UKIP 'win' in Scotland can stimulate Yes response

Some political clouds can have a silver, even radical, lining.

If Twitter and other social media is any useful measure, progressive minds in Scotland and elsewhere woke this morning to the sinking realisation of a very first UKIP Scottish seat. For many, it was more gutting news following the weekend's Glasgow School of Art fire.

But it's also been a timely reminder of how more alert and preventative action through a Yes vote can keep the proto-independence 'building' safely protected.

UKIP's 'entry' into Scotland has seen considerable gloating from sundry Unionists, some, sadly, on the left: look, they say, Scotland's really 'no different from the rest'.

Well, some perspective: UKIP won the election in England, on a tiny 34 per cent turnout. It came fourth in Scotland, just squeezing out the Greens to take the last seat under a PR system designed to include smaller parties.

And there's the more prosaic truth that, despite nominal anti-immigration feeling, this and related media/political-fed issues are not nearly as toxic in Scotland.   

Not that UKIP's 10 per cent showing has prevented a No-serving media from pitching this as a 'serious blow to Salmond'.

Still, beyond such distortion, the failure to stop UKIP in Scotland should prompt greater awareness not only of establishment fearmongering but the reality of a reactionary section of 'home Unionism' in thrall to UKIP's message. Between now and September, still-swaying voters will hopefully realise that only a Yes choice can check both this and the wider politics of anti-immigrant hatred.     

Even though UKIP registered its surge on that small UK turnout, which may not translate into similar levels of support in a 2015 general election, we can be safely sure that ConDemLab policy will dutifully follow the UKIP 'mood moment'.

We can also safely assume a continuation of the BBC Farage-fest and tabloid hate that's made voting for a proto-fascist party 'respectable'. No need to support the BNP now that the same essential message has been rendered 'media clean' on Question Time and in Daily Mail headlines.
 
Of course, this is the very state and proprietor media which routinely approves and excuses 'non-controversial' politicians, those who direct mass murder in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. UKIP have just been safely inducted into that cosy Westminster club.  

All of which facilitates the mainstream political courting of Farage. Cameron, Clegg and Miliband are now in a race, indeed a panicked sprint, to the right. New Labour, be assured, are not about to take some dramatic left turn in 2015. There will be no deliverance.

Alas, a cabal of neoliberal parties and a loaded parliamentary system doesn't leave leftists in England and Wales with many viable options, other than to boycott the entire Westminster sham.   

Scotland now, at least, has that emergency left exit; another possible direction, an option that can encourage and assist others.  Never before have we been able to seize such a vital opportunity, not only to vacate Westminster but to undermine the entire edifice of the British State.

That may not be a foremost thought for most would-be Yes voters. But, as Chris Bambery asserts, such ideological bonding is keeping key power institutions like Westminster and the City of London intact, with people locked into an obedient political mindset. 

If UKIP's 'arrival' in Scotland is being lamented, it may also provide a more useful jolt to the Independence cause, a rejection of the latest right-wing lurch and a greater dedication to the breaking of the British State.

Greg Philo's false casting of Yes 'nationalism'

Greg Philo's article Socialism and Nationalism is a welcome contribution to the debate on Scottish independence.  

But although an earnest socialist rejection of the Yes position, it's a disappointing recourse to the same fear narrative being waged by the No establishment.

Philo's case relies on a similarly hyped assertion of dark nationalism as the driving force of the Yes movement, which, he warns, is a disastrous impediment to working class unity and any hope of a socialist UK.

Rather than the reality of a broad civil desire for self-determination, rooted in mainly economic and class-based concerns, Philo claims to see an "intensely divisive nationalism".

As 'proof', he lists an array of fear-factor warnings, from examples of anti-English abuse and other 'common' racism to anecdotal recollections of Braveheart hubris.

There are also, he asserts:

very strong currents of right wing opinion here [in Scotland...] Social attitudes here are very conservative on many issues[...] There is also terrible racism directed at Black and Asian people[...] Then of course there is the vicious sectarianism, the religious divisions, the Orange marches, plus the other opiates of the masses and our less than brilliant record on the beating of children and domestic violence.

