Brexit election: Lib Dems and SNP get the jump on Labour

The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party have joined forces in a bid to trigger a 9th of December election.

Leaving Labour out in the cold both of the small opposition parties trying to portray Labour as the Party that is stopping any meaningful progress in the continued Brexit impasse.

Both Parties minor Parties have written to EU Council President Donald Tusk asking him to grant the requested three-month extension of a Brexit date.

The parties say they reject Boris Johnson’s election offer, which they believe would include time for him to “ram through” his Brexit Bill.

But they support an election on their timetable to “unlock” Parliament.

Labour again have been caught wrong-footed by the predominantly remain Parties and the so-called People’s vote campaigners. On a number of occasions the smaller Parties have used Labours remain MPs to push and pull Labour into untenable positions. They constantly undermine Jeremy Corbyn more by design than accident.

Breaking ranks its just the long coup

A fresh referendum is the only way to break the Brexit deadlock, Keir Starmer has said in a move that fuelled more divisions at the top for Labour.

The shadow Brexit secretary said there was “only one way out” of the current impasse and made no mention of efforts to first trigger a general election, despite this being the party’s official policy.

This break with Labour Policy was echoed by other right-wing Labour members such as Sadiq Khan, Emily Thornberry Tom Watson. Even a tweet today from Peter Kyle who states: he wants a so-called confirmatory referendum before a general election.

Remain PLP front benches constantly contradicting Corbyn and publicly announcing their demand for a second referendum over a general election. For some reason, they claim a general election will change nothing (try telling that one to the millions suffering under the Tories for the past nine years) were as a second referendum would.

We all know that is a whopper to swallow in the unlikely event that remain won then it would go through years of legal and political challenges from leave campaigners but more like the reality is leave would win again.

Any second referendum would find the leave side fully backed by the entire government machine, not like the 2016 referendum where the Tories under David Cameron campaigned at a great cost to public expenses to remain in the EU. A second referendum would have the full weight of the Government to campaigning to leave.

Many of the strongest advocates for a second referendum now accept it can’t happen in this parliament.

Just two weeks ago, his party was adamant that it was a referendum, not an early election, that could solve Brexit. “Boris Johnson is determined to have a general election,” Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson said then, “but the best way to resolve the Brexit chaos is to have a people’s vote.”

Now Swinson has joined forces with the Scottish National Party to push for a December 9 poll instead. “If the Labour party had wholeheartedly come on board with the People’s Vote campaign, we might have been able to deliver that at an earlier stage,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today program.

It is a public acknowledgement of a reality that has been clear for months. Each time it has been put to a vote in parliament, a second referendum proposal has been defeated. The closest it came to passing was in April, when it was rejected by 12 votes — and then only in a non-binding, indicative vote with numerous abstentions.

The likelihood of a second referendum now looks dimmer still after divisions inside the People’s Vote campaign group reached boiling point last night.

The likelihood of a second referendum now looks dimmer still after divisions inside the People’s Vote campaign group reached boiling point last night. Two of its leading figures — director James McGrory, and head of comms Tom Baldwin — were unexpectedly fired in an email from Roland Rudd, the chairman of Open Britain, one of the organizations that makes up the campaign.

Senior campaign figures were locked in a broadcasting war this morning, with Baldwin telling the Today program that he won’t accept his dismissal by Rudd. “I don’t work for Roland Rudd,” he said, adding that “it doesn’t seem to be the best week for putting a wrecking ball through the campaign.”

Liberal Democrat MP Chuka Umunna told Sky’s Sophy Ridge show on Sunday that “it simply does not look like” the numbers are there for a second referendum.

Labour keep walking into what can only be described as remain traps where they then haemorrhage votes from both camps.

Labour seems to constantly allow the two smaller opposition parties with the aid of prominent members in their own party to manoeuvre them on the remain platform only to leave them in a position to be attacked by both camps of the Brexit issue.

On a marked occasion Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had said his party supports a second referendum, minutes after he had made that statement Labour MPs were whipped to abstain on a vote for a second referendum.

This abstention came after the so-called official @peoplesvote_uk campaign put out a statement – they want MPs to abstain tonight MPs reject a second Brexit referendum by 334 votes to 85. LINK

After the vote Labour remainers held Jeremy Corbyn directly responsible. attacks on Corbyn came from other remain MPs who without a doubt must have been aware of the edit form the so-called official @peoplesvote_uk campaign.

