River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
Thursday, 2 November 2017
The Best Hope for Britain: National Emergency Labour Government
Make no mistake about it. As the former Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party Nick Clegg recently put it – the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland faces its greatest and gravest existential national emergency – since the days of the Second World War. Large swathes of the British people are burying their heads in the sand at the oncoming Brexit economic, social, civil, political and national constitutional unrest and upheaval. The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union of which it has been a member for the past forty three years is being handled in the worst possible way by the British Conservative minority Government of Theresa May supported [and thus propped up and kept alive] in a confidence and supply arrangement by the ten MPs of the Democratic Unionist Party whose votes in the Westminster House of Commons as a pivotal national and local political player was bought at a massive 1 Billion Pounds promised back in June of [as of October late still not one penny of 1 billion promised by May/DUP] new investment in Northern Ireland.
The remaking of Britain is not going terribly well and neither are the Conservative Party management of the UK-EU Exit negotiations. The Conservative Party has been in charge of Britain for the last seven and a half years. Critically it was the Tory Party, which gave the United Kingdom and the European Union along with the rest of the world the UK Referendum on continued British membership of the European Union. It has also been the Conservative Party that has been in charge of organizing and executing Britain’s departure from the EU, in essence implementing the decision of the British electorate who constituted 52 per cent of the voting population who voted to Leave the European Union on June 23rd 2016th. The Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron made the disastrous short term intra-Tory Party tactical decision to call the Referendum to appease his hard-line anti-European backbenches and Cabinet ministers in a Tory Party civil war raging since the days of Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech of October 1988, Mr. Cameron went on to write the ridiculous 2013 pledge into his 2015 General Election manifesto and it has been his successor as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Leader of the Tory Party who has been in charge of implementing the democratic mandate of the British people to Leave the EU pledging during her leadership election launch at the Royal United Services Institute to ensure ‘Brexit meant Brexit.’
This Mrs. Theresa May has made a complete hash of. The UK’s departure from the EU -14 months on and still in the EU with only roughly anywhere between 3 to 17 months left before definitely being kicked out of the EU in March 2019- has been a complete catastrophe of national humiliation under the arrogant ego maniac vain incompetence of Tory Prime Minister Theresa May. Her Conservative Party civil war over the European Question in British politics has effectively led to the trashing of some of Britain’s most important international relationships, alliances and partnerships. The time has come for some brave, wise, socially liberal and One Nation patriotic pro-European Tories, the Liberal Democrat Party, Irish Nationalists and Unionists, Scottish Nationalists and Unionists to join with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Parliamentary Party and form a Government of National Emergency to stop a Hard Brexit and usher in a Soft Brexit with the UK leaving the EU soon and under a good Deal and Favourable Terms.
A domestically Whiggish progressive socialist Labour Ministry led by a Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn and backed by One Nation Labour, Liberals, Conservatives and Unionists/Nationalists in the British House of Commons would be enough to overcome Theresa May’s Tory diehards and would work to ensuring the benefits of the Single Market and delivering a pro-jobs, pro-growth, pro-equality, pro-green, pro-UK Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister should invite One Nation pro-European Tory Ken Clarke to become European Chancellor in effect Brexit Secretary with a newly formed Ministry for Europe, a subsidiary of the Foreign Office. Ken Clarke can get negotiations back on track with a Labour Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn and a Labour Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry. New Labour Pro-Europeans should rest assured that Corbyn has effectively surrendered most of Labour European Brexit policy making to the pro-European Labour wing under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer Home Secretary.
Mr. Corbyn should invite New Labour founder Lord Mandelson to become Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Board of Trade in charge of negotiating the United Kingdom’s major Free Trade Agreements post-Brexit in a Corbyn Ministry of National Emergency. For bringing over some pro-European Single Market Remain Scottish Tories a Prime Minister Corbyn should send Ruth Davidson to the House of Lords and appoint her First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Scotland working closely with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Johanna Cherry of the Scottish National Party should sit in Mr. Corbyn’s Cabinet as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Secretary of Defence Angus Brendan Macneil, Secretary of Culture, Media and Sport.
The Westminster Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party Nigel Dodds MP should be offered the newly created post of Vice-Premier and Secretary of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Premier Corbyn should retain the services of John McDonnell as a soft-Brexit, anti-austerity, pro-market but socialist democratic Chancellor and Dianne Abbot should become President of the Labour Party replacing the old role of Chairman. Anna Soubry the former SDP now Tory MP for Nottingham should be offered the position of Secretary of State for Industry, Energy and Climate Change while either the cross-bench Peer Jim O’Neil or Labour’s Barry Gardiner or Lord Mandelson should be given a special brief as the dedicated Minister for China and deliver the best possible flourishing of UK-China relations.
