Make Rojava Green Again Call for Action Days on the 18th and 19th July

Call for Global Action Days on the 18th and 19th July

Together with the campaigns Rise Up 4 Rojava and Women Defend Rojava, we call for two international days of action on the 18th and 19th of July 2020, against the bombing and invasion of Basûr (Southern Kurdistan, Iraq) and the occupation of Rojava regions by the Turkish army.

Together, we call on all people who share the values of democratic confederalism – democracy, ecology and feminism – to take to the streets and to Rise Up 4 the Revolution. From our side, we would also particularly want to call for all ecological groups, movements and parties and to all people who feel and see themselves as ecologists to join the demonstrations and actions. 

War is the antithesis of ecology

We think that to be ecologist means also to be against all the wars of aggression. Because, wars are the contrary of what we, as ecologists, fight for. While we are trying to build an ecological and ethical world where all living things can co-exist in harmony, wars are only further destroying and polluting our planet. 

While we give so much effort in reforesting deserts, in building ecological energy infrastructures, in providing non-polluted and non-toxic food and water to all people, wars can destroy all of it in few days and pollute the soil, the air and the water with long-lasting effects. And this is what is happening today in Bakûr (North Kurdistan, Turkey), Rojava, North-Eastern Syria and Basûr.

Through its invasion of Syria and Iraq, the Turkish state destroys all living: burning fields and forests in Rojava, cutting down the olive trees of Afrin, bombing electrical and water infrastructures, cutting the water flow of major rivers coming from Turkey to Syria, and now for some weeks bombing more than ever the untouched nature of the mountains of Southern Kurdistan, polluting the soil, water and air for an unknown time. 

The Turkish attacks target all places which fight for democracy, ecology and feminism

For years already, the Turkish state, with the occasional approval of NATO, the US and Russia, pursue a genocidal war against the Kurds and other minorities of the Middle East (Êzîdî people, Armenians, Chaldeans, Assirians, etc.) and is now invading Syria and Iraq against all international laws. 

But what they are targeting is the political project that is behind those people: their goal is to put an end to the construction of a democratic, ecologist and feminist area in the Middle East that could spread to the world. Indeed, the Rojava revolution, together with the liberated Arab regions of North-Eastern Syria,  the Free Mountains of Kurdistan, the self-governed Maxmur refugee camp and the democratic Êzîdî region of Sengal are all examples that another way of living is possible outside the Capitalist Modernity. 

These are all places where democratic confederalism is put into practice and where ecological and feminist societies are being built up. Because Rojava, together with those other places inspire so many people in the world, they are a threat to their nationalist, capitalist and patriarchal interests. Therefore, Turkey decided to bomb and burn every inch of those lands. Their message is clear: either surrender to capitalist modernity, or face total destruction of the nature and the people. 

On the 15th of June, the Turkish army shelled Maxmur and Sengal. And some days later they started their ground offensive to invade Basûr (Southern Kurdistan, Iraq) where dozens of bombs are falling every day since then. The 23rd, they also struck Rojava with a drone, murdering 3 women of Kongra Star, the umbrella organization of the Women’s Movement, in a neighborhood of Kobane. Also on the 25th, another drone killed 8 civilians in the province of Suleymaniya. And in the mountains, the war continues. 

This is why we call for international solidarity! We ask all people who believe in the value of ecology, of feminism and of radical democracy to take to the street the 18th and 19th of July for the days of action and to join the preparatory actions worldwide. 

Against all war of aggression, against all fascism and totalitarianism, against patriarchy and capitalism, against the destruction of all nature: 

Rise up for Rojava,

Rise up for the Free Mountains of Kurdistan

Rise up for the Sengal region and Maxmur, and

Rise up for the build-up of an ecological and ethical world!

Alone, we are nothing, but together, we are unstoppable! 

Make Rojava Green Again 

PLEASE LET US KNOW ABOUT ANY PUBLIC EVENTS SO WE CAN ALSO HELP IN MAKING THEM PUBLIC ON OUR WEBSITES AND WITH FRIENDS, TOO! 

Mail to::internationalistcommune@riseup.net

#RiseUp4Rojava

This General Election is Unpredictable in Fragmented Britain

Leaving aside how badly wrong most of the opinion polls were at 2017 General Election, so far all the pollsters give the Tories a decent lead over Labour, although the lead has narrowed over the last week or so. The picture is being further complicated by regional variations and even variations within regions.

