Tag: Labour Party (UK)

It's a question many New Zealanders genuinely don't know the answer to. * Ardern takes her place among Commonwealth leaders * Russia dominates PM Jacinda Ardern's talks in London * Ardern to join May, Turnbull at security meeting We live in the age of personality politics, and Bridges and Ardern both have problems, just not the same ones. Bridges, however, is sat in Opposition, with his party of 56 MPs in first place in the polls on 44 per cent, but voters aren't too sure about him leading the country. Bridges followed Joyce's steps into communications, transport and economic development ministerial roles but, because Joyce had so much influence and power as both John Key and Bill English's right-hand man, Bridges was only ever a behind-the-scenes man. The 1 News/Colmar Brunton poll this week saw Labour fall to 43 per cent, the Greens and NZ First rose to 6 and 5 per cent, respectively. On the surface the coalition Government will be happy, and in the most preferred prime minister poll, Ardern is on 37 per cent compared to Bridges' 10. The results showed 35 per cent thought Ardern was doing a good job, 50 per cent said it was OK, and 11 per cent said it was bad. That's 85 per cent of those polled who think she's handling problems well, which means a chunk of National voters are happy with her political management. Picking away at Labour has been pretty easy for the new leader so far – not least because its policy announcements that have hit the regions in recent weeks have fallen into portfolios Bridges used to be the minister of, namely transport and energy. Bridges didn't need to call for her resignation, in fact he barely needed to lift a finger.

On the doorstep in the teatime rain in one of Peterborough’s down-at-heel suburbs, no one is talking about Brexit. Two years ago, Peterborough was Brexit central. Let us know which way you’re thinking of voting, and which issues are most crucial to you locally. Peterborough has always been a swing seat. It was the first election since 1929 that it elected an MP out of line with the national result. It may only have two seats on the council, but it plans to fight all but one of the wards in the city, even though the party nationally is near bankrupt and has to fund its campaign entirely from local supporters. There were no local elections here last year. That is likely to be decided by what happens to the 10% share of the vote Ukip that won in 2016. At the general election last year, when there was no Ukip candidate, the party’s voters split against the Tories and probably gave the seat to Labour. Some Tory candidates have said publicly that they expect the election to be tough.

Labour’s latest bitter row over antisemitism could hardly have come at a worse time for the party’s army of activists in the north London Tory stronghold of Barnet. “Barnet has been moving towards Labour now for quite a while. We have been campaigning almost non-stop for eight, 10 years. If Labour could take those two seats, and the political makeup of the rest of the borough remained unchanged, it would seize control of the council, which has been in Tory hands since 2002. Adam Langleben, the Labour councillor for West Hendon, points to last year’s general election result in Chipping Barnet as a sign of the changing times. The difference between now and 40 years ago when my parents moved up here is that people are bringing their politics with them. But something has changed in the last 10 years. Langleben helped represent local residents at the two inquiries into the project. Labour says the project has failed to deliver promised savings, undermined accountability and allowed public services to deteriorate. You need something to bring things together.” As campaigning begins in earnest, Richard Cornelius, the leader of Barnet council, insists he and his colleagues will not be exploiting Labour’s discomfort in strongly Jewish wards.

It appears to have a centrist policy platform that borrows ideas from both left and right. | Andrew Rawnsley Read more Senior figures from the worlds of business and charity are understood to be involved, as well as former supporters of the main parties, including a number of former Tory donors. Some form of political movement could be launched later this year. While figures from across the political spectrum are said to be involved in Franks’s project, much of its policy platform appears to be aimed mainly at a liberal, centre-left audience. A source said some Brexit supporters are involved. However, there are plans to reach out to MPs deemed to meet its non-partisan approach. The formation of a new party could represent a challenge to both the Lib Dems, who remain in the doldrums, and Labour, which is divided over Corbyn’s leadership and has been plagued by accusations of antisemitism by some members. What is said to unite those involved is a frustration with current party politics and the short-termism of professional politicians. It remains unclear how they intend to navigate Britain’s “first past the post” electoral system. It formed part of a liberal alliance that secured 7.8m votes at the 1983 election, but ended up with just 23 seats.