A domestically and internationally Whiggish Labour Government of National Unity – with a dash of Marxism and progressive Scottish radicalism tempered by sensible non-ideological centrist Tory pragmatism and social democratic Lloyd George Liberalism finessed by a twist of Gladstonian Unionism and Irish nationalism leading to a new close British relationship and policy in Europe for a Euro-Asian Global Britain. The Irish unionists and nationalists in the form of the DUP and Sinn Fein should support such a British Government in the House of Commons at Westminster in order to restore devolved power-sharing government in Stormont and unlock the 1 Billion Pounds promised. Ironically it is Jeremy Corbyn who is the only potential British Prime Minister and British MP to be able to get the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement back up and running in Belfast between the two major local parties and preserve the gains made between Ireland and the UK and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Scottish nationalist and unionists should support a soft-Brexit Labour Government of National Unity to preserve Scotland’s benefits and access to the Single Market as will a Labour Government of National Unity for all of the United Kingdom engineered by a European Chancellor, the British Chancellor for Europe, Ken Clarke former Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in John Major’s Government and Education Secretary and Health Secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s Government as well as serving as an MP in the House of Commons since 1970 and holding the role of Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in the first Cameron Ministry. Instead of Ken Clarke acting as a go-between for Theresa May’s right-wing nationalistic, pro-austerity, Hard Brexit incompetent Tory minority Government he should be delivering Brexit as Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn and Britain’s Chancellor for Europe leading the Ministry of Europe in charge of crafting a Good Exit Deal and shaping a future new partnership for Britain and the European Union with the UK firmly embedded in Europe and the World.
In order to secure the firm support of Tory MPs in the House of Commons consisting of Cameron/Osborne Lieutenants and pro-European Remaining Conservatives, anti-Theresa May One Nation rebels and disgruntled Leavers Mr. Corbyn will have to make some compromises and concessions on domestic policy and politics by not banging on so much about identity politics, and new left liberal western extreme multiculturalism identity politics which could lose Labour votes among its working class loyalists in the North who voted Brexit and the more centrist New Labour Tories that Lord Mandelson thinks Mr. Corbyn can win over for a really big majority further down the line. He should bring back Sarah Champion to the Cabinet and also not talk so much about identity politics. He can continue to combat such intolerances and preach wise universal enlightened harmony but it should not be the loudest issue being spoken about domestically.
The focus must be on stopping a Hard Brexit and getting the Economy sorted out for better jobs, better standards of living and better lives for hard working people. A Labour Government of National Unity for National Emergency times led by Jeremy Corbyn must not indulge in the Hillary Clinton mode of identity politics a la 2016 but focus on economics and trade and living standards and anti-austerity in the Bernie Sanders jobs and quality of life mode. By doing this Corbyn can peel away with across the floor defections from the Tory Party of further MPs such as Nicky Morgan, Anna Soubry, Grant Shapps, Ken Clarke, Sir Oliver Letwin, Theresa Villiers, some Scottish Ruth Davidson Tories as well as Notting Hill members Ed Vaizey, Dominic Grieve, Phillip Hammond, Rory Stewart and form a viable working majority in the House of Commons to deliver the UK’s departure from the EU and a new domestic and foreign policy for Britain.
Internationally such a Labour British Government led by a socialist Marxist Labour Party leader will never be supported by the United States and the Trump administration or for that matter a moderate Democrat administration. The Americans and the CIA simply will not have Jeremy Corbyn. Nor for that matter will some in the money markets and certain banks and speculators and governments could well try to crucify such a Labour Government financially. Hence new sources of financing and markets and consumers and investment and trade are crucial to plugging lost opportunities and augmenting existing financial credibility while insuring against lost American backing in the international money markets. Thus a good strong UK-China relationship could help soften Brexit and a more mature UK-Russia relationship can evolve but the price for Eastern backing and support will be a hard headed realist reappraisal of UK-US relations. The Continental Europeans do want to do a deal but just not with Theresa May or the British Tory Party. They can do a sensible deal with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. If Jeremy Corbyn stops British interference in the Middle East wars and failed policies of Bush and Blair and stands up to Trump while maintaining a good relationship with Beijing and Moscow and the EU27 then his international stock despite cooling the UK-US relationship will actually rise both internationally and domestically as well as throughout European capitals. That is what a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Government could do for Britain
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
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