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Showing posts with label left politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label left politics. Show all posts

Monday, 7 August 2017

Venezuela: In every way a terrible week



Tomorrow in Lima, Peru nine Latin American states (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and Paraguay) plus Canada will meet with the aim of establishing a “contact group” that they hope can be the best way of pressuring Venezuela to return to democracy.

That Venezuela has left democracy trailing behind in the dust is beyond dispute but for those still with doubts this piece by Francisco Toro helpfully explained the process whereby Venezuela has arrived at this point by putting it into American terms:
Using the FBI to threaten and intimidate them, the president forces three Supreme Court justices to resign. After Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor leave, a lame-duck session of Congress rushes through the appointment of Roger Stone, Kellyanne Conway and Anthony Scaramucci to the court. The liberals kick and scream, but there’s nothing they can do. Scaramucci becomes chief justice.
It has taken the crisis to reach this point for Latin America to finally address the problem of Venezuela - because they see how it will effect them.

As Wall Street Journal reporter Anatoly Kurmanaev told Canadian public radio:
It has had a major impact. Columbia is talking about a looming refugee crisis. That's a country [with one of the] biggest refugee populations in the world itself because of decades of civil war. So this crisis has put a real strain on its limited resources already. 
The treatment of the refugees, by the way, by the region has been incredible. They have not been turned back - instead they have been made welcome.
Hundreds of Indigenous people live in abject poverty on the border of Brazil. And we're seeing them crossing into the tiny island of Trinidad that Venezuela borders by sea, trying to find food and trying to escape.
That's Commonwealth member Trinidad, which already hosts 40,000 refugees, 5% of its population. The neighbouring tiny island of Curaçao, which because it's part of, or rather one of, The Netherlands is also part of the European Union, already hosts 10,000.

The Venezuelan crisis is happening 11km from the EU.

Javier Lafuente and Carlos E. Cué in El Pais quote a Colombian Official:
There is no coordination between the Venezuelan military and the Colombians, there is absolute distrust, it is as if one spoke in Chinese and the other responded in Quechua.
"It is a chaos and a permanent anarchy," Joaquin Villalobos, the Salvadoran ex-guerrilla turned consultant for conflict resolution, told them. "In the midst of chaos, the power acquired by criminal platforms is incredible."

The move to create a 'contact group' is because the Organisation of American States, whose General Secretary is the socialist former Foreign Minister of Uruguay, has been blocked from taking collective actions because of countries like Cuba as well as Nicaragua and some Caribbean islands which rely on Venezuelan financing and Venezuelan oil. As well the Vatican has been working behind the scenes to promote the idea of a 'contact group'.

[Listen to the powerful statement by OAS General Secretary Luis Almagro]
The strategists who are trying to put together a regional agreement to corner Maduro, report Lafuente and Cué, believe that, despite the opposition of some countries like Bolivia, that a consensus is being established in which the crisis is deep, with enormous risk for all Countries, and the region can not stand still.

Says Kurmanaev:
Few countries are prepared to tolerate [Maduro's authoritarian rule] and stay quiet about it, which reduces the number of countries that might be able to mediate.
He explained that it is hoped that the Dominican Republic and Uruguay might be among the few potential Latin American countries left who could open the door for dialogue with Maduro.

Uruguay may no longer be a candidate after it agreed to Venezuela's suspension from the regional trade body Mercosur. (Though Venezuela had already lost its rights as a State Party as of last December because it had not incorporated required regulations into its legal system.)

Countries like Canada may be able to quietly exert some pressure on its neighbours to the south to push for a regional solution, he said.
I think the bigger, more powerful countries like the U.S. and Canada should focus on trying to provide incentives for the smaller countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to take a united stance — for them to say, 'Enough is enough and you have to change.'

This requires offering some sort of financial incentives, or maybe [tightening] immigration and remittances rules … It's in everyone's interest to have a stable Venezuela on their doorstep.

Although the UK has condemned the establishment of the Constituent Assembly and the sidelining of the Parliament (as have 42 other countries, including Switzerland), moves by the EU maybe made difficult because of the blocking of joint efforts by the Syriza government in Greece.

Comparing the situation to a game of Jenga with so many pieces already removed, Kurmanaev says "it's very difficult to see how it will end, but it could certainly come crashing down at any moment."

********



You might not know about any of this if you're a casual news consumer let alone one of the many who gets their news via social media. In the UK the past eight days has been one long shitfight between right and left over Venezuela.

This piece by Ian Dunt, repenting his past support for 'Chavismo', is very good and one of several lamenting the 'gotcha!' coverage. Writing for the New Statesman James Bloodsworth bemoaned a "point scoring exercise" and pointed out that Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn could do some practical good over getting political prisoners freed. (President Maduro is well aware of who Corbyn is and would undoubtedly take his call.)
On seemingly good terms with the government of Nicolás Maduro, Corbyn’s words may actually carry weight in Venezuela. This is a matter of some importance when the country appears to be marching toward full-blown dictatorship.
This was the point I argued in May when I wrote that Corbyn had a chance to be a Man of Peace, not just play one on TV:
When his visit to the region he professes to love was reported by Telesur at the beginning of this year Corbyn could have spoken out on Venezuela. When he spoke to the Cuban Solidarity crowd last June he could have spoken out.

