In the past year or two we’ve seen a radicalisation of people on the Right as a wave of Fascism has been sweeping Europe, but the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests have been the catalyst that pushed people both Right and Left so rapidly – and nowhere is this more evident than in Cork’s ever evolving graffiti.  In fact there hasn’t been so much importance given to symbols in Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement and the country seems more politically charged than it has been in decades.
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Cork City has always been known for its many (often politically charged) murals and painted electrical boxes. However, since March (2020) there has been a steep increase in the number of political murals and signs. One of the most notable things about these new murals is the monumental influence of American politics.

The picture above was taken on Upper Barrack Street by the pharmacy and clearly shows the clash of Left and Right as well as the heavy influence of American politics. This graffiti is one of many stencil pieces of George Floyd around Cork. Most of them have been defaced in various ways, but this one is unique in that it references what Americans call the “thin blue line” – a symbol used to show their support for the police during anti-police brutality protests. The thin blue line can often be found in pictures of the American flag with all stripes in black and white, except for one blue stripe.

At the beginning of the pandemic the general attitude seemed to be one of solidarity. This was obvious due to the amount of signs and stickers saying, ‘stay safe’ or ‘ní neart go cur le céile’. This dutiful attitude devoid of politics was soon to change.

Since then there has been much discourse around who is to blame for the mishandling of the pandemic, namely in the areas of unemployment and evictions. Controversially the government did not suspend rent or mortgage payments for people or businesses, and as a result hundreds of businesses have closed, and people have been evicted.

The restrictions along with the government’s handling of the pandemic soon became politicised in various ways, with a large cohort suggesting that the virus was planned or even doubted its existence entirely. These people tend to identify with Right-wing figures and parties. There is a large crossover between anti-maskers and Right-wing activists who call themselves ‘patriots’ like Síol na hÉireann, a “food aid group” who sell anti-LGBTQ, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-immigration newspapers. Síol na hÉireann and other far-Right groups began to set up stands more and more often on Grand Parade and Patrick Street, and almost all of them use images of the Irish harp or Irish revolutionaries. I noticed however that the only leader of The Rising who was not pictured or mentioned by these groups was James Connolly, a self-declared Marxist.

There has also been a strong surge to the Left as many people were being made unemployed and could identify with the Debenhams protesters, who were being harassed, fined, and later arrested by Gardaí. The Left tend to distrust the Gardaí; this comes from what is seen as bias and discrimination towards poor people, travellers, people of colour, and any Left-wing protesters and activists. These biases have gained a considerable amount of attention and as a result many have become radicalised, believing that the answers to these problems are some form of Socialism – as is clear from the crude hammer and sickle that can be seen around the City (main pic). This sign could itself be described as a threat and has been used by the Connolly Youth Movement, a Marxist-Leninist group with a presence in UCC.

Since the BLM protests happened the visibility of racism in Ireland has greatly increased and people have become more politically engaged. I know a lot of people who pay attention to American politics exclusively, who cried out when a black person was murdered by American police but sadly little was being said of racism in Ireland. All of that changed in June (2020) when BLM murals started appearing. Since then I have noticed a rise in discussions with typically apolitical friends and family, and a general shift toward being actively anti-racist and making connections between poverty and racism. As awareness around direct provision has increased, naturally the refugee crisis has become a major talking point as the two issues are one in the same.

The final picture below is part of a project organised by Crawford to draw attention to the 40,000 refugees who have died crossing the Mediterranean, or when waiting for asylum to be processed. The numbers are made up of several sheets of paper bearing the faces of Crawford students as well as a list of the names of every refugee who died. 

As a socialist republican and activist living in Inishowen, North Donegal, it’s no great comfort that I live a four and a half hour journey from the capital city, Dublin. Naturally being the capital, Dublin is the largest city in Ireland and sees a huge concentration of political activity. It is the go to place if you want to hold a meaningful protest or make your voice heard on a specific topic. Of course the city is also a hub for political and social workshops, talks and meetings. The time and cost of travailing to Dublin means that I must be more selective of what events I can attend or take part in.

