Partygate – Tory MPs Bottle it, so now it is down to the British Public to remove Boris Johnson

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, appears to be riding out the scandal of holding lockdown parties in 10 Downing Street, in contravention of the laws in place at the time. Johnson, along with his next door neighbour, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, have received fines for one breach, with more expected to follow.

This is the first time that a serving prime minister (and Chancellor) have been found guilty of breaking the law, and I think that previous prime minister’s would have felt that they had to resign their post, but not Boris Johnson. As one of his former housemasters at Eton school reported, Johnson doesn’t think that rules apply to him. Indeed, he has pretty much made a career in politics on this basis.

In these circumstances, one might expect Tory MPs, who are well aware of how badly this whole saga has gone down with voters in their constituencies, to remove him by calling for a vote of no confidence in him, but very few have done so. I think some of them do see the importance of honesty and integrity, of which Johnson is completely lacking, but they appear to be nervous about bringing him down.

The most common reason that many are citing for their inaction, is that whilst there is the ongoing war in Ukraine, no change of leader can be contemplated. This view ignores history, where prime ministers have been changed, most notably Herbert Asquith, during in World War I, and Neville Chamberlain during in World War II. These were wars that Britain was actually fighting too, which is not the case with current conflict in Ukraine.

What real difference would it make if Johnson was replaced? None, I think. Somebody else can go around making breezy speeches, with no difference one way or the other, but many Tory MPs are taking refuge in this thinking. But this might change, and a look at previous Tory prime ministers who have been removed in recent times by their MPs, is instructive.

Margaret Thatcher, was brought down in 1990, a prime minister much more powerful and respected than Johnson, mainly over the unpopular Poll Tax policy. This led to defeat for the Tories in a byelection in Eastbourne in September 1990, normally a rock solid Tory constituency. She resigned in November of same the same year, having lost the confidence of her ministers.

Theresa May, was forced to resign in 2019, after it became clear that she would face a no confidence vote from her MPs. The Tories recorded only 8.8% of the vote in the European Parliamentary elections earlier that year. Her premiership was dogged by a failure of MPs to agree with her attempts to get a post Brexit deal from the European Union.

So, we can see that the commonest factor in Tory MPs removing their sitting prime minister, is how well they see their prospects of retaining their seats in a future general election. Tory MPs were always well aware of Johnson’ shortcomings, but recognised that he was popular with the voters, and so this trumped all else.

Which brings us to the current situation. Is Johnson still a winner? Opinion polls suggest not, with 75% of those surveyed saying that they believe the prime minister to be a liar. The breaching of lockdown rules touches the public in a way that perhaps other issues do not. Most people followed the rules, and many have memories of not being able see loved ones, in some cases before these people died from Covid. They expected the people making these rules to follow them, like they did.

On 5 May local elections throughout the UK will take place. If voters reject the Tory party in huge numbers, over their outrage of the breaches of the lockdown rules, this will put pressure on Tory MPs to act, out of self-interest, if nothing else. There is also a Parliamentary byelection coming in Wakefield, a seat the Tories gained in 2019.

A harbinger of what may happen can be seen in recent local byelections. The Green party has gained two seats from the Tories over recent weeks. In Storrington and Washington and Lyme and Charmouth, they made impressive gains from the Tories. Will something similar happen in the upcoming local council elections? It may well be so.

The only way that Johnson will be forced out of office, is if the voters make it clear they are unhappy with him. At the end of the day, it is not about the integrity of the office of prime minister for Tory MPs, rather whether they think they have more chance of retaining their seats, with Johnson as prime minister.

For most people, somebody who breaks their own laws, and lies about it, is not a fit and proper person to hold the office of prime minister. It's over to you the voters, to remove this person.         

Green Party Leadership Election –Exclusive Interview with Shahrar Ali

 

Candidate for Leadership of the Green Party of England and Wales, Shahrar Ali talks to London Green Left Blog’s editor Mike Shaughnessy about why he is running for the leadership of the party.

Tell me a little about your background and why you are standing for the leadership of the Green Party? 

I became active in Green politics at the turn of the century around the threat from GM crops. I was part of the successful campaign to stop GM entering the agricultural system in the UK and my work took me to the heart of the European Parliament as a researcher on environmental risk assessment. It was gratifying to be part of the unit which provided parliamentarians with briefing documents which helped inform the votes for successive moratoria on GM crop regulation across the UK. That’s when I got my first taste of Green parliamentarians shaping our future for the collective good. 

I trained as a biochemical engineer before turning to philosophy and taught widely across the educational sector, with a particular interest in offering lifelong education at affordable rates. My educational background is perhaps significant to what I think I can bring to the Party at this time. Both biotechnology and philosophy have at their heart a commitment to scientific truth and rational persuasion. We need more of this in politics right now, and in the Green Party, too. I see my role as leader both to demonstrate rational argument in political debate and to do us proud on broadcast media on big, live platforms and on social media. Here’s an example of my debating with Sadiq Khan and Priti Patel on the BBC [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOHe_LsR5Pg] during the 2015 general election, where we polled over a million votes. 

As former deputy leader 2014-16 I was the first BME leader of a UK parliamentary party and this added real credibility to our presentation. That’s not the best reason to vote for me, but it is a significant one, as we are sadly lacking in visible ethnic representation at all levels of the party. I helped launch Greens of Colour and whilst it has been great to see people from more diverse ethnic backgrounds coming into the party we still have much, much more to do. 

If you are elected as leader of the party, what will be your priorities? 

I will boldly make that case for immediate action on the climate and ecological emergency. It’s hard for us to get our heads round the scale of transformation required to overcome the worst of climate degradation, much of which has already been set in train. The prize for humanity is great: our continued existence. The threat of species extinction is too grave to contemplate. The emergency response to Covid-19 has shown that, with political will, much adaptation is possible. We need to harness more of that spirit in pursuit of massive reduction in our carbon consumption. We need to get on a war footing for the sake of the climate emergency. Greens have long advocated a Green new deal, which would require overhaul of the economic system and investment in renewable energy, with Green jobs to match. I say more about what this transformation might look like in my final answer. 

Secondly, we must reach out to new constituencies of voters, especially those who are feeling politically homeless due to leaders promoting, or facilitating, a hostile environment for them. I’m thinking especially of women and ex-Labour members and voters. 