He could have demanded:
  •  That the Venezuelan government rejoin the peace process
  •  That the Venezuelan government declare a food crisis
  •  That the Venezuelan government allow humanitarian aid agencies and NGOs to freely operate and to bring in aid
He could have repeated the words, practically word-for-word, of the Pope.
Mostly though what we've had is Gotcha! reporting, highlighted by a set-to setup on BBC's Newsnight between the "strongman of Corbynism" (as a Spanish newspaper described him) Chris Williamson MP and the Blairite former Minister Tom Harris.

Then we had the breaking-of-the-omerta by Owen Jones, the well known writer and man bouncing on Oprah's sofa, on Sky News' Paper Review. Goaded by the IEA's Kate Andrews that 'Corbyn should apologise!' this event was gleefully reported by the right-wing blogger Guido as where Jones finally called the Maduro regime 'authoritarian'.

But here's the thing. Jones was actually referring to a Labour Party statement, one which has had precious little analysis during this melee but which represents a truly terrible policy on Venezuela. One which concerns me as a Party member and should concern others too.

This statement was issued a week ago but not emailed to journalists or announced on Twitter.
We mourn all those who have been killed and injured in the protests leading up to this election, and we urge everyone in Venezuela, on all sides, to end the bloodshed immediately.

In particular, we urge the government of Venezuela to recognise its responsibilities to protect human rights, free speech and the rule of law. The outcome of this election cannot be treated as a mandate for a further escalation of repression, division, and violence.

President Maduro must also respond personally to the legitimate concerns of the international community about the increasingly authoritarian nature of his rule and the growing hardship facing his people.

If he believes those concerns are misplaced, it is up to him to prove them wrong, not through his words, but through his deeds.
After two days of attacks on Corbyn, including a Times Editorial, on Wednesday a social media meme was created.

This vague, who-can-disagree, policy-free waffle showed no connection to anyone or anything. It should be judged on what it did not say and whose influence it obviously did not reflect.

Take for example the strong statement issued by the Socialist International, the grouping which Labour is an observer to and which has four parties who are members in Venezuela.
Given the lack of legitimacy of the path taken by the Venezuelan government, the Socialist International, along with condemning this serious breakdown of democratic order, today reiterates its deep solidarity with every citizen who has been suffering from the consequences of the serious political, economic, social and humanitarian crisis to which the country has been subject for a long time; a crisis that is deepening and worsening the further Venezuela moves away from good governance, and respect and recognition of the institutions of democracy.
That statement, unlike Labour's, did not accept the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly. It also did not talk about "both sides".

Labour MP Angela Smith, by contrast, has condemned the “wilful destruction of democratic structures” in Venezuela.

They go on to say:
Venezuela, which has always been an ally in the struggles for democracy and freedom in the face of past dictatorships in Latin America, does not deserve this fate.

The government of Venezuela must respect the life, liberty and rights of all of its citizens and must release immediately all political prisoners. The government should listen to those who have an opinion to contribute to democratic coexistence, beginning with those who have been duly elected to do so, the members of the National Assembly, elected in December 2015 for a tenure lasting until 2021. The government must respect and recognise the mandate given by the people to the National Assembly and the powers of this institution in line with the country’s constitutional system.
Labour does not mention political prisoners. It has not called for the release of Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma. The meme was put out after their arrest and after it was established with overwhelming evidence that the results of an election it does not condemn were rigged, the turnout inflated by at least double.

The statement gives no solidarity to those from Labour's sister parties in the region trying for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Perhaps most depressingly it does not call on the regime to do something absolutely minimal: declare a 'food crisis'. This technical requirement would immediately trigger international humanitarian aid - food and medicines - for a desperate, starving, dying population.

Instead the statement is a solipsistic, too clever by half concoction produced on the quiet and simply intended to deflect, to have something that can be waved around to say, as Jones did, 'see, we did do something'.

*******



Jones, Williamson and many others have also defaulted to 'whataboutistry' by pointing at the UK's corrupt relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Apart from the pedestrian lack of nous shown in not, instead, pointing at Conservative support for the Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame, as the former Minister Denis McShane has been saying for the past few days, this completely ignores the UK's corrupt relationship with Venezuela.

The truly astonishing levels of corruption by the 'Bolivarian bourgeoisie’ is enabled by the UK's famously lax financial regulation and our possession of tax havens like the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Read anything about the characters pouring billions into Miami real estate and the use of shell companies in the BVI will invariably come up.

And that corruption kills people as surely as a bomb sold to the Saudi armed forces does. “Malnutrition in Venezuela is a problem of corruption, not a lack of money,” Maritza Landaeta, a director of the Bengoa Foundation, a Caracas-based health and nutrition charity, told the Financial Times.

Recognition of our role here is not a failing, though, solely of left figures like Jones. Those on the right who have cited the gobsmacking wealth of Chavez' billionaire daughter also seem to be unaware of our part in that.


*******



Nobody seems to know what will happen next though it is clear that the opposition is exhausted and divided on what to do. It is not even clear if the street protests will return to the level they have been. I was struck by this observation from a Reuters piece about the connections between Venezuela's protesters and those in Ukraine:
While Ukraine's protesters endured freezing conditions day and night, Venezuela's thin out quickly when rain starts, and they go home in the evening and enjoy balmy Caribbean weather.
The Venezuelans point out that criminal gangs make the streets dangerous at night. And with their economy in meltdown, they are often short of medicine, food and other needs, whereas the Ukrainians had a good supply line.
Apparently the 'Revolution of Dignity' or 'Maidan' in Ukraine has been inspiring Venezuealan protesters and the film Winter on Fire has been sought out and has been shown on the street, in cafes, in halls, everywhere.

