidelined by the MPs named in today’s statement and effectively frozen out of the official accounts, I took the step of launching a membership portal so that supporters could continue to engage and organise.”
1. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/chaos-within-new-leftwing-your-party-as-zarah-sultana-calls-it-sexist-boys-club_uk_68cc0fa0e4b0df2833ccea7f?origin=home-featured-unit
2. https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/what-is-going-on-in-your-party
Oh dear, oh dear. Where the f*ck is Corbyn in all this ? Is he on holiday ?
Pears Morgaine
Yes.
I don’t remember the exact wording of his Tweet/ X post, but Craig highlighted it on X. Certainly v.strange wording for an MP who won his seat leveraging the appalling situation in Gaza.
Stevie Boy
Oh dear, oh dear. Where the f*ck is Corbyn in all this ? Is he on holiday ?
Probably at his allotment, tending to his ‘independent’ plants? 🙂
Zarah said the other MPs had objected to her inclusion?
I wonder if Adnam Hussain ever really expected to make it to parliament?
This was Jack Straw’s constituency, and ,maybe he was meant to be a three-way vote splitter, allowing his old party, Labour to win, while denying the establishment’s Bête Noire Craig Murray? Certainly that was the view on here around the time of the GE.
Goose [18:45}:
I think this must be the tweet you mean:
https://x.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1961119078703079917
Craig Murray on X: “Oh. I think it is now clear why Adnan was run against me in Blackburn. He supports the existence of Israel.” / X [Thu 28 Aug 2025]
While hunting for that, I also found this long and mostly depressing thread from the same day:
https://x.com/BTimberley/status/1961067152712093963
Ben Timberley on X: “🧵 Right, it’s time for another #YourParty update from inside the trenches, here’s what my sources have told me: 1) The split has already happened, behind the scenes. Team Corbyn have cut-off contact with Zarah’s team, and basically walked away…” / X [Thu 28 Aug 2025]
[…]
https://x.com/BTimberley/status/1961174990499504634
Ben Timberley on X: “@FrankCookie8 @jeremycorbyn Yes. I sweated blood for this guy, and finding out he wasn’t worth it was horrible. Finding out his team were working against all of us was even worse.” / X [Thu 28 Aug 2025]
[…]
https://x.com/BTimberley/status/1961171149242482752
Ben Timberley on X: “@WrapIt_more There are really good people involved, who just want to make the world a better place. Have hope, we’ll get there.” / X [Thu 28 Aug 2025]
What Hussain posted was ” You can believe the Jewish people, especially after the horrors of the holocaust, had the right to a homeland, and simultaneously be utterly opposed to a settler colonial project ethnically cleansing and committing…”
Not defending him but I don’t read that as support of Israel, just saying that supporting the right of Israel to exist is not incompatible with condemning the slaughter and oppression in Gaza and on the West Bank.
Are we to assume that Craig does not believe that Israel has the right to exist? However despicable the current regime might be I will never accept that the answer to genocide is more genocide.
Pears Morgaine.
It is still a strangely sympathetic, bothsidesing take, from a guy whose community is furious with Israel and the sheer horror of Gaza. The holocaust has absolutely f-all to do with what’s happening in Gaza today too. And Jews aren’t a people as such, Judaism is a religion, not a race. Why did he feel the need to qualify his views like that?
Maybe I’m reading too much into the ‘right to a homeland’ part, basically because of what it implies; nobody has a right to a homeland because of bad treatment, and just saying it betrays his real views.
“However despicable the current regime might be I will never accept that the answer to genocide is more genocide.”
“Israel” is a state not a people. Removal of the state of Israel does not mean removal of the Israelis. I thought you were in favour of decolonisation, anyway. Almost the entire British Empire was decolonised, without requiring a single genocide.y
Trump just claimed the US is trying to ‘buy back’ Bagram Air base in Afghanistan .
[We were] going to leave Afghanistan, but we were going to leave it with strength and dignity, and we were going to keep Bagram, the big air base, one of the biggest air bases in the world. We gave it to them [the Taliban] for nothing.
We’re trying to get it back, by the way. That could be a little breaking news. We’re trying to get it back, because they need things from us. We want that base back.
One of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.
Unbelievable admission.
“We’re trying to get it back, by the way. ”
Tough shit, China’s got it now.
The Taliban denied the Chinese have it.
Do you believe them?
why not? The Taliban aren’t known for lying.
Has the British state sent its military forces into action anywhere in the world on the side of the goodies since the Japanese surrender?
No
Tonight’s BBC Six ‘O’ Clock news obsessed over whether Starmer has persuaded Trump to take a harder line on Russia? This issue is like an imbecilic British elite obsession, isn’t it. Yesterday Ukrainian legislators passed the 100-year partnership deal with the UK. One hundred bloody years!? What the hell are they smoking in Whitehall? I gave the example above of the Queen Elizabeth, lavishing praise on Putin, at a state banquet held in his and Russia’s honour some 22 years ago.
You can only conclude that the British elite are gagging for nuclear war with Russia for some insane, ungodly reason. Maybe they think it’ll thin our overcrowded island’s population down? If they get their wish they’ll emerge,from their deep underground bunkers in London, squinting in the daylight, to face the wrath what’s left of a furious public. This Ukraine conflict could be easily deescalated with minimum land concessions in the East, so annoying that the UK is one of the main obstacles to that.
Meanwhile, whilst Starmer bigs himself up to Trump, Trump is talking with the big boys. Doh …
‘On September 12, Russia and Belarus launched the “Zapad 2025” joint strategic military exercise.
on September 15, the Belarussian Ministry of Defense announced that American military officers visited the country to observe the “Zapad 2025”. ‘ [Ref. VT Site]
Don’t think the cavalry is going to be coming to the rescue of two tier and the eurotwats.
I think that by posing as ultras, the British boss class can get away with doing nothing to help the US-Ukronazis but appearing to want to were it not for compromisers like Trump who bottled out. They’re the bruiser in the pub calling “don’t hold me back” while waiting for someone to hold him back.
Goose
September 18, 2025 at 18:29
Isn’t there a convention – in W Europe at least – that state borders may not be changed by force?
Why should Europeans (we are all Europeans here, I think?) abandon that convention to placate the Russian dictator?
JK redux
If you feel so strongly why aren’t you out there fighting with Ukrainian troops now? They increased the conscription age to 60, so they are basically throwing bodies into the meat grinder.
Literally no country in Europe wants to volunteer their forces and suffer tens of thousands of casualties, fighting over the Donbas; likely against Russian troops and yes, locals fighting with Russian troops, many of whom just want to be Russian.
Ukraine was in a state of civil war already when Russia invaded. Zelenskyy wasn’t elected by and has never ruled over parts of the East. Kyiv wants the land back, but not its rebellious population. Ideally, I’d like a free and fair referenda to take place to settle these things, but it’s way past that point and we are where we are.