Many women I have spoken to, including in our own party, have felt prevented from organising around campaigns to preserve or protect their sex-based rights. Many brilliant campaigners have in fact resigned. In any arena of equalities, if you’ve got a group of people who feel that they are affected by the claims of another group of people, that requires negotiation not imposition. In addition, in order to negotiate you need to debate, and uncover people’s assumptions, if only to work out that there’s no misunderstanding. That kind of debate and negotiating culture is in increasingly short supply, in society and in political parties. 

A further example is the conflation of legitimate criticism of Israel’s heinous policies with fake allegations of antisemitism – often fuelled by the bogus, politicised IHRA definition. It is monstrous that a lifelong antiracist of the pedigree of Corbyn was hounded out in the way he was. I, too, have had to face down antisemitism smear campaigns and recently won an IPSO ruling against the Jewish Chronicle on five counts. I am now pushing not just for rejection of the IHRA definition by our Party but adoption of the Jerusalem Declaration instead – a well-crafted statement that would help identify and tackle genuine antisemitic incidents. Greens fight racism in all its forms, including anti-Jewish racism, and this is all the more reason to advocate for definitions which are fit for purpose, not counterproductive on their own terms. 

The common thread running through these conflicts, which often become internalised in parties, is the failure to insist on mature, rational debate. Groupthink and cancel culture thrive in such conditions, often reinforced by social media bubbles. Leaders must collaborate to overcome the threat to free speech – by demonstrating it themselves and confronting Orwellian abuse of language. 

Shahrar visiting Calais Jungle camp as Deputy Leader

The COP26 conference is taking place in November, in Glasgow, what are your expectations of anything significant being agreed by participant governments? 

I have low expectations for yet another conference on the international circuit. The climate and ecological emergency is my priority: I was a founding signatory of Extinction Rebellion in 2018 and a founder member of GreensCAN. We can be absolutely clear about the twin aims of getting Greens elected and campaigning beyond the ballot box to galvanise the scale of social and political transformation required. As Greens we will continue to push for results at COP26 and also to raise awareness outside and beyond COP. 

A review of the party’s Instruments of Governance was called for and approved by Conference some 6 years ago. The "Holistic Review Commission" was set up in 2018 which aimed to deliver radical constitutional reforms. In your opinion, what are the reasons why after all this time and effort, it seems almost impossible for the party to adopt a new constitution?

A Governance Review, which was set 8 years ago in 2013, failed to deliver a new constitution by the Autumn of 2018, the end of its remit. The Holistic Review Commission which followed failed to deliver on its promises of “radical reforms” and the Spring 2021 online Special Constitutional conference ended in chaos. 

In my opinion, all attempts to modernise our constitution since 2013 have failed because they lacked any bottom-up approach in the first instance. Our members have simply not felt concerned about such internal matters nor been involved in any of those processes. Yes, conference participants approved all those initiatives, but conference is made up of self-appointed members who may not have read the conference agenda before taking part and are under no obligation to represent their local party or designated group members. Normally, that member right is an asset but sometimes it can land us in a false sense of security about genuine engagement and I think that’s what happened here. I don't think it should come as any surprise really that it has indeed proved almost impossible to draft and implement a new constitution. 

Shahrar addressing Association of Green Councillors

Identity issues, especially around gender recognition, has been hugely controversial in the party recently. What will be your approach to healing the division which has opened up in the party? 

In basing my campaign on the three crucial issues of climate emergency, women's rights, and free speech, I am confident that all of us in the Green Party are united in caring about these issues. In expressing my support for women's rights, I am in no way intending to minimise the importance of LGBTQI+ rights. I am convinced that the way forward within the Green Party – and indeed in wider society – lies in mutually respectful dialogue to ensure that everyone's concerns are heard and taken into account. 

It's unfortunately the case that there have been communication problems within the Green Party that have resulted in many people feeling that their concerns are not being taken seriously. I want to encourage a culture of openness and mutual respect so that these matters, which naturally elicit strong feelings in people, can be debated in a compassionate manner. Kindness is sometimes overlooked in the heat of the moment, especially in the heat of exchanges on social media.  I hope that, if I am elected, I can help to facilitate our all working together in the Green Party to find our way forward with these complex issues. 

By tackling these communication problems we can move forward together in our united determination to face the environmental crisis that threatens us all.  The Green Party has a great contribution to make: we have to find the way to resolve our differences and pull together. 

Shahrar launching environmental leadership programme for BAME youth

What is your vision for Green party over the next few years?

We must overcome political cowardice. Outside the global Green parties few politicians have been willing to shout, “Fire!” But as Greta says, the building is on fire. Of course, shouting fire isn't enough. To avoid catastrophe we have to transform our energy, transport and farming systems. That's going to be hard and even with a just transition to a more sustainable way of life it will be uncomfortable for some. But we have to do it. 

The first climate priority for a Green government would be 'stop digging'. We have to stop making the climate problem worse so:

·       No airport expansion

·       No new roads

·       End fossil fuel subsidies

·       No gas boilers in new homes

·       All meetings between government and industry or Trade Unions (other than security matters) to be announced and minuted. 

Second - begin to build the low-carbon alternative - this is at least a ten-year programme:

·       Introduce carbon tax

·       In parallel, supplement taxation with Personal Carbon Allowances (the latter is a policy proposal coming from me to Autumn conference)

·       Expand wind power and energy development and the grid

·       Announce dates from which fossil-fuelled vehicles can't be used on UK roads (probably different dates for cars, vans, buses, HGVs, tractors, etc.)

·       Start major training programme for retrofit workers

·       Start national housing retrofit programme

·       Make Passivhaus the default standard for new buildings

·       Accelerate the development of active travel infrastructure (e.g. cycle lanes, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, after full consultation on design with disability user groups)

·       Set target for making company accounts comply with Sustainable Cost Accounting - largest first

·       Expand R&D on low-carbon technologies 

Third - start national and regional discussion of Just Transition measures with local authorities, employers’ organisations, trade unions and community groups. Develop a Just Transition support budget. 

Fourth – start a phased programme of industrial decarbonisation – probably start by expanding steel recycling and closing blast furnaces. 