There is also the possibility that the crisis could resolve itself within Venezuela, without any outside pressure.

Yesterday's supposed military insurrection, which lit up social media for a few hours, may be a nothingburger or may not be. As Guillermo Tell Aveledo points out the civilian-military alliance that runs Venezuela may fray because the military, or parts of it, thinks that that Maduro's gone too far and he has become an obstacle to their personal (read financial) best interests.

Phil Gunson, International Crisis Group's Senior Analyst for the Andes, says:
While the Constituent Assembly inevitably will alter relations between the government and opposition, it could also bring to light splits within the government camp itself.
The most important question the Assembly will face once installed is who will become its president. The outcome will depend on which faction from the ruling party is deemed to have won most seats. If Maduro’s main rival, Diosdado Cabello – Vice President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) – were to prevail, this would represent at least a change of style, and could presage a split in the government.
Maduro, a former trade union leader who received ideological training in Cuba, represents the hardline, civilian left of the movement. Cabello, an army captain who took part in Hugo Chávez’ 1992 coup, belongs to its military wing, and tends to be more hawkish in public than Maduro. His comrades from the military academy are now well-placed generals.
Friction between the two camps, each of which controls distinct state institutions and sources of revenue, has occasionally surfaced despite largely successful efforts to date to maintain a unified front against the opposition. Cabello is seen by some as hostile to Cuban influence in Venezuela, but whether one of the two is more likely to negotiate remains a matter for speculation.

A whole series of 'Chavistas' have already split with Maduro, most visibly the former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz.

But Gunson says the regime may also hit a financial wall:

The regime’s Achilles heel is its economic and financial crisis, and in particular its crushing foreign debt. Some US$5 billion in debt service payments must be disbursed before the end of this year. A chaotic default would transform the country’s economic landscape and further weaken the government’s international and domestic position.
Much will depend on the posture taken by Venezuela’s key international backers, Russia and China. As a major oil producer, Russia could step in to reduce the impact of future U.S. oil sanctions, while China could increase its financial support for Caracas by extending the debt repayment period, affording the Maduro regime some breathing space. So far, Moscow has reiterated its public stance condemning what it sees as “outside interference”, while Beijing has remained silent.
All sorts of fractures already visible could become wider and civil war is not a hysterical suggestion. Says Gunson, everybody, in particular the Opposition, faces an unpalatable but best option for an end game:
The best outcome would be for the international community to offer members of the regime a safe exit for themselves and for the country as a whole, in exchange for a credible negotiations process that reverses recent governmental decisions. ... Credible assurances should be conveyed to the government’s core leadership that a negotiated exit can include guarantees for their personal safety, and to mid-ranking officials that a transitional justice system can be put in place to prevent witch-hunts.

*******

To cap off what was a terrible week yesterday The Observer published a surreal Editorial which pretty much told regional leaders that they had no right to lecture Venezuela because 'neoliberal'.

What it suggested anyone actually does was a complete mystery because it's final pretentious line - "Stop harrumphing. Start helping." - led to a review of a book about Chavez in the London Review of Books whose proposed 'solution' appeared to me to be 'bring back Chavez from the dead'.

No, rather than taking the opportunity to bash 'neoliberals', 'socialists' or even (despite the oh-so-strong temptations) Owen Jones what we should all be doing first and foremost is hoping that those Foreign Ministers meeting in Lima tomorrow are successful and from that they can talk, cajole, whatever Maduro down off the cliff edge.

Note:

As I was writing this a statement signed by Corbyn was issued. Apart from the 'both sides' rhetoric and the rote calls to end violence. A couple of things leapt out. Firstly that he was calling for a dialogue which regional leaders are attempting (as I explain) to which he appears completely, blithely unaware of and secondly that he references Macron calling for this rather than, say, an actual Latin American. Corbyn has a very good friend in the Mexican left-wing Presidential candidate Lopez Obrador. What I got a strong whiff off with this statement is that he hasn't called up Obrador to ask 'so what can I do to help?' Solidarity my arse.



 See also:
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Wednesday, 4 January 2017

Venezuela: A Corbynvista warning


“Negative campaigning works against other candidates but not against Corbyn,” one Smith aide said. “For a lot of people he embodies something about themselves. It’s a statement of intent about your personal identity, a personality marker to like Corbyn. So attack that and people take it personally.”
Jim Waterson signalling how a Corbyn identifying left will gladly sell out the likes of Venezuela's starving. Watch them - If/and you help this go viral.

Even before they fell silent on Venezuela's food crisis Jeremy Corbyn and others had failed to support Labour's cousins in that country. 

They cheered Chavismo but run away like cowards as it falls. And their acolytes say nothing.

In Venezuela there are four political parties that are sister parties to the UK's Labour Party, fellow members of the Socialist International (the "worldwide organisation of social democratic, socialist and labour parties."):
A member of the Democratic Action party and past vice president of the Socialist International, Henry Ramos Allup, was elected Speaker of the opposition controlled Venezuelan National Assembly in January this year.

The Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, which Corbyn and others are aligned with, have repeatedly said that these Social Democrats are 'right wing'.  Here's them describing Ramos Allup as 'right wing'.

They are no more 'right wing' than Owen Smith, Harriet Harman or Wes Streeting is but in Venezuela this label dumped on them by the Western likes of the VSC carries far more serious weight.

Herein lies a Lenin-echo tale


All four parties have been persecuted under, first, Hugo Chavez and now Nicholas Maduro.