I suspect that Israel will be happy to see Europe emptied for their return.
Trump’s efforts to rein in Zelensky and Netanyahu were totally over-ruled or ignored, or he was in agreement with the plan. Big things were whizzing through the skies from Ukraine to the far ends of Russia on Saturday, and land incursions also claimed successful sabotage operations.
As for borders the Oblasts that voted to secede had been attacked by Ukraine since the Maidan.
I suspect the official intention to recognise Palestine is just a flushing out exercise by the Zionists calling the shots. In the meantime our resources will be deployed to support Ukraine based forces, and closely defend the borders of the EU. Diplomacy is many things to many people.
Goose
September 18, 2025 at 19:14
You ask why I’m not out there fighting with Ukrainian troops.
You seem sympathetic to the Russian regime so I could ask you the analogous question.
But unless you think that only combatants are entitled to an opinion your comment is empty.
Were the young Americans protesting against the Vietnam war not entitled to an opinion given that they were unwilling to “serve” in the US military?
It’s still hard to explain the fervour for escalation and war among BBC journos and the liberal commentariat. Watch Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight, it’s as though they become possessed when talking about Russia.
Many of these centrist/liberal people have been conditioned by Hillary’s defeat; they still believe Trump is somehow a product of Russian interference. They swallowed the Russiagate hysteria wholesale, and they’ve believed every false attribution since. They are misguided fools who are dangerous because what they believe is mostly false.
JK redux
Where did I say or even imply you can’t express an opinion?
My point wasn’t really aimed at you anyway, it was meant more as a general commentary. There are lots of armchair warriors on social media urging Ukraine fight on to the last, who wouldn’t put their own life on the line. And I do think urging others to fight in that scenario is reprehensible.
And it’s a problem we should have with chickenhawk politicians too; those whose sons and daughters avoid careers involving military services like the plague, who’d happily send other people’s sons and daughters to their deaths. My view is; if there is the slightest prospect of an end to this conflict via an imperfect deal, we should take it. The fact is, after all these years of fighting and their loss of blood and treasure, Russia isn’t going to walk away. And if a scenario develops in which they they look like losing, they have the big stick option, i.e. it’ll go nuclear, and that is in nobody’s interest.
JK redux
And I’m not sympathetic to the ‘Russian regime’ as you put it. I think the invasion of Ukraine was a terrible idea, disastrous for Russia. I honestly thought they were bluffing and would pull their forces back after the scheduled military exercises with Belarus. Russia claimed there was to be a major assault by Ukraine forces on rebel-held areas in the Donbas, but in that case they should have waited and entered as defenders.
They’ve made terrible strategic choices throughout. Although Putin smartly, got one thing right by gathering all his top intel, military and security chiefs to agree to the plan in a bizarre TV special. This was presumably to lock them into the fateful decision, and its consequences; to prevent some claiming at a later date, they never supported the invasion in the first place. Bizarre stuff.
“Why should Europeans (we are all Europeans here, I think?) abandon that convention to placate the Russian dictator?”
Abandon it? When has it ever been observed? Not in the Balkans, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan. A more pertinent question is why should Europeans suddenly start caring about it?
“I think the invasion of Ukraine was a terrible idea, disastrous for Russia. ”
It is quite obvious that the invasion of Ukraine was in order to force Ukraine to the negotiating table, which nearly worked. Unfortunately the Russians underestimated the venality of the Ukranian politicians. They should have just taken a leaf from the Ynks’ book and mounted their own “Maidan”, but it’s easy to be wise in hindsight. It’s also been obvious for decades that the Yanks have only one response to any negotiating, “You and whose army?”.
” If you feel so strongly why aren’t you out there fighting with Ukrainian troops now? ”
Well if it comes to that why aren’t you in Gaza lying down in front of a tank?
Russian intention was always to occupy the whole country and install their own puppets as they have done in Crimea and the Donbas. Putin has said that he doesn’t recognise Ukraine as a sovereign nation, that it was always part of Russia.
JK redux
The Trump – Putin summit came close to outlining a potential deal, albeit one involving Ukraine giving up part of Donetsk and a freezing the front lines. Russia is pushing deeper into Zaporizhia now, so there may be consequences for Ukraine’s rejection of that idea. It’s not certain they’ll get a better deal the longer this goes on.
Trump is disinterested in Ukraine, seeing it as Biden’s war. He promised MAGA he wouldn’t sink time,money and effort into it and MAGA have to placated for the midterms. Or else he’ll risk being a lame duck after only two years. He’s on a yellow card already with them over the Epstein stuff.
Have you noticed how the political left, dubbed the hard-left, and the right, dubbed the far right, don’t have the obsessional problem with Russia?
This is because they still have a political programme: ideological underpinnings and real policies they wish to implement. Whereas ‘centrists/liberals’ i.e. third-way Blairite/Clintonite,Starmerite shysters, have no ideology, no policies and they operate on vibes. These centrists can’t understand why they’re so unpopular, so they’ve looked for some external factor or causation, and the culprit they’ve settled on is big bad Russia.
Pears Morgaine
Well if it comes to that why aren’t you in Gaza lying down in front of a tank?
Where have I urged Gazans to fight on militarily? To answer my own question: I haven’t and wouldn’t – both because it is futile against such a powerful, well-equipped foe and because, as I said, being an armchair warrior at safe distance from a conflict zone is obnoxious.
But you think Ukraine should keep fighting based on what you’ve posted.
“Russian intention was always to occupy the whole country and install their own puppets as they have done in Crimea and the Donbas.”
What is your evidence for that,apart from the imaginings of NATO countries? If they wanted to “install their own puppets”, they would have simply mounted a coup like the US did when it wanted to install its own puppet. It’s funny how every leader friendly to Russia is a “puppet”, whereas every leader friendly to the US is “democratically elected by free and fair elections”.
“This is because they still have a political programme: ideological underpinnings and real policies they wish to implement. ”
It’s more likely that it’s because the right are nationalists and want what’s good for the nation and the left are socialists and want what’s good for the people, which, by and large, are the same thing, whereas the centrists are traitors and only want what’s good for them and their foreign paymasters.
The council bunker scenes in ‘Threads’ should put paid to any illusions of emerging unscathed from government nuclear shelters!
What about Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone?
Not to mention the collaboration with the US in liberating Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s invasion?
Liberating the Falklands from a takeover by a fascist state; which in turn hastened the end of that regime and returned Argentina to democracy.
If that’s all you can come up with in eighty years, it’s not a very impressive record.