Take a look at these local council by-election results from this week, as supplied by Britain Elects. Yes, council by-elections have a low turn out of voters, usually around 30%, and yes local issues can and do play a part in swaying the voters. But they are real votes, not (weighted) surveys of what people tell pollsters they intend to do.

St Mary's (Powys) result:

LAB: 37.4% (+16.3)

CON: 26.5% (-14.9)

PC: 14.1% (+14.1)

LDEM: 11.1% (-16.3)

IND: 11.0% (+11.0)

Labour GAIN from Conservative.

No GRN (-10.2) as prev.

Goodrington with Roselands (Torbay) result:

CON: 49.3% (+17.6)

LDEM: 35.5% (-)

BREX: 9.3% (+9.3)

LAB: 4.0% (-3.2)

GRN: 1.9% (-8.9)

Conservative GAIN from Liberal Democrat.

No UKIP (-14.7) as prev.

Culverden (Tunbridge Wells) result:

LDEM: 46.7% (+33.5)

CON: 24.9% (-19.1)

WEP: 10.2% (+10.2)

TWA: 9.5% (+9.5)

LAB: 5.2% (-14.3)

GRN: 3.5% (-7.5)

Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.

No UKIP (-12.2) as prev (2016).

Shap (Eden) result:

LDEM: 48.5% (+17.3)

CON: 33.8% (-17.4)

PCF: 17.7% (+0.1)

Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.

PCF: Putting Cumbria First.

Dunfermline East (Fife) first preferences:

SNP: 33.2% (+9.1)

CON: 24.8% (-6.5)

LDEM: 22.8% (+13.8)

LAB: 13.5% (-6.3)

GRN: 5.1% (+0.9)

LBT: 0.6% (+0.6)

SNP GAIN from Conservative.

Rosyth (Fife) first preferences:

SNP: 42.8% (+16.5)

CON: 24.4% (-2.3)

LAB: 15.2% (-4.3)

LDEM: 7.9% (-0.9)

IND: 5.0% (+2.9)

GRN: 4.2% (+0.7)

LBT: 0.5% (+0.5)

SNP HOLD.

No other Ind(s) (-13.1) as prev.

Rhos (Neath Port Talbot) result:

PC: 53.9% (+23.1)

CON: 24.3% (+0.8)

LAB: 21.8% (-23.9)

Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour.

As you can see, the results cover England, Scotland and Wales, and vary considerably in different parts of the country. There looks to be something for all the parties to cheer in these results. The St Mary's result appears indicate the Labour party benefiting from there being no Green candidate standing.

The Scottish results confirm what the polls have been saying about the Scottish National Party's prospects in Scotland, they look good. In England and Wales though, no clear winner is indicated by these results. Although it looks as though things are going fairly well for the Liberal Democrats.

The local elections just before the 2017 General Election were disastrous for Labour, gaining only 27% of the popular vote, and losing 382 council seats. They were good for the Tories who got 38% of the vote and gained 563 council seats. Only a month later at the General Election the Tories scored 42.4% of the vote, whilst Labour got 40%, and the Tories duly lost their majority in Parliament.

Labour is probably in a better position now that it was at this stage of the 2017 campaign, but they do look to have ground to make up, to be in with a chance forming a government, although it will probably need to be some kind coalition, with Labour the largest party.

The mood may be different from 2017, after all of the paralysis in Parliament of the last two years, with voters getting increasingly frustrated with the inability of MPs to agree something, anything, to move us on from the Brexit debate, and this is something that the Tories are trying to cynically exploit.

But judging by the times that the Tory leader Boris Johnson meets actual voters on his walk-abouts though, not all voters are absolving him from blame for this, and voters want to talk about other issues, the NHS, cuts to council services and environmental concerns, especially in recently flood hit areas. I also think it is fair to say that the Tory campaign has been pretty shambolic, and no better than the car crash campaign they had in 2017.

It is hard to see how the recent floods will play well for the Tories, and it could be even worse with the looming winter crisis in the NHS, so there is all still to all play for the opposition parties over the next four weeks. Over 850,000 people under the age of 34 have registered to vote since the election was called, who tend to favour Labour over the Tories and also tend to be mainly anti-Brexit.