Leopoldo López, of Popular Will, is the most well known persecution subject. He was jailed in February 2014 on charges of public incitement to violence through supposed subliminal messages and criminal association. He had previously been subjected to corruption charges, and banned from running for office. Those charges were declared false by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Chilean José Antonio Viera-Gallo tried to visit López in 2014 in a mission from the Socialist International and was denied access. Viera-Gallo said:
In a dictatorship, there are no rights whatsoever, and one is left at the mercy of power. Yesterday, we confirmed human right violations against a political leader.
In June this year the socialist former Spanish Prime minister Zapatero finally met López.

Amnesty International have deemed López a Prisoner of Conscience and have said that:
"The charges brought against Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López," was a “smack of a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent in the country.”
Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty International Americas Program Deputy Director, called on Venezuelan authorities to:
Either present solid evidence to substantiate the charges against López or release him immediately and unconditionally ... Amnesty International has not seen evidence to substantiate these charges. This is an affront to justice and free assembly.
The (UK) Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (VSC, whose prominent left-wing British supporters I called out) have called López "right wing" - have called any opposition 'right wing' - and has disseminated Venezuelan government propaganda against him.

The group have said about protests against food shortages and repression:
The calls for street action from the opposition, [amounts] to destabilizing the country.
This is the language of Putin, of Lukashenko. This is Stalinism. To underline that Kremlinesque 2013 post, the VSC specifically tied the social democrat López to "fascists".

In this they echo the Venezuela government who just called the Chilean Foreign Minister, who served under Allende, a 'Pinochetista' for daring to inquire about the arrest of one of its citizens, the lawyer Braulio Jatar.

Jatar's imprisonment brings the number of political prisoners in Venezuela to 95.

'Man of peace'


I have looked and cannot find any contacts between Corbyn, or Ken Livingstone (for that matter), with Social Democrats in Venezuela.

Corbyn has never, no instance I can find, defended López.

Nor Manuel Rosales, another prominent (ran for President, exiled) Social Democrat persecuted by Chavismo.

Neither had he any comment on the massive corruption called out by Chavistas themselves.

Jack Staples-Butler's masterful, long-form complete demolition of Corbyn et al demonstrates how none of them - Corbyn, Jones et al - payed any heed, none. to even Venezuelan civil society, NGOs or trade unionists.

All of them were so bewitched, and, as Jack demonstrates, the 1930s, Orwell-Spain, parallels are so exact.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That they did not know is impossible


In a 2013 encounter on Al-Jazeera Corbyn was called out on his Chavismo support with critics citing corruption, manipulation of elections, and alliances with dictatorships like Iran and Syria.

His answer - noteworthy angry - was to point to 'what Venezuela was like before Chavez' and the fact that Chavez had won elections. He denied that Chavez has clamped down on the media and described opposition criticism of Chavez in the media as "libelous"

Since 2003, Freedom House has ranked Venezuela as "not free" concerning press freedom. Concerns about freedom of the press in Venezuela have been raised by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Inter American Press Association, the International Press Institute, Reporters without Borders, representatives of the Catholic Church, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and others.
"[Chavez] was not a very efficient dictator because he allowed so much opposition to carry on," Corbyn said.
I refer you again to Jack Staples-Butler's surgical demolition of Corbyn et al on this point. Jack takes apart every talking point from Corbyn, Owen Jones etc from this period and shines sunlight on it.

Corbyn knew. Of course he knew.  He knows now. Ask him and watch the 'man of peace' dissolve before your eyes. Ask.
 
In his last recorded comments on Venezuela in June 2015 Corbyn did not include anything - not one word - on the grim situation with hunger in Venezuela, never mind the international outcry from fellow Social Democrats over the imprisonment of López. Almost the entire focus was on supposed American imperialism.

Now he deletes all comment on Venezuela from his website.



Do not tell me they did not know. Owen Jones, Burgon, Abbott - FFS Milne. They all knew.

Damn any unheard Venezuelan Social Democrat who complained. Shiraz Socialist:
Essential to any Bonapartist regime is the role of the army. Chávez was a career soldier and this conditions his outlook and politics. This is not simply because he tried to seize power in 1992 through a military coup. It is widely recognised that Chávez militarised politics in Venezuela.

Chávezs made it clear in interviews with sympathetic journalists such as Marta Harnecker and the hero-worshipping Richard Gott  that a reconstructed “civilian-military alliance” was the key to his politics. His organisation, the MBR-200, formed in the early 1980s, was made up largely of middle level officers, with others in a secondary role.

The armed forces have been central from the beginning of Chávez’s rule.
The military in now running the economy. The military is now starving the populace for profit.

Let me underline that again. Maduro has let the military run food and they are profiting from it while people starve.

One assumes this is fine by Corbyn et al but who knows? No journalist has asked them about it.

Serious people say this will come to a financial head in April. Jack Staples-Butler has ideas on who the Chavista apologists' fall guy will be
 

Will they get away with this?


As Caracas Chronicles noted when Nick Cohen demolished the remaining left support for Chavismo earlier this year:
It’s been years since there was a serious argument to be had about the Bolivarian Revolution. The symbolic bookend to the debate, for me, came when Noam Chomsky broke with Chávez over his treatment of judge Afiuni. 
This is true except in the deaf/dumb left organised by the VSC in the UK, and exemplified by the Labour leader and still backed by big unions and still left alone by UK media, even unto the Mail ...

This is from last August.

They sold out fellow Venezuelan socialists.  Corbyn stood by and watched. Let this be a lesson to UK Labour.