The British invented Kuwait to deprive Iraq of territory and oil at the head of the Persian Gulf, it’s no more legitimate than Lebanon, Nireland or occupied Palestine. The Iraqi regime was the darling of the western boss classes when it was fighting a dirty war against Iran. There’s a good case for believing that the Septics egged Saddam on to invade Kuwait to provide a pretext to castrate the Iraqi state once it had outlived its usefulness.
Sierra Leone, I don’t know but I bet there’s dirty dealings in the small print. I wonder what Craig thinks?
@Pears Morgaine,
Argentina’s gain was the UK’s loss; eight more years of Thatcher – what a pyrrhic victory.
“Aside from WW2..”
What makes you think that WWII was a good thing, either for the British or for the world in general?
It rid the world of three murderous regimes and set the world up for de-colonisation.
Bayard, Pears Morgaine
From the Telegraph:
MI6 puts out call to aspiring spies on dark web
Recruitment portal targets new global agents, especially those with access to sensitive information in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea
This symbolises what’s wrong with the UK.
The UK, well, at least its London-based elite, still see themselves as running a vast empire spanning the globe. Do other European countries e.g. Italy , Spain, Netherlands involve themselves in the military affairs of China, Russia, N.Korea and Iran? I doubt it.
Who are we doing this for? Ourselves, or to help the US maintain its hegemony? There is zero debate about any of this in parliament or our role in the world and whether we should wind it in and scale it back to match our diminished global status.
“It rid the world of three murderous regimes and set the world up for de-colonisation.”
Only after those regimes had done nearly all the murdering they were going to do and only by a lot of extra murdering murdering which could have been avoided if there hadn’t been a war.. I suppose you think a few million people dead is a small price to pay to get rid of a few “murderous” leaders. Not to mention all the murderous regimes that nobody bothered about, like those of Franco and Pinochet, but that was OK, I suppose, because they were only murdering socialists. The British Empire was falling apart anyway and the world wasn’t decolonised, it was just that the nature of colonisation changed from imperial to commercial.
“The UK, well, at least its London-based elite, still see themselves as running a vast empire spanning the globe.”
Political Viagra
I think that the mutual weakening of the Euro-American slave empires can’t be emphasised enough but looking back, decolonisation may well have been partial, a change in the means not the ends and temporary, given the policy of debt bondage inflicted on the former (neo-)colonies. Let’s hope that the Chinese and the Russians are more civilised than the Seppoes.
Just discovered this Patreon blog after following a link posted by David Miller on X. https://www.patreon.com/AdifferentNarrative
The linked posts:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/c-is-for-and-135539147
https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-empire-works-84753521
If democracy in the UK is as hollowed out and compromised by securocrats and their bad actors – as the author of these posts believes – putting your hopes in individuals or parties is seemingly futile. It’d take a revolution, or total defeat by a foreign power to remedy the situation.
I find it incredible really, if what the author claims, is actually true.
One of the central tenets of democracy, is allowing the free functioning of political parties. If there isn’t a specific law to prevent domestic spook meddling in political parties, then there should be. I can only think the spooks recruit misguided individuals to participate on the false basis that China and Russia are similarly interfering? The evidential basis for that assertion is nonexistent. The sheer weakness of the organised left in the UK is testimony to that fact. And look how, with alleged Israeli interference – the Israeli flag is seen alongside the Union Jack – Tommy Robinson and the the far right have suddenly and exponentially, increased their profile. That’s what a foreign state’s interference would look like.
Goose: Here is a Youtube video introducing MI6’s Silent Courier, with instructions on how to contact MI6 securely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkOUH8d8UQY
It does say, though, that users need to use Tor and a VPN. The service is intended for use in countries like Russia or China.
In North Korea only a small party elite have full access to the internet, and accessing foreign culture is a death-punishable offence. Therefore it would be the most dangerous place in the world to access Silent Courier.
Most citizens wish we’d accept our status; as a medium to small power, and rein-in the idea of being a ‘big player’ on the world stage, policing regions thousands of miles away from the UK on the basis of the selectively interpreted ‘rules-based order.
We’re openly soliciting classified data from informants among China and Russia’s security and military. And both countries, certainly acting together, could obliterate the UK. If the US weren’t our security guarantor, the UK simply wouldn’t be so brazen about it.
“Only a mouse!” cried the little animal, indignantly; “why, I am a Queen – the Queen of all the field-mice!”
Reading the snippets of Richard Moore’s departing speech(Guardian), we’re clearly far too deeply involved in the Ukraine war. He talks about us, i.e., the UK, holding our nerve and staying the course – as if the UK is directly at war with Russia.
Since United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF), uniquely, among democratic nations, have no democratic oversight regarding their missions, deployments and losses, we don’t know the scale of that commitment. It could explain though, why King Charles III has taken a keen interest in Ukraine, as he’s likely being briefed as to that scale.
The fact Starmer took on with gusto, this Johnson initiative of supporting Ukraine to the absolute max, does suggest he was just some continuity establishment placeman candidate they enrolled to lead a Labour party that the man clearly has no comfort in, or affinity for. No one should want rule by secret cabals of overreaching military & security officialdom deciding our politics.
M.J
“In North Korea only a small party elite have full access to the internet, and accessing foreign culture is a death-punishable offence. Therefore it would be the most dangerous place in the world to access Silent Courier”
China has a very sophisticated firewall.
Genuine spooks are probably concerned by that ease, and then the inability to prove one’s innocence. Scariest link on the internet.
Imagine a scenario, where some foreign spy agency suspects someone in its ranks is a mole, but doesn’t have any conclusive proof. How easy would it be to either falsify their connection records, or deliberately connect his/her device to this site – followed by a very brief hearing and : Guilty – then they are taken out back and shot. As it would be in Iran( maybe hung) and N.Korea. I’d imagine, it’s probably a similar story in China too. As for Russia, I’m amazed Sergei Skripal only got sentenced to 13 years for high treason tbh. Were that the US it’d be 130 years!
“and accessing foreign culture is a death-punishable offence.”
Still a lie, just like last time.
“the UK, holding our nerve and staying the course – as if the UK is directly at war with Russia.”
He probably thinks the UK won WWII, rather than merely holding out against a Germany that had other things to think about with its attempted conquest of Russia long enough for the US and the USSR to get us out of the shit.
Here’s a BBC report about North Koreans being executed for watching South Korean films, which names a defector who saw people sentenced to death after being caught with South Korean content:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgqdz17ye3o
It has a link to a story about North Koreans being sent to work as slaves in Russia:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2077gwjlvxo
And one amazing escape story:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67610240
This is the BBC that has never lied to us, is it?
A lie repeated often enough may become widely believed, but it doesn’t become the truth.
Just how apt is Craig’s title : ‘It’s Your Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To’ in light of today’s events.
I thought it seemed overly pessimistic, but after today, many will wonder if there is going to be a Corbyn/Sultana party at all?
Zarah has asked to meet Jeremy, which is positive news, hope they can patch things up.