The coming election could well shape the country for a generation, and I think it is the most important General Election since 1979. I’m sure many people have not engaged with the campaign so far, but traditionally tend to in the last two weeks. This time though it will be almost Christmas by then, and it is to be hoped that voters are not distracted by that. There are so many unknowns in this election which makes it so difficult to call.    

May’s Charm Offensive to Labour MPs Smacks of Desperation

Theresa May’s piece in The Observer on Sunday, was ostensively aimed at Labour voters, with talk of antisemitism, threats to national security and the deselection threat to ‘moderate’ MPs, as evidence of Labour being unfit to govern. This narrative has been running for some time in the Tory supporting press, a smear campaign no less, of what May refers to as the ‘Jeremy Corbyn party’. But more immediately, she needs to win over ‘moderate’ Labour MPs to get her Brexit deal though Parliament, rather than voters.

In the Tory party in Parliament the numbers just don’t stack up for May’s Chequers Brexit plan, so she is really appealing to Labour MPs in thinly veiled code with The Observer piece. There is said to be up to 80 Tory MPs who are ready to vote against the Chequers plan, although some estimates put it as low as 20 in the end game. I suspect there are more than twenty. These MPs are from the hard Brexit wing of the Tory party, and probably prefer no deal at all, to the prime minister’s plan, even before the European Union (EU) starts chipping away at it, which it is sure to do.

What the most pro-EU Tory MPs will do, maybe a dozen or so MPs, I’m not sure, and it probably depends on what final deal May brings back to Parliament, but they might go along with it - perhaps. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) might well prefer a no deal scenario, as I think they want a hard land border with the Republic of Ireland, so May has to find a way of keeping them on side, which she has so far. She really has no other choice though, or the numbers in Parliament become even shakier than they look now.

There are 316 Tory MPs at present, with 10 DUP MPs sustaining the government, a total of 326. 326 is the magic number for a majority in the House of Commons, but one MP is the speaker, and seven represent Sinn Fein, who on principle take no part in the British Parliament historically, and show no signs of changing. This effectively reduces the number required for a governing majority to 318.

Labour has 257 MPs, excluding 6 who have lost the whip or are self declared independents. The Scottish National Party has 35 MPs, the Lib Dems 12, Plaid Cymru 4, and the Green Party one, and two other independents. An ‘opposition’ total of 317 MPs, who mostly look likely to vote against the prime minister’s Chequers plan. If this is the case, then it will take only a handful Tory hard line Brexit MPs to defeat whatever the government ends up with as a deal with the EU.

But as I say, I am pretty sure that more than 20 Tories will vote the against the government, and perhaps as many as 30 or so, and it could be even more than that, so May needs twenty odd votes from elsewhere at least, and Labour, together with its ex-MPs, now independents, is surely where May is hoping to get them from. It is not clear to me whether these independents will support the government though, as some may prefer a no deal scenario, so I don’t think these MPs can be taken for granted by the government.

The other target will be disaffected, and pro-EU Labour MPs, of which there are many, but from public statements from MPs like Chuka Umunna, they have expressed opposition to May’s proposals so far. It is possible that the EU will propose something more to their liking, but that might mean even more that 30 or so Tories rebelling.

Pro-EU Labour MPs will probably prefer to vote May’s plan down, so that Parliament could then manoeuvre to get no Brexit rather than no deal. In other words, postpone Article 50. This in turn might lead to a second referendum, which may see us remain in the EU. That is a more attractive prize to these MPs, even if they are nervous of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. 

There is a cultural resistance amongst Labour MPs to the Conservative party too, not to mention an instinct for self preservation, that will make many recoil from supporting the government. Defeat for the Tories may lead to a general election giving Labour the chance to make a better job of Brexit than the Tories are ever likely to do.

May’s tactics look to be a forlorn attempt to square the Brexit circle, and is almost certainly doomed to failure.   

Green Party Activists Voice Doubts about an Electoral Progressive Alliance

As counting begins in the Green Party leader and deputy leader elections, Caroline Lucas, one of the (joint) candidates for leader, has renewed her call for a progressive alliance of parties of the broad left at the next general election.

But not all activists within the Green Party agree with Lucas, and there is at the very least a degree of scepticism in the party about the viability of such an alliance.