He failed to defend Social Democrats in the face of kleptocratic so-called Leninists. They cheered an experiment that failed.

You got the point from all this?


See also:
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Friday, 28 October 2016

Red/brown unite shocker - over damn foreigners

Attitudes to Jewish immigration by political identifier.


The Canadian journalist Michael Colborne likes nothing better than to crunch some numbers. So there he was, as you do, rooting round the details of the of the European Social Survey (ESS) - an enormous project which you can see more about on its own Wikipedia page.

And lo, this is what he found:
The vast majority (94%) of respondents said that either many, some or a few Jews should be allowed to come live in Britain, with only 6% saying no Jews should be allowed at all.

But…regardless of how you slice up the left/right scale, British people who identify as furthest to the left or right seem a lot less keen on Jews than those in the relative middle on the spectrum.


Drilling down some more he found that fully a fifth of those who identified as furthest left would permit no Jewish immigration to the UK, just shy of the 22.5% of the furthest-right who wouldn't either (image at top of page). Colborne (who I follow on Twitter) confirmed to me that the samples are statistically significant.

It gets worse


Today Colborne did some more number crunching and found that far-left attitudes to Jews come in a context - hostility to immigration full-stop.



This is - in cold, hard numbers - a big minority of the Corbyn supporting, Momentum supporting far-left having the same views as a similar sized minority of the far-right.

Here some comparisons from the same source across Europe (Courtesy Colborne):



All great stuff for the proponents of horseshoe theory, as well as those also on the left who have been pointing out that the left has some fucking serious issues for years (thinking of you, Nick Cohen).

Oh and Michael has set off to plow through other surveys to find other samples demonstrating the same phenomenon ..
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Sunday, 21 August 2016

Labour isn't Europe's biggest party


It is one of those little things that illustrates something bigger. For some time I have seen Twitter posts on Labour's membership numbers claiming it is now the biggest political party in Europe.

The oldest tweet saying this which I could find came from a nasty antisemitic account in January:



Some of these tweets, most notably from Momentum's James Schnider, have described it as 'biggest left of centre party'. Others have described it as 'biggest party in Western Europe. But now this has progressed to a meme and I've had enough.



This is not true, on several levels.

Wrong, spin, ignorant


The biggest political party in Europe is United Russia**, the ruling party in the Russian Federation, set up by Vladimir Putin in 2001. It's membership (2013 figures) is over two million.

It is spin because in a first past the post (FPTP) system almost all left members of political parties are in one party, rather than in several. In the rest of Europe, the spectrum of views represented in UK Labour are covered by more than one party because they have various forms of proportional representation.  So the Social Democratic Party of Germany has around 450k members and Die Linke 60k and Alliance '90/The Greens another 60k. Plus there are other smaller left parties.

I am not suggesting that all those members of other parties than Germany's Social Democrats would join them under FPTP but that those numbers point to another problem with the 'Europe's largest party' claim: the UK is coming off a very low base; proportionally most other European countries have higher memberships in general of political parties.

These are the most recent figures I could find (from 2013)*. As you can see, even with Labour's membership growth the UK still has much lower numbers than most other countries.



I could not find membership numbers for parties such as Greece's Syriza but this graph suggests it would be high. Parties of the left in Italy have a membership total over half a million. Spain's Podemos has around 450k members in a country 70% the size of the UK. Proportionally Podemos is as big as UK Labour and there are another 190,000 Social Democrats.

The election for UK's Labour's Leader also has a paltry participation rate compared to elsewhere. In the 2011 French Socialist Party presidential primary around 2,700,000 voters participated in the first round, and 2,900,000 voters in the second - a fact which beggars the question what the outcome would be if a similar democratic event were to happen in UK Labour.

Wake up call


What these facts highlight the most - and this is how a little thing can illustrate something bigger - is the con job behind this spin from Corbyn supporters, led by Momentum. Namely that even if you are 'Europe's biggest party' it does not matter how many members your party has, what matters is how many people will vote for you. The experience of other European parties tells us this. As they dare cite Europe they simultaneously ignore Europe.

One could add (because rally size is often cited alongside membership by Corbyn supporters) that it does not matter how many people you get to your rallies either - have you seen the scale of some of the rallies for European left wing parties?

This is a rally of tens of thousands for Spain's Podemos two months ago. They went on to lose the election to Spain's conservatives and got 21% of the vote.




*Another paper showing figures up to 2008 from across Europe.

** It has been pointed out to me (cheers Roger McCarthy) that Turkey is also in Europe, including a huge amount of its largest city, Istanbul.  As of May 2008, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) reportedly had 3,688,761 members.
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Wednesday, 17 February 2016

If Labour Moderates Were Football Fans ...

[Click for larger version]

Reblogged with permission from my mate Jake Goretzki, who is a self-described 'September the Twelfther' (one of those who left the Labour Party on the day that Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader). 

Jake says that the idea behind his cartoon is that "while I get the idea of a party being its members, when the boss and staff and objectives go rogue (and the tokens of success and trophies are disdained), it becomes almost impossible to support. I increasingly compare Corbyn Labour to Wimbledon [football club] when it was franchised to Milton Keynes - the 'club' and heritage and place effectively hijacked, and the grinning horror of  Pete Winkleman an impossible prospect to 'carry on' with."

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Monday, 25 January 2016

Putin is persecuting Russian anarchists + antifa

Dmitry Buchenkov. CC avtonom.org.

Reblogged with permission.