See if you can guess which caused the biggest political row: GDP statistics showed economic growth less than half the UK rate, the third consecutive year Scotland has lagged. Labour councillors voted to increase the allocation of Tory seats on Falkirk Council’s executive committee. If you guessed the finer points of Falkirk Council committee composition, you obviously have some experience of this devolution business. The bellwether local authority is run by an SNP minority administration which has nonetheless gobbled up a majority of key posts, something the opposition parties were trying to correct. Yet this low-level dispute has seized the political class. In Scotland, silence reigns.’ ‘Most of “civic Scotland” has shown a resolute lack of interest in being awoken. Organisations which once existed to stand up for Scottish workers and public services now operate as if wholly owned subsidiaries of the Scottish Government, acutely aware – and regularly reminded – of where their funding comes from. Wee Scotland is a satisfactory set-up for the on-message and the mediocre and they don’t take well to its flaws being pointed out. It is why this week brought such dismal news and the governing class obsessed about a bun fight at a bin-collecting body. Scotland is a small country and there’s no shame in that but it is the sheer weeness of the place that holds us back.

But Labour said Mr Johnson was the "idiot" having "undermined his own government's position" on the evidence. Russian spy: What we know so far Yulia Skripal 'getting stronger daily' Ex-spy 'improving rapidly' after poisoning The UK says there is "no other plausible explanation" for the incident, while Russia has accused Britain of waging a "propaganda war" against it over the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, on 4 March. "Sadly, I am driven to the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn has joined this effort ...Truly he is the Kremlin's useful idiot". Fellow Conservatives joined the attack on the Labour Leader. "Porton Down have been absolutely clear that they didn't say what Boris Johnson said." "I think that is really dangerous, that we have got a foreign secretary that undermines his own government's position." 'Political dimension' Mr Glushkov was found dead in his home in New Malden, south London, on 12 March. The Met made no comment. The requests followed Russian Embassy criticism of the UK government's refusal - on immigration rules - to grant a visa to Ms Skripal's cousin, Viktoria Skripal, to visit Britain. Yulia was visiting him in the UK when the attack happened on 4 March.

Michael Martin, the former Commons Speaker, became the latest senior figure to speak out against antisemitism in Labour on Sunday when he called for a special one-day conference to address the problem. In a rare intervention in party politics for someone who had to quit the party whip when he became Speaker, Lord Martin said he was “appalled” by what was happening in Labour and that failure to tackle antisemitism could cost it the next election. Stressing that he was not criticising Jeremy Corbyn personally for the problem, the former Labour MP, who now sits on the crossbenches in the Lords as Lord Martin of Springburn, said a special conference would allow party members to show how strongly they were opposed to antisemitism. Martin’s intervention came as Labour confirmed that Corbyn has suspended his personal Facebook account. Party sources said it was administratively simpler for Corbyn to have just one Facebook account – he has retained his official one –although the move came as the party faced fresh criticism over senior officials belonging to Facebook groups where antisemitic messages were posted. I have not been attending parliament because I’m on sick leave, but if I had been there on Monday last week, I would have joined the protest,” he said. “If you ran a restaurant, and it was dirty and there were cockroaches, you wouldn’t get away with saying ‘the restaurant down the road is dirty and has cockroaches too’. “The only way that the Labour party can improve the quality of life for men and women, and children, is if they are elected to public office and they have a parliamentary majority,” he said. Labour insiders dismissed a report in the Times claiming that the party is facing a worrying fall in membership. Membership was more than 570,000 after the election.