The BBC piece quotes some of them:

David Williams, another leadership contender, said that while he supported of the idea of talking to other parties he believed Labour would not co-operate. He told the BBC: ‘We can make agreements I think with the Liberal Democrats, with Plaid Cymru, with the SNP but the advantages in terms of ousting the Tories as a result of that are quite marginal. They could be quite substantial if Labour would come along and join the alliance but I don't think they will.’

An Oxfordshire Green Party activist Hazel Dawe said a "progressive" alliance would be "a wonderful thing" but believed it was unachievable. She said: ‘I think there are a lot of obstacles to achieving it, not the least of which is that the Labour party is not committed to proportional representation.’

Clive Lord, veteran of the party and a candidate for the Green Party leadership this year writes on his blog:

‘I start from a sceptical position. Labour have understandably done their damnedest to destroy the Green Party wherever we show most signs of a breakthrough – Brighton, Norwich, Bristol, Oxford.’

Andrew Cooper, from Kirkless Green Party and one of the deputy leadership candidates writing on The Norwich Radical says:

‘Labour needs to have a Progressive Alliance with itself before it can really contemplate having one with anyone else. Until Labour hopefully ‘settles down’ into some degree of stability we can’t progress matters with them.’

‘The other issue with Labour is that currently I am not convinced they have that much enthusiasm for Electoral Reform which is the principal rationale for the proposal. Too many Labour MPs and activists seem to be of the ‘one last heave’ brigade, that believe that if the undemocratic First Past the Post system works for them, then somehow that makes it legitimate. Electoral realities may make Labour wake up more quickly with a Party that is now decimated in Scotland and divided across the country. Another worrying sign was when Caroline Lucas’s 10 minute rule bill tabled last week on Electoral Reform was subject to a Labour Whip asking Labour MPs to abstain.’

Another Deputy Leadership candidate Alan Borgars writing on his blog states: ‘It would also deprive so many voters of the chance to vote for a forward-thinking alternative with new ideas and a genuine willingness to change our broken political and socio-economic systems in the UK…The Green Party can win elections without help, and indeed has had to. In fact, it was Labour we won Brighton Pavilion from in the first place back in 2010.’ Alan is a Green Left supporter.

Meanwhile, Ashford Green Party in Kent, passed motions sceptical about the Green Party joining a progressive alliance, and calling for the decision to made by members, not leadership figures in the party. One of the motions contains this paragraph:

‘Ashford Green Party is calling on the leadership and all other members of the party to immediately cease from claiming that the GPEW supports a progressive alliance until a policy is passed by conference or an internal referendum which gives all members a voice on the matter.’

Yet another Deputy leadership candidate Shahrar Ali has called for full internal party consultation on the issue.

Green Party member Charles Gate from Yorkshire, another supporter of Green Left comments on a post on the Bright Green blog on the issue:

‘First let me rename the ‘progressive alliance’ the ‘Evil Dead Alliance’ – EVIL for the lib dems (for those of you with short memories) who supported the Tories (The Evil Dead Alliance is aimed at Tories remember) for 5 long years of austerity – DEAD for the Labour Party who are not interested in anything but their own internal fighting and who ever wins the leadership that will just lead to continued in-fighting. The Labour party are probably lost for a generation as a meaningful force in politics, they may even be destroyed entirely – ALLIANCE, oh! that will be us the GP and Plaid Cymru...The Green Party leadership need to come up with something better – why not try, we are the Green Party, this is what we stand for?’

And finally a Green Party activist quoted on Left Foot Forward wrote:

‘Every time I hear ‘progressive alliance’ I hear the death knell of radical politics in the party. I hope I’m wrong.’

Personally, I’ve stated on this blog in the past that I would broadly agree to the progressive alliance idea, but I must admit, I’m pretty sceptical myself about whether it will actually happen in the end.

If the Labour Party Splits, What is the Future for a Progressive Electoral Alliance?

The Labour Party Right, quite correctly were foiled in their attempt to keep the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, off the ballot paper for the upcoming party leadership election. The rules for a leadership contest when no vacancy exists, are pretty clear, and Labour’s NEC confirmed yesterday that Corbyn will be automatically on the ballot, as well as any challengers.

It is still possible that the Labour Right will challenge the NEC ruling in the courts, but it looks unlikely, and even if they did, they would no doubt lose the case. So the election in all probability, will now take place.

