More on Brexit
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Why not make a weekend of it? 😀
Depends on whether I can free up the Sunday, will have to play it by ear. Also a bit wary on the train back with the Marathon. But it’s still open ended
Alan mentioned somewhere (but I can’t find where) that the Extinction Rebellion people were standing candidates in the European Parliament elections. That explains why there are so many independent non-party candidates standing in London, 11 in fact. Nine of these are XR people.
Their being prepared to put their views to the test of public support is to be commended but what they are doing does not make sense. First, there is no way of telling which of the 11 independents are theirs. Second, they are not standing as a list (independents cannot), so you can’t validly vote for all of them, i.e. they are competing against each other. Third, each of the 9 has had to be pay a deposit of £5000, that’s a total of £45,000, which they won’t get back since none of them will get past the 2% bar for getting it back especially as they are competing against each other.
Presumably, it’s some short of publicity stunt, a rather expensive one I would have thought.
But it does mean that the number of vaguely radical groups standing anywhere is not made up just of the Animal Rights Party and the Women’s Equality Party. We are the only list that others would qualify as “left of Labour”, i.e. none of the other parties claiming to be socialist are standing.
It looks then as if these elections will be a proxy referendum. The Daily Express is claiming that over 90% of electors say they will vote. I’ll believe that when I see it, not that anything published in that rag is to be taken seriously. Even so, the turn-out could be the highest ever in elections to the European Parliament. It could even break through the 505 barrier for the first time ever. If they take place, that is.
Hi guys, unfortunately I was unable to attend conference today. I came down with food poisoning, and my partner then cut her hand on a smashed bowl – spent yesterday evening in A&E…
So Extinction Rebellion are standing as independents? They must have some financial backing. Are they doing it to just make the ballot look clogged and ridiculous?
Appears to me that no other minor socialist parties are standing full stop?
Presume they are supporting Labour? Socialism must be their priority huh?
“Brexit has been an almighty distraction and those who are really worried about the future of Britain should be looking more at social policy than Brexit because that’s where the future is being decided. It is like a husband and wife arguing furiously and endlessly over what sort of car to buy but meanwhile they are letting the house fall apart, they are losing contact with the people to whose houses they would be driving, the picnic places they would have wanted to go to are being sold up and by the time they make their decision, they are going to have lost so much that either result is going to be hollow – whether leave or remain.”
Just read through some of the leaflets I picked up at the May Day rally in London yesterday. This one headed “In or Out of the EU – The Rich Will Still Rule!” is really quite good. But for a reference to future “socialist countries” it could almost have come from us. No idea who they are but they appear to be Maoists.
(My browser says the link is insecure but you can get round this, but if anyone can’t and wants to read the text I can post it here; it’s not very long).
“(My browser says the link is insecure but you can get round this, but if anyone can’t and wants to read the text I can post it here; it’s not very long).”
Here’s the website of Revolutionary Praxis, another Marxist-Leninist outfit, and the text of that leaflet in particular.
http://www.revolutionarypraxis.org/
http://www.revolutionarypraxis.org/?p=2110
“Are they a party? Never heard of them”
Not much more than one man and his dog.
The outfit’s chairman, Harry Powell, is formerly of the Nottingham Communist Group, and maintains periodic online commentaries under the name of Revolutionary Praxis, having earlier politically flirted with the Stalin Society and engaged with the process that saw the formation of the miniscule Communist Party Alliance.
In an 2009 article Powell raised the question ’Is this the End – Maoism in Britain’ and failed to come up with any hopeful conclusions. Under the advertised title of “The Present International and National Situations and the Tasks of Creating a Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain” he had previously attempted to rally Maoist forces in the UK with a joint meeting under the auspices of the Co-Ordination Committee of Revolutionary Communists of Britain in December 2008 addressed by a Norwegian Maoist, Kenneth Fuglemsmoen of Tjen Folket (Serve the People). It failed to coalesce the remaining Maoist veterans into a pre-party organisation.
I hadn’t heard of them either till yesterday. They had a stall in Trafalgar Square with some publications. I must confess I didn’t look at them because the hammer-and-sickle logos put me off. I think they are more a magazine. Following the various trotskyist sects is complicated enough without having to add the maoist ones. But I imagine there are 57 varieties of them too.
In all honesty I can’t say I’ve ever spoken with a Maoist. I wouldn’t be very sure on where their line differs Stalinists and Leninists.
A Brexit Party leaflet has just dropped through my letter box. They are quick off the mark. I suppose they want to get their stuff out before the government cancels the elections (as they intent if they can get a deal with Labour). Among those on the leaflet calling for a Brexit Party vote is ex “Revolutionary Communist Party” Trot, billed as a “writer”, Clare Fox who says: “Left-wing democrats should vote to deliver the referendum result”. Presumably she still regards herself as “left-wing”.
Interesting to see that deliberately spoiled ballot papers, which we used to get mocked for for advocating when faced with a choice of pro-capitalist candidates only, is gaining some legitimacy as a political tactic when you don’t agree with the options on offer:
Since everybody seems to be doing it I think I’ll take a photo of my write-in vote for socialism on 23 May (if the election takes place).
What do people make of this, from “The Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist-Leninist” (not to be confused with “The Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist which is openly chauvinist)?
https://www.cpgb-ml.org/2019/05/07/news/galloway-farage-brexit-party-eu-election/
“Let us state unequivocally that we think Galloway made the correct decision to stand against Scottish independence, and now correctly stands against the EU when he calls for a one-time-only vote for the Brexit party in EU elections, which Britain should not be taking part in at all, in view of the “critical situation we have reached with the implementation of the Brexit referendum”.
Are they calling for a “one-time-only vote for the Brexit party” or simply stating unequivocally that Galloway is correct to call for this? Is there a difference?
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