====


By Dmitry Okrest.

At the beginning of December, Dmitry Buchenkov became the latest person in Russia’s ‘Bolotnaya Case’, a series of investigations and trials into Russia’s opposition now in its fourth year.

Buchenkov, a 36-year old history lecturer at a Moscow medical university, is the 31st defendant in Bolotnaya. More than two hundred people were detained in the initial case, which stretches back to the ‘March of the Millions’, an opposition demonstration on the eponymous square in May 2012. The protest was timed to coincide with the inauguration of Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term, and this didn’t go unnoticed. During the sanctioned demonstration, the police cut off the square, in effect ‘kettling’ the protesters. Scuffles started between police and protesters, and a pitched battle of sorts began before the crowd was violently dispersed.

The prosecutions made against protest leaders, and allegations of geopolitical conspiracy, have come to symbolise the Kremlin’s response to the ‘Russian winter’ of 2011-2012. Despite the extent of the investigation and trial, Bolotnaya is yet to receive attention inside, or outside Russia. Journalists and activists are less and less interested. Only the police are still following it in numbers.

Yet the payback for Bolotnaya continues. On 22 December, Ivan Nepomnyashchikh, an engineer from the Moscow region, received a two and a half year prison sentence for participating in ‘mass disorder’, the charge against the majority of Bolotnaya defendants. By the time Buchenkov was arrested in early December, the first defendants from 2012-2014 were already on their way out of prison.

Dmitry Buchenkov will now face trial for turning over a chemical toilet on 6 May 2012. The prosecution’s main evidence is a photograph of a 30-year old man on Bolotnaya who looks nothing like Buchenkov.

Costly convictions


‘Buchenkov was an active member of the left-wing movement behind Autonomous Action, a large organisation of libertarian communists, which had dozens of groups in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine before it split,’ Aleksandr, a young anti-fascist, tells me. ‘Unlike most of the young anarchists who were detained during the march, Buchenkov's name was comparatively well-known’, he added.

‘Power exists and shall continue to do so for as long as human societies exist,’ notes Buchenkov in a letter to me. ‘The task of libertarian communism is not to destroy power, instead we should organise it in the form of self-government, on a socialist basis. The political task of anarcho-communism is to organise power in non-governmental forms.’

Indeed, Buchenkov’s arrest is another instance of the Russian authorities’ focus on anarchists and anti-fascists. Buchenkov now joins fellow members of Autonomous Action in jail—Aleksei Gaskarov, sentenced as part of Bolotnaya, and Aleksei Sutuga, who was charged with fighting against neo-Nazis in September 2014. For the past six months, Sutuga has been denied correspondence and held in solitary confinement.

Buchenkov’s investigator Aleksei Dobarin has form in this area. Dobarin has previously worked on the Bolotnaya case, investigating Vladimir Akimenkov and Leonid Rukavishnikov, activists from the far left Russian organisation Left Front (and who have condemned Russia’s actions in south-east Ukraine). Prior to Bolotnaya, Dobarin worked in the Kaluga region, some 70 km from Moscow, where he investigated nationalist and neo-Nazi groups.

As Aleksandr, the young anti-fascist, tells me, in the three years he’s known Buchenkov, the latest figure in Bolotnaya has had several encounters with the security services. Police officials would greet him at demonstrations, and he was threatened after starting a social club; once he was beaten to the point of losing consciousness.

But Buchenkov remained active. Forced to leave his work in a Nizhny Novgorod university, he moved to Moscow in 2009. Following Russia's 2015 economic crisis and multiple economic sanctions after the annexation of Crimea, he decided to publish a free newspaper, which he handed out to people coming to the Russian capital looking for work from the regions.

Despite the general fatigue of Russia’s civil society, Buchenkov’s case has attracted its attention—the defendant’s lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina is yet to gain access to the case. Instead, at the first hearing, Buchenkov was represented by a legal aid lawyer appointed by the Interior Ministry, who had previously worked as a police investigator in Siberia. More than 70 legal professionals have since signed an open letter questioning this behaviour.

Yet Buchenkov has few chances for solidarity from like-minded people in Europe. Following Maidan and the war in Ukraine, the European left has split once again.

Who are your comrades now?


The active participation of the far right in EuroMaidan, the war in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea has brought disarray to the left in Europe. Most were confused as to what position to take. After EuroMaidan, Kyiv was seen as ripe for revolutionary change. For others Russia—which opposed these changes—was an opponent of a unipolar world and thus an example to follow.

Russia’s alternative banner, as heralded by Russia Today, remains out of sight for Russian citizens themselves. The majority of programmes on the emancipatory potential of the Kurdish women’s movement or Julian Assange’s interview with the leader of Hezbollah aren’t accessible to Russian audiences. Only a few programmes come with Russian subtitles.

RT’s ‘western’ pull is effective. Last year, I interviewed Vicenzo Bellantoni, secretary of Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party, which had organised a series of lectures and concerts across Europe in support of the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ (DNR).

As Bellantoni saw it, the DNR was involved in a ‘mass anti-fascist struggle against an illegal fascist and reactionary government, which had come to power as a result of an armed coup. All communist movements are united in the people’s struggle, and we intend to resist this reactionary coup. We rely on many websites for our convictions: the sites of the Russian and Ukrainian communist parties, Russia-1 and Russia Today.’

‘There’s an idea in the west that there’s an alternative to the US-Brussels consensus,’ says Ilya Budraitskis, who coordinates the Russian socialist movement. ‘People have an intuitive need to replicate the familiar contours of the Cold War, where there’s two centres of power, each of which represents certain values.