The fallout also brought with it the embarrassment of five Labour frontbenchers resigned as shadow ministers over the party’s abstention order. Ruth Smeeth stepped down before the vote in anticipation of disobeying the leadership’s instructions, while four more frontbenchers who voted against the amendment agreed to resign afterwards.

After the second referendum amendment was rejected by MPs, Labour was then held responsible for its failure and a barrage of attacks followed. Labour lost credibility and support from all sides the winners were the Lib Dems, SNP anyone but Labour.

The So-called Peoples vote run by Blairites Peter Mandelson and Roland Rudd (amber Rudd’s brother) along with the Lib Dems Hugo Dixon must have considered that a very good nights work. If you have not already we recommend you ‘Meet the suits behind the ‘People’s Vote Campaign’ and ‘Open Britain’

Meet the suits behind the ‘People’s Vote Campaign’ and ‘Open Britain’

Labour should drop its vote losing second referendum policy and instead campaign for Lexit.

The Labour Party can be in no doubt that it has lost its political and democratic compass. no amount of Orwellian Doublespeak on a so-called “confirmatory referendum” will make it anything other than a second referendum on the 2016 referendum to leave the EU.

For Labour to deliver on its transformative manifesto we need to leave the EU. The EU inhibits a socialist agenda that would encompass nationalisation of Mail, rail and utilities never mind the billions we want to use for rebuilding our infrastructure across the UK.

Labour need to create a united movement to get the Tories out, it would be fighting on a socialist programme that offered a real alternative to austerity: decent public services, mass council house building, free education, a living wage and more. It would be impossible for Labour to move away from the status quo while we remain in the EU the dreams of an economy outside Austerity and one of breaking monopoly capitalism would remain just that, a dream.

Instead as a Labour party member, I find it embarrassing to watch Labour MPs squirm on national television trying to explain Labour Party policy on Brexit more so when it comes to our newly adopted policy of a second referendum in all circumstance. Labour front benches such as Emily Thornberry have said they will oppose ‘any deal’ and campaign for remain even a deal to leave the EU Labour have conducted themselves.

More so how can the 5 million leave supporting Labour members and supporters trust a Labour negotiation being lead by Keir Starmer? A confirmed remainer that is willing to scuttle Labours chances of winning a general election by going against Labours own conference policy of having a general election before a second referendum.

The mainly London centrist Labour MPs feel they have nothing to lose and are openly pushing a second referendum they feel a lost second referendum is a price worth paying. The chances of remain winning a government back leave campaign are very poor. For most of these centrist MPs the goal is not to remain in the EU that ship as sailed, but to remove Jeremy Corbyn on the back of such a loss.

After losing a second referendum Jeremy Corbyn would be pushed out the Party would revert back to the other Tory party of new labour. But for the Blairites they would not miss a step. Due to the minority Tory Government and lack of numbers Labour would be able then to call a general election with a new centrist Party leader.

The establishment is also desperate to avoid a Jeremy Corbyn-led government. They fear that such a government could be pushed from below to implement a socialist programme that threatens their rule. Therefore, pro-capitalist politicians from every party, including Labour, are working to try to avoid a general election and, in particular, a Corbyn victory.

Mistakenly, Corbyn and the Labour left have been sucked into parliamentary manoeuvres at the expense of a clear campaign for a general election. The workers’ movement now needs to fight remorselessly for an immediate general election and for the election of a Corbyn-led government on a socialist programme.

Such a campaign could cut across division, by bringing common class interests to the fore. In doing so, it would also assist the workers’ movement in Northern Ireland in its fight for workers’ unity and against the sectarianism Johnson so lightly fuels.

Leslie Rowe writes: Because here is the crux of the matter: Brexit is simply a means to an end, not the end in itself. After Brexit we don’t have to have a Boris Johnson-led Tory government.

After Brexit, the British people will be free to choose an alternative government that puts forward left-wing priorities like re-nationalisation of utilities and transport, currently illegal under EU’s competition rules; be free to reverse the privatisation of the NHS introduced by New Labour using EU competition rules and developed by the Tories and their yellow running dogs, the Lib Dems; be free to favour local producers and not have to put everything out to tender under EU procurement rules; be free to support and encourage UK manufacturing in exciting new industries like electric vehicles and put tariffs on gas guzzling automobiles from Germany; be free to develop a more highly skilled labour force, by investing in training for UK citizens, not poaching talent from abroad.

Or to put it another way, like another left-wing hero of mine (Martin Luther King), “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we will be free at last.”