The change to the rules, barring new Labour Party members from voting and the sharp increase in the fee for Labour Party supporters being allowed to vote in the leadership election, is another attempt by the Labour Right to circumvent normal democratic processes, and to increase their chances of defeating Corbyn in the contest.

I have written before that I would broadly support the Green Party joining an electoral progressive alliance at the next general election, to try and oust the Tories from power, but recent events in the Labour Party throw this into question.

If Corbyn wins the leadership election, what will the Labour Right do? They may decide to form a separate party, and may even try to keep the Labour Party name. On the other hand, they may go back to the guerrilla warfare of the last month or so, and try to paralyse the party in Parliament, and wait for another opportunity to challenge Corbyn for the leadership, probably next year, and then again the year after that, ad infinitum.

If the Labour Right does form a new, separate party (whatever the name) or join forces with the Lib Dems, should Greens join this ‘progressive alliance?’ And would Corbyn’s Labour be invited into this alliance?

It seems unlikely to me, that if the Labour Party does split, they are then going to form to an immediate electoral alliance with each other. That just doesn’t make any sense, so the whole idea of a progressive alliance would be dead in the water.

Also, would anti-Corbyn Labour want to form an alliance with the Lib Dems and Greens (possibly even SNP and PC), but exclude Corbyn Labour? And if this was the case, should the Greens take part in this kind of reactionary alliance? I think not.

The best that can be hoped for, is perhaps a constituency by constituency alliance, where local Green Parties, assess the candidates and support whoever is the best placed ‘progressive’ candidate, which ever party they are representing. I would suggest in most cases this would be from the Corbyn led Labour Party.

A lot of things might happen before the next general election, so from this distance out, it is hard to say whether the idea of a progressive alliance is a runner or not. But recent events in the Labour Party do indicate that, at least in the previously suggested form, the alliance will be anything but ‘progressive.’

Personally, I don’t think that I could stomach an alliance with the Labour Right. I joined the Green Party in large part because I was thoroughly disillusioned with what the Labour Party had become under the leadership of Tony Blair.

I really can’t see me supporting the Labour Right in anyway at all now after their cynical use of the EU referendum vote and their complete contempt for fairness and democracy, in mounting this coup against Corbyn. I’d rather risk seeing a Tory government re-elected than help the Labour Right into power now.  

Thoughts on Caroline Lucas’s Progressive Alliance Proposal

The Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas writing in The Guardian yesterday called on Labour’s leadership hopefuls to embrace multi party politics and form a ‘progressive alliance’ ahead of the next general election due in 2020.

Perhaps the least controversial element in the proposed strategy is the call for Labour to back a change in the electoral system, to a more proportional system which better reflects the wishes of the voters. Labour under Tony Blair’s leadership in opposition in the 1990s promised such a change and commissioned a report by former Labour Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, into the issue when Labour won the 1997 general election. There was opposition from some senior Labour politicians, pointing out that they had just won by a landslide under the existing electoral system, so why should they change it? The report was shelved and never mentioned again.

However, it is looking difficult for Labour now to win under the First Past The Post (FPTP) system, with their wipe out in Scotland at this year’s election, so maybe Labour will see an advantage in changing, or maybe not. Labour will know that under almost any other voting system they would not get an overall majority (nor would the Tories), so better to stick with FPTP.

But it is Lucas’s suggestion of an electoral pact of the ‘progressive’ parties that is the most controversial suggestion and it is riddled with difficulties too, especially if we keep FPTP. She writes:

 ‘A possible first step could be for Labour, Greens, Lib Dems, the SNP and Plaid Cymru to empower local branches with the ability to back candidates from other parties if they wish’.

This is possible already in the Green party and is probably so in the other parties, after all, local parties can choose not to field a candidate. Such arrangements have been made at elections between RESPECT and the Greens, in Birmingham at a general election and in the north-west of England region at a European election. But the five parties mentioned above would be much more difficult to get an agreement with. Labour and the Lib Dems see the Greens as their enemy and so are unlikely to help us win seats, which no doubt were held by them in the recent past.

In this year’s general election Labour poured a lot of resources into trying to recapture Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas’s seat, all to no avail in the end. But they clearly want that seat back.

Our next best result was in Bristol West. This was the result:

Labour   35.7%

Greens   26.8%

Lib Dem 18.8%

Tories     15.2%

Can you see Labour (or the Lib Dems who held the seat before the election) standing down in favour of the Greens? No, I can’t either.