Goose
September 18, 2025 at 21:26
‘Just how apt is Craig’s title : ‘It’s Your Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To’ in light of today’s events.’
==========
Wouldn’t an apter song title now be, “The Party’ s Over”?
If Sultana is all of that then what was she doing in Keir Starmer’s cabinet?
She seems to have ambushed Corbyn by proclaiming this new party, but the devil is in the constitutional detail, as outlined in this guide to setting up an association or club, which a political party would be
https://www.resourcecentre.org.uk/information/legal-structures-for-community-and-voluntary-groups
At the moment they seem to be organising separately an Sultana seems to be heading towards NuLab2.0.
Johnny Conspiranoid.
I’m not too sure but I think any new party has to get approval from The Electoral Commission and it has to be registered as a Legal Entity.
Meaning ( I think again ) that it has to be solvent and have answerable Directors.
If that doesn’t happen then they will definitely be crying as your party will become You will always find me in the kitchen at parties – Party.
As usual the thing that matters (politics/policies) is subsumed by internal infighting for access to the photocopier.
I’ve seen it many times before I’m afraid.
Remorseless nazis,
Veto peace. Humanity
Starved, held hostage.
To make it a haiku, you need another syllable in line 3 (5 in total). Maybe ‘Starved and held hostage’?
MJ
Thanks
Remorseless nazis,
Veto peace. Humanity
Starved, bombed, held hostage.
I was encouraged by your haiku to try this one:
Gaza like Warsaw
Concentration camp rebelled
Result genocide
MJ
Yes. I agree.
Regards
I agree with most of it but not with your characterisation of the democratic methods employed by Occupy and XR. Used and done properly they are surely a step up from old school black and white debate – parliament for instance is hardly a good argument for that.
“when Jeremy took the plunge to launch a new party”
Wasn’t he forced into doing that by a young woman half his age?
If old Corbyn had his way he would be straight back into McSweeney’s Labour, still apologising for non-existent ‘antisemitism’.
zoot
I think what most envisioned, was the idea of the more energetic Sultana leading the party, with Corbyn – a vital unifying figure on the left – having a joint-leadership role, a role that was, in reality, backseat mentorship and basically ceremonial. The problem appears to be that Corbyn has assembled people who were around him and advising him, through his disastrous leadership period c.2017- 2019. And they’ve tried to hoard power and seal Zarah out of the process altogether.
David Miller seems to believe some of these people are just bad actors, but I think it’s more cock-up than conspiracy at this point.
I’m just bored of Corbyn. His selective mutism, his Labourism, his clique of spooks and landlord MPs. He has horrible political instincts and an incredible inability to understand and learn. He never wanted a new party to challenge Labour, so I would not be surprised at all if he is quietly satisfied by this implosion.
An article in the Electronic Intifada, What is sung cannot be killed. Hazem Alghosain deserves to be remembered, even if he does not survive.
What’s all this about Russian air force jets invading Estonian airspace?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/sep/19/eu-sanctions-russia-oil-ukraine-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskyy-donald-trump-france-macron-europe-live-news
The Balts just don’t get it. The Russki Mir still isn’t big enough.
Maybe Lisbon is a reasonable place to stop?
Seriously, what possible reason could the victorious Russian military have to enter their neighbour’s airspace?
Probably looking for somewhere to refuel.
https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/russia-faces-fuel-shortages-after-ukrainian-drone-strikes-on-refineries-125082700299_1.html
Pears Morgaine
September 19, 2025 at 20:23
Russophobe!
Russia needs more territory.
Because…. reasons.
Putin’s going to get himself an even bigger table.
Pears Morgaine
September 19, 2025 at 20:35
Can we at least agree that Estonian warmongers must be restrained, by force if necessary, from interfering with Russia’s sovereign right to overfly their territory?
Maybe UN peacekeepers from Russia, China and the DPRK?
Have you thought about the possibility that the CIA/MI6 may have interfered extensively in these small Baltic states’ political scenes, to ensure the most Russophobic, sabre-rattling warmongers came to power? Stretching back under the deeply hostile(to Russia) Biden administration. The motivation is often the belief that if they don’t interfere, then Russia somehow will.
Ditto the EU Commission leadership; Estonian Kaja Kallas came from nowhere, a surprise choice, and is clearly wholly unqualified for the role of EU’s top diplomat. Many are baffled by why she was chosen as she wears her uncompromising Russophobia like a badge of honour.
” Have you thought about the possibility that the CIA/MI6 may have interfered extensively…. ”
There are countless possibilities that could be considered, some with more evidence than others but can any explain why Russia is persistently and deliberately violating the airspace of other countries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
It’s a long, long list.
Those who think it suddenly ended are naive. Sadly, such meddling is not only morally wrong, it’s like playing God, in that it rarely produces the desired outcome. And if it was happening under Biden, it may have either stopped, or have a completely different political emphasis under Trump’s administration. As we’ve seen with the revelations about USAID and in how the work-in-progress colour revolutions in Georgia(mainly Tbilisi) and Serbia, seemed to have waned dramatically since Trump took office.
PM: “…Russia is persistently and deliberately violating the airspace of other countries…” [partial quote]
PM… Are you saying that violating the airspace of other countries is a bad thing, and you condemn countries that do so?
Genuinely interested.
Goose
September 19, 2025 at 21:59
Russophobia in 2025 is as reprehensible as Germanophobia in 1940.
JK redux
Maybe not the response you’d expect. But any general hatred of a whole population is irrational. I find it hard to hate Russia over Ukraine because I believe know the backdrop, or context, and the US’s role including Maidan and events prior and after, like Nuland trying to pick the new govt.
When we invaded/ occupied Iraq with the US, many around the globe likely detested the US/UK. But was that sensible given so many of our citizens opposed that invasion?
“Russophobia in 2025 is as reprehensible as Germanophobia in 1940.”
Oh dear, really? Is that the best you can do?
Trying to say “Putin is the new Hitler” without being caught saying “Putin is the new Hitler”. You must think that you’re being clever! So sad.
“What’s all this about Russian air force jets invading Estonian airspace?”
Just propaganda, it’s the Grauniad, the security services’ house organ, FFS!
“Seriously, what possible reason could the victorious Russian military have to enter their neighbour’s airspace?”
None, which is why the most likely scenario is that it didn’t happen.
@ Goose
Re British intelligence meddling in Baltic States. strange you should suggest this, who knows? But I did receive a Xmas card last year from a friend who informed me that her grand – daughter was serving in Army Intelligence in Estonia. I wondered then what intelligence she might be sniffing out.
Crispa
The best analysis is found on a blog I discovered on Patreon, after following a link posted by David Miller on X : https://www.patreon.com/AdifferentNarrative
If they are prepared to go to such lengths to control narratives and politics at home, it’d be naive to believe the same people haven’t extended that mentality to countries abroad.
Goose
September 19, 2025 at 22:32
So the Russkiy air force didn’t enter Estonian airspace?
Glad that’s cleared up.
“Glad that’s cleared up.”
No no, you go on believing they did if it makes you feel better, just don’t expect anyone else to believe it as well, except the other half of your double act.
Bayard
September 19, 2025 at 22:54
Double act?
I post to Goose and you reply?
In case you haven’t noticed, everyone except you treats these comments as an opportunity to discuss points with other commenters, not to score dubious “points” against other commenters, playground style. If you want to have a private discussion, use some sort of private messaging.
“You would support the dissolution of NATO?”
NATO is what the Yanks call a “self-licking ice-cream cone” that is an organisation that exists merely to solve the problems caused by its own existence.
Meanwhile…
The US in the last few days has admitted to regularly violating Venezuelan airspace. This as the US is carrying out ‘summary executions’ of alleged drug runners off the Venezuelan coast.
Normal?
But wait, Russia left its own airspace!!!
We are clearly in a lawless world. Do you think Israel sought permission to bomb Doha? My point : there are much worse things happening in the world.
Goose
September 19, 2025 at 23:03
No defenders of the Trump regime here afaik.
You surely aren’t suggesting that because the Mango Mussolini bullies his neighbours it is ok for the retired KGB lieutenant colonel to do the same?
I don’t approve of Russia violating their airspace, it’s provocative, but I also don’t like the constant flow of bellicose language coming from Baltic States’ politicians either. Latvia and Estonia had SS divisions and all three: Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia had volunteers who fought with the Nazis 1941-1945. Given that history, is goading Russia with war talk, really wise? Kallas called for Russia to be totally defeated and then ‘broken up’, to give some context.
I also don’t like the fact they joined NATO without any referenda being held in existing NATO member states. There is no greater obligation than that to defend a territory with your life, and it shouldn’t have been waved through by ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians.
I would have voted against their membership. We are now starting to see the potential faultline in NATO expansionism and in how the public should have been consulted.
Goose
September 19, 2025 at 23:32
You do know that tens of thousands of Russians fought with the Nazis?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Liberation_Army
You would support the dissolution of NATO?
Or its reversion to W Europe, the USA and Canada?
I’d support a reversion to the original twelve founding members of the alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark; France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and the USA.
Like the EU desire to welcome impoverished Ukraine as a member, and trying to encourage Georgians to overthrow their elected leaders in a quest to join the EU. In recent years, NATO expansion has seemed to be more about expanding western spheres of influence and geopolitical intimidation of Russia and China, rather than any pressing need.
JK Redux:
You ask, would you support the dissolution of NATO ?
I would like to know what the NATO countries are doing to prevent and punish genocide
( as per the UN Convention on Genocide). If nothing, or worse active collaboration, what purpose or future can NATO have ?
“You would support the dissolution of NATO”
JK redux.
Without a doubt – and what a safer place the world would be.
In any case the violation of airspace was not over mainland Estonia, but an uninhabited island off the coast in the Gulf of Karelia, called Vaindhloo. (Moon of Alabama). I.e. nothing significant, unless NATO wants to blow the thing up.
“You do know that tens of thousands of Russians fought with the Nazis?”
From your linked article:
Many Soviet prisoners of war volunteered to serve under German command just to get out of Nazi POW camps, which were notorious for starving Soviet prisoners to death.
It’s a bit of a no-brainer, isn’t it?
“In any case the violation of airspace was not over mainland Estonia, but an uninhabited island off the coast in the Gulf of Karelia, called Vaindhloo.”
If it occurred at all. We are talking about aircraft straying for 12 minutes over an unmarked border in the middle of the sea on their way from Russia to Russia. If Russia really was “testing NATO’s defences”, you’d hope they would do a bit better than that.
“You would support the dissolution of NATO?”
JK Radix.
NATO should have been dissolved at the same time that the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist, when there was no longer a reason for its further existence. If it had been dissolved then, millions of people in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia would still be alive today.
And, by the way, how are Russian aircraft supposed to reach the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad from the Russian mainland without flying over another country’s airspace/seaspace?
From Wiki, MiG 31: Maximum speed: 3,000 km/h (1,900 mph, 1,600 kn) / Mach 2.83 at 21,500 m (70,500 ft) 1,500 km/h (930 mph; 810 kn) / Mach 1.23 at low altitude Cruise speed: 2,500 km/h (1,600 mph, 1,300 kn) / Mach 2.35
If the Russians spent twelve minutes over Vindaloo, they must have done it at walking pace. I don’t believe a word of it.
“If the Russians spent twelve minutes over Vindaloo, they must have done it at walking pace.”
Which rather suggests that, if it happened at all, the vast majority of the time in “Estonian airspace” was over the sea, where one bit looks very much like another.
Anyway, stop trying to confuse people with facts; their minds are made up.
The perils of investing hope in ‘leaders’
Politicians Should Step Aside and Let Members Run the New Left Party:
https://novaramedia.com/2025/09/19/politicians-should-step-aside-and-let-members-run-the-new-left-party/
Maybe the direction Craig was suggesting, and what the current would-be leaders and their cliques are less interested in.
Politicians who have based their whole life on a career in politics are not going to step aside and let the great unwashed masses tell them what to do !
Reports : “…and she[Zarah Sultana] has also reportedly clashed with Adnan Hussain, the independent MP for Blackburn.”
Kinda figures.
As soon as I read that these ‘independents’ had latched themselves onto this project, I had a bad feeling. Craig tried to act in a conciliatory role in Blackburn remember, even offering to stand down to prevent a three-way splitting of the votes – to ensure the defeat the Labour candidate – only to get rebuffed. Corbyn’s clearly a terrible judge of character; when presented with evidence of treachery withing the shadow cabinet ranks c.2017-19 – Starmer’s plotting and Tom Watson’s mischief – he singularly failed to call it out and act decisively time and time again. He allowed Deputy leader, Tom Watson, to go on Sunday morning TV, and talk in a hypeerbolic manner about how the party could “disappear into a vortex of eternal shame..” over antisemitism. Eventually, Corbyn pathetically apologised for nonexistent antisemitism within the party, under a grilling by right-wing, ex-Murdoch journo, Andrew Neil. And right on the eve of the effing election! Johnson dodged Neil’s grilling, refusing submit to being interviewed. The BBC is part of the problem too. They helped build Boris Johnson up into an political God of getting Brexit done , only to destroy him when in office, with the Corbyn threat safely neutralised.
‘Total breach of trust’: Jeremy Corbyn accuses MP Dame Margaret Hodge of recording meeting
The Labour leader hit outs at Dame Margaret Hodge after she accused him of misleading her over antisemitism claims.
https://news.sky.com/story/total-breach-of-trust-jeremy-corbyn-accuses-mp-dame-margaret-hodge-of-recording-meeting-11656868
They didn’t even remove the whip.
Leadership is about bringing people together and acting as a conciliator, yes, but even the most reasonable leader, needs metal at times, and the ability to act decisively if saboteurs are trying to undermine and destroy your leadership. Look how Starmer and his team have removed Rayner from the running of being his most likely successor.
To the Communists the “proletariat” did not include peasants but only industrial urban workers (as George Plekhanov taught, see Carew Hunt’s The Theory and Practice of Communism, p144). The archetypal Proletariat (who followed the Party line of course) would be incarnated in the latest Dear Leader, a recipe for a slave state, such as Stalin’s Russia was, or North Korea is now. If the new party wants to be republican (though it might begin by observing a “respectful silence” when the national anthem is played, at first) it might want to install its leader as a Lord Protector like Cromwell.
By contrast, Genocide Labour and the Genocide Democrats are exemplars of people power.
Beloved exemplars of popular democracy.
zoot
The US Democrats are an absolute joke.
With all the antipathy for Trump in the US, how spectacularly incompetent do you have to be as a political party, to be in retreat and currently out of contention in a two-party system? They should walk the midterms, but it’s far from certain they will.
Bernie is leading their fightback.
Last week he supported a Senate resolution declaring October 14th the “National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk”.
30 motions on Gaza blocked from being debated at the Genocide Labour conference next week.
https://labouroutlook.org/2025/09/20/starmer-stooge-seek-to-block-motions-on-gaza-genocide-at-labour-conference/
https://labouroutlook.org/2025/09/20/starmer-stooges-seek-to-block-motions-on-gaza-genocide-at-labour-conference/
It looks from this as though they’re repeating the mistake of the U.S. Democrats who denied Muslim or Arab Americans a voice at their national convention. Result: they lost Michigan and the election with it. Here we could see an increased number of Gaza protest MPs, and Green Party wins from Labour. With the right splitting between the Tories and Reform, I wonder what the House of Commons will look like, come 2029.
But still on the subject of authoritarianism, politicians might be happy to use the “unwashed masses” as informers. The University of California at Berkeley has given the names of 160 people to the authorities: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/uc-berkeley-trump-administration-antisemitism?CMP=share_btn_url
Robert Reich has done a podcast including this topic (neo-McCarthyite behaviour): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWJnsLYnaYA
“Cry if I want to, Cry if I want to” begins an article in today’s “Morning Star” by Andrew Murray on the “Your Party” fiasco. No citation.
He goes on to describe to the best of his knowledge how it occurred, suggesting it was on account of one part of the train wanting to go on the fast line (Zara Sultana) and the other on the slow line (rest of the independent MPS including Jeremy Corbyn). His version reads more like cock – up than conspiracy though with a heavy dose of gender and age – related personality clashes and in the case of Zara Sultana impatience an impetuosity getting in the way of her professional judgement and foresight into the likely consequences.
Meanwhile Zara Sultana posts on X that she is consulting defamation lawyers so driving yet another nail into the coffin of “Your Party”.
I was sceptical of Craig’s article at first but it reads now as being amazingly prescient. Pity Andrew Murray did not acknowledge it.
Getting back to the actual topic under discussion. Some facts: Corbyn has had 5 years to start a new political party that has been needed for a lot longer than that but had to be pushed by Sultana. The party was launched by the 2 of them but there are 4 others that have been included equally in the setting up company not all of whom are socialists. Corbyn has a team of people round him. What is their purpose an role in all this? In fact the one from Blackburn who usurped Craig is the secretary of the company and anything but a socialist. I wonder how it would have played out if Sultana, Corbyn and Craig had been MPs and launched this project together.
Both are now discussing legal action as the Country burns.
A breakthrough for the left always seems to be thwarted like in the 2017 election Ruth Davidson managed to win just enough Scottish seats to keep May in power. The right have a knack of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. What would have happened in Palestine if the SNP had held all their seats in 2017?
“The right have a knack of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.”
Adnan Hussein is proving very useful in that respect.
An amazingly prescient warning from Bolivia. ‘The destruction of the project as a whole is never worth any short-term gains for your side or for oneself’, a one minute video.
https://x.com/ATTRITIONPod/status/1963575670962876512
It was quite obvious that this project was doomed by its total lack of public engagement on social media.
The internet is the only way to get 800,000 people in a room and talking to each other, and the fact that they were keeping 7999004 people out of the conversation showed that something was up.
What has happened now may prove to be the best thing for the project because the only way forward now is for it to find a way to be properly democratic, and be seen to be so.
It’s really not that difficult: we have the technology, the tools and the people, all we need to do is get to work with them.
Yep. Corbyn is an analogue politician in a digital age. Corbyn still comments on X about the Labour party, it’s as though no one told him the current lot hate his guts, and treated him like shit. He’d probably go back if Starmer opened the door to that; like some dog returning to the owner who beat it to within an inch of its life.
I think Zarah gets the need to do things differently.
Rather than keeping it in-house, they should have considered going to the universities first, and leveraging the creative expertise there, to help create a party with online infrastructure that can facilitate mass membership participation in a transparent, secure(integrity) fashion. There are loads at uni who hate the current political system; people furious over Gaza etc, who’d willingly give their expertise and time for nothing. Infrastructure could be created, that any and all parties could copy & use i.e. it could be based on FOSS, and apolitical.
Yes, I suspect that if Starmer wanted to neuter Corbyn all he would have to do is allow him to rejoin Labour as an MP. I suspect he’d jump at the prospect.
You can take the man out of labour, but you cannot take Labour out of the man.
Were I Zarah, I’d seriously consider abandoning the whole thing and joining the Greens. And yes, I know there are doubts about them and their new leader, Zack Polanski, in terms of his previously expressed belief that Labour, under Corbyn, were anti-Semitic. He says he’s changed his mind?
It’ll be very hard for Zarah to do this on her own, or even with just ex-mayor Jamie Driscoll and Andrew Feinstein. And the fact Our Party’s domain name was registered a whole month ago – as if in preparation for this fractious scenario – is suspicious. She is unwise to endorse that, automatically assuming the good faith of those involved.
Sadly, Corbyn has seemed too disinterested in this initiative and running with it. A new party requires lots of energy, hard work and dedication. The fact Sultana can’t even communicate with Corbyn, because people around him are allegedly preventing that, is absolutely ridiculous.
So many bad faith actors about, some may even think, saying ‘join the Greens’ makes me one of them.
Any new party would need to incorporate something akin to a zero-trust architecture (ZTA) from the world of cybersecurity. The basic idea is: never trust, always verify. The assumption being that threats come from the inside of the organization, not outside its perimeter. Look at Labour and the SNP – both hollowed out from the inside, because too much trust was placed in central authority i.e. the leadership. Important decisions should’ve been confirmed through agreement to prevent that.