Would any serious observer of Scotland's social landscape deny the existence of such problems? Philo is, no doubt, sincere in his concerns about the 'social dislocation' effects of independence. But are we really to believe that such prejudice is either large or powerful enough to merit suggestions of a dangerously racist or reactionary politics?

And just how "strong" are these "currents of right wing opinion"? Strong enough to register credible support for UKIP? Strong even enough to see the return of a serious Tory presence in Scotland? I think not. And nor, it appears, does Philo. Yet he still suggests that electoral support for the Conservatives, Lib Dems and even SNP, combined with 'moral conservatism' over issues like immigration and gay marriage, indicates 'strong right wing opinion'.         

Such base hostilities exist at large, deeply encouraged, as Philo should know, by a generically conservative, hate-encouraging media. While charting many instances of racist abuse (across the UK) in Bad News For Refugees, Philo's article does acknowledge the admirable presence of refugee-supporting bodies in Scotland.

But whatever the prevalence of racism or any other such problem, none of this invalidates the actual case for independence.

Indeed, isn't the very debate we're having over independence encouraging greater and more mature recognition of such issues?

Questioning Yes claims that an independent Scotland could be one of the world's wealthiest countries, Philo also asks:

Even if this was true, how are so many people on the left lined up with such an appeal? The plan is that we take the resources, then leave the de-industrialised areas and dispossessed classes of the rest of the UK to cope with the uneven development of capitalism as best they can.  How did we get into this state where an appeal which is so obviously divisive in terms of working class unity, is presented as progressive independence?

Not only is this claim of 'class abandonment' utterly unfounded, it reveals a more caged-like thinking: that left advancement must somehow depend upon the preservation of already power-serving institutions.

One only need look at the determined line-up of establishment forces against a Yes vote - Westminster and its neoliberal parties, the City of London, top CEOs, the CBI, Big Oil, Nato, the MoD, the BBC - to see exactly why they want the status quo. 

In contrast, as supported by socialists like Tariq Ali, leftists for Yes are thinking imaginatively and tactically about how to break the Union and challenge such institutions for the greater good. To reverse the question: how did parts of the left get into this state of seeing that task as 'class divisive'?       

Philo's associated argument that independence amounts to little more than an 'oil-grab' is barely new. But it's dispiriting to see it posed here (as elsewhere) in such reductionist terms. 

Whatever 'selfish' resource "plan" Philo thinks is afoot, is it likely that Scotland or any other de-industrialised area of the UK would ever realise anything under the present system?

Should we thus reject independence in the hope that a state elite which for decades syphoned-off the oil wealth and conspired to avoid creating an oil fund from those vast revenues will suddenly start acting like Norway?

With the emergency of climate change, the real 'oil issue' is not, in any event, about who gets what, but how we find ways of limiting its production in search of carbon-free solutions and a rapid transition to sustainable energy. As with much of the wider left, Philo has nothing to say on this issue. Beyond the Greens, it's been lamentably absent from the independence discussion.    

Philo knows, of course, that there are more enlightened motives behind the Yes argument:

Some on the left tell us that this is the opportunity to oppose neo-liberalism, to defend social democracy and help the poor and dispossessed of Scotland. Once Scotland is independent and we are free of the Westminster parliament, all this is apparently possible.

Or, for Philo, apparently impossible. Rejecting the potentialities of independence, he points to the sovereign forces of neoliberalism and corporate power. And who on the serious left for Yes will diverge on that point?

Yet, his own solution for challenging such power comes back to the same old wish-list for greater left representation and policy influence at Westminster:

How for example can we combat the uneven development of capitalism in this island and its disastrous impacts on the people of the north and west if we do not have representation in the Westminster parliament?

In effect, tacit approval of liberal-defined 'democracy', cabal-parties and a loaded political system.

The attack on corporate power and state warmongering, it seems, is still to be waged primarily within the very place that gives those corporate powers its most essential cover: 

If we believe that the UK Ltd is a particularly appalling concentration of corporate interests and financial capital which launches illegal wars, then that is all the more reason to be in there fighting for better policies.

Yet, in apparent contrast to Westminster with its resident ConDemLab pack, Philo sees no hope for an independent parliament with much greater potential for radical left involvement:

The radical left, as we understand it, is not represented in the Scottish Parliament, even with proportional representation.