The bottom line is that every sector will have to change.  There are 50 – maybe 500 – actions needed in a comprehensive, co-ordinated systemic approach.  This is just a sketch for a vast change across government, politics, economics and society.  I would be advocating for and asking Greens to set up citizens' assemblies to help to support the sea-change in thinking and behaviour required.  We need to change what is politically possible if we are do what is scientifically necessary. We need a reality check. 

Voting opens on 2 September 10am and closes 23 September 10pm.

Green Party Leadership Election –Exclusive Interview with Tina Rothery and Martin Hemingway

Candidates for Co-Leadership of the Green Party of England and Wales, Tina Rothery and Martin Hemingway, talk to London Green Left Blog’s editor Mike Shaughnessy about why they are running for the leadership of the party. 

Tell me a little about your backgrounds and why you are standing for the leadership of the Green Party?

TR Lancashire is ‘home’ right now and has been for a large chunk of the past two decades, but I was born in London and at four-years-old, my family chose to migrate to Australia as part of the Assisted Passage Programme (at the time, commonly referred to as ‘£10 Poms’) before moving to Hong Kong when I was 12. I returned to the UK in my early 20s but went on to live in Luxembourg, Belgium and Spain before returning and settling in Blackpool where my sister and her family are.

My first job was as a reporter at the Hong Kong Standard newspaper and my career from then onwards, was mostly in communications. I’ve found it has always been more difficult to ‘get ahead’ in the UK and as a single-mother, worked as a waitress, hotel cleaner, barmaid, staff trainer and a multitude of other things to get food on the table and money in the meter.

The past decade, however, has been the most life-changing of all episodes in my varied life. Becoming an activist changed more than my income bracket (bare minimum), it enhanced me, broadened my views, nourished my heart and rewarded my life with a genuine purpose that isn’t about earning more, buying more, competing or focusing on interests of self. And activism ensures I’m in the best company of all.

I recently returned to education after a 40-year break (it wasn’t my strong point when I was younger) but am struggling to justify any time given to anything that isn’t dealing with the climate crisis: what point will a university degree be on an uninhabitable planet? Much will depend on what happens next. 

When Jonathan and Sian made their intentions to step-down known and it was clear we would be electing new Green Party leaders, I was disappointed to discover that those I hoped were going to stand, had decided not to. I am a little surprised myself that I decided to run for leadership, but I trust my instincts. I considered options on standing alone but I have enough self-awareness to know that I thrive best with balance and co-operation. Martin became the natural choice as a partner. Over the past seven years as a member, it was him that I would approach with questions because I knew I would always get an informed, honest answer from a man of integrity and experience. I’m truly honoured he agreed. 

MH I have 50 years of political experience gleaned as an agent in elections, as a candidate in many local elections, general elections and Euro elections – including as lead candidate, as an elected member of the ruling Labour group on Leeds City Council, the second largest local authority in the country, for 12 years. The time on Leeds City Council led to positive changes for local people, to regional roles, and a UK role as Chair of Nuclear Free Local Authorities. It is difficult to summarise all that I have done in a few words.

I left Labour for various reasons, but largely because I was not New Labour – I stayed where I was and the Party moved away from me.

In the Green Party I have almost 20 years of experience in local, regional and national parties. It is difficult to underestimate the importance of this experience, At local and regional levels I have filled most roles, written constitutions and strategies, supported local parties. Nationally I spent four years on the Green Party Regional Council (GPRC) and over five years on the Standing Orders Committee (SOC).

I have an understanding of the Party, good and bad, through this experience, and am very conscious of the need to have Leaders who will bring the Party together to tackle the climate emergency we are facing.

If you are elected as leaders of the party, what will be your priorities?

MH It is easy to say Climate, Climate, Climate, but we need to make clear the part that the Green Party and engaged Leadership has to play in achieving this, but also in addressing the social justice agenda of the Green Party.

Our priorities will be first of all COP26, the lead up to it, the message we need to put across, and the ongoing work to turn the word-shop into a workshop.

That will involve our regions and local parties pushing the message as part of our electoral strategy, and we are committed to working with the regional and local parties where the campaigning and electoral work is actually done.

Beyond that we need to be engaging with communities, particularly those that are estranged from the political processes, we need to be addressing the near absence of people of colour, of working class members, of those communities most affected by poverty, of those disabled by impairment.

That has to be our electoral strategy, and we are prepared to engage on that.

TR Clearly working to save all life on earth and preserving and enhancing the natural systems that will nurture it.

How we do this will be a priority job and that starts with unifying our Party. Processes, procedures, conference, dispute resolution, discipline and communications are areas that are not providing solutions and we need to work on that.

A really important part of the job for me and one that I’d thoroughly look forward to, would be visiting and working with the regions and local parties within them. I believe that strengthening and supporting regional offices so that they can provide professional help with media, campaigning and membership would make a huge difference and ensure our Party is stronger throughout England and Wales, rather than in small pockets.

Strong regional parties would broaden our perspectives and help us fine-tune our responses to local elections and campaigns. Access for local media too will be enhanced if we can develop relationships and be relied on to respond promptly and professionally.

Conference is where the most important decisions are made, yet only a miniscule percentage of members ever attend. Strong regional parties would be part of the solution to this; we could revisit the idea of reforming conference voting and looking at regional conferences with online voting facilities and greater regional input.

The groups within our Party too are struggling to build around the issues that they want to ensure are heard. The success story is the Young Greens and we need to look at that model and why it works well at getting issues raised and policies to conference. Auto-enrolment is a key differentiator: when joining the Party, members who fulfil the criteria (young/students) automatically become members of the Young Greens, receiving a welcome email and regular updates. None of the other groups benefit from this.

When I was Chair of Green Party Women, we couldn’t even get access to a mailing list of women within the Party in order to reach out. New members fill in details about themselves that could be used to auto-enrol (with an opt-out) them into Greens of Colour, Green Party Disability Group, Green Party Women, LGBTIQA+ Greens and Green Seniors. Not only would this enrich the groups but new members would very quickly feel that they are welcome, heard and seen.

And then there are allies outside the Party both locally and nationally that we could be building relationships with, in order to tackle shared concerns for specific actions, events or goals. During the 1000 days of protest by the anti-fracking movement at Preston New Road here in Lancashire, the Green Party, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Reclaim the Power, the Unions, academics, celebrities, environmental and religious groups came to join residents and help get us through this gruelling but necessary action. The ability to stall progress, increase costs, impact reputation, and upset supply chains is what prevented progress on shale gas extraction long enough to cause share prices in the company operating to see its share price plummet from pounds to pennies and the earth shake enough to prove us right and bring a moratorium.

