Labour Party

Momentum convention: a mixed bag

The Labour left grouping Momentum held its first-ever "members' convention" via Zoom on 10 March 2024, eight and a half years after the group was set up.

Fight for a workers' government

The very-mainstream Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that the Tory government’s current plans mean real-terms cuts of around 1.2% in NHS day-to-day spending. That is the largest reduction for over 50 years, and from a position where the NHS is already staggering — with big staff shortfalls and record waiting lists, and a backlog of repairs needed to hospital buildings. Local councils are being pushed into dramatic cuts. Yet the Tories plan tax cuts for the 6 March Budget. These are to be “balanced” by promises of new spending cuts in year ahead. Even the chair of the the Office for...

Reinstate Lambeth councillors!

The right-wing Labour council group in Lambeth, south London, has suspended four councillors from the Labour whip for defying orders to vote against a Green motion (in January) for a ceasefire in Gaza. The suspension came on 26 February — after the whole Labour leadership had come out for an immediate ceasefire (21 February) and long after London Labour mayor Sadiq Khan and several Labour councils had made that call. Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for one of the Lambeth constituencies, has condemned the suspensions. Sonia Winifred, suspended for three months, has resigned from her council seat...

The cuts and the rich

The Tories are talking about tax cuts in the Wednesday 6 March budget. They will “balance” those with notional public spending cuts from 2025 which (they reckon) will be someone else’s problem to implement. The Labour leadership has pledged itself to uphold the “fiscal rules” and also not to raise taxes on the rich and big business beyond spots like repealing the “non-domiciled” exemption. That puts Starmer and Reeves — and, more importantly, the working class — in an impossible trap. Solidarity is pushing in the unions and the Labour Party to force Labour to increase taxes on the rich and big...

Labour and Gaza: now back Standing Together

The Labour leadership has moved to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. That is good, although very, very late: local Labour Parties have been passing ceasefire motions since October, and Labour councils have come out in favour too. The procedural chaos surrounding the UK Parliament vote on 21 February does not reflect well on any party involved (see Antidoto column, page 4). The Labour text passed is, on the Labour leaders’ own account, worded so as to chime in with Australia, Canada, and New Zealand government policy. Why? To appear “statesmanlike” and coax some Tory MPs to vote for it...

Playing parliamentary games on Gaza

On 21 February, Parliament passed a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and condemning the proposed ground offensive in Rafah. All of which is good. Beyond that, however, the rest of what happened in the Commons that night was a disgrace with the cause of peace in Gaza overshadowed by cynicism, opportunism and hypocrisy on all sides. The SNP was clearly motivated at least as much by a desire to embarrass Labour as it was by concern for the people of Gaza. The Labour leadership was mainly concerned to avoid another rebellion and see if they could put a wedge into the Tories. The...

Labour: fit to oust the Tories?

Is Labour fit to oust the Tories? On 15 February Labour won two seats in by-elections, Wellingborough and Kingswood, with big swings from the Tories. Labour is still a broad movement. There is more hope there than in the dim and narrow leftish splinters of the last few years. Yet Keir Starmer and his new-Blairite backroom are working to shrivel hope. Starmer evidently believes that the Tories are floundering so badly that to win the general election “safelty” he needs only promise big business a safe and friendly hand on the wheel, and appease “socially-conservative” voters. The 15 Feb...

Make unions commit Labour to green and renewable energy!

Labour leader Keir Starmer’s 8 February U-turn on Labour’s £28 billion flagship green investment pledge has been justified on the grounds that it is incompatible with servicing the national debt. He wants to be seen to be scrabbling around after every last penny, lest the Tories label him imprudent. The national debt, with interest payments around £100 billion a year, is a genuine problem. Much of the debt is held outside the UK, so couldn’t be quelled even by full public ownership of high finance in the UK, and even a workers’ government might want to retain links with the international...

No run for mayor

Contrary to media speculation, Jeremy Corbyn is not going to run for London Mayor. The poll is on 2 May; Sadiq Khan is the Labour candidate. The possibility, however, remains open of the local Labour Party defying the Labour leadership and selecting Corbyn (who is still a Labour member, though denied the Labour whip in Parliament) as its candidate in Islington North in the coming parliamentary election. Solidarity has supported the wide protest against Islington North being denied a democratic choice, but has argued against courting exclusion by a “local independent” contest. The result would...

Starmer to blame for Rochdale fiasco

Keir Starmer’s running of the Labour Party is to blame for the fiasco of the Rochdale by-election on 29 February. Labour has disavowed its candidate, Azhar Ali. It is too near to polling day on 29 February to run another candidate or even to remove Ali’s “Labour” designation from ballot papers. The reactionary demagogue George Galloway now has a good chance, and maybe even the far-right Reform Party’s candidate, Simon Danczuk (a former right-wing Labour MP who was sacked by Labour after harassing a 17-year old woman). The Tories got 31% in 2019. A local Labour activist told us that his guess...

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