The comedian and activist Eddie Izzard has marked his arrival on Labour’s ruling national executive committee by saying the “stain of antisemitism” present among “a minority” of members has to be removed. Shawcroft, a Corbyn ally, had been under pressure to quit since it emerged she had opposed the suspension of a Labour councillor accused of Holocaust denial. Izzard took her place as the runner-up in the NEC elections. He spoke out as the party dismissed the implications of a Sunday Times investigation that found 12 officials working for Corbyn or John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, were members of Facebook groups that routinely featured anti-Jewish, violent or abusive messages. “This is a very important time for the Labour party and we must stamp out completely the stain of antisemitism from a minority of members. “We must make amends and repair the damage with the Jewish community as Jeremy Corbyn has promised to do.” The Sunday Times reported that a two-month investigation into 20 of the biggest pro-Corbyn Facebook groups – headed by We Support Jeremy Corbyn, which has 67,000 members – had uncovered more than 2,000 racist, antisemitic, misogynist, violent and abusive messages. The paper said 12 Labour staffers working for Corbyn or McDonnell were members of these groups. “This has been written up in a way that makes it look as if these people were active and complicit in the abuse,” said a senior party source. “But a lot of these people did not even realise they were members of these groups. “And there is nothing wrong with being a member of a Facebook group that supports the Labour party.

Jeremy Corbyn has condemned the vilification and abuse of Labour MPs who attended Monday night’s demonstration against antisemitism in the party. As leaders of the Jewish organisations that staged the protest told him that they would not meet him until he intervened to halt the attacks on social media, Corbyn said he was profoundly concerned by any abuse. “People have the right to speak out and the right to demonstrate,” he told the Jewish News in his first ever interview with a Jewish newspaper. “I will not tolerate abuse of people for their beliefs.” “Any abuse that’s done is not done in my name,” he added. He also rejected the idea – put forward by a rival demonstration by the Jewish Voice for Labour on Monday – that the reason for the main protest was to smear Corbyn himself. “I don’t see that as a smear.” But his remarks failed to silence his critics. “He’s squandered a wonderful opportunity to speak to the Jewish community in a week when they needed it most.” In the interview, Corbyn was challenged repeatedly to condemn the way MPs who attended the protest have been attacked. He also defended David Lammy, the Tottenham MP who went to the protest to support Jewish constituents. “They need to hear you say, publicly and your own voice, that we had every right to protest about antisemitism, and that Labour MPs had every right to support us … that anyone directing abused, intimidation or threats at those of us who oppose antisemitism is damaging your efforts to eliminate it.” The Skwawkbox, a leftwing blog, emailed several MPs, including John Woodcock, Ian Austin and Wes Streeting, challenging them to prove they opposed all racism in a way that implied their opposition to antisemitism was only a way of attacking the party leadership. In his interview, Corbyn insisted the investigations into allegations of antisemitism made against Livingstone must follow due process.

Therefore we will be leaving the EU in March 2019.” So there it is. The man in charge of the Brexit policy of a pro-European opposition party that could soon be in government, that campaigned for Remain, and two-thirds of whose supporters backed staying in the European Union on referendum day, holds out no hope of reversing the decision. “Almost everybody in the Labour party has a view on Brexit. We have got to hold the party together, and of course that means there are huge challenges.” As if to make the point for him, on the day we speak his shadow cabinet colleague Owen Smith is sacked by Corbyn for saying Labour must back staying in the single market and a second referendum – both of which are against current party policy. He has already dragged Corbyn, the shadow chancellor John McDonnell, and the shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner round to the view that Labour should back remaining in a customs union with the EU post-Brexit. Labour’s 2017 manifesto said merely that the party wanted to retain “the benefits of the single market and the customs union”, and did not say the UK should stay in either. There is also the incentive that Labour could defeat the government in the Commons by voting with Tory rebels on an amendment to back the customs union. But no sooner had he delivered on the customs union commitment a few weeks ago than Starmer faced a barrage of demands from the large pro-EU wing of the parliamentary Labour party to go a big step further and support keeping the UK in the single market, too. Plenty of pro-single market Labour MPs say Starmer could honour the referendum result (and take the UK out) while remaining in the single market by joining the European Free Trade Association, like Norway. “We need no persuading of the benefits of the single market and customs union.