Meanwhile activism within Donegal is mostly centred on issues unique to rural life, although we tend to cover national issues if there is an overlapping interest such as Brexit or Water Charges. Being a political activist in rural Ireland can be difficult, partly due geographical location but this is heavily compounded by years of economic oppression and poor investment in the regions.  

Attempting to organise in a county where the population is as spread out as in Donegal can be challenging, one of these challenges is the lack of public transport. From Inishown to Letterkenny four return buses run Monday to Friday with the last return bus being at 5.40pm. On Saturday only one return bus runs with 4.40pm being the return time. On Sundays no buses run. This bus schedule, so typical to rural areas in Ireland, makes it almost impossible to organise in the evening unless nearly everyone has a car. In these conditions carpooling is essential and if everyone chips in a few euro for petrol it can be a lot more manageable.

Another idea to help events run more smoothly and regularly is to decentralise your organisation. So instead of one large convention or AGM you create branches at several locations. Thus travelling to a meeting point is made closer and easier accessible for more people. Having a regular, possibly monthly, meeting of all branches is one element to maintaining your organisation’s structure.

Another important element is constant communication between fellow activists in the form of call, text, email or a social media group chat. I would recommend a social media group chat as the best form of communication as everyone involved can see messages and reply all at once rather than someone relaying information to numerous people.

Finally a hidden but significant barrier to activism in Rural Ireland is public opposition to your beliefs. Rural Ireland has a reputation of being socially conservative and voting intentions can often be solely based on how a person’s family have traditionally voted. These regressive voting lines are due to the lack of class consciousness among the national population and to in particular the rural population. At times this opposition can seem unbreakable and can way heavy on your mind. The most effective way to combat this is to be certain and inspired by your political ideology. For me inspiration can be found in the life story of Ché Guevera, Malcom X’s ‘I am not an American’ speech or the writings and resistance of Bobby Sands.

Post by @matthewwidaw from redrepublicansite.wordpress.com
Art by @thisisfriz from thisisfriz.com

While it seems ridiculous enough saying it in words, I think history shows us that if you are going into Govt with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail – you are doing business with people that think your career and the future of your party are fair things to sacrifice.
 
It’s not very fair is it… thrashing your political career and your party’s future.... but is it worth the sacrifice?
 
While I cannot see the benefits of people having to sign away their political careers just to please Fine Gael and Pat Leahy, nonetheless, I thought I’d outline what kind of deal I’d be willing to sign away my Dail seat for:
 
1. Sustainable housing 
A sustainable housing process is essential – delivery of low energy use homes
 
I like the Hugh Brennan model – and I like how Emma Osmundsen delivered passive house at Exeter Council in the UK. We need that type of stuff.
 
An excellent retrofit programme for existing housing stock is also essential.

2. Sustainable Agriculture 
How much longer are we going to skirt around the issue of the size of the national herd. Yes that question has got to be addressed. With all the talk of “hard decisions” the future of our Agri Sector is being brushed under the carpet.
 
Despite of all the rhetoric Fine Gael doesn’t want to upset farmers. Unfortunately we have to look hard at the herd size to reduce emissions.
 
This needs to be done in a way that’s fair for farmers – looking at alternative land use. Something like Agroforestry is a potential option – you are looking at trees and cattle etc sharing the same space. Trees/forestry planted for things like carbon sequestration – but the farm still has cattle on it – so you retain the social aspect of having cattle on your farm.
 
3. A Just Transition 
We will be moving to a world of lower emissions – so it’s important to ensure that we don’t shaft people in the process. People will lose jobs, the way we live may well change. People’s lives still need to be valued and planned for.
                                                                
We need to visualise how communities will work in the new lower carbon world. Where does Rural Ireland fit in – where is the dialog going to happen or come from. We need to be looking towards community and people led solutions. People need to plan their lives and future with as much confidence as possible.
 