‘The Soviet Union, and now Russia, is associated with social justice and national emancipation. We can choose which side in this global confrontation with which to associate ourselves. The mistake of many on the left is that, as they see it, Russia is far from the continuation of the Soviet Union.’

Short memories


For those who miss the USSR, the now disintegrated country is valued for its power and position in the world, as well as certain social welfare guarantees. Russia’s anti-fascist rhetoric and anti-American message have brought much in the way of support from some on the European left, who have chosen to support Moscow despite its violation of labour legislation, low wages and everyday xenophobia.

Buchenkov himself once declared that workers in authoritarian post-Soviet states now found themselves in semi-feudal relationships with employers. The political elite, he continued, had usurped state property while the opposition was weak. It could offer nothing but renewed religious conservatism or the fulfillment of neoliberal demands, concluded Buchenkov.

Indeed, as Budraitsksis sees it, ‘Contemporary Russia cannot present a single idea that could be mobilised elsewhere. It presents no alternative to the model of global capitalism emerging from Brussels or Washington. Yet either from inertia or a lack of memory, the politics of Moscow is seen precisely in this mold.’

Dmitry Buchenkov considers himself to be a leftist, but he comes from that minority of Russian left-wingers that view the Soviet experience and what came to replace it in a critical light. Unfortunately, the arrest of a left-wing activist in a country, which, according to tradition, is a staging ground for resisting American imperialism, is yet to garner a reaction.

A case in point is that of Aleksandr Kolchenko, the Crimean student and anarchist activist arrested last year for an arson attack on the office of a pro-Russian organisation. There was precious little solidarity from European countries, at least not in comparison to the murder of antifascist activists by neo-Nazis in the late 2000s.

Russia’s Anarchist Black Cross, an organisation set up to support political prisoners, notes that European activists are not only less interested in news of arrests, they’re giving less in terms of donations. Aleksandr, who is coordinating help for Buchenkov inside prison, also notes that attention from western NGOs is decreasing.

Instead, some on the European left are busy supporting the unrecognised republics in south-east Ukraine with music festivals, lectures and cinema clubs, comparing the conflict to the Spanish Civil War. Many more make clever remarks about Kyiv’s neoliberal path, while ignoring the fact that Moscow is travelling the same road.

‘You have to take everything that happens in life philosophically,’ writes Buchenkov from jail. ‘The people in prison are also people, our fellow countrymen, many people from former Soviet republics. It’s a slice of society, with all its problems and shortcomings.

‘I can only imagine why I’ve been arrested, but I believe that my imprisonment is connected to my political convictions. I didn’t exclude the possibility of persecution for my beliefs. I am outraged that I’m being persecuted for actions for which I am not responsible. I wasn’t even at Bolotnaya.’


Edited to add: In the UK the comrades from Italy mentioned by Okrest are matched by the (misnamed) group Solidarity with the Anti-fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU). That group is backed by Stop The War Coalition (STWC) leaders Andrew Murray and Lindsey German and the STWC website has promoted the group, as well as run numerous articles chiming with its politics. This has led to the extraordinary outcome of SARU backing smears against the National Union of Mineworkers for their solidarity work with Ukranian comrades. SARU are not marginal, they have almost 5,000 likes on Facebook.


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Wednesday, 20 January 2016

Ukraine: please kill 'Odessa massacre' meme FFS

'Euromaidan' activists helping rescue people from fire at Trade Union House in Odesa, May 2 2014. Pic vasaphotography.com

Like deliberately missing a open goal in a penalty shootout, Ukraine is still failing to nail the meme that Maidan activists deliberately massacred pro-Russians in Odessa.

This meme has gone around the world (thank you John effin Pilger), and has driven actual lefties to sign up for the zombies running the 'People's Republics' in Eastern Ukraine - including Brits!

The meme ain't true, of course the Kremlin megarubles propaganda is BS, but once agin we have a vibrant Ukrainian civil society yellin that something must be done. They're right. They must be supported.

This is an open sore for the Maidan, for the 'Revolution of Dignity', and it must be closed.

Reblogged with permission.

===

By Halya Coynash.

20 months after the deadly disturbances and fire in Odesa on May 2, 2014, Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies have not only failed to properly investigate the events and find those responsible, but are effectively stymieing the investigation. This has forced the 2 May Group, a civic initiative of journalists and various experts, to publicly express their lack of confidence in the Prosecutor General’s Office and Interior Ministry and speak of ‘clear signs of sabotage’.

There seems more than enough cause for such criticism. It is over two months since the International Advisory Panel’s Nov 4 report identified serious failings in the investigation and lack of any real progress. That report clearly stated that, given evidence suggesting police complicity, as well as omissions, and the failure of the emergency services to respond in time to the fire, the investigation needs to be carried out by a body independent of the Interior Ministry. The 2 May Group soon afterwards publicly called upon the authorities to pass the entire investigation over to the same Department for Special Investigations within the Prosecutor General’s Office that is finally, albeit slowly, making progress on investigating crimes committed against Euromaidan activists.

The criticism and such constructive recommendations have all been ignored. Instead the Interior Ministry team has been reduced to two investigators and there is no visible progress on any front.

There is, however, permanent activity on the information war front with Russia and pro-Russian organizations actively pushing a narrative about a ‘massacre’ with the Trade Union building claimed to have been set alight on purpose by ‘Ukrainian radicals’. These are lies that have been used actively to recruit young men to fight in Donbas, and are regularly touted around Europe via a suspiciously well-funded ‘victim’ and highly misleading exhibition.

