Dear All
You now know the state of democracy in the UK by watching
the antics of those who seek stop Brexit. The formation of The Independent
Group of MPs which now has former Conservatives and Labour in its ranks, shows
how politically broken this country is. For years we watched these people play
out theatre of how they were standing up for the people. Some in the Lib Dems think
that with talk of a new centrist party, a merger will "reshape British
politics".
The short answer to this is no, it won’t reshape British
politics, much in the way that a pothole is a problem till it is filled in. You
can see the attraction of a merger for the Lib Dems, but if you have a party of
Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems, you have to ask the question, did you
really have a genuine choice at the ballot box?
Prior to being in the Lib Dems, Vince Cable was in the
Labour Party.
Cable hints at a possible electoral pact between the Lib
Dems and the breakaway group but what they need is more defections, a lot more.
So, that means fishing in the Labour and Conservative pool, and although you
can expect a few more right wing Labour MPs under threat by momentum to
possibly switch, they need to hit the magic number.
36 MPs.
36 MPs is the number to secure a party slot in the House of
Commons at PMQs, this would push out the SNP, who obviously be hopping mad it
that situation took place.
Sir Vince Cable said his party would “hold out the hand of
friendship” to the independent group, and said it would be "foolish"
for them to stand candidates against each other. The Lib Dems have bombed since
Nick Clegg destroyed them by taking them into government and breaking their
promise on tuition fees.
They haven’t recovered from that, and the party remains flat
both politically and also electorally.
One senior Lib Dem insider said:
“What has happened
has massive potential for big change; change the country needs, which would be
a move away from the tired old two-party system.”
The change would be betrayed the public and its democratic
vote, you have to ask yourself, why you should vote for or even work for people
like this to run our country.
The independent group has 11 MPs, a long way from 36 needed
to get the slot at PMQs, if they don’t get this, they are just a fringe group,
which even if they become a party, they will be in reality each finding their
seats as independents. Most MPs are elected on their parties’ name, not their
own, which some will find out in due course.
If you think that all that is going on is just happening,
then I suspect you would be sadly wrong, just hours after Joan Ryan left
the Labour Party to become the eighth TIG MP, she denounced Jeremy
Corbyn’s leadership. She also claimed anti-Semitism was “part of his politics.”
The Labour Party isn’t in a good place at the moment, even
before 8 of their MPs left, in Scotland, 20% of the membership have left, and
activism has slumped rather badly. If you are standing on a doorstep, and
someone asks what is the Labour Party doing about anti-Semitism, what do you
say?
How do you explain the admittance of Derek Hatton and Jim
Sheridan back into the party?
In politics, you expect a few mistakes, but not a car load
of trouble stretching across multiple issues.
Although the three Remainer Tories have opened up a new
chapter in the story of the Brexit fall-out by resigning their party membership
to join the new Westminster TIG group, this is a small development. Heidi
Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston hit out at Theresa May's
"disastrous" handling of Brexit.
I favoured hard brexit in the past, and still favour hard
brexit now, it is a waste of time to attempt to bargain with the EU. David
Cameron found this out when he went to get his concessions, he got nothing.
Has the Conservative party been taken over by right-wing
Brexit hardliners?
No, control still rests with Theresa May.
Ms Soubry said she would not stay in the Conservatives to
"skirmish on the margins when the truth is the battle is over and the
other side has won".
The Nottinghamshire MP said:
"The right wing, the hardline anti-EU awkward squad
that have destroyed every leader for the last 40 years are now running the
Conservative Party from top to toe. They are the Conservative Party."
She urged "fellow One Nation Conservatives" and
"like-minded Lib Dems" to "please, come and join us" by
breaking away from their parties and joining TIG.
In a bizarre statement, Heidi Allen, who represents South
Cambridgeshire, said she believed "a significant number" of
Conservative MPs were considering joining the trio in TIG.
She added:
“If we do our job right, there won’t be a Tory Party
anymore.”
Heidi doesn’t seem politically aware, the Conservatives at
the present moment are in poll position to win the next general election.
In Downing St, Mrs May said she was “saddened” by the trio’s
decision, stressing how she was determined that under her leadership the
Conservative Party would “always offer the decent, moderate and patriotic
politics that the people of this country deserve"
.
This is the PM, saying much like Jeremy Corbyn, thank you
and goodbye.
Lord Pickles, the former Conservative Party Chairman, said
the trio’s expected move was “sad and ultimately a big mistake”.
Eric got that right.
In true to form, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon put her bit
in, saying people were seeking an alternative to the "broken, failed
Westminster politics". To be clear she means Scottish independence,
everything to Sturgeon is about independence.
Sturgeon declared:
"Both the Tories and Labour are imploding at the moment
and that's because their leaderships are pandering to extremes."
In the SNP, the ‘extremes are the leadership and the rank
and file nutters, the elected are just sheep, picked because they represent no
threat.
Laura Parker, the Momentum Group’s National Co-ordinator,
said TIG was a “Blairite-Tory coalition,” which their constituents had not
voted for".
Nothing gets by Laura!!!!
She said:
“These splinter group MPs ran in 2017 on a manifesto of
public ownership, scrapping tuition fees and ending austerity. Now, working
hand in hand with the Tories, they’ll revert back to an agenda of
privatisation, deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy. This is unfair,
undemocratic and dishonest. If they care about their constituents rather than
their own careers, they should step down and fight a by-election.”
Finally, if Momentum hadn’t been going full tilt to
de-select Blairite MPs, would the TIG exist? You could put forward the theory
that Momentum in part cause the formation of the TIG to get their people
selected. Momentum needs to be put in check by Jeremy Corbyn, he cannot afford
to lost MPs to TIG.
Keep an eye on TIG’s numbers, the magic number to push the
SNP out of a slot at PMQs is 36, they are looking for 14 MPs to join them plus
the Lib Dems.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
1 comment:
To be honest, George, I'm actually quite excited about this all.
1) The political parties get a drubbing from the voters and are forced to clear out the rubbish.
2) Politically there is now a wide choice of parties to be offered to the voters as opposed to the bland clones we've been saddled with for decades since the 1990s.
3) According to the department of international trade, the UK has about 8 trade deals around the world now, so more are bound to come along at some point.
As a remain voter, I must admit, maybe I was wrong. Maybe Brexit was the right thing after all!
Also, it'd be joyful to see the SNP continue to downslide so perhaps the TIG have some use to us as a country.
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