4. Helicopters & Ambulances 
In a deal that limits my political career to 5 years – the first item on my shopping list is developing a top of the range system of EMS – that’s brilliantly resourced and fit for the 21st century.
 
Key to this is the development of a network of HEMS helicopters – and to facilitate 24/7 operations – I’d like accessible helipads/landing spots nationwide. I would require a well resourced Land Ambulance service too. I’m aiming for the best possible response to serious emergency calls even in rural areas.
 
I would also want to see development of the pre hospital doctor set up – plus study of the potential of Critical Care Paramedics.
 
5. Domestic Direct Investment  
We obviously will be continuing with foreign direct investment but it’s hardly the best strategy to rely on US boardroom decisions going our way. We should strive to develop domestically based companies. We need diversity of opportunity to create a more resilient economy over time.
 
We need to develop strategies to encourage start ups in Ireland – and to look at how to develop existing domestic companies.
 
Post by @olddiesel (http://olddieselblog.blogspot.com/)
Pic Soul Traders by Gordon Harris (http://artistgordonharris.com/)

It is more than a century since James Connolly lived, worked and died.

In 1912 he founded the Irish Labour Party with Big Jim Larkin. Four years later as leader of the Irish Citizen Army he signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and on 12th May  1916, wounded and strapped to a chair, he was executed by a British military firing squad.

Connolly took a broad and generous view of how people of differing political views could agree to campaign together to solve a single priority issue. With nationalists, he was part of the committee formed in 1898 to commemorate the 1798 Rising. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish language and a strong voice in favour of votes for women.

Ahead of his time and in advance of the more progressive political attitudes of today, he was a convinced feminist.  In his day, he was described as ‘the soundest and most thorough-going feminist of all the Irish Labour men’. In his wonderful book ‘The Reconquest of Ireland’, he summed up his view:

‘The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave’.

As a socialist he believed that life is a constant struggle between ‘Haves’ and ‘Have Nots’ and he stood with the ‘Have Nots’. Connolly envisaged a society where economic and political power would pass to the ‘Have Nots’, who would form a co-operative society where wealth, resources, education and opportunity would be shared fairly by all – ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.

In his other great work ‘Labour in Irish History’, Connolly argued that in the struggle to free Ireland only the ‘Have Nots’ could be relied on to finish the task. The ‘Haves’ have always reached a cosy accommodation with foreign oppressors. He believed that ‘The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland; the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour’.

As General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (a predecessor of SIPTU), Connolly fought for better pay and conditions for unskilled workers – the precarious workers and ‘zero hours’ contracts of his day – women and men who, literally, stood in line each morning so that the bosses could decide who would work that day or not.

The struggle of the ‘Have Nots’ for justice continues today, for example the rights of women and LGBTQI, the search for an agreed 32-county Ireland, etc. The Covid-19 crisis has also shown us that the least paid workers are still the most important in our society – but are mostly ignored by ‘The Haves’.  These are the 2020 versions of the issues James Connolly faced. So, his ideas and life’s work are more relevant today than ever. Not perhaps as a ‘cut-and-paste’ blueprint or detailed plan of action, but as a set of ideals and principles to inspire us to live, work and campaign for what he believed in.

When you think about it, then, Connolly today is much more than just a name on a train station. He remains alive and relevant in his works ‘The Reconquest of Ireland’ and ‘Labour in Irish History’, making him more than a 1916 rebel, an address, or a man restrained in his time.
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This post comes from “The Twelve O’Clock Blog” written by Liam Cahill (@LiamCahill2013). Originally titled “Connolly. Just a Name on a Station or Hospital?”. Picture by Jim Fitzpatrick available from jimfitzpatrick.com 

“The core of Europe was its 2000 year old Christian Civilisation, this is now under attack” John Watters

In 2015, the number of migrants and asylum seekers arriving to Europe skyrocketed. According to Eurostat, approximately 50% of these migrants came from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the migrants were fleeing war and war-torn countries, countries unstable politically, socially and economically.

