Labour’s leadership is failing to uphold its party’s values
What a disgraceful, grubby chapter in the history of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Usually when a Tory Government is in power, giving working people and the poorest in society a kicking, any critical voices of the Labour leadership are savaged for aiding and abetting the enemy.
It’s the Tories we should be opposing, or so the line goes. But what happens when the Labour leadership actively rides to the rescue of the Tories, blatantly and overtly helping them as they attack some of the poorest in society while riding roughshod over British law?
Yesterday’s vote should not have been clearer.
A Tory Government was defeated in the courts because it broke the law.
The Department of Work and Pensions, according to the Court of Appeal, had illegally sanctioned unemployed people who had been forced to work for free.
Being forced to work for free – with the taxpayer picking up the bill for a measly £71 a week Jobseekers Allowance – is known as workfare.
Those driven on to workfare had not been given properly informed about the schemes and – by violating the law – the Government was due to cough up an average of £550 to 231,000 illegally punished people.
The Government lost in part because a courageous young woman, Cait Reilly, refused to work for free in Poundland.
In Cameron’s Britain, unemployed people are often dismissed as workshy scroungers lacking any initiative.
Reilly is a woman who dragged the British Government through the courts in the face of relentless snide attacks from overpaid journalists and ministers, exposing and utterly humiliating them. I hope she whacks all that on her CV.
So what was the Tory response?
Not only to change the law, but to do so retrospectively.
No laws were now broken, because those laws have been changed in hindsight. The Government has effectively declared that it is above the law.
“The precedent is a terrifying threat to civil liberty,”
says classical liberal think-tank Civitas.
“The entire concept of ‘Rule of Law’ is undermined as soon as the government starts to cover its back like this.”
Gone missing
A straightforward argument for Labour, then.
An honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work is at stake.
The rule of law is being attacked.
Every single Labour MP would surely near-instinctively file through the ‘No’ lobbies, proudly defending some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, as well as the British legal tradition.
Think again.
Labour’s spokesperson on the welfare state, Liam Byrne, demanded that Labour MPs merely abstain; sit on their hands, hide in the toilet, whatever.
It’s actually worse than that: this Bill only received emergency timetabling with Labour’s help.
It was supposedly in exchange for a concession: that an “independent review of the sanctions regime” must report to Parliament.
The history of “independent reviews” suggest that “pointless exercise” would be a generous description of that, at best.
Not that all Labour MPs disposed of their backbones at their parliamentary selection meetings.
40 Labour MPs took the revolutionary course of voting against a Tory government.
Among them were the diminished group of working-class Labour MPs: Ian Lavery, a former miners’ leader; Ian Mearns, a former British Gas worker; Graham Morris, the son of a miner; Steve Rotherham, an ex-bricklayer; John McDonnell, the son of a bus driver; David Crausby, a former turner; ex-miners like David Anderson and Dennis Skinner.
These are MPs who remember what the Labour Party was founded to do: to give working people a voice, not least when they come under attack from a Tory government.
Their speeches displayed their commitment to the original purpose of the Labour Party:
“People want to work for the best intentions and the right reasons,”
said Ian Lavery.
‘They want self-esteem and finances… It is not right to talk about people as, ‘This group of claimants.’ They are ordinary people with feelings, and many of them want to get on in life.’”
They were joined by Scottish and Welsh nationalists and even the Ulster loyalists of the DUP, as well as the formidable Green MP for Brighton Pavillion, Caroline Lucas:
“It’s incredibly disappointing that Labour’s opposition to these proposals appears to amount to nothing more than seeking very minor ‘concessions’ that don’t touch the core principles of the issue,”
Lucas continued,
“A meek call for a review of the regulations in a year’s time is frankly no Opposition at all.”
Byrne’s record
What do we learn from this debacle?
Yet again, we learn that Labour will never offer a coherent alternative to the Tories so long as the likes of Liam Byrne wields influence.
In contrast to the Laverys, Mearns and McDonnells, Byrne represents the worst elements of New Labour.
The party’s upper echelons became overrun with generic hacks with ambition in place of principle, with CVs that suggested no demonstrable commitment to what Labour was founded to do.
Byrne is a striking case in point: a former management consultant and merchant banker, who has yet to provide any convincing case about why he even joined the Labour party in the first place.
Here is a man responsible for one of the stupidest acts in modern British politics: leaving a note in the Treasury for his successors that read:
“I am afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck!”
It summed up the abysmal failure of the Labour leadership to take on the Tory myths and lies about the consequences of the great financial crisis.
It was perversely left to critics of Blair and Brown like myself to defend New Labour’s economic record from their own supporters – that it was not public spending that sent Britain into the abyss.
Here is a man who happily participated in the shameful Tory attempt to turn the working poor against the unemployed.
“Labour is the party of hard workers not free-riders. The clue is in the name,”
he once said.
“The party of workers, not shirkers.”
Scrounger-bashing from a man who knows a thing or two about scrounging from the state: he once rented an apartment in County Hall overlooking the Thames, charging the taxpayer £2,400 a month for the privilege; claimed the maximum £400 a month for food; and even attempted to claim room service bills as expenses.
Here is a man who accepts the underlying principles of the Tory onslaught on the welfare state.
His colleagues tell me that he did not even want to oppose the bedroom tax.
It was of course New Labour who first introduced workfare, and Byrne has made it clear that
Backbone
But there is another lesson.
We desperately need more Labour MPs selected who have a backbone and do what the party was founded to do.
Some on the left argue that this is a naïve exercise in abject futility.
They are at best bemused as to why I have any faith in the ability of Labour to represent working people.
It is not out of some misty-eyed nostalgia.
As long as Labour remains linked with the unions – the biggest democratic movement in the country, representing nurses, supermarket shelf stackers, factory workers, bin collectors and other pillars of society – then there is a fight to be had. There has been no shortage of attempts to form new parties to the left of Labour: from the Independent Labour Party of the 1930s to the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, recently beaten by the Pirate Party in the Manchester Central by-election. Without exception, each and every attempt has ended in catastrophic failure, and in political conditions far better than our own.
A Labour Party worthy of the name: it must be fought for. But that is going to be a long haul, and the suffocating political consensus must be fought now. With the Labour leadership abdicating their responsibilities, we need a broad movement that can confidently and unreservedly challenge Tory attacks.
That’s why I’m throwing all my energy into building the People’s Assembly, a new initiative being built by trade unions, community groups and activists, members of the Green Party, Labour Party and – most importantly – those with no political home at all.
It will be a coalition of all those who despair of what is being inflicted on this country, and are determined to do something about it.
So yes, I’m furious about yesterday’s vote, but I’m also bored of being furious.
Throwing things at the TV isn’t going to cut it.
The likes of Iain Duncan-Smith and his de facto partner-in-crime Liam Byrne cannot be allowed to win, and if we do something about it, they won’t.
To paraphrase the 19 century US labour activist Joe Hill:
Don’t mourn! Organise!
Please sign: Black Triangle Anti-Defamation Campaign in Defence of Disability Rights and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) No Labour Party for Workfare or Sanctions Petition
Build for the People’s Assembly on June 22 in London. A new initiative being built by trade unions, community groups and activists, members of the Green Party, Labour Party and – most importantly – those with no political home at all. You can register for that day here www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk.
Is his tie trying to tell us something, tory blue with a smidgen of labour?
We can make a start by expelling Progress.
AGREED!
They should rebrand themselves as Regress 😛
“Neutralization is defined as a technique, which allows the person to rationalize or justify a criminal act. There are five techniques of neutralization; denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of the condemners, and the appeal to higher loyalties.”
http://rowans-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/calling-him-liar-to-his-face-how-sir.html
It is worth noting that since there are more seats on the Coalition side (306 Tory plus 57 Lib Dem) then they would have won this vote anyway if they all voted yes since Labour only have 258 seats. Since Labour knew this, the only impact they could have would be to agree for other things to be added into the bill and this is what’s happened. Even so though as a whole – justice has gone out the window and the Government is above the law.
http://www.facebook.com/endpropaganda
Jim
it is worth noting that the labour party introduced the curse of ESA and the abomination of ATOS into our midst. The current labour party is as fascist as the coalition. The three main parties are ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE. Why reherse arguements that are well known about the illegitimacy of current legislation. This is not about point scoring – PEOPLE ARE DYING
I know and I agree – although the link below is fictional it will become fact if things carry on.
http://www.imageurlhost.com/images/f4xkyyrye2cepeiejlog.jpg
Write to your MP – use this template if you want..
http://freepdfhosting.com/718a213988.pdf
What was a recipe for success in 1997, will not work in 2015. Times have changed. We need radical solutions for the problems we face. People are getting poorer, and people are suffering. If this is the best that the Labour party can come up with, agreeing with workfare, then this is not good enough. We need a real alternative to austerity. We need politicians with vision and solutions. Not more of the same.
The decline in living standards in the uk, the introduction to poverty and the statistics to more than prove, suicide rates are spiralling, are the brainchild of one twisted individual, BILL GUNNYEON.