The fact that the MSM seems to be promoting the Greens, and the Lib Dems, seems to me suspicious – the acceptable opposition ?
I judge both to be trojan horses with support for very dubious policies that IMO will destroy the economy and probably deliver the country into even more foreign control.
The apparent failure of your party before it’s even out of the blocks is beyond depressing. Although, I suspect I wouldn’t be able to support their environmental, immigration and trans policies it was a chance of real democratic change.
Before launching anything the key drivers of the project need to meet in a Conference of maybe 200 regional representatives, randomly selected if you like, coordinated by up to a dozen leaders who have agreed an agenda, a set of principles, and got presentations made to show to delegates, who can then work in groups of ten to pull together a clear proforma which people can clearly understand, agree they can work to, and then see if the structures are democratic enough to bring in a broader range of loosely left wing people.
The press should be invited.
Corbyn is anti racist and anti war. That is the foundation of his appeal to a broad spectrum of voters. Israel has just dumped us and Europe into WWIII from both ends as our collective guilt left over from WWII keeps friends close and enemies closer. The country has been sold or given away to corporate self interest. A lot of people are working very hard to keep a roof over their families’ heads. Don’t tip the apple cart. Change will need to be carefully and safely incremental. Craig’s knowledge and wisdom is incalculably valuable.
The alternative is Musk’s happily anticipated civil war. Good manners are essential. We are all in this together.
Corbyn neutered himself.
Quite agree, for all his popularity, Corbyn can’t organise his way out of a wet paper bag.
It seems to me that if they were doing what you say they were doing (and I have no reason to doubt you), after claiming to be creating a properly democratic party, then that’s actually fraud.
“after claiming to be creating a properly democratic party, ”
Anyone can see that that was always going to be bunkum. Very few people go into politics to do what the people want, they go into to politics to get the people to do what they (the aspiring politician) want. In the best interests of the people, of course. As soon as I read Craig’s post, I could see that the organisers of Your Party, excepting, perhaps Corbyn and Sultana, were in it to craft a party that people would vote for, but where they would be free to pursue their own agendas.
You reminded me of something Lord N.M.V. Rothschild said about politicians in his 1978 Richard Dimbleby lecture Risk (later published by BBC Books as a 22-page stapled booklet, ISBN 0563176350): that they are concerned about personal power, the party interest, and the country’s good in that order (the audience laughed when he said this).
What’s happening in “Your Party” is so predictable. Jeremy Corbyn is a decent man, but from here, 12,000 miles away, I suspect he hasn’t been a backbencher all his political life for nothing. Perhaps organisational skills are not his forte? Is he getting a bit stubborn in his older age? Sultana, I know nothing about her, but her ability to plough on regardless, eg announcing the party early or sending out membership notices and asking for payment suggest a worrying impetuosity, a youthful trait but perhaps needing a bit of reining in?. Now they’re threatening to sue each other, Jeremy was stupid to make his threat first, that’s just bizarre, and Sultana equally stupid to suggest retaliating. Honestly, with left wingers like this where do we go? I really don’t understand it, haven’t political parties been set up before – I mean isn’t there a precedent somewhere in history that worked? Isn’t there some sort of pro-forma somewhere “how to set up your own political party”.
Perhaps all the political parties set up to date have been un-democratic. There is pro-forma for setting up associations such as clubs and such; wouldn’t that do? The devil is in the constitutional detail and I think Goose’s Zero Trust Architecture might be a good idea.
“Perhaps all the political parties set up to date have been un-democratic.”
Too right they have. All political parties start as a means for a few people to get popular support for their own agenda. The people’s role is purely to provide that support. Policy-setting is for the leaders.
Corbyn showed his weaknesses last time when he screwed up over brexit and allowed Starmer to grab power. He is a British Bernie Sanders, apparently nice but guaranteed to let you down. His time has gone, there is no role in British politics for him, other than as a figurehead. Nailing one’s colours to corbyn’s mast will only lead to a shipwreck.
They aren’t left wingers.
” Now they’re threatening to sue each other, ”
A very bourgeois thing for a couple of socialists to do.
Reminds me of something I’ve seen happen in a work environment were a manager has given a subordinate a free hand in accomplishing a particular task then bawled them out afterwards because what they did was not what the manager wanted. Either incompetence or a form of bullying.
Yes, taking unilateral action as Zara Sultana did is hardly a democratic act, more like an attempted coup without the savviness and money of Victoria Nuland behind it.
“Now they’re threatening to sue each other, Jeremy was stupid to make his threat first, that’s just bizarre, and Sultana equally stupid to suggest retaliating.”
It was a black day for the UK when we imported universal sueage from the US.
Idiocracy !
There are signs both the Corbyn independents and Sultana, are being inflexible.
I don’t like the social conservatism being promoted by those other independents. But these comments, made earlier this month, by Zarah Sultana :
“This is a progressive, socialist party… my job as a parliamentarian first and foremost, as well as someone who is part of Your Party, is to speak up for the most marginalised voices…and that includes trans people”. “Anyone who feels like they can’t subscribe to… these principles, then [Your Party] might not be for them”
This is an ‘agree with me on everything, or get lost ‘ approach and it risks the kind of self-harming divisive idiocy the SNP fell victim to over gender self-ID. Obviously a successful left-wing coalition would have to tolerate and encompass a wide range of views to be elected. I’m probably more socially liberal and more radical than Sultana, but if you make your own positions nonnegotiable it’s just bad politics.
One way to alienate the Muslim contingent and support for trans ideology is in decline generally.
Goose
That quote from Z.S may achieve something memorable – come to be judged as the shortest suicide note in history, by the shortest-lived Political Party in history.
You get it exactly right when you say ….” it risks the kind of self-harming divisive idiocy the SNP fell victim to over gender self-ID “, and it beggars belief that Ms Sultana and presumably a significant % of ( Not Really ) Your Party participants have not taken heed of the still suppurating wound the SNP’s unequivocal/uncritical advocacy of ” all that ” inflicted not only on that Party, also on the broader Independence Movement & Scottish populace generally.
The whole ” Trans ” &” Gender ” issue is electoral poison, just as it is IMO societal poison, and the more the public become aware of the implications of it – particularly the targetting of impressionable young people and children – the more aghast they are, both at the sheer nonsense of it’s premise, ie humans ( supposedly ) becoming a different sex from the one they were born in/with – thats BORN with – not ” assigned “, and equally appalled at the people who are promoting and advocating it.