As migrants fared across the Mediterranean to our shores, European nations reacted differently. Germany and Sweden were hailed the heroes of the crisis as they decided to welcome a large amount of the migrants. However, in other member states, migration became much more of contentious issue.

Between 2008 and 2017, Germany, France, Italy and Sweden were the countries which received the largest number of first-time asylum seekers. In each of these countries we have since seen a significant surge in the electoral success of right-wing parties.

Why? Because migration is a complex issue and right-wing parties decide to frighten voters for their own electoral success.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric has often claimed that migrants are taking jobs, that they’re bringing crime, or that they present a higher chance of terrorism. Migrants have been depicted as an economic drain. These are all misconstrued allegations and such claims about migration are designed to frighten people and achieve the political agenda of extreme parties.

There is also an extensive debate about culture and migration. The key area that needs to be examined, is integration. If a country decides to take in migrants, they have to offer them opportunities and integrate them to society. Education is undoubtedly the first step. If migrants can master the language of the country they seek to live in, they will be able to find employment and be more easily included in society. As there is an intrinsic link between language and culture, language education might be the answer to the so-called threat to culture, which in itself is a lie given the proportion of migrants in Europe as a whole.

Furthermore, many migrants who arrive to Europe are extremely qualified and skilled workers. Therefore the simple black and white rhetoric of the far-right does not hold true. The issue of employment is a macroeconomic issue, countries need growth to sustain their economies and living standards.

These are the issues highlighted in political discourse and in the media. However we need to rethink the debate on migration. The cause of this mass influx of people is war, and the conflicts are a result of failed foreign policy and military intervention on the part of the EU and the US. Syria has become an extremely complex case. It is a conflict with many stakeholders between the Syrian government, its opposition, the US, certain EU countries, Russia, ISIS, and the Kurdish ethnic group.

Syria is complex but involvement in Iraq was based on a lie and the war in Afghanistan has been waged for years without any solution through diplomacy. No single person has the answers to solve these crises but we need to underscore the reality that we need to deal with the root of the problem as much as we need to deal with the current situation. Far-right parties complain and want to wash their hands of the issue. Real leaders regardless of ideology seek to tackle global issues with vision and effective action.

This post is from Hugh Murphy who blogs at hughmurphy19.wordpress.com. The original is called "Why we need to rethink the debate on migration". Hugh is Chair of @trinitylabour and describes himself as a socialist, feminist, & environmentalist Gaeilgeoir.

Delivering his budget speech in 2017, the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donoghue, stated that “those of us in the middle ground of politics have a duty to show that…things won’t just fall apart and the centre can hold—and stay firm”. This came after his Fianna Fáil counterpart, Michael McGrath, insisted “the centre must hold”. The common reference is to a Yeats Poem, the Second Coming, written during the turmoil of World War One and the Irish Revolution. Asserting allegiance to the ‘centre’ is a common theme for those seeking to protect the established order, but the Irish elites are anything but moderate.

Donoghue’s call came after a decade of austerity perpetrated by the richest section of Irish society on the poorest. During the crisis years, 650,000 people were pushed into poverty as successive governments took vital resources away from them to bail out bankers. Hospital waiting lists became the longest in Europe and social welfare was decimated thanks to a cumulative cut of over €30 billion. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people were thrown out of jobs or their houses. These were not the actions of ‘enlightened centrists’—but of neoliberal extremists’, hell-bent on protecting the interests of Irish capitalism.

The response of the Irish ruling class has been framed around three policy initiatives. Their first step was to form a ‘Confidence and Supply Agreement’ between FF and FG to last for three annual budgets. The primary aim of this arrangement was to stop Sinn Féin from becoming the main opposition party and to halt the rise of the radical left.

Their second step was to rely on what was then an emerging economic recovery to reduce the level of class struggle in Irish society. Initially this meant granting concessions to working people on issues like water charges and bin charges, but as the recovery gathers strength, the right has become embolden in pursuing a more reactionary agenda. This is clearly seen in the ratcheting up of attacks on the left and in Leo Varadkar’s recent willingness to use dog-whistle politics to divide working people against each other.

The third element of their strategy is to successfully manage a liberalising population. Since the failure of the first divorce referendum in 1986, the trend has been to the left on social issues. Subsequent referenda have passed on women’s right to travel for abortion, on divorce and on equal marriage for the LGBTQ community.

Here Varadkar has proven himself a skilful operator, successfully projecting an image of a leader capable of modernising Irish capitalism. Varadkar’s rise through the ranks of the FG party was built on a stable diet of reactionary conservatism.

Their aim is to get abortion off the political agenda in a way that stops the left from gaining. So far this has had some success at the top of the movement, but found little traction in the grassroots of the campaign.

Meanwhile, there is every possibility that another recession would disproportionately affect the highly open and unusually financialised Irish economy.

More immediately, the government risks being tripped up on domestic matters. The recent scandal over cervical cancer misdiagnoses has the real possibility of bringing down the current government. Here in full view is a rotten state institution, the Health Service Executive, which cuts corners in the care of female citizens and attempts to close ranks to protect itself from transparency and accountability
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The Irish state has been happy to let women die in the course of protecting itself and as this becomes common knowledge, it risks undermining the carefully laid plans of the neoliberals. Coming in the midst of the scandal in the Gardaí over the Whistleblower Maurice McCabe, there is a real sense of crisis for the institutions of the state.

The left is meanwhile beginning to renew itself in ways that will cause problems for the establishment. The Great Recession (2008) came too soon for a working class tied into social partnership and a Left that was marginalised by decades of high growth and employment.

Next time around, revolutionary forces will have a small but significant presence in Irish society and will be better placed to lead future struggles around jobs, conditions and social services. Whether the left is up to this challenge remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that the so-called centrists will continue to “loosen their own form of anarchy on the world” in a bid to protect their power and privileges. The role of progressive forces must be to ensure that this neoliberal centre cannot hold.

This post is from Rebel.ie and was originally titled “Irish Politics: Can The Centre Hold?” I’ve shortened the article slightly to make it more blog friendly, for the full article with more facts you can follow the link.

Rebel is a socialist website dedicated to challenging establishment politics here in Ireland and beyond, and to creating a platform for alternative left-wing viewpoints to be aired. The website is organised by members of the Socialist Workers Network; a revolutionary socialist organisation and component part of the 32 county socialist party People Before Profit.

You might also like the following three articles from their website:

Trumponomics: Symptoms of a Declining Empire

While Trump may argue that when businesses are allowed to keep more of their profits, they hire more workers and engage in investment but as the costs of his tax breaks become apparent, he risks alienating some of the white working class base he currently relies on. The bill passed last November dismantles Obama’s key healthcare initiative with up to 13 million Americans set to lose their existing cover. There is also a 27% cut to SNAP (food stamps) and a 20% cut to Section 8 Housing Assistance for the poor. Trump has made much of his role as defender of the little man on Capitol Hill, but when his own administration is responsible for massive handouts to the rich and cuts for the poor, the contradictions are not hard for most people to see.

Is a United Ireland inevitable?

Sinn Féin has been arguing that support for the EU is the main way to strengthen the fight for independence in Ireland, even going as far as to describe them as their “gallant allies”. But the hard facts suggest that the EU has been an enemy of national sovereignty, or anything that upsets their applecart. Take two recent examples. Firstly, the experience in Catalonia where a majority of people in the country voted in a poll to secede from Spain. The response of the EU? They sat silently as Spain violently crushed the movement, refused to recognise the vote, and assisted them in hunting down the democratically elected leaders of Catalonia. It was the same story in Greece. After the popular “Oxi” vote against austerity, the EU simply ignored them and pressured the Syriza government to capitulate. Since then, the Greek people have been forced to endure a vicious program of austerity that they never voted for.

Racism and the 1%

If you are rich and powerful, how do you explain and justify your wealth and power not only to the world but also to yourself? Do you say I understand that capitalism, by its nature, produces wealth at one pole of society and poverty at the other and I’m very lucky to be at the rich end? Do you say I made my wealth by exploiting the labour of those who worked for me? Of course not: you say I made my money and established my power by my hard work and my personal cleverness and superiority. Even if you know you inherited your wealth, you say that was because of the hard work and superiority of your forefathers. In other words you believe that social position and status is primarily determined by individual personal endeavour and ability. That those at the top are there because they are personally superior in one way or another than those at the bottom.
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Now consider the situation of Travellers. When the rich and privileged look at Travellers, they see people living in the worst conditions of any social group in Ireland; they see poverty, bad housing, low educational achievement, high rates of mental distress and suicide and, of course, issues with the police and the law. And their whole way of thinking stemming from their own privileged life makes them see these terrible conditions not as the result of centuries of oppression and exclusion, but as brought about by Travellers’ own failings. Hence the mantra from establishment that Travellers must address the ‘issues in their own community

A post from a site called GreenNews.ie that really caught my attention this week highlights the decadence of the West and our lack of global responsibility when it comes to fuel consumption. The post “NGOs call on the Irish State to cut coal ties in Philippines” by Shamim Malekmian is a reminder of how blind we are in our everyday consumer choices. We choose to ignore the unethical practice of outsourcing labour/production well below the standards we expect in our own country in order to create comfortable living in satellite Europe.  Here’s the post, Green News is a great site covering environmental issues in Ireland so please check them out too;

A coalition of environmental and civil society organisations from the Philippines has written to the Minister for Climate Action urging him to cut Irish ties with a new coal-fired plant in the country.

In 2017, ESB International, a global engineering consultancy wing of ESB, signed a contract to operate and manage a new 1,200MW coal-fired plant near Manila on behalf of Meralco PowerGen Corporation.

The ​​Department of Climate Action (DCCAE) is responsible for overseeing matters relating to the governance of commercial and non-commercial semi-state bodies, including the ESB.

In an open letter to the Department’s new Minister, Richard Bruton TD, the Filipino groups highlighted the detrimental consequences of coal-fired plants on human health and the environment. The groups, including the Center for Energy, Ecology and Development and the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, outline the adverse impacts of other coal-fired plants in the country.

The plants, they argue, led to hundreds of families being “forcefully displaced” to give way for construction without any proper resettlement plans.

“The Philippines remains highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Putting up more coal plants would only undermine what little efforts there are to boost our communities’ resilience to climate change,” the letter reads.

“We cannot allow our communities to suffer from the double whammy of coal-fired power plant projects that come in the form of negative health and environmental impacts.”

The groups also call on Mr Bruton to “walk the talk” and honour Ireland’s commitment to the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA). Members of the alliance are committed to phasing out existing coal power generation in their countries and to support clean power generation through Government policies.

“The Irish Government’s participation, through ESB International, in the operation and management of A1E 1,200 MW coal plant reneges on the same principles adopted by PPCA,” the letter states.

An ESB spokesperson said that the decision to build the power plant and its fuel mix is made by the Philippine authorities and that ESB International “does not have any influence or input in those decisions”. ESB International provided expertise to “support environmental compliance” and deliver “safe and reliable power systems”, the spokesperson said.

The letter was sent to Mr Bruton on Tuesday, a day before his scheduled speech at the plenary of COP24 in Katowice, Poland. During his speech, Mr Bruton indicated that Ireland needs to do more to tackle our rising emissions and outlined his proposal for a new “all of Government” plan to tackle climate change.
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Mr Bruton also outlined that Ireland will provide an additional €4.5m to fund international co-operation on climate action, including €1.2million for the Great Green Wall Initiative to help developing countries to prevent and mitigate against the effects of desertification.

(Shamim is a Senior Reporter at The Green News and a contributing writer to the Irish Examiner, Cork Evening Echo and the Dublin Inquirer @ShamimMalekmian @GreenNews_ie)

On the 16th of August 1819 the huge open area around what's now St Peter's Square, Manchester, played host to an outrage against over 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy and anti-poverty protesters; an event which became known as. The Peterloo Massacre. Historians acknowledge that Peterloo was hugely influential in ordinary people winning the right to vote, led to the rise of the Chartist Movement from which grew the Trade Unions.

200 years later blogger Chas Peeps asks if Brexit is leading working people to the new Peterloo Massacre:

In the 1970’s and 80’s, I believe there was a valid body of opinion on the left that the UK would be better off outside of the EEC (now EU) because at that time, it was all about business and there were few counter-balancing social charter type rules.

Greens were saying that the EU was causing products to travel further between producers and consumers, killing local markets and leading to higher carbon emissions as goods were transported over longer distances. All of this was true but a lot has changed over the past 30 years both in the UK and the wider EU.

The ‘Overton Window’ has shifted significantly towards the right in the UK while most EU countries’ idea of a Conservative Party is still a Christian Democrat model believing in social cohesion, free collective bargaining and consensus infrastructure investment and provision. Our parties of the ‘mainstream right’, the Conservative Party flanked by UKIP, look more to US style Republicanism for their values, long having ditched any concessions to ‘one nation’ politics.

This lurch to right in the UK, tolerated and left largely unchallenged by 13 years of Blairite Labour rule, has been accompanied by the breakdown of the two party system and the voting system that was designed for it. Labour’s loss of Scottish MP’s in 2015, combined with the surge in vote share for ‘minor parties’ saw the Conservative Party re-elected with the support of only 24% of the total electorate. Our own democracy is in crisis, an illegitimate Parliament and 760+ unelected Lords to provide the only restraint on tyrannical policies. Labour’s loss of Scotland may be permanent and imminent boundary changes are thought to provide the Conservatives with an additional 20 seat advantage.

The democratic and looming constitutional crisis in the UK itself goes to the very heart of why those on the progressive left should not be tempted to join what has been cleverly presented as a popular uprising against the UK’s Establishment and ‘undemocratic EU’ by the Leave campaigns. It is a trap set by the hard right and some on the left are walking right into it.

The only time I would discourage a popular uprising is if the Peterloo Massacre is likely to follow. That is my judgement now. I’m all for a political uprising to overthrow the right but the timing and cause must be right. If the left must kick out at anything, it must be at the right wing forces who have not been weaker in a generation due to internal divisions over the EU.

If we stay in the EU, we have a bedrock of human/worker rights and environmental protection to use as a firm foundation to strike at the real political enemy – the reactionary right that would have us shackled even tighter if we leave.

Blog Post by @ChasPeeps  (crestofaslump.com) with the picture taken from the film “Peterloo” 

Jeremy Corbyn has described Brexit as a constitutional crisis with Theresa May cynically running down the clock so that the house either accepts her deal or face a no deal Brexit.

Jason Michael McCann who writes at https://randompublicjournal.com/ is one journalist who tries to make sense of what’s going on and what being Brexit ready means so make sure you check out his site for Brexit updates. Here's one of his latest posts explaining why there's no good Brexit: 

There is no good way to say this, so we might as well just cut to the chase: Brexit, no matter what form it takes, is going to be an unmitigated disaster. Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of the British government, which yesterday published its own 90-page economic review of the horror show that leaving the European Union will be for the United Kingdom over the next 15 years. The purpose of this document, EU Exit – long-term economic analysis (November 2018), is to provide “Parliament and the public with an assessment of the possible long-term economic impacts of the UK’s future relationship with the EU.” But before we discuss this further, we really must think about this; the British government has furnished parliament and the public with a 15-year economic forecast in just 90 pages. That, to put it in perspective, is a document, written in the most opaque language, of about half the size of an undergraduate dissertation (typically written by 21 year olds) – outlining the possible consequences of the UK leaving the EU over the next 15 years.

Once this information has sunk in, we should note that the analysis – if we can call it an analysis – is divided into four scenarios; that is the no-deal model, the Free Trade Agreement model, the European Economic Area model, and the White Paper model. So, ranking these models in terms of likelihood, we have the probable no-deal scenario, the slim-chance that something might work scenario, the Hail Mary scenario, and the not-a-snowball’s-chance-in-hell scenario – meaning that only just over 22 pages of this so-called analysis are of any practical use. Considering that Theresa May’s draft proposal amounted to 585 pages, a text which merely attempted to agree on certain terms of engagement pursuant to a full agreement, we are left with the distinct impression the British government never really put its back into these calculations.

Hidden in this are some pretty sobering predictions. The worst-case scenario is dire, with GDP – the measure of the entire economy – estimated to fall by 10.7 per cent. The best result the government modelled predicts an almost 2 per cent fall, but that best-case scenario – the White Paper model – is included only for decoration. As things are, the British government can only dream of an economic hit this low. The reality is that leaving the EU, according to the government’s analysis, will result in the UK economy shrinking by between 10.7 and maybe 8.1 per cent in a possible Free Trade Agreement outcome. Everything else is pie in the sky. The bottom line, as senior members of the Conservative Party have now conceded, is that there is no good Brexit scenario.

These numbers may mean very little to the ordinary Joe or Jane reading this, and that is perfectly alright. Numbers are boring, not all of us enjoy mathematics – never mind economics, and this is precisely what the government is banking on. We are supposed to see these numbers, listen to terms like “negative growth,” and duly tune out. But GDP is important. The growth or shrinkage of the economy is the difference in paying more or less tax, earning more or less wages, and, in many cases, the difference between being employed and not. GDP – or Gross Domestic Product – is a measure of the size of the entire economy, how much wealth we are all producing. A 10.7 per cent fall in GDP is catastrophic. Even an 8.1 per cent fall (the probable best-case Brexit scenario) is abysmal. In the first three months of 2009, at the height of the last big recession, GDP fell by only 2.6 per cent – and we all know the havoc that wreaked in the UK and in all of our lives. The depths of that recession, according to this government assessment, will only be a fraction of the pain that is coming.

The British government is expecting the entire UK economy to dive four times deeper over the 15 years after Brexit than it did during the last recession. Will it recover, we might ask, after those first 15 years are over? No. There is no reason to imagine it will. Removed from the wider European bloc, it is likely that over a protracted period the British economy will sink to a new normal. This much was predicted some time ago by arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg when he admitted that the recovery after Brexit may be 50 years down the line. Outside the EU, the UK economy – deprived of the real benefits of free trade with markets the length and breadth of Europe, deprived of access to global markets with which the EU has collectively brokered special arrangements, will naturally continue to shrink for decades until it reaches the level appropriate to a small, isolated island economy.

In real terms, then, the 66 million people of the UK will be trapped in an economy which is continually haemorrhaging wealth for perhaps the next five decades or so – continually getting poorer, the standard of living continually falling, and the squeeze on government social spending continually getting tighter. In 2034 the UK, as the government is telling us in this report, will be a far poorer place. Coupled with an ageing population over this period, it is unlikely in the extreme the NHS and other much needed social services will survive. In 2069 we are probably looking at a UK which more closely resembles Poland in 1970 than a modern, reasonably prosperous EU member state. This is far from “Project Fear.” This is the government’s own projection.

This is the part where I am expected to offer a conclusion, but that has already been done in the introduction. There is no good Brexit. The most likely outcome we are facing is one in which the entire economy continues to deflate over the course of the rest of our lives. We – people of my generation – are already poorer than our parents were when they were our age. Now our children will be poorer than us, and their children poorer than them. Those running the country and people of their social class have spent the last three decades feathering their nests. Their wealth has been off-shored to island tax havens where it can’t be taxed to fund the services we so desperately need. We have been robbed blind, and now we are faced with having to pay an unimaginable price for not having stopped them while we could. All that can be added to sum this up is the fact that right now we still have the opportunity to off-shore ourselves. Either Scotland gets moving with independence, or my advice is that we get out of the UK while we still can.

Thanks to @Jeggit for sharing this post and credit to @RytisDaukantas for the amazing toon.