We need to keep gathering power behind our aims and along with a strong, united Party, we need to draw on the power of the Unions, environmental groups, NGOs and others to unite around what does unite us. The more we work alongside others both inside and outside of our Party, the more we are ‘being the change we wish to see.

Tina (left) campaigning against fracking with Emma Thompson (right).

Emma Thompson said: “Please read Tina’s manifesto - it explains so fully and clearly why Green politics are the only possible future and why they are central to all the system changes that we urgently need to make.  Women will be key in this movement towards a cleaner, juster planet and I am proud to support Tina who is one of the world’s greatest activists. She is not interested in power for its own sake and will serve you and the planet with stunning dedication and humility. I wish her and Martin Hemingway success as Co-Leaders of The Green Party.” 

The COP26 conference is taking place in November, in Glasgow. What are your expectations of anything significant being agreed by participant governments?

TR Absolutely no expectation at all. Too many talks, too many promises, too many treaties that amount to nothing more than a vague nod from the wealthiest countries, whilst those already experiencing the worsening impacts of climate change, and least responsible for it… are literally left out to dry, flood, endure flames, famine and flight.

There need to be penalties and polluters should pay – not with readily available money, but time-served. Agreeing the law of Ecocide would be a good start followed by a choice to act together to save all of us. Cooperation is going to have to become the way, rather than winners and losers.

The Green Party, as the only Party genuinely dedicated to the environment and life on earth, needs a powerful presence both at the talks in Glasgow and in towns and cities throughout the UK. This is a rare opportunity to truly unite not just as members but alongside Unions, environmentalists, NGOs and deeply concerned others to show we can work together to achieve a clear goal: to make COP26 face up to reality, move on from talking, include the voices of the affected and take action to stop any more tipping points becoming inevitable.

How do you think the Green party should position itself politically in the run up to the next general election?

MH We are the Party of reality. We have to address the reality of damaging climate change. We have to address the reality of environmental damage in other ways, water quality, air quality, land degradation.

We have to address the issues of inequality, and this means addressing the economic system that places emphasis on growth rather than fairness and justice.

There are issues in education, in health and social care, in community provision that have to be addressed – the Green party has to lead on this because the Conservatives do not care, and the Labour Party has given up – as Starmer says the ambition of Labour is to work more closely with business.

TR As the opposition! We are the ONLY Party that tells the truth on climate, that holds the government to account and doesn’t shy away from being honest for the sake of votes. There is no other Party like us.

I doubt any of the other Parties would have a fraction of their policies on climate if it weren’t for Caroline Lucas bringing it to parliament, our Councillors working to declare climate emergencies or our members relentlessly informing their MPs.

Other Parties pander to what will win voters, which may sound like the right thing to do, until you realise the consequences of all that they left out.

A review of the party's Instruments of Governance was called for and approved by Conference some 6 years ago. The " Holistic Review Commission" was set up in 2018 which aimed to deliver radical constitutional reforms. In your opinion, what are the reasons why after all this time and effort, it seems almost impossible for the party to adopt a new constitution?

MH I have been closely involved in the process which has been held up by the failure of those addressing the process to recognise that they had to operate within the terms set by the ballot. I have proposed various constitutional documents that would have done what the ballot said was wanted, but those involved wanted to go further than the ballot permitted.

My perception is that the process involved centralisation of power within the Party, and this process is something about which we have serious concerns.

We are a membership led party, not a leader led party, and this is important to both of us.

Conference is the Supreme Body of the party. Given that its participants are self-appointed. What constitutional changes will you propose to address the widely acknowledged democratic deficit created by this anomaly?

MH This is an issue for the Party to discuss. Only a minority of the Party are engaged with Party issues. Many see their Green Party membership as an add on to active campaigning in other areas.

We need to address the make up of the Conference audience. When we hit 20,000 members we should have moved to delegate conferences, but as membership has grown that threshold has been kicked down the road.

We have probably reached the point where that decision has to be made so that those voting at Conference represent the breadth of membership rather than those that can attend, or that can ‘pack’ conference. We will be supporting the party in moves to reform of conference, both in terms of simplifying and opening up the policy proposal process, and in the reform of participation.

Martin marching at Kirby Misperton fracking site

Identity issues, especially around gender recognition, has been hugely controversial in the party recently. What will be your approach to healing the division which has opened up in the party?

TR Not just controversial, but the cause of deeply damaging division, huge upset and anger within our membership. It’s a matter of urgency that we put a plan in place and enact it, before more harm is done to individuals and Party reputation. How can we expect people to vote us into government, if we can’t even address our own internal disputes? Why would the voters trust us?

We’ve lost valued members which is such a failure really; some because they disputed another’s views/policies and many more because they felt the Party had begun to shift the focus and priority away from the impending climate catastrophe. I think we also need to be aware that for many members – the cause of these disputes is not clear, the terminology unfamiliar and the subject matter and implications, not well known.

I recall when Sian wrote her letter referring to the problems surrounding trans and women’s rights – some members asked what problems this was even referring to. Such a tiny percentage of members are engaged with the internal politics, the making of policy, conference etc – most are out campaigning or getting involved with local environmental groups and just trusting that as The Green Party, we’re getting on with the politics of being green.

We have procedures to handle disputes and clearly these are not adequately resourced, supported or working. There is a process issue, and it’s with process and professionalism that we’ll address it. Martin’s suggestion of a ‘Members’ Assembly’ is an excellent one. We cannot stifle the discussions - they just spill out onto social media and that’s no place to solve anything so we must make space, time and support for them.

MH We will be asking GPRC under its party well-being power to constitute a members assembly. Not one that requires particular groups have representatives, but in the best tradition of such assemblies that selects participants at random from the entire membership; that checks on current views on a set of questions, that seeks expert informants from different positions on the spectrum of the debate, and concerned with different aspects of the debate, and that seeks to produce a document that agrees what that policy means in detail.

Members can choose to accept the outcome or not, but we need to find a position that the majority can be happy with, and seek to give the issue a rest.

What is your vision for Green party over the next few years?

MH We need to position the Green Party in two ways, and this has long been our difficulty.

We need to be the leading party on acting on the environmental issues that people identify as part of our ‘Unique Selling Point’. One of our problems has been getting away from this identification of the Green Party as a single issue party.

What we need to be building at the same time is our identity as the party of social justice and fairness. The Party that represents the excluded and the left behind as well as those parts of the middle class that identify with this agenda, as well as with the overarching climate concern.

TR Government. Hear me out…

The reality of climate change is finally too blatant to ignore and as the impacts grow, people are realising what the other Parties have done, and it’s going to be unforgiveable. Supporting industries that are breaking our life-support system, subsidising them with our money, inflicting the same on other countries like some sort of climate-colonialism, subjecting us and our children to a life of hardship as resources dwindle, weather becomes unpredictable and tipping points take us to a future we can’t begin to conceive; all our governments that were aware of what scientists were proving, failed to act and this is criminal.

It’s also ever-more apparent that the Greens are the only Party sounding the alarm for decades and acting in all the ways possible (under a FPTP voting system) to at least act on the impending crisis. The others are liars.

One MP, more than 400 councillors, thousands of activists and tens of thousands of members are not in this for popularity, we’re in it to face reality and reality is dawning.

Voting opens on 2 September 10am and closes 23 September 10pm. 

Eco-socialism, democracy and the case for proportional representation

 

Written by Claire Fairbrother

“It is not enough to be a revolutionary and an advocate of socialism in general. It is necessary to know at every moment how to find the particular link in the chain which must be grasped with all one’s strength in order to keep the whole chain in place and prepare to move on resolutely to the next link”. 

Lenin, Sochineniya, xxii, 466. November 2017.

There are no signs today of anything comparable to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in the UK. Nor is there any evidence that a serious dual power situation will ever present itself in this country, but for the General Strike when the Prime Minister declared a State of Emergency.  After 10 days into the strike and on 12^th May 1926, three member’s leaders of the TUC General Council visited 10 Downing Street. They were swiftly challenged by Stanley Baldwin about their readiness to take power.  As they failed to grasp the strength of their position, they called the strike off.  

Much has been made since of their “betrayal” of the working class.  However those three formidable trade-union leaders, Robert Smilie (Miners), J. H Thomas ( Railways)  and Ernest Bevin (Transport) were solid social democrats. They believed in reforming capitalism gradually rather than overthrowing the state by revolutionary means.  

Having created the Labour Party to represent the interest of their members and of the working class in Parliament for over a century now, the trade union movement has played a key role in supporting social democracy in the UK.

To this day, the Labour Party depends almost entirely on trade union members’ political levy for the financing of its local and national elections campaigns. It is debateable that the Labour Party would be financially viable if links with its Affiliated Trade Unions were to be severed.

Although it has only been in power for 35 years since its foundation in 1900 and Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour administration in 1924, the Labour Party has been relatively successful in delivering on some of its reformist electoral promises to trade union members. The creation of the NHS by Clement Attlee’s government in 1945 remains its most enduring legacy as does what is now left of the Welfare State.

But the Labour Party has been out of power since 2010 and has suffered four successive electoral defeats. This downwards trend over the last decade culminated in its historical and humiliating crash in December 2019 when the Conservatives picked up 3.5 million former Labour voters and swept into power with an 80 strong majority.  

A review as to why the Labour Party lost so spectacularly in 2019  undertaken by Ed Miliband and Lucy Powell* commented  that in order to win a majority of just one under the existing First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system, Labour would have to win an additional 123-124 since Hartlepool byelection loss - at the next General Election.  This would need a uniform swing of 10.52%, larger than Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997 and the post-war-election of 1945.

Sir Keir Starmer is determined to win, as he keeps reminding everyone since he was elected as the new leader of the Labour Party, but he is also acutely aware that this will indeed be “a mountain to climb”.  However, genuine concerns are being expressed by a growing number of Labour MPs, a few trade union leaders and grass roots activists that for the Labour Party to win an absolute majority under our existing FPTP voting system will prove to be mission impossible.  

Interestingly enough for a would-be future leader of the Labour Party and when asked by Make Vote Matters about his views on Proportional Representation on the eve of his successful re-election as Mayor of Greater Manchester  - with a 67.3% share of the vote -  Andy Burnham declared he had “come round to it” *.    

Although trade unions have seen a marked drop in their membership over the past two decades, they remain a strong voice for workers and are willing to continue providing critical support to the political party they created.

But the key question that is being raised is:  for how long? The dire prospect of a fifth electoral defeat in a row is concentrating the minds.

Always pragmatic rather than ideological, members from trade union branches and their elected officers have begun to express their concerns. They worry that Labour may no longer be able to deliver on their “investment”.

A suggestion was made recently by one of the candidates for the general secretaries’ post of a large trade union that his members’ £19 million paid into the Labour Party’s coffers could perhaps be put to better use by investing the money in a new TV channel.  

Whilst this is a long held dream from the left which will probably never materialise, others are turning their attention to the role played by our unfair and undemocratic FPTP voting system which is keeping the Conservative Party in power.

At the December 2019 General Election, the Conservative/Brexit Party electoral pact got less than 2 million votes than all the left/centre left and nationalists  parties’ votes put together.  But they still won a huge majority in Parliament because of the  voting system.

As a result, we are now subjected to the most authoritarian, criminally incompetent, and corrupt populist government this country has ever seen.

So why should eco-socialists concern themselves at this point “in the link of the chain” of events about something as bourgeois  as universal suffrage?  

Scrapping FPTP and replacing it with a fairer system where every vote counts is not going to lead to a storming of the Bastille, the Winter Palace or even the Mother of All Parliaments by the “working class” or the working classes.  

It will however put a significant break to the grip on power by the most experienced imperialist political party in the history of Western Democracies.

As evidenced in Scotland for Holyrood Parliament and the Senedd in Wales where members are elected under the Additional Member System (AMS), it is clear that such voting systems can achieve a greater level of consensus in policies and decision making and that voters welcome this.

We have also seen recently how some Conservative Ministers went into panic mode with a proposal to scrap the Supplementary Voting (SV) system used for the Mayoral elections as Labour made some considerable gains.

In this early part of our 21st century, we are facing an existential crisis.  As declared in the Paris Ecosocialist Conference of 2007, “Humanity today faces a stark choice: eco-socialism or barbarism”. The survival of humanity and all living species is indeed at stake. Time is fast running out and we all know it.