It is a real shame to see this Corbyn/Sultana initiative implode so spectacularly/stupidly – if indeed it has – but the harsh truth is, in the current pumped-up, jingoistic, not-so-latent xenophobic atmosphere of Mittel Angerland, there is zero possibilty of a Party led/co-led by a Muslim becoming the Government; so. IMO, the project was destined to be stillborn from it’s inception.
The political/social chasm remains, and unless some at the moment unlikely new force emerges, that chasm will turn into an abyss, into which the last vestiges of the ” social contract ” that has – just about – kept basic notions of political decency and concern for the common weal alive will be cast into it by the Toy Town fiscal iconoclasts of Reform at the behest of the New Gods Of High Tech & Muskian Nihilism
The above may appear to be contradicted by the fact recent polling is showing the SNP on course to win the S.E next year: but that may be a reflection of the truly abysmal calibre of it’s rival legacy parties and the near invisibility of the other pro-Independence entities – ALBA;ISP; and the informal Liberate Scotland grouping comprising ISP, Sovereignty and assorted independents. Also, there are over 8 months before the S.E, a lot could happen in that time and I’ll be very surprised if the SNP do anything like as well as polling suggests currently. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they suffer as severe a battering as they did in the last G.E.
“You get it exactly right when you say ….” it risks the kind of self-harming divisive idiocy the SNP fell victim to over gender self-ID “,”
Perhaps that’s why it’s being promoted.
The ‘real’ Trans community are an infinitely small proportion of the overall electorate, ie. less than 1%. What is really needed is equal rights for everyone, not disproportionate policies favouring minority groups. Special privileges for minorities that penalise the majority is not democratic and won’t win an election. We simply need one set of rules for everyone that favours no-one and doesn’t discriminate against anyone.
One has to wonder at the motives of these people.
Why are you so obsessed with them, then?
“What is really needed is equal rights for everyone, not disproportionate policies favouring minority groups. ”
Setting yourself up as the champion of an “oppressed” minority group is a much quicker way to influence and power than setting yourself up as the champion of equal rights for everyone.
Sir Keir Starmer has just recognised the State of Palestine. Fat lot of good it will do Palestinians. The only thing I can think of in favour of this action is that Israel and the US don’t want it.
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/covers/full/1655_big.jpg
It’ll be the worst kind of tokenism if we intend to simply continue with all the extensive UK – Israel defence cooperation; training and trade.
The UK obviously walks a fine line with a very capricious US president. If the UK refused to supply F-35 parts, as many have specifically called for, Trump would probably move to cut the UK out of the parts supply chain altogether, and halt all future defence projects. Ultimately, we, along with France, Australia and Canada can huff and puff, but it all comes down to Washington.
“Trump would probably move to cut the UK out of the parts supply chain altogether, and halt all future defence projects.”
Then we can build our own fighter jets, which would be much better in every way.
Or just get the Grypen, a better fighter anyway
https://youtu.be/XUxC_1s10i4?t=4676
Craig is on GG showing off admirable book cases.
Recognising the Palestinian state whilst providing Israel with the explicit means to genocide Palestine is obscene and perverse. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it, Starmer is a cunt.
He can’t be; he has neither the warmth nor the depth to be one.
The new party might survive if Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana pulled together (as Yanis Varoufakis and Ken Loach suggest: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/21/historic-opportunity-british-left-thrown-away-your-party-row) and dropped the Gaza protest MPs as not genuinely aligned to their outlook, but treated them as as one-issue MPs (Gaza being the issue). However that would still leave the roles of behind-the-scenes people such as Karie Murphy to be accounted for.
Given this, IMO it’s not at all certain that the new party will survive. The “homeless” voters will have to choose from the others as best they can. I’m more concerned about the prospect of Reform forming a government than a coalition on the left. The Labour Party could be destroyed because of its support for Zionism – to survive as a major party, it may have to get rid of Starmer with his family connections to Israel, which he spoke of openly at the State dinner for Trump.
Of course the real worry is that Reform and Your Party split the vote and allow Labour or the Tories to slither back into power.
Come 2029, I can see the vote split into a dozen chunks with no-one having a majority: Reform, the Tories and the DUP on the right, Labour and LibDems in the middle and Your Party (if it survives), Greens, SNP, Plaid and SDLP to the left, and Independents (including Gaza protest MPs), making for a hung parliament and the necessity for a pact or a coalition.
But whether Reform will form the next government (which I sincerely hope will not happen, even the Tories would be preferable) is anyone’s guess.
Going on past elections, It is likely that the Conservative wing of the Tory party will do better than the polls suggest and that the Reform wing will do worse. The Conservatives need only to do a modest makeover to woo back a lot of people who didn’t vote for them at the last GE (80% of the electorate didn’t vote for Labour, a lot of whom didn’t vote at all). Labour will also have been in power when house prices came down, which they are almost certain to do before the next GE and will receive the usual punishment at the polls for allowing that to happen. I think the greatest danger is a coalition between Reform and the Conservatives who will then coalesce to push the UK on the merry road further into fascism.
I don’t think the Tory Faithful are going to come flooding back until the party gets itself a leader who’s white and preferably male.
Well, white, anyway. I don’t suppose too many would object to another Maggie.
They wouldn’t want another Liz Truss though. Nobody would.
How do you explain Rishi Sunak and now Kemi Badenoch convincing Tories, both MPs and grass roots members, to vote for them?
Corbyn and Sultana’s party has been infiltrated already, not only that Sultana cheered her head-off when Assad fell, which is vey suspicious in my eyes.
“So it appears James Schneiders’ Umbrella organisation, which includes Assemble, Just Stop Oil and Youth Demand is not only cashing in on #YourParty, but also taking over the organisation of local groups, and blaming the legal drama!
All without any members say so”
In the latest episode of Decline and Fall – Kit Klarenberg and David Miller, appear suspicious of Sultana’s enthusiasm on the fall of Assad.
And this as well.
“Is CIA cutout Plan C launching a last-ditch attempt to take over “Your Party”?
And how is Pelican House and James Schneider involved?”
https://nitter.poast.org/Tracking_Power/status/1969136167334375886#m
It just gets worse.
“And here is Nicola James of the “Corbyn Outriders” group X co-ordination group (more than 30 members btw).
It was a matter of “duty” for Jeremy Corbyn to implode Your Party.
Did you know that Nicola is also in the WhatsApp co-ordination group for We Are Collective, run by…?
You guessed it: Karie Murphy.”
https://nitter.poast.org/Tracking_Power/status/1969036989140726044#m
Organisations that want public support but are not democratically organised are common in many spheres. Gay rights organisations are an example. In the 1970s the Scottish Homosexual Rights Group and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in England were controlled from below: you paid a subscription and you could vote on officers and policies. Their modern successors (extending beyond gay rights to trans rights) are not like that. The Equality Network in Scotland and Stonewall in England will happily accept money from you but you never get a vote, either on officers or policies.