GUNNYEON is the faceless one who hides behind his position of Chief Medical Officer of the DWP.
Bolstered by donations from the Insurance Industry, (of which Gunnyeon and his chums are honoured speakers), our government have set out on a path of Welfare Reforms that deny the very poorest in society, especially the disabled.
Each piece of legislation bears the hallmarks of this modern day “Angel of Death”.
Every item of denial of benefit carries his endorsement. To him you are just superfluous to a life in this day and age, hence the corrupted, twisted policies that he underwrites……
History has told us that behind every fanatical leader, there is always a minion lapping at their heels to gain some kind of recognition. They are usually hated by most because they recognise the level of toadying as dangerous.
Obviously, the aforementioned is more than dangerous. His elevation to the dizzy heights of his title has underpinned his craving to take away life…..
His dark thoughts from childhood now manifest themselves in legislation, in effect removal by statute.
What i cannot understand is why he pursued his career on the grounds of helping disabled, yet abuses his position by demonising them…………..
Maybe he has a psychological problem that has not been detected. I wonder if ATOS software that he helped to build, could identify his problem? I seriously doubt it because its not fit for purpose!
One things for certain, whatever cuts to whatever benefit, he is the key…….
Write to your MP – use this template if you want..
http://freepdfhosting.com/718a213988.pdf
If you’re subjected to the Atos regime then include this with your ESA50 when sending it back..
http://freepdfhosting.com/eb6c5697a3.pdf
Every Day Passes the Country gets More like a Nazi State under these Con Dem Idiots
Why are People so Spineless Selfish and Cowardly ?
It is the MPS who are the Real Scroungers
Bloody Wake Up Britain and Stop the Sleepwalk
Good article, but why has Owen Jones not bothered to get his facts right. The DWP do not sanction people forced to work for free, they sanction people who refuse to work for free, and Cait Reiilly was NOT santcioned, and did NOT refufse to work for free. She did her two weeks at Poundland, then later questioned the legality of the scheme.
Despite these initial efforts to limit the brutality of the Nazi regime, Gürtner also played a role in legitimizing it. In the weeks following the Night of the Long Knives, a purge of SA officers and conservative critics of the regime that resulted in perhaps hundreds of executions, he demonstrated his loyalty to the Nazi regime by writing a law that added a legal veneer to the purge. Signed into law by both Hitler and Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick, the “Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defense” retrospectively legalized the murders committed during the purge. Gürtner even quashed some initial efforts by local prosecutors to take legal action against those who carried out the murders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_G%C3%BCrtner
“Tanks and soldiers in Saltmarket area of Glasgow
Feb 1919″
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde/redcly025.htm
Informative Indeed it would of Better had the Soldiers in Glasgow had Gone Over to
Revolution in 1919 and Swept Aside Capitalist Oppression
Those like Gurtner who Helped Adolf Hitler come to Power are Villains just
like those who Helped the ” Conservatives ” come to Power in May 2010
On Justice and social justice:
How about a Labour leader who forces his MPs to abstain against a bill that makes it OK to change the Law retroactively to deny redress for victims who did not break any Law at the time…
one cannot make this up coming from Labour and a Labour Leader…
if you have any sense of Justice and decency…
sign this petition that is meant to convince the Lords to kick into the bin this shameful piece of retrospective legislation (as the implications for allowing such a precedent to take place are very onerous in a democracy and for the respect of the Law)…
no matter what they say about the excuse of saving money by denying it to wronged claimants… this excuse is a
shameful red herring…
The petition:
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-uk-government-changing-the-law-retrospectively
Lord David Freud for me is the face of Evil for the Tory Party and the Coalition…
he is also the grey eminence behind all this… the undermining of Social Security, the fooling around with the Law, the bullying tactics, obfuscation, JC+ league table, everything, inclusive to his past insubordination and contempt for his ex-boss Gordon Brown…
James Purnell and now Iain Duncan Smith are just his puppets, and he is the puppeteer…
Tony Blair (Tory light) appointed Lord Freud, and beforehand Peter Lilly (Tory) contracted Unum Provident… Gordon Brown tried to moderate this, and Lord Freud jumped ship to the Tories, the rest is what we have now…
Check him out on the Angry Voice Blogspot: Lord Freud: Risks, Corpses and Slums
If anyone wants to write to their local MP who voted yes or abstained for the Jobseekers Allowance Stealing Bill [back on 19th March] then they are making tailored letters over at this site.
http://www.facebook.com/endpropaganda
Al this makes me feel so ill I am going to try and sleep and pretend its not happening. My thanks to al those who have the have the abiltity to fight back. Good night and God bless.