But our democracy is broken. This is the case in the UK in particular where we are facing the prospect of a permanent pro-capitalist authoritarian conservative /populist government elected with a minority of votes.

At this precise moment in time, people and young people in particular, are demanding that politicians take action against profit driven exploitative and polluting multi-nationals operating in the fossil fuel, plastic, genetically modified food and poisonous agribusiness sectors. 

Unfortunately, it is hard to see how the environmental catastrophe we are facing will be stopped with negotiated treaties or international agreements approved or implemented by entrenched pro-capitalist politicians.

This is because what is needed over the next decade is a radical transformation of the world economy. We need concrete and urgent reforms to drastically reduce greenhouse gases, fast-track the development of clean energy sources and anti-pollution clean-ups, build an extensive free public transport system, eliminate nuclear energy and nuclear bombs and redistribute of wealth to eliminate poverty and inequalities on a scale never seen before. 

Under our First-Past-the -Post voting system, our battered and fragmented Labour Party founded by the trade union movement over 100 years ago can no longer deliver a majority for government. It must commit to include PR in its next election manifesto as a pre-condition to any electoral deals to keep the Tories out.

With a fair voting system where every vote would count, together with the mobilisation of the Youth, the labour movement as a whole and its allies from the environment and social justice movements, such change could open the door – and minds – to the creation of a healthy,  participative democracy essential to laying the foundation towards a 21^st century eco-socialist revolution.

https://electionreview.labourtogether.uk/chapters/the=scale-of-the-challenge

https://twitter.com/AndyBurnhamGM/status/1389630600143855618?s=20

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=we+divide+they+conquer

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/09/government-to-change-english-voting-system-after-labour-mayoral-victories

Claire Fairbrother is a British ecosocialist activist and a co-founder of Get PR Done !

Social Self-Defense Against the Impending Trump Coup

 

Written by Jeremy Brecher and first published at Labor Network for Sustainability 

President Donald Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power no matter who wins the election. What is to be done if Trump loses the election but refuses to concede? The purpose of this commentary is to stimulate discussion and preparation for how to overcome such a Trump coup. 

Even before the 2016 election, Donald Trump hinted that if he lost he might not accept the outcome. Now, far behind in the polls, Trump is taking action to disrupt the 2020 election and laying obvious groundwork for refusing to leave office if he loses. As this threat has moved from a hypothetical concern to an immediate fear, the media have been filled with stories about Trumpite plans for red state legislatures to overturn popular votes, destroy mail ballots, and send in the military to quell demonstrators defending the vote. 

But reports have also begun appearing about plans to defend the ballot and resist a Trump Coup d’état – an “executive usurpation” sometimes referred to as a “self-coup.”(1) This commentary gives a brief historical background on the effective use of “people power” to contest coups and stolen elections and reviews recent writing and organizing against a Trump Coup. It presents resistance to a Trump Coup not as primarily a matter of Biden vs. Trump or Democrats vs. Republicans, but rather as Social Self-Defense — a defense of society against an attack on the very things that make our life together possible.(2) 

Anti-Coups Have Succeeded 

Tyrannical regimes from Serbia to the Philippines to Brazil and many other places have been brought down by “people power” — nonviolent revolts that made society ungovernable and led to regime change. While the U.S. has a strong tradition of social movements based on people power, it does not have a tradition of using mass action and general strikes for the defense of democracy. However, in other countries where democratic institutions have been so weakened or eliminated that they provide no alternative to tyranny, such methods have emerged and been used effectively. 

There is now an extensive literature analyzing popular resistance to subversion of elections and other forms of coup d’état. The pioneer of such research was theorist and historian of nonviolence Gene Sharp. His Waging Nonviolent Struggle provides extensive analysis and many case studies of effective nonviolent resistance; his The Anti-Coup focuses in on the use of these methods against illegal seizures of government power.(3) It proposes such guidelines as: 

• Repudiate the coup and denounce its leaders as illegitimate 
• Regard all decrees and orders from the coup leaders contradicting established law as illegal and refuse to obey them 
• Keep all resistance strictly nonviolent – refuse to be provoked into violence 
• Noncooperate with the coup leaders in all ways

Steven Zunes’ Civil Resistance Against Coups analyzes the resistance to twelve coups and provides an expanded theoretical framework.(4) Sharp and Zunes provide invaluable background for anyone who contemplates resisting a possible Trump coup. Here are two examples that involve popular resistance to coups that utilized stolen elections: 

In 1988, despite the circumventing of electoral laws, repression of universities and media, and ethnic cleansing, Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic was still holding elections of a sort. An activist group called Otpor formed around the goal of driving Milosevic from power and began hundreds of small actions of resistance around the country to counter pervasive fear of the regime. 

Its plan was that activists would compel the regime to call elections; they would create massive turnout around a united opposition candidate; they would join other nongovernmental organizations in carefully monitoring election results so they could document their victory; and they would use mass noncompliance – leading up to a general strike – if and when Milosevic refused to step down. 

In 2000, Otpor pushed 18 of Serbia’s squabbling opposition parties to form a coalition to support a unity candidate, promising to deliver 500,000 votes to the unity candidate but threatening to put 100,000 protesters at the door of any politician who betrayed the coalition. As elections approached, the regime called Otpor an “illegal terrorist organization”; police raided its offices and shut down independent radio and TV stations; each day an average of seven activists were arrested. 

Meanwhile, the opposition organized ten thousand election monitors. They announced exit polls showing Milosevic had been defeated by a 50% to 35% margin. Instead of accepting the results, Milosevic refused to leave office and demanded a run-off election. 

Otpor announced a deadline for Milosevic to concede and 200,000 people demonstrated in Belgrade. The opposition called on the population throughout the country to “perform any acts of civil disobedience they have at their disposal.” Miners struck; TV and radio stations opened their airwaves to opposition voices.  As the deadline approached, cars and trucks filled the highways heading toward Belgrade. 

Police put up roadblocks and were issued orders to shoot, but seeing the size of the convoys they abandoned their barricades. Half-a-million people gathered in Belgrade. Police fired tear gas, but when the crowd stood its ground riot police began running away or joining the crowd. The opposition candidate declared victory and Milosevic accepted his defeat. 

There are many other cases where popular action has forestalled or reversed efforts to subvert the outcome of a democratic election. After the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. in 1983, Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos met growing protests. 

Marcos called a presidential election to be held in February, 1986. Aquino’s widow Corazon Aquino was backed by all major opposition parties. Marcos’ campaign included vote-buying and the murder of more than 70 opposition workers. On election day casting of fake ballots and falsification of returns was widely witnessed. 

Marcos claimed victory, but Mrs. Aquino met with opposition leaders and proposed a long nonviolent campaign of what she dubbed “people power.” Top military officers resigned, withdrew support from Marcos, recognized Aquino as the legitimate winner, and fled to military camps in Manilla. The city’s Roman Catholic Church leader appealed on nationwide radio for people to nonviolently protect the officers and prevent bloodshed. 

By midnight 50,000 surrounded the camps; two days later it was more than a million. Marcos ordered tanks and armored transports to attack. Nuns knelt in front of the tanks and priests climbed on them and led a million protesters – plus soldiers – in prayer. The troops turned back. Next day Marcos ordered another assault, but the commanding officer ordered his troops to return to their base. The military rebels announced that ninety percent of the Armed Forces had defected. Large crowds took over the government television station. 

The next day Marcos fled the country and Aquino was inaugurated president. Ever after mass nonviolent direct action has been known around the world as “People power.”(5)

How the Trump Coup Is Unfolding 

This summer a group called the Transition Integrity Project held a series of “war games” with more than 100 current and former senior government and campaign leaders and other experts to review possible scenarios for the upcoming election and presidential transition. The result: 

We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November’s elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape. We also assess that President Trump is likely to contest the result by both legal and extra-legal means, in an attempt to hold onto power. Recent events, including the President’s own unwillingness to commit to abiding by the results of the election, the Attorney General’s embrace of the President’s groundless electoral fraud claims, and the unprecedented deployment of federal agents to put down leftwing protests, underscore the extreme lengths to which President Trump may be willing to go in order to stay in office. 

Their likely scenarios included: Trump’s refusal to concede; Attorney General William Barr opening investigation of vote-by-mail fraud allegations and Democratic ties to antifa; and rival selection of pro-Trump electoral college slates by Republican state legislatures. Meanwhile Trump would call for armed supporters to challenge pro-Biden demonstrators, leading to multiple killings of demonstrators; Trump says he will invoke the Insurrection Act to teach anti-American terrorists a lesson. All this before Thanksgiving. 

Except in the case of a big Biden win, each scenario “reached the brink of catastrophe, with massive disinformation campaigns, violence in the streets and a constitutional impasse.” In two of the scenarios there was no agreement on the winner by Inauguration Day.(6) 

An extended article in The Atlantic by Barton Gellman released in late September presented evidence that Trump and Republican officials are already laying the groundwork for such scenarios. The disruption of the Post Office and the plans to intimidate voters and prevent full vote counting are already under way. Gellman maintains that after election day, “Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede,” and that he may “obstruct the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in the Congress.”

Preparations are already being made for red state legislators to replace elected members of the Electoral College with their own appointees. Barton spells out in detail this and many other strategies available and likely to be used to prevent a losing President Trump from being forced to leave office.(7)

 How to Overcome a Trump Coup 

In late September, four movement activists and experts on civil resistance issued a manual called Hold the Line: A Guide to Defending Democracy. Reminiscent of the Indivisible manual that helped launch the resistance to Trump in 2016, it presents a detailed plan for locally-based resistance to a Trump Coup.(8) It lays out various scenarios in which Trump refuses to leave office. It calls for forming community-based “election protection” groups. These can start immediately with meetings by a small core group that develops a response plan and recruits others to participate in it. 

These groups will “hold the line” that all votes must be counted; all irregularities must be investigated impartially and remedied; and election results must be respected, regardless of who wins. Public officials can be called on in advance to state their commitment to these principles. Violation of these “Red Lines” by Trump or other officials will trigger these groups into action. 

The guide provides sample meeting agendas, templates for “Power Maps” of forces to influence, tactics “brainstorming sheets,” and other planning tools. It outlines targeted action to “undermine the pillars of support” for an illegal Trump regime. It calls for mass popular mobilization based on disciplined nonviolence because “violence will backfire badly against the side that uses it.” 

It discusses tactics including displaying symbols of protest; engaging in demonstrations, marches, and nonviolent blockades; strikes of all kinds; deliberate work slowdowns; boycotts of all kinds; divestment; refusing to pay certain fees, bills, taxes, or other costs; or refusal to observe certain expected social norms or behaviors. 

Trade unionists Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Jose La Luz have made a related proposal for organized labor to establish “pro-democracy volunteer brigades” in preparation for the election. 

We need volunteers who will assist with voter registration; mobilize in large numbers should law enforcement and right-wing militias show up at polling places in order to intimidate voters; block the right-wing from challenging legitimate voters and ballots; and lay the groundwork for massive civil disobedience should the Trump administration attempt to forestall the elections and/or refuse to recognize the results.(9)

Organizing So Far Against a Trump Coup 

The Trump presidency has been an era of mass resistance, an upwelling of direct action that came to be known as the Trump Resistance or simply The Resistance. A social science organization called the Crowd Counting Consortium listed more than eighty-seven hundred protests with six to nine million participants in the first year of the Trump administration, 90 percent opposing Trump’s agenda.(10) The Black Lives Matter protests following the 2020 murder of George Floyd constituted the largest mass uprising in the U.S. in half a century with an estimated 15 to 26 million participants.(11) The base for contesting a Trump Coup is already in motion. 

At the start of September, a coalition of 50 organizations called the Fight Back Table, which includes Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, Color of Change, Indivisible, and MoveOn, established a post-election planning vehicle called the Democracy Defense Nerve Center. Taking off from the Transition Integrity Project war games, they have begun to chart out what it would take to stand up a multi-state communications arm to fight disinformation, a training program for nonviolent civil disobedience, and the underpinnings of what one official described as “mass public unrest.” 

They began to struggle with such questions as how do you maintain sustained strikes and occupations and what do you do if armed right-wing militias show up at polling places?(12)

A number of other groups have been mobilizing to forestall or overcome a Trump coup. Protect the Results, a joint project of Indivisible and Stand Up America supported by 80 other groups, is planning mass mobilization in more than 1,000 locations.(13) Keep Our Republic is organizing to support a “civic creed” to “Let all citizens vote. Let all votes be counted. Let the count stand.” 

The group Peoples Strike has issued a Pledge of Resistance committing to occupy civic squares on Wednesday, November 4th, to occupy state capitols on Saturday, November 7th, and to engage in “strategic rolling strikes” thereafter. No doubt other preparations are under way as well. 

Other sectors of society are also beginning to consider what their responsibilities will be if Trump refuses to concede electoral defeat. On September 25 AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released this statement about the post-election transition: 

The AFL-CIO categorically rejects all threats to the peaceful transition of power. The labor movement simply will not allow any breach of the U.S. Constitution or other effort to deny the will of the people. Union members across the political spectrum are united in our fundamental belief that the votes of the American people must always determine the presidency. America’s workers will continue to be steadfast in defense of our democracy in the face of President Trump’s antics, and we stand ready to do our part to ensure his defeat in this election is followed by his removal from office.(14) 

A recent New York Times article reported that: 

senior leaders at the Pentagon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that they were talking among themselves about what to do if Mr. Trump, who will still be president from Election Day to Inauguration Day, invokes the Insurrection Act and tries to send troops into the streets, as he threatened to do during the protests against police brutality and systemic racism.(15)

Several Pentagon officials said there could be resignations among many of Mr. Trump’s senior generals, starting at the top with chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark A. Milley, should troops be ordered into the streets at the time of the election. As we have seen in the opposition to the Serbian and Philippine electoral coups, the role of various sectors and levels of the military – from the brass to the privates — can be critical. 

But as revealed by the top brass’ second thoughts after the military was called in to provide Trump a photo op confrontation in Lafayette Square during a June Black Lives Matter demonstration, they are most likely to come to a sense of their responsibilities when they are called on to suppress peaceful protestors in the interests of a tyrant. 

Social Self-Defense 

Resisting the rise of tyranny will no doubt require sacrifice. After all, we are dealing with an aspiring tyrant who lionizes someone who shoots down demonstrators in the street. But that sacrifice will not be primarily on behalf of one political party vs. another, of Democrats vs. Republicans. It will be a defense of democracy – defense of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

Beyond that, it is the protection of that which makes our life together on earth possible. It is defense of the human rights of all people; of the conditions of our earth and its climate that make our life possible; of the constitutional principle that government must be accountable to law; of global cooperation to provide a secure future for our people and planet; and of our ability to live together in our communities, our country, and our world. It is a threat to all of us as members of society. Overcoming a Trump Coup is Social Self-Defense. 

Notes 

1.     From the Spanish autogolpe, used to describe cases in Latin America in the early 1960s. Sharp and Jenkins, Anti-Coup, p. 6. https://novact.org/2012/09/the-anti-coup-bruce-jenkins-and-gene-sharp/?lang=en.

2.     The term “Social Self-Defense” has its origin in the Polish Committee for Social Self-Defense which led to the creation of the Solidarity trade union and ultimately the dissolution of Poland’s Communist dictatorship. I have used it before to characterize the Trump Resistance. Jeremy Brecher, “Social Self-Defense: Protecting People and Planet against Trump and Trumpism,” https://www.labor4sustainability.org/uncategorized/social-self-defense-protecting-people-and-planet-against-trump-and-trumpism/.

3.     Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle (Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005).  Gene Sharp & Bruce Jenkins, The Anti-Coup (Boston: The Albert Einstein Institution). Sharp’s magisterial three-volume The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent) lays out how and why nonviolent direct action is able to work.

4.     Steven Zunes, Civil Resistance Against Coups: A Comparative and Historical Perspective (ICNC Monograph Series) https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Stephen-Zunes-Monograph_Final.pdf.

5.     Joshua Paulson, “People Power Against the Philippine Dictator – 1986,” in Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle (Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005), Ibid.

6.     “Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition,” Transition Integrity Project, August 3, 2020. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7013152/Preventing-a-Disrupted-Presidential-Election-and.pdf and  Rosa Brooks, “What’s the worst that could happen? The election will likely spark violence – and a constitutional crisis,” Washington Post, September 3, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/03/trump-stay-in-office/?arc404=true.

7.     Barton Gellman, “What If Trump Refuses to Concede?,” The Atlantic, pre-released in late September from November, 2020 issue. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/ Much of the same material is covered and confirmed with additional details in David Smith, “Recipe for Chaos,” The Guardian, September 27, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/27/recipe-for-chaos-2020-election-threatens-snap-us-already-pushed-limit.

8.     Hardy Merriman, Ankur Asthana, Marium Navid, Kifah Shah. Hold the Line: A Guide to Defending Democracy. version 1.1. 2020.  http://holdthelineguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Hold-The-Line_-A-Guide-to-Defending-Democracy.pdf.

9.     Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Jose Alejandro La Luz, “Organized Labor and the ‘Cold Civil War,’” Portside, September 17, 2020. https://portside.org/2020-09-17/organized-labor-and-cold-civil-war.

10.  The Trump Resistance and other mass opposition to Trump and Trumpism is recounted in Jeremy Brecher, Strike! Revised, Expanded, and Updated Edition (Oakland CA: PM Press, 2020) Chapter 12, “Harbingers.” https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1085.

11.  Larry Buchanan, Quoctrung Bui, Jugal K. Patel, “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History,” The New York Times, July 3, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html.

12.  Sam Stein, “The Left Secretly Preps for MAGA Violence After Election Day,” The Daily Beast, September 8, 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-left-secretly-preps-for-violence-after-election-day . Developing efforts against a Trump Coup are also described in Sasha Abramsky, “Is Trump Planning a Coup d’État?,” The Nation, September 7, 2020. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-coup-elections-gop/.

13.  Sam Stein.

14.  Richard Trumka, “We Will Not Tolerate Any Constitutional Breach,” _AFL-CIO, September 25, 2020.  https://aflcio.org/press/releases/trumka-we-will-not-tolerate-any-constitutional-breach.

15.  Jennifer Steinhauer and Helene Cooper, “At Pentagon, Fears Grow That Trump Will Pull Military into Election Unrest,” New York Times, September 25, 2020. https://portside.org/2020-09-25/pentagon-fears-grow-trump-will-pull-military-election-unrest.