The mood among many people I know was dark on the day we realised the country had voted to Leave the European Union. I knew of some who were celebrating as well, but I do not think they will be for long. Despite the mainstream narrative that the Remain campaigns were unduly scaremongering, the results of economic turmoil became apparent immediately: contracts being cancelled for businesses big and small, recruitment being frozen, charity and public service grants from the EU scrapped at the last minute, huge falls in the value of the pound, trillions being wiped off the global markets, announcements that jobs will be moved away from the UK and investment in the UK withdrawn from both European and non-European countries. This was accompanied by a vile after-taste of racist attacks.
The Leave campaign, in my view, successfully misled the public by pretending they could negotiate fabulous deals with the EU. They lied and said they could stop immigration overnight and spend loads of cash on the NHS. All these arguments were embarrassingly flawed, and I heard the Stronger In campaign tell the public that repeatedly. Being blunt, many voices of those supporting Leave were heard, it’s just that they didn’t like what the Remain campaigns said in response.
My mood darkened even further when I remembered the types of people that might now be vying for leadership of the Tory Party – those further on the right. Surely scrapping the Human Rights Act will be on the agenda again. Surely they would win confidence from the public just as they did with the Leave campaign. They will spin misleading rhetoric akin to pretending that human rights law allows terrorists to dine with the Queen.
I will not repeat the arguments here for why the Human Rights Act is a wonderful peace of progressive legislation. All I know is that the benefits are a hard sell on the doorstep. Either way, my despair at the referendum result intensified as I imagined this next chapter in Britain’s step backwards.
However, my little ears pricked up when reports started rolling in about just how many people regretted what they had done. It has started to become obvious that the country is heading for economic oblivion. It was then that I felt I could see a potential option for salvation, not just for our membership of the EU, but for human rights and the Labour party.
The Tories gave the public the referendum, and now the next Tory leader must pursue Brexit. If they do not they are wilfully rejecting what the people have asked for. Clearly ignoring the result would be undemocratic from the party that gave the choice. This is the case, whether the Tory leader is Boris or one of the others who traded economic security for personal power. Labour however does not have to do the same thing. Labour never promised to offer a referendum. With a new general election expected, Labour has a special opportunity.
Yes, Labour is in a bit of a mess right now. Who could credibly claim otherwise? However, with a general election, once it has sorted out who it wants to see as leader, Labour can offer the country something. It can offer the country the option to stay in the EU.
The general election will be a few months away and the economy will nosedive further. Jobs will go and some of the poorest areas in the UK will realise that they benefit more from the EU than they do from pro-austerity Tories. It is then that there will be more regret than ever from those who chose Leave over Remain. With the Brexiteers at the helm of the Tory government who got us in this mess, Labour could promise that a vote for Labour is a vote to cancel pulling out. This would give the public another choice to stay in Europe and rescue the many lost benefits of membership. If this is not what the country wants, they have the democratic option to reject Labour and the EU once again.
Labour can gain power, something that many did not think possible until 2020 or beyond. Labour can save our economy. Labour can cancel the misguided plans to scrap the Human Rights Act without having to spend months trying to defeat the nonsense showered on the public through the right wing press.
Some will think this is a huge gamble and will rightly ask – won’t lots of Labour voters go to UKIP or vote to stay out of the EU? They might., but not necessarily. Then again, perhaps many middle class Tory voters will see the merit in Labour’s desire to protect our economy and save the only realistic way of trading freely with the EU. Many others might choose Labour after seeing that Conservative austerity and the false hope of Brexit have given them nothing. After all, the only other option is promising to stick to these risky plans of leaving. There is no guarantee that would win us an election either. If we lost, the Human Rights Act would probably also go, with the poisonous glossing over of all the injustices it has sought to resolve since it came into being.
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Tom McNeil is an ex-Labour parliamentary candidate and director of the Human Rights Act Campaign at Labour Campaign for Human Rights
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We need human rights legislation, but not the current legislation. We need to replace the Human Rights Act with something that protects law-abiding people and punishes the criminal. The current legislation does the opposite.
We would also be standing up for something we believe in and for the welfare of UK workers, pensioners, children and businesses, which is a lovely bonus.
I’m worried that Labour MPs who are scared about losing their seats seen to be suddenly switching to being in favour of Leave. They don’t seem to realise there is no logical consistency in saying the referendum result was due to Conservative falsehoods while accepting it as a legitimate reflection of the will of the people – either the electorate’s decision was well-informed and valid or it wasn’t. And despite the fact that trying to win back UKIP voters at the expense of losing 2/3 of Labour voters is not going to be a winning strategy.
What Labour should do is basically this: a big poster saying; WE GET IT. TOO MUCH IMMIGRATION IS A PROBLEM. LEAVING THE EU WON’T SOLVE IT. WE WILL.
Those Labour MPs are not suddenly favouring Brexit, but they’ll say they are if it means keeping their places on the gravy train. If there’s one thing that scares a politician rigid, it’s the thought of losing all that privilege and possibly having to do an honest day’s work like the hoi polloi. Would Labour really solve the problem of immigration? I don’t think too many people would trust any of the mainstream parties on that issue.
Immigration can be managed better; the first step is recognising that there are problems and the second step is realising that if the population of an area is increasing, or about to increase, it needs more money to spend on schools, hospitals and infrastructure fast. Plus there’s all sorts of things you can do in terms of preventing businesses paying good wages to UK employees from being undercut by businesses paying low wages to immigrant labour etc.
Just about every area has a population that is increasing, so let’s try to stop the increase. I saw a report many years ago that the ideal population for this kingdom was barely above 30 million, all things from land mass to infrastructure considered. We need to make sure that only the very most highly skilled and economically useful are allowed in. Not only would that prevent the need to spend more money, but it might mean saving some of our precious forests and green belt. We might have to encourage people to settle in the UK’s smaller nations, as this would take some of the strain off England (compare England’s density of population with those of the other nations), but it would rebalance the proportions of the UK’s population as a whole. It’s completely ridiculous that one nation should have 85% of the whole.
Don’t agree with this at all, sorry!
Where now for the Labour Party?
There was a poll result on Newsnight yesterday, indicating that Jeremy Corbyn has retained his support from the membership and would be likely to win again, on first preference votes, in any future leadership contest.
Unfortunately, for the 172 MPs who supported the no confidence motion the post-election polling of Labour voters showed that they did Not believe that Jeremy Corbyn should resign. These 172 are therefore defying both the will of the members and that of their wider electorate, if these polls are correct! They therefore have no mandate, that they can point to, despite claims to the contrary plus Angela Eagle is in trouble with her CLP.
The mutineers and their followers now have a dilemma, entirely of their own making, as follows:
1. If a leadership challenger emerges today, as expected, then it is likely that the other candidate would be easily defeated, with Jeremy Corbyn, once again the leader. The entire pantomime of the plotting, leaking, coordinated resignations, non-binding confidence motion and the ongoing ridicule by the media will be regarded as being pointless and self-indulgent.
2. Hypothetically, if Jeremy Corbyn wins again, then the 172 MPs, or a subset thereof, could decide that they wished to invoke the nuclear option and split from the Labour Party. Unfortunately, for them, under the current constitution all the assets: Party name, property (buildings, archives, historical items and perhaps most importantly any funds) would remain with the existing Labour party.
3. The new party, lets call it SDP2 for now, would have to develop its own constitution, obtain support and funding and register as a new political party. In the meantime, the SDP could conceivably apply successfully to be named as the official opposition, if they (temporarily) have the greatest number of MPs, until any divorce and transition is completed. David Blunkett was seen panicking on TV, last night, contemplating this apocalyptic prospect!
4. What would have been achieved, under this nightmare scenario: The breakup of the Labour Party, with any new party having the problem of attracting support and finance. Tristram Hunt could write a new book perhaps entitled: How Progress and the Fabians Destroyed the Labour Party (and My Part in its Breakup). Certain individuals (plotters, saboteurs, mutineers etc.) would rightly become infamous – perhaps not the political legacy they were hoping for but maybe a pathway to alternative and more lucrative employment?
Somebody will probably blink first, before this worst-case scenario occurs. It was a stupid idea to try to seize power. by subverting and bypassing the legal procedures to change a leader of the Party. Some of the conspirators may have to resign from parliament, for the greater good. The Labour Party constitution could be modified (but probably not during a leadership election), in order to mitigate some of the consequences arising from a potentially messy divorce.
The Unions could step in to try and save the Party from itself but again certain individuals would probably have to resign their seats as a consequence – you reap what you sow!
Few Labour MPs would emerge with their reputations fully intact, with many backbench media-whores attracting the most criticism. Progress and the Fabians are up to their necks in this disaster, as any inspection of those individuals participating throughout, will reveal: those plotting from the outset (pre-Corbyn victory), some of the post-election rejectionists, saboteurs and those briefing to a hostile media, recent coup plotters and mutineers, feature heavily among their ranks.
Thanks Trebor
So a group within the PLP unilaterally decided to ignore the constitutional procedure for replacing a leader ie. by first nominating a challenger and having a contested election.
Taking the alternative route: of sabotage, incessant briefing to a hostile media. pure fabrications plus writing negative articles for the right wing press, to be followed by: the plotting of coups, assorted choreographed resignations and finally a mutiny, was neither democratic or sensible.
If the Labour Party’s own rules were being strictly applied then this would normally result in the withdrawal of the whip or suspension of many of these antidemocratic MPs – for their persistent misbehaviour and bringing the party into disrepute. However, these are not normal times and these allegedly ‘moderate’ individuals have embraced revolutionary bolshevism with gusto and now appear to believe that the Party should be run by an elite guard!
Ironic, given the experience with Militant that the PLP have adopted some of their tactics. Expect a return to some form of democracy in the near future?