The British Labour Party has split. Oddly enough this is not
primarily due to Brexit, at least not overtly. Seven Labour members of the House
of Commons have resigned from the party, three men and four women; or as they
say in the Labour Party, "Women!" They are: Luciana Berger, Ann
Coffey, Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith and Chuka Umunna.
Only two of those names are of any distinction. Chuka Umunna was once tipped to
be party leader before the election of Jeremy Corbyn; which might explain why
he now has an axe to grind with Corbyn. Luciana Berger has always opposed
Corbyn's leadership and vigorously supported both attempts to unseat him. She is
herself a Jewess and has been subjected to online anti-Semitic abuse. She
claims that Labour is now "institutionally anti-Semitic". A member of
Corbyn's campaign management team denounced Ms Berger because she supposedly was backing
the Israeli state "whose Nazi masters taught them well!" Ironically Ms
Berger has also been accused by Zionists within the Jewish community of not doing
enough to support
Israel.
Obviously these attacks from both sides are going to unnerve her, to say the
least; but that does not excuse her pronouncements that brought her to the
attention of HPANWO. Last year she launched an attack against Corbyn for his
comments regarding a mural by the artist "Mear One" that she claimed
was anti-Semitic. I thought that this was ridiculous and was as bad as the
silly accusations that David Icke is anti-Semitic; therefore I said so in no
uncertain terms, see:
https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2018/03/anti-semitic-mural.html.
How can anybody accuse Jeremy Corbyn of being anti-Semitic when he has been
active in left-wing causes his whole life? He is dedicated to the Palestine Solidarity
Campaign; but, as I've said many times before, opposition to
Israel
does not equal hated of Jews. Also how fair is it to say that Labour is
institutionally anti-Semitic? See the background links below for more details. If
there is any anti-Semitism in Labour then it probably comes only from the
radical Islamists. The seven MP's are calling themselves "the independent
group", but this is just a temporary title. They have ruled out joining
the Liberal Democrats and their objective is to form a brand new party. For the
time being though they will probably have to tender their resignations and call
by-elections in their constituencies. Their electorate might not like the idea
of being governed by an independent Member of Parliament without any manifesto.
No doubt Labour will put up official candidates in all their seats to challenge
them. It was only a short time ago they were voted for as part of a
Corbyn-ruled party and all of them increased their majorities. Source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47277281.
This is not the first time this has happened. In 1981 four
Labour MP's, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, quit
the party and formed a new one, the Social Democratic Party. Known as the
"gang of four", they quickly formed a left-of-centre alliance with
the Liberal Party and stood in the election under a coalition banner. This
arrangement soon became permanent when they merged together to become the
Liberal Democrats which exists to this day. However the Lib-Dems almost totally
crashed out of government in 2015 following their crooked coalition with the
Tories. Those five years as a junior partner to power destroyed them. As is
often the case, there was more than one motive for that split. The gang of four
opposed the infiltration of Labour by the Marxist-Trotskyist group Militant which
was famous for their handheld newspaper sellers who made a point of attending
every Labour event (Ironically, one of their principle figures, Derek Hatton,
has just been allowed back into Labour by Corbyn after his expulsion in 1986 by
the man who is now the UK's EU commissioner, Lord Kinnock. How strange these
twists of fate can be). However, the four were also "euroskeptics", a
nostalgic term that meant a Brexiteer before
Britain
was completely in the European Union and so the aim was the easier one of keeping
us out instead of getting us out, which is the task we have now. We are faced
with an opposite situation with this new split because the "independent
group" are all Remainers and are dedicated to a second EU referendum. I'm
not sure what effect this eventuality will have, if any. As I've said before, Parliament
and the mainstream political arena is now a virtual establishment monopoly when
it comes to Brexit. There is literally nobody within its walls who is committed
to the process at all. UKIP have revealed themselves to be grossly incompetent
as best and totally controlled opposition at worst, see:
https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2018/12/whats-wrong-with-ukip.html.
At some point very soon Theresa May's nine lives will finally run out and there
will be a general election. In my view, its outcome will matter little when it
comes to increasing the possibility of Brexit. The only hope now lies with grassroots
pressure from the great British public and independence movements in other EU
member states. I am also still hopeful that political transformation in the
United
States of America and elsewhere will be a
positive influence, see:
https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/01/denying-2016.html.