Yet, past calamities aside, it surely could, and would very likely be as a realigned left - assisted by the very PR so vitally missing at Westminster - responded to the expected progressive demands of a new electorate. It would also give a vital lift to progressive Green voices.  

Yet, for Philo, there's nothing to be gained from this more realisable participation. 

Nor, he insists, is there anything unique about Scotland's political mindset:

The truth is we are like a lot of other places, and we would do well to remember that when people speak of Scotland or the Scots as having a “will to socialism” or write that “social democracy is hard- wired into Scotland’s soul”.

True, indeed, even if Philo still understates the deep resilience of Scotland's social democratic culture. Whatever the regional and class complexities across the UK, Scotland has still shown a more intensive resistance to Thatcherite policies and defence of the welfare state.   

But, even beyond such claims of 'radical exceptionalism', the key question remains: which of these parliaments, political representations and civil engagements presents the best viable chance for real left advancement and the building of a progressive politics?

Note again that almost none of this assertion of political rights and economic desires involves aggressive flag-avowing nationalism. If it did, I, for one, could have no part in it. The debate may be fevered, passionate, even polarising. But, with respectful exchange, that's no bad thing in serving to concentrate minds on the essential questions of elite power and radical reform.  

Indeed, one can feel reassured by the kind of notable humanitarian figures asserting the Yes case: from imaginative artists around National Collective and inclusive-minded performers like Eddi Reader to political-literary sages like William McIlvanney, James Kelman and Alasdair Gray - despite Philo's misrepresentation of his words.

The Yes movement is coloured by many good 'street' figures, from Denis Canavan and Jim Sillars to Elaine C. Smith and Billy Bragg. Noam Chomsky is now even in support. None of this has the remotest tinge of nationalist politics, making it an accommodating place to be.

Online sites like Bella Caledonia, Newsnet Scotland, Wings Over Scotland and multiple other social media pages are also driving constructive and invigorating debate. Local public meetings across the country, notably for Yes, are packed out. With an anticipated poll turnout of around 80 per cent, it seems that, to the establishment's alarm, people are contemplating, in prudent, measured ways, the very real possibilities of meaningful change.    

None of this uplifting spirit and qualitative debate seems to resonate with Philo. Instead:

the idea of a new socialist politics being born with a yes vote seems to me very unlikely, as a major consequence would be a surge in the worst elements of nationalism...

Again, all intensified by the 'dark threat' of ethnic exclusion:

Nationalism can very quickly divide people into who are Real Scots and those who are not[...] The view that English people should not be in senior positions or there are “too many” of them can surface quite openly.

And a personal observation:

After many years here, for some I am still the guest...

One should never dismiss such concerns and insecurities. So I do trust that Greg and anyone else would feel safe, happy and politically involved living their days out in an independent land.

But just how worrying is this picture of present or potential racial hostility? Not enough, it seems, to frighten a large Asian community, which takes comfort in the strong rejection of far-right politics and welcomes the broad language of inclusive independence.

Beyond Greg Philo's problematic impressions here, readers will find much greater illumination in Alan Bissett's excellent dismissal of the 'ethnic nationalism' card.

Philo seems on more reasoned ground in discussing the practical implications of state adjustment. For example:    

it is quite obvious that independent states do not typically keep their government departments in another country (as for example DFID, now in East Kilbride).

But such argument is still delivered in the same old fearmongering script: the 'job losses', 'economic disruption' and 'talent-draining' effects of independence.

Nor is there a single mention here of Trident, the overwhelming demand in Scotland for its removal, and what a gift the constitutional pledge to close Faslane would be to the wider disarmament cause.

Instead, the same resort to blaming a perceived nationalism for 'economic tension' and 'anti-Englishness':

I am not mainly concerned with economic arguments as such but rather how such changes will impact on the potential for class unity and collective action. Nationalism divides and different perceptions form on each side.

Thus:

It is easy to see how a split would become bitter if perceived to be motivated by greed and racism. As the political and economic negotiations became tougher, there would be a lot of blaming here of ‘the English’.

And: 

I need hardly say that it is not a good idea for a small group of five million people to have an economic fight with sixty million who live next door.

This really is crass fear-fare from Philo, the kind of planted suspicion so desperately played-out by Better Together. Where's the more prosaic reality of deeply-interacting populations and long social bonds? Why would tough negotiations give rise to specifically anti-English feeling, rather than, as we're seeing, anti-ConDem/Westminster resentment?   

It's also remarkable that an essay rightly professing the vast inequalities of a capitalist system and need for an austerity-reversing wealth tax can resort to this claim:

As it is, with the existing arrangements, the poorest groups have some protection. Spending on welfare and health has been relatively well sustained and we were able to protect people from the worst effects of policies such as the bedroom tax.

Really? That will be news to the millions suffering savage ConDem cuts, the very poorest now looking to independence for some sort of economic rescue.

Again, no anti-English brooding or Mel Gibson sloganising here. Just, as recorded by many Radical Independence campaigns in the most austerity-afflicted areas, a gathering objection to decades of Tory-Labour abandonment and a desire for basic economic justice.   

And as the NHS in England and Wales spirals into privatised crisis, a timely warning that only a Yes vote will help secure real levels of public health care in Scotland.  

Philo believes that the true problem concerns the uneven relationship between the rest of the UK and London/South-East:

Such a relentless process of uneven development can only be altered by very strong regional planning. It requires physically moving jobs and investment, including transferring government departments or media conglomerates such as the BBC, plus the development of new infrastructure, broadband, cross rail links to join northern cities laterally and the focussing of research, training and development in targeted areas. The problem with independence is that it removes any representation which we have in that planning.

But why opt or hope for illusory regional 'powers' when actual independence could offer much closer scope for planning real alternative, sustainable models of development and greater representation of citizen demands?

Philo correctly identifies the problem of a corporate-sucking City of London without accepting that the case for independence is a logical and gathering response to that concentration of power. And any self-realising rejection of such power and its financial domain can only be of inspirational benefit to other regions and people at large in the decentralisation and break-up of a vastly unequal country.

Moreover, the problem with the BBC, as Philo should know, is its establishment role and propaganda output, suggesting an urgent need for its termination rather than relocation.

It's also worth noting here the work of Professor John Robertson in documenting the BBC's biased referendum coverage. Why hasn't Philo been doing likewise, or openly supporting Robertson's research?

I don't wish in any way to detract from Philo's and the Glasgow Media Group's own fine body of work, notably on Palestine/Israel. But where is its major critical analysis of establishment media performance over the independence issue?

Philo concludes by stating:

For us, socialism should come first and last and should not be used as a cover for a nationalism which would reduce our ability to take part in the wider changes that are so desperately needed.

Alas, much like a mistaken George Galloway, Philo has used the exaggerated threat of nationalism as cover for proclaiming a 'socialist first' message. It's a false and misleading one.  

Moreover, as Radical Independence and others assert, no serious leftist for independence is under any illusion about the ensuing task of building a true socialist and humanitarian society. Just as Philo and Galloway rightly castigate neoliberal and Nato-upholding elements within the SNP, so do leftists for Yes (including, of course, a substantive core of the SNP) understand the greater task beyond 18 September, viewing any Yes result as a move in a more promising, alternative direction.   

Nor, as a widening electorate comprehend, is it about Salmond and the SNP - though, the constant political/media smearing of Salmond shows precisely how the No establishment want the issue portrayed. 

Progressive minds, including Labour for Independence, and an expanding public simply recognise that any potential for a radical, just society rests much more realistically on the conditions and opportunities of independence than the dead-end politics of Westminster.

As for nationalism, the only intense version on display is that of British Nationalism, playing on archaic notions of 'common heritage', a 'better together Empire', continued warmongering and the same false promises of political and economic deliverance.

What, in rejection of that useless nationalism and oppressive authority, do we have to lose in pursuit of a fairer, socialist society?
 

Guardian whitewashing of Banksy

 

The Guardian's in-house art critic, Jonathan Jones, has written a scurrilous little denunciation of Banksy after a mural of spooks doing their darkest on a public phone box appeared on the side of a house near GCHQ. Jones writes:  

'I think it probably is a Banksy. Not only is it stencilled in his crudely efficient style but its glib satire is typical of his instinct for trendy political content to impress his bourgeois public. Homing in – rather late in the day – on a widely discussed issue, Banksy addresses, not the teenagers who used to be graffiti's users, but – if I may – Guardian readers. Yes, he's a good liberal, is Banksy, drawing attention in his own way to the contemporary menace of excessive state surveillance.'

Don't you just love the unintended irony of Jones himself, a safe Guardian liberal, posing all
'subversive' by having a dig at other Guardian-reading liberals and their 'bourgeois' coveting of street art?

And with it, the 'inverted' implication of Banksy's own 'faux-liberal politics' in making this strategically-placed statement about menacing state surveillance. 

Last week saw Jones in much more familiar liberal garb, proclaiming: Let's hit Putin where it hurts – all artists must boycott Russia. To further invert: yes, he's a good liberal, is Jones, drawing attention in his own Guardian way to the contemporary 'menace' of selective foreign enemies.

While much of Banksy's art may now be 'coffee-tabled' and commodified, his truly-populist images still inhabit real public spaces with real iconic messages, from the side of a Cheltenham house to Israel's apartheid wall.

How, in stark contrast, does Jonathan Jones's smug art critique and pretence Guardian 'subversion'  inform any such radical agenda?

Jones concludes with this pompous assertion on Banksy's work:

'If he painted on the side of my house I'd be busy with the whitewash next morning.'

There's certainly no shortage of that particular paint at the Guardian.

Banning books in jails - crime and ConDem punishment

 

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol 

 

Prison escape

The punitive mind of gallery-playing politicians, it seems, knows no bounds.

Yet, sometimes the response can look like the stirrings of a j'accuse-style novel.   

A gathering protest by writers and the wider public is underway after ConDem justice minister Chris Grayling ordered severe restrictions on book access for prison inmates, part of a new repressive regime being imposed in jails across England and Wales.

Grayling's reforms have also seen more privatised services handed to groups like G4S and Serco.

Leading the backlash, notable literary figures, from poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy to AL Kennedy and Irving Welsh, have condemned the book ban as a vindictive and regressive policy which violates basic human rights, increases isolation and sets-back prospects of rehabilitation for many prisoners.

Other prominent writers:

including Philip Pullman, Ian Rankin, Linda Grant and Professor Mary Beard, as well as others including the musician Billy Bragg, have demanded that Grayling drop the ban. Pullman tweeted: "It's one of the most disgusting, mean, vindictive acts of a barbaric government."The crime novelist Rankin said: "From visits to prisons and talking to prisoners, I know how important books can be in promoting literacy and connecting prisoners to society."Bragg tweeted: "People in prison need rehabilitation, not retribution. Coalition bans guitars, now deny prisoners books."

Grayling's action has even provoked Tory unease, as well as notable public reaction:

Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition and sent photographs of bookshelves to the MoJ's Twitter account using the hashtags #shelfie and #booksforprisoners.

Frances Crook, head of the Howard League for Penal Reform, has denounced the policy as:

part of an increasingly irrational punishment regime orchestrated by Chris Grayling that grabs headlines but restricts education or rehabilitation.

Noting the additional prohibitions on receiving basic personal items such as underwear, and the decline of prison libraries, Crook adds:

The rules governing possessions of prisoners are arcane and not consistently applied by every prison. These new restrictions relate to a downgrading of the system of rewards and punishments, ostensibly designed to encourage prisoners to comply with prison rules. Yet the ban on receiving books is a blanket decision, so no matter how compliant and well behaved you are, no prisoner will be allowed to receive books from the outside. 

Grayling and his supporters claim that such measures are intended to manage the increasing volume of parcels to prisoners and to prevent smuggling of drugs.  

 

But behind such spurious mitigation lies a much darker mindset, the same malevolent policy thought that's gone into 'welfare reform', with its targeted punishments on the poor and sick. 

 

As Clive Martin, director of the prison networking and advocacy charity Clinks, asserts: 

In my experience working in prison education, I met very few people who didn't want to change. But in public discourse and the way the issues are presented to the public by policymakers, there seems to be a sense that we have given up on hope. We talk about 'the market' and 'programmes', but we don't talk about people. For whatever reason, empathy has been pushed to the sidelines.

Imagine ministers and policy-makers expending such time and energy on more constructive and humane ways to treat prisoners, as with the Norwegian penal approach, which, in negating useless deprivation for education and assistance, registers the lowest re-offending rate in Europe.

 

How very different here in Victorian-languishing Britain. From 'social security' to prison security, compassionate-based policy seems anathema to minds so concentrated on panopticon-type surveillance, social control and breaking the spirit of other human beings. One tries to feel some compassion for their own scarred psychology.

 

Perhaps if the great Oscar Wilde were incarcerated today, he'd be penning 'The Ballad of Reading in Jail', another wistful lament for a harsh, outmoded system. 

 

Welfare betrayal and Labouring under false hopes

In a despicable act of conformity, all but 22 Westminster MPs have voted for George Osborne's benefits cap bill.

Only 13 Labour rebel MPs joined the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party's Caroline Lucas in opposing it:

Diane Abbott
Ronnie Campbell
Katy Clark
Michael Connarty
Jeremy Corbyn
Kelvin Hopkins
Glenda Jackson
John McDonnell
George Mudie
Linda Riordan
Dennis Skinner
Tom Watson
Mike Wood

Scotland's Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly for the legislation.

Here (courtesy of Bella Caledonia) are their names:

Margaret Curran – Glasgow East
Tom Greatrex – Rutherglen and Hamilton West
Ian Murray – Edinburgh South
Willie Bain – Glasgow North East
Gordon Banks – Ochil and South Perthshire
Tom Clarke – Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill
Dame Anne Begg – Aberdeen South
Alistair Darling – Edinburgh South West
Ian Davidson – Glasgow South West
Thomas Docherty – Dunfermline and west Fife
Frank Doran – Aberdeen North
Gemma Doyle – West Dunbartonshire
Sheila Gilmore – Edinburgh East
David Hamilton – Midlothian
Tom Harris – Glasgow South
Jimmy Hood – Lanark and Hamilton East
Cathy Jamieson – Kilmarnock and Loudon
Mark Lazarowicz – Edinburgh North and Leith
Gregg McClymont – Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East
Anne McGuire – Stirling
Anne McKechin – Glasgow North
Iain McKenzie – Greeenock and Inverclyde
Grahame Morris – Livingston
Jim Murphy – East Renfrewshire
Pamela Nash – Airdrie and Shotts
Sandra Osborne – Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock
John Robertson – Glasgow North West
Frank Roy – Motherwell and Wishaw
Lindsay Roy – Glenrothes
Anas Sarwar – Glasgow Central

Only Katy Clark - North Ayrshire and Arran, and Michael Connarty - Linlithgow and East Falkirk - voted against. (Others among 41 Scottish Labour MPs abstained or didn't vote.)

As warned by Save the Children, the ConDem benefits cap bill will now plunge another 345,000 children across the UK into deep poverty.

In a long, shameful history of political collaboration and class betrayal, such abandonment of just social welfare should now confirm for many Labour voters the true intentions of any potential Miliband government.

For Iain Macwhirter:

Labour is now on record as accepting the logic of an indefinite limit on welfare, something no party has ever proposed before because it locks in unfairness and penalises those least able to look after themselves.

Some might say that Labour's approval of Osborne's bill reflects 'the public mood' for a cap on benefits. While partly true, as Macwhirter accepts, even in more left-leaning Scotland, such impressions have been largely framed by Labour itself, which:

through its actions in Westminster yesterday, legitimised the Conservative welfare agenda. The party that created the welfare state has lost the ability to defend its fundamental principles.

Consider also how much of that shrill message has been hyped by a Daily Mail-type denigration of benefit recipients.

Macwhirter, thus, asks:

If Labour can't defend benefits, who can? Welfare is not devolved to Scotland and there is no obvious way in which the Scottish Government can mitigate the impact of these reforms. No doubt Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont will continue to claim the cuts are, in some mysterious way, the fault of the Scottish Government and Alex Salmond in person. But that is going to be a very hard argument to sustain after yesterday's vote.

So, as the great Tony Benn is laid to rest, is there any remaining prospect of a Labour socialist alternative, something akin to the forces and hopes that formed the 1945 welfare state?

No, thinks Ken Loach, who is now in no doubt of Labour's true colours:

Labour's rhetoric may be softer than the Tories', but its fundamental stance is limited by the same imperative: profit comes before all else. Can the Labour party be reclaimed? Or, rather, made anew into one that will represent the interests of the people?

History suggests it cannot. The high-water mark of 1945 is long gone. The many great achievements of that government have largely been dismantled, either with the collusion of Labour or directly by the party when it has been in power. The Labour left has all but disappeared, and even Tony Benn's voice is now sadly silent. A Miliband government will not reverse any of the privatisations in the health service or elsewhere. It will not take the railways back into public ownership – despite the popularity of such a move – or even reclaim Royal Mail.

For Loach, Labour's only motivating force is complicit neoliberalism:

The coalition parties proclaim the importance of the market economy. So does Labour. The coalition cuts back on public enterprise and prioritises the interests of big corporations and private companies. So did the last Labour government. Whenever workers organise to defend jobs, wages or conditions, who supports them? Not Ed Miliband or other Labour leaders. An open letter to Miliband from Labourite "intellectuals" published in the Guardian this week is as peripheral is it is self-important.

Convinced of Labour's decayed state, Loach is now championing a new true socialist party, Left Unity. We should support and wish it well.

Loach has also declared his support for an independent Scotland, as a promising opportunity for people to release themselves from the enduring stranglehold of Tory rule, protect the welfare state and help build those same socialist alternatives.

Both movements should be seen as mutually supporting, driven by the same aims, serving to build a new radical politics beyond the mythology of Labour deliverance.

Progressive Labour supporters in Scotland should surely now see that UK Labour is unredeemable, and that the only possibility of realising a radically reformulated Labour party in Scotland, at least, lies within the political opportunities of independence.

If there's one thing the establishment fear more than a Yes outcome it's the actual demonstration that big power can actually be taken on, it's multiple coercions resisted and its privileged interests rejected by ordinary citizens. A Yes result would open up promising new scenarios for radical politics not only in Scotland but, in encouragement of a vibrant post-Labour left, all across the UK. 

David Cameron's 'benign' part in the 'Middle East peace process' - exchange with the BBC

How much propaganda can be packed into one seemingly innocuous BBC news comment?

Here's a little insight.


Letter to BBC Complaints
13 March 2014

On tonight's 6 O'Clock News newsreader Sophie Raworth ended her piece on David Cameron's visit to Israel and the West Bank with the following statement:

'Mr Cameron is keen to rekindle the Middle East peace process.' 1. What is the BBC's precise evidence for this claim? 2. Shouldn't this comment more precisely read: 'Mr Cameron says/claims he is keen to rekindle the Middle East peace process'? 3. Why does the BBC so readily accept that there is an actual 'peace process' to 'rekindle'? 4. Have the BBC breached their guidelines on 'impartiality' by speaking for Mr Cameron? 5. Have the BBC breached their guidelines on 'balance' by failing to provide a counter-view to that expressed by the BBC/Mr Cameron? I look forward to your considered responses. Regards John Hilley ------------------   20 March 2014 Dear Mr Hilley Reference CAS-2613542-K9VGDM Thanks for contacting us regarding BBC News at Six broadcast on 13 March 2014. I understand you believe it was inaccurate to report that David Cameron was keen to rekindle a peace process as you believe the report featured no evidence of this, that it should’ve stated what David Cameron said and makes the assumption that there’s a peace process to rekindle. Having reviewed the programme, it featured a report on his visit to the Middle East and in saying he was keen to rekindle the Middle East peace process, this was due to his engagement with some of the leaders there to try and move a peace process forward. It reported on his talks with the Palestinian president and that he met with former Prime Minister Tony Blair. This is a very brief report however and didn’t go into wider details due to time constraints. That said, I appreciate that you may continue to feel it was inaccurate and acted as a spokesperson for David Cameron in saying he was keen to rekindle the Middle East peace process. With your concerns in mind, I'd like to assure you that I've registered your complaint on our Audience Log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s made available to all BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive board, channel controllers and other senior managers. The Audience Logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions on future BBC programmes and content. Once again, thank you for contacting us. Kind Regards Philip Young BBC Complaints www.bbc.co.uk/complaints ----------------- 21 March 2014 Dear Philip Young   Thanks for your letter.   After many years seeking to highlight the multiple distortions and biases presented as 'impartial information' by the BBC, I never cease to marvel at the level of crass evasion and patronising dismissal that can still count as a 'considered response' to a specifically-worded complaint.   You say: 'Having reviewed the programme, it featured a report on his visit to the Middle East and in saying he was keen to rekindle the Middle East peace process, this was due to his engagement with some of the leaders there to try and move a peace process forward.' I'm at a loss to see what explanation this is meant to convey, other than a tautological reiteration of the claim already made in the BBC report that "Mr Cameron is keen to rekindle the Middle East peace process." Nor should it matter that the report was 'brief' or subject to 'time constraints'. How many fractions of a second does it take to include the word "says" or "claims" in the above quote?     It can be reasonably argued that there is no honest, viable 'Middle East peace process' to speak of, given that Israel has no intentions of engaging seriously, and that the US/UK, as key allies of Israel, cannot be considered neutral facilitators of such a 'process'.   Two propositions follow from this: Mr Cameron can't 'rekindle' something that doesn't effectively exist; and he shows no serious signs of doing anything to promote a real peace process. Bear in mind too that Cameron had just addressed the Israeli parliament, pledging his primary support for Israel and its enduring 'security'. And despite his visit to the West Bank (note, not Gaza), all his urgings for a 'two state solution' are based on preserving Israel rather than liberating Palestine.  If Cameron was really intent on achieving a just and realisable settlement he would be advocating punitive sanctions on Israel in the way Britain threatens other countries like Iran and Russia. No such action has ever been remotely considered by the UK, even when Israel was mass bombing Gaza with white phosphorus in 2008/9.    Now, these are my own, if widely shared, views, which I'm at liberty to express.  The BBC, in contrast, isn't supposed to hold or express any particular view. Yet it can be clearly recognised from Sophie Raworth's comments, and the report at large, that the BBC is expressing an explicitly partial view in assuming the supposed thoughts and motivations of Mr Cameron. That's a clear violation of the BBC's own guidelines on impartiality. Also, rather than permit counter-comment on Cameron's deep complicity in supporting Israel, thus serving to prolong the Occupation, viewers were given only the assumed views of the government, and could have been left with no impression other than that of 'benign' UK engagement. That, again, is a clear violation of the BBC's guidelines on providing balanced viewpoints.         I am now asking for a considered response to EACH of the five questions cited in my original complaint, with the intention of taking this matter to BBC Trust level for a satisfactory response. Kind regards John Hilley   ................ Notwithstanding the tortuous procedure that prides itself the 'BBC Complaints process', I will keep readers updated on the 'progress' of this enquiry.

RIP the great socialist and humanitarian Tony Benn

I read with deep sadness today the news of Tony Benn's passing.

He was a hugely inspirational figure, a man of immense political morality, humanity and compassion who, till his dying day, fought for ordinary people, resisted establishment incorporation and campaigned tirelessy against imperialist wars.

In a memorable act of humanitarian defiance, Benn appeared on the BBC and read out the address for a DEC Gaza Appeal, after the BBC had refused to broadcast it.

As he bravely stated: "People will die because of the BBC decision."

 

Much more can be said about his admirable actions, from defending Palestinians to rejecting the sham of New Labour.

One of his most admirable traits was never to engage in cheap politics, always focusing on the issues rather than crude personalisation. 

In a world where people are understandably cynical about the 'political process', some say that his style of radical politics was of another time.

But the kind of compassionate politics Tony Benn championed lives enduringly on, secured, in very large part, by his spirited concern always to put people before profits, peace before warmongering, honesty before spin.
 
In one of his last, moving interviews, he reaffirmed that, from the pursuit of a just politics to the pursuit of inner happiness, you should 'always say what you mean, and mean what you say'.

RIP Tony Benn

John

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Mark Steel
Tony Benn: He was defiantly, stroppily, youthfully socialist to the very end

Jonathan Cook
Tony Benn: How he defied the BBC on Israel

George Galloway
Tony Benn Eulogy