The problem is that the Greens, Labour and Lib Dems are all competing for pretty much the same voters. This type of alliance would mean us standing down in pretty much all of our potentially winnable seats, apart maybe from Brighton Pavilion, which would not be great deal for us, just as we are starting to gain electoral ground.

Of course we don’t know who the leaders of Labour and Lib Dems will be at this stage and in which political direction they will take their parties. I wouldn’t imagine say, Liz Kendall taking Labour in a more progressive direction. But whoever becomes the leader of Labour and the Lib Dems, it would surely look like they had given up all hope of advancement by accepting this kind of arrangement. Then there is getting local parties to agree to standing aside for their fiercest local rivals. Not easy at all I think.

The old social democratic parties are being replaced in parts of Europe by a new left. Having become discredited by their embrace of neo-liberal economics, the voters are abandoning these parties and are attracted to new radical parties of the left, who offer a genuine alternative to the pro-big business, privatisation agenda that is pursued by the social democratic parties these days.

We should aim to replace Labour and the Lib Dems as the party of choice for progressive voters, not prop up their unpopularity with the electorate by leaving them unchallenged. It’s probably a long road, but we need to take more Labour and Lib Dem seats before they are likely to change their policies to match ours and be worth having an alliance with. 

The Establishment is Terrified of Nicola Sturgeon

The Scottish National party’s (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon’s strong performance in the televised election party leader’s debate has put the wind up the establishment. In what looks like a classic dirty tricks operation, the Telegraph newspaper alleges in a report that a third or fourth hand Foreign Office official's ‘note’ of a meeting between Sturgeon and the French Ambassador to the UK, the SNP leader voiced a preference for the Tory leader David Cameron to remain as Prime Minister. According to the note, Sturgeon didn’t think that Labour’s Ed Miliband would make a good PM.

Sturgeon and the French Ambassador, Sylvie Bermann, and the French Consul, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, who purportedly had said this, have all denied that it is true. The civil service Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood is to investigate the leak.

In the note itself, even the writer questions the validity of the report, thinking it unlikely someone like Sturgeon would talk about things like this with foreign officials. It does beggar belief that an experienced politician like Sturgeon would say something like this, and it doesn’t add up when Sturgeon is trying to form some kind of post-election alliance with Labour. If the report had said something like Sturgeon wanted the Tories to win so as to speed up the chances of Scottish independence, it would be more plausible, although not completely. But to say that Miliband wouldn’t make as good a PM as Cameron, doesn’t make any sense at all.

Another Tory backing newspaper the Daily Mail waded in with a headline labelling Sturgeon ‘the most dangerous woman in Britain.’ All of this shows that the establishment is extremely worried about the SNP (and Plaid Cymru and the Greens) holding the balance of power after the election. What is scaring them so much?

Clearly, the prospect of pressure being put onto a Labour minority administration to reverse the poor bashing anti-austerity policies of the Coalition and opening up the question of why we need the Trident nuclear weapons system, has thrown them into a tailspin. The prospect of a government actually introducing policies that favour the bulk of the population over the establishment elite, and having a proper debate over our defense strategy is beyond the pale for our establishment elites. This is an eventuality that must be stopped at all costs.

It reminds me of the infamous ‘Zinoviev letter’ published in 1924 just ahead of the general election in, yes, the Daily Mail (who later went on to praise Adolf Hitler). Zinoviev whose signature was (apparently) on the document, was a senior Soviet Union official, writing to the Communist party of Great Britain. The letter called for increased agitation from workers in Britain to form a communist government. The letter was a forgery, but it did enough to collapse the Liberal party vote and give the Tories a big majority in Parliament.

Labour has been quick to denounced the ‘Sturgeon note’, seeing a tribal advantage where they are threatened with wipe out at the hands of the SNP, but few in Scotland will fall for this obvious manipulation of the voters by the establishment. In England too, I can’t see it having much effect except with the most loyal of Labourites.

But Labour’s acquiescence with these reactionary forces opens up the question of a ‘grand coalition’ between the establishment parties, to keep out the peasants from north of the border and elsewhere. If this comes to pass it will be the end for the Labour party and perhaps the Tories too. All the talk of Labour being Tories in disguise will be laid bare for all to see. It really would be the ‘longest suicide note in history.’