The 2 May Group has worked tirelessly to refute the lies which are also debunked by the findings of the International Advisory Panel. This is simply ignored in the propaganda reports while the failings in the investigation are trumpeted and often claimed to be deliberate sabotage because of things that need to be hidden.

It is impossible not to share the 2 May Group’s frustration over the failed investigation. While criticism is mainly directed at the Prosecutor General’s Office [PGO] and Interior Ministry - the bodies purportedly investigating the events, the activists also criticize the Security Service or SBU. The latter has not initiated any criminal prosecutions on separatism charges for which there would be every justification. The 2 May Group writes that following Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the events in eastern Ukraine, some of the anti-Maidan groups, particularly Odesskaya Druzhyna and Narodnaya Druzhyna, “turned into an instrument for dividing Ukraine – so-called ‘federalization’”. It was members of Odesskaya Druzhyna who provoked the disturbances on that fatal day and there is plenty of evidence that this was a planned attack.

Whoever started the trouble, it turned into full-scale disturbances with weapons used by both anti-Maidan (or pro-federalism) and pro-Ukrainian unity supporters.

6 people were killed and a further 12 injured by gunshot wounds during the disturbances in the centre. 42 died as a result of the fire which broke out in the Trade Union building on Kulikovo Pole. The fire was caused by a Molotov cocktail, however these were being hurled by activists on both sides and specialists agree that there is no way of knowing whether the fatal incendiary device was thrown from outside the building, or from inside.

The Interior Ministry’s Central Investigative Department was put in charge of investigating the riots, establishing the causes of deaths earlier in the centre and in the Trade Union building. They were also responsible for identifying those directly responsible for deaths; establishing where the weapons had come from (and disappeared to); and establishing the motives of the organizers of the troubles.

This same police CID was entrusted with investigating suspected negligence by emergency services staff. Most, if not all the deaths in the Trade Union building would have been averted had the fire brigade not taken forty minutes to arrive, despite repeated calls. The Prosecutor General’s Office [PGO] was put in charge of investigating negligence by police officers.

Both PGO and the Interior Ministry promised a swift and open investigation, with Interior Minister Arsen Avakov also announcing that foreign specialists would be involved, and that cases would be passed to the court within 3 months.

Only one of the people currently facing charges – Serhiy Khodiyak, a Maidan activist - is accused of involvement in these deaths. He is not in custody and members of Euromaidan have consistently tried to obstruct court hearings into the charges against him.
Of the 21 pro-federalist activists held in detention for very long periods (with 5 still in SIZO or a remand centre], most are facing vague charges of involvement in riots which could just as well be laid against a huge number of other people that day.

There are very serious questions to be answered over why a crucial action plan codenamed Khvylya [Wave] was ready but not registered and therefore did not come into effect. Petro Lutsiuk, the head of the regional police at the time, was placed under house arrest on May 13, 2015, and charged with professional negligence for the failure to register the action plan. Initial optimism that this might indicate real, albeit belated, progress soon fizzled. Lutsiuk was released from house arrest, and although he is supposedly now at the stage of reading the material against him, members of the 2 May Group are sceptical about the case turning into a real prosecution.

There have been constant attempts to blame the events on Dmytro Fuchedzhy, then deputy head of the Odesa Regional Police, who fled shortly after the events and is now believed to in Transnistria. It is known that Fuchedzhy supported the pro-federalism camp on Kulikovo Pole and there is video footage showing Fuchedzhy leave the scene with a minor injury in an ambulance almost certainly containing anti-Maidan activist Vitaly Budko [‘Botsman’], a key murder suspect. It was Fuchedzhy who allowed the storming of the police station by pro-Russian activists on May 4 and he personally ordered the release of 63 anti-Maidan activists, most of him were able to escape prosecution. Despite all of this, Ukraine has still not bothered to have Fuchedzhy added to the international wanted list.

People being rescued from the fire
The investigation was hampered from the outset by the destruction of material evidence during the night after the disturbances when the communal services were deployed in cleaning the streets. The 2 May Group reports that there was no attempt to cordon off areas where crimes had been committed, nor to carry out a proper inspection of the terrain.

The Trade Union building in turn was only closed to public access a month after the fire. Incredibly, the official inspection of the building failed to notice evidence, including bullet marks, demonstrating that firearms had been used to shoot at pro-Ukrainian activists from within the building. This was only added to the file material after the 2 May Group’s expert pointed it out.

Weapons


The 2 May Group calls the list of firearms removed absurdly short and notes that video footage shows that a much greater number of weapons were used. Some were taken from anti-Maidan activists and handed to the police, however there is no information as to what happened to them. The weapons used to kill Euromaidan activists Ihor Ivanov and Andriy Biryukov, and anti-Maidan activist Hennady Petrov have never been found. This is despite the fact that the bullet which killed Andriy Biryukov came from a weapon which is quite unusual in Ukraine and needs a special licence.

There has been no more than a formal response to the Group’s demand that the Odesa Regional Prosecutor investigate allegations that could implicate one of his employees in the concealment of the ‘Vulcan TK’ automatic rifle Budko is believed to have used to kill Ihor Ivanov (see: Prosecutor suspected of involvement in Odesa May 2 tragedy)

The 2 May Group is convinced that the investigation into the fire “is clearly being sabotaged at the highest level in the Interior Ministry”.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has narrowