Tag: John McDonnell

Talks between Labour and the government are unlikely to advance much further in the coming week unless Theresa May moves on her red lines over a future customs union, sources close to the talks have suggested. Labour has suggested the ball is in the government’s court and, while the opposition will engage on other topics including workers’ rights and security, the key question on customs arrangements remains unresolved. “We think it is possible to get the benefits of a customs union but still have the flexibility for the UK to pursue an independent trade policy on top of that with other countries outside the EU. He said there was “no date ringed in the calendar” for the talks to end but if agreement could not be reached on some form of Brexit deal then he hoped the two sides would be able to agree a binding mechanism for parliament to agree a way forward. May and Corbyn are not expected to be involved in the talks this week during the Easter recess, though Tory MPs expect speculation over the prime minister’s position and leadership jostling to continue. I think those dates still stand,” he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the two peers said there was “nothing standing in their way” if MPs agreed to change the rules, though the committee’s current chair, Sir Graham Brady, said he was “less certain that it would be possible to change the rules during the current period of grace”. “There has been a stop Boris campaign since the days of Michael Howard pushing forward Cameron and Osborne,” she tweeted. Many of those with their own eye on No 10 aren’t a fan of that prospect.” Duncan Smith said many in the party were deeply concerned about the most recent polling predicting a Labour lead of up to seven points and dire forecasts for the local and EU elections. “The big problem was as soon as we didn’t leave, you could see all the poll ratings start to crash.”

Those close to the Labour side have expressed surprise the talks have centred on persuading the opposition of the benefits of May’s negotiated deal, with extra involvement for parliament on the next phase of the deal. His comments suggest he would be unable to remain in the cabinet if May were to agree to a customs union. The political declaration, unlike the withdrawal agreement, can be reopened by the EU. But it is non-binding, even if May can be persuaded to include a permanent customs union and a hard Brexiter successor like Boris Johnson could disregard it. It has been suggested that the the prime minister would offer to rewrite the government’s withdrawal bill to enshrine any agreed customs arrangement in domestic law. However, senior Labour figures believe the protections in that amendment are relatively weak. However, there may be scope for the prime minister to offer a free vote in parliament on a confirmatory referendum if a deal is reached with Labour. Labour and trade unions have suggested the protections so far are insufficient and could be easily unpicked by future governments. It has called for full dynamic alignment of workers’ rights where new protections are automatically adopted – a demand understood to be under serious consideration. Environmental protections Gove has joined the talks on Tuesday with environmental protections and consumer standards likely to be on the table for discussions.

John McDonnell has called on Labour members to join Momentum on its first direct action campaign, as a senior organiser for the group called it a move from party politics to movement politics. Forty local Momentum groups across England and Wales, from Exeter to Redcar, will take action outside branches of Barclays on Saturday to raise awareness of the bank’s financing of fossil fuel companies. Last week, a report by BankTrack revealed that Barclays provides more funding for fossil fuel projects than any other bank in Europe, lending $85bn to companies involved in fossil fuels between 2016 and 2018. Parker said that while the campaign was a new tactic for Momentum, it was “completely consistent with the way that we’ve said that we want to do politics, which is finding interesting ways of engaging people directly with issues”. UK environmentalists target Barclays in fossil fuels campaign Read more She said: “This is the way forward, this is the massive difference between the Labour party and any other political party in Britain. The Tories couldn’t do this if they spent the next 12 months trying to organise it. “This is too big to be left to narrow party politics. But there is a massive role for the Labour party to play as the biggest progressive political force probably not just in the UK, but really in western Europe.” The action is inspired by a wave of environmental campaigning over the past few months, most recently the school climate strikes, which brought thousands of young people on to the streets. It is likely to be less provocative than Extinction Rebellion protests, when dozens were arrested for spraypainting government departments and locking themselves together to block streets, Parker insisted. “We are a pro-worker, pro-union organisation so the one thing I’m absolutely certain about is that everybody is going to be totally respectful of all the staff that work in the banks – these are our comrades,” she said.

The tax-free personal allowance, which rises to £12,500 in April, should be scrapped and replaced with a flat payment of £48 a week for every adult, according to radical proposals welcomed by shadow chancellor John McDonnell. The proposal, from the New Economics Foundation thinktank, is for a £48.08 “weekly national allowance,” amounting to £2,500.16 a year from the state, paid to every adult over the age of 18 earning less than £125,000 a year. The weekly payments would be fully funded by the abolition of the tax-free personal allowance, which has seen inflation-busting increases under the Conservatives over the past 10 years, but which NEF said had benefited richer households most. This is worth £2,500. Costing more than the whole of defence, local government and the Department for Transport combined and enriching the highest income households almost seven times faster than the poorest.” The leftwing thinktank, which has developed close links with Labour to become a key influencer of shadow Treasury thinking, estimates the current cost of the tax-free allowance is as much as £111.2bn. The policy is likely to face opposition from some voters, as it would also mean bringing down the threshold for higher-rate taxpayers from £50,000 to £37,500. McDonnell said: “This is just the kind of innovative thinking we need on how to fix the imbalances and problems of our tax system. The Treasury said the personal allowance has removed nearly 2 million people from income tax, and that income inequality in Britain is falling. In a statement, it said: “We’re raising the personal allowance one year early, which will mean that by April this year, 1.7 million income taxpayers will have been taken out of tax altogether since 2015-16. In 2019-20, the lowest income households will receive over £4 in public spending for every £1 they pay in tax on average, and the highest income households will contribute over £5 in tax for every £1 they receive in public spending on average.

Thousands of anti-fascists are expected to attend a central London protest on Sunday to counter a march by the far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson and his supporters. A new group within the party, Labour Against Racism and Fascism, has been created and Momentum has been trying to counter a far-right social media effort which some members believed was often more sophisticated than its own web presence. (@PeoplesMomentum) "Did you find any hatespeech"? He said: “A newly energised, well-funded network of hate is emerging, from Steve Bannon in the US to the former EDL [English Defence League] leader Tommy Robinson at home, and it threatens the very fabric of our nation. The Labour movement must be front and centre in opposing them.” Thousands were expected to attend the Robinson event, which involves a march on Whitehall three days before MPs vote on Theresa May’s Brexit package and has been billed as a “Brexit betrayal rally”. Laura Parker, Momentum’s national coordinator, said: “There has been a reluctance at times from some in the mainstream of Labour to engage in events like this in the past. Niroshan Sirisena, a Labour councillor in Croydon and a Momentum organiser, said he and others set up Labour Against Racism and Fascism weeks ago as part of an attempt to develop the party’s anti-racism policies at a constituency level. “Labour is an anti-racist party, but I think it has to do a little more than say that it is one,” said Sirisena, who has also been involved in distributing anti-racism leaflets at Premiership matches as part of a move to counter the far-right focus on football fans. The Metropolitan police have imposed strict conditions on the times and locations those taking part could protest, and warned that anyone who commited acts of violence would be arrested. The deputy assistant commissioner, Laurence Taylor, the Met’s gold commander for the operation, said: “If you want to protest on Sunday we ask that you do so peacefully, no matter what your view.

The Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, has privately told Labour MPs the party should have severe reservations about backing a fresh Brexit referendum, saying voters could see it as a betrayal. The deep scepticism from one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest and most powerful supporters is likely to unnerve MPs and campaigners hoping the party is warming to the idea of a fresh Brexit vote. The private intervention comes at a fractious time for the party, as the leadership agonises over what its tactics should be if Theresa May loses a vote on the Brexit deal in parliament. McCluskey said he believed Labour MPs would need to eventually back some version of a Brexit deal, sources said. I wouldn’t say that majority of MPs agreed with him at all. Watson said a second vote would only come after “a failure of parliamentary arithmetic and political leadership”. However, other close allies of Corbyn remain sceptical about how a second vote would go down in leave-backing Labour constituencies; and the party’s pollsters have been researching the views of voters in heartland seats. There are also fears that a significant minority of Labour MPs would not back the policy, even if it was backed by the frontbench. Snell, the MP for Stoke Central, told the Guardian he had “huge reservations about the practicalities and politics of holding a second referendum and that is a view that is shared by more and more Labour MPs”. “The fragility of the government along with their obvious lack of majority means we are more than likely heading toward a general election,” he said.

He is also a lousy leader, and at a time when Britain needs a leader of presence, courage, intellect and vision. The 2016 referendum result was indeed the outcome of a class society increasingly riven by inequality. Jeff Wallace Cardiff • John Harris is too kind to the Labour leadership. If a new vote changed the outcome of the last one, it would not put to sleep the issue of the relationship between the UK and the EU. Leadership is not just about charging in regardless. Corbyn has to think about how to make the best out of the situation we are in and how to reconcile irreconcilable demands and expectations: to be a statesman, not a demagogue. John Harris is more up to date – Brexit is indeed a “class issue” and Labour should challenge it by supporting a people’s vote. John Chowcat Hythe, Kent • John Harris’s use of the word “colluding” seems ill-judged, not in its use but in its scope. But it was not just a failure of the Conservatives to listen, it was Labour as well, in power from 1997 to 2010. He is also right that Jeremy Corbyn, the invisible man of politics, is barely interested in halting the damage Brexit will wreak on these downtrodden communities (which a mainly middle class membership does not represent) by calling for a people’s vote, because he is a thinly disguised closet Brexiter.

Organisers of the Labour conference fringe are planning to facilitate a series of political education events around the country to inspire debate among Jeremy Corbyn supporters who are unable to attend the party’s main annual event. The World Transformed will help activists organise political events to discuss “complex topics” from Brexit to British colonialism, and collect and curate some of the material generated on a revamped website. The initiative has the backing of the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, who argued that if his party were to make it into government it would need the intellectual backing of a mass political movement. “We can’t just be a bunch of politicians who take ministerial positions; the beating heart of Labour in power will be a movement of ordinary people who understand our history as the working class and what socialism can achieve,” McDonnell said. The organisers of The World Transformed believe that political education on the left in the UK is fragmented and that they can help and support people to organise local events by suggesting speakers and providing practical know-how. Festivals have already been held this year in Derby and in Southwark, south London, and a string of others are planned for a revival in political education that it is hoped will draw on the tradition of organisations such as the Left Book Club and the Workers’ Educational Association. Videos of events and reading materials will also be collated on The World Transformed website over the coming months, in effect creating a virtual thinktank. McDonnell added: “The Labour movement has a rich history of working class self-education and because of new platform technologies we’re able to revive and expand on that tradition like never before.” The World Transformed fringe at party conference has been credited with helping revive Labour’s annual gathering, which had become increasingly corporate until the election of Corbyn in 2015. Over 6,000 people attended around 250 hours of World Transformed sessions in Liverpool. Keynote speakers included Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftwing French presidential candidate, and young charismatic US activist Julia Salazar who is running for a state senate seat in New York.

Labour has repeatedly made clear that it would prefer this option over a “people’s vote” on any deal. Earlier, speaking as Labour prepares to gather in Liverpool for its annual conference, with Brexit high on the agenda, the shadow chancellor told the Guardian he would expect his party’s stance to be similar to the one it took in 2017. “I really think people want this sorted. We’re not ruling out a people’s vote, but there’s a real risk, and I think people need to take that into account when we’re arguing for one.” Much of Labour’s manifesto, if there was a snap poll, would probably be based on last year’s document, The Many, Not the Few, drafted by Corbyn’s policy chief, Andrew Fisher. But McDonnell’s words echoed those of Corbyn, who told BBC Scotland on Thursday, when he was asked whether Brexit should go ahead: “The referendum made that decision.” Labour is keen not to be blown off course by Brexit, and hopes instead to use its conference to show that it is preparing for government, and translating last year’s popular manifesto into concrete policies. McDonnell told the Guardian he would set up a public ownership unit inside the Treasury, allowing him to personally oversee one of Labour’s most transformative economic policies: the nationalisation of public utilities. It’s got to change people’s lives, quickly and effectively, so that means putting money back in people’s pockets through the real living wage, rolling out the investment quickly. But asked if he wants to be Labour leader, he says: “No, no, no, no, no. And as I said the other day, the next leader’s going to have to be a woman. We’ve worked together nearly 40 years.

Writing in the Observer, Sadiq Khan says that, with so little time left to negotiate, there are now only two possible outcomes: a bad deal for the UK or “no deal” at all, which will be even worse. “They are both incredibly risky and I don’t believe Theresa May has the mandate to gamble so flagrantly with the British economy and people’s livelihoods,” he writes. “This means a public vote on any Brexit deal obtained by the government, or a vote on a ‘no-deal’ Brexit if one is not secured, alongside the option of staying in the EU,” he writes. More than 100 anti-Brexit motions, and motions backing another referendum, or people’s vote, have been submitted by constituency parties – believed to be a record for any single issue in the party’s recent history. A large number of the motions are from the left of the party, and call for a commitment to a people’s vote to be inserted into Labour’s next general election manifesto. The people must have another vote – to take back control of Brexit Read more Sam Tarry, national political officer of the TSSA union, who used to work for Corbyn, said the left of the Labour party was uniting behind demands for another vote: “The sheer weight of anti-Brexit motions going to conference is unlike anything I have ever seen – and the only force in the Labour party capable of pulling that off is the left. The trade union movement has moved quickly towards an anti-Tory Brexit position this summer. Alena Ivanova, a leading activist for the grassroots group Momentum in east London, said: “This is a campaign now being led by the left... Tory Brexit is a fundamental threat to the rights and prosperity of working-class people and the communities that Labour represents, driven by bosses and rightwing ideologues. We will only stop it with unashamed leftwing internationalism and, crucially, that will also help us in the campaign to get the Corbyn government we need.” Recognition of the case for a new referendum also appears to be growing in Tory circles. On Saturday the Conservative MP George Freeman, a former chair of Theresa May’s policy board, said on Twitter that pressure for a second vote would become “overwhelming” should moderate Conservatives fail to shape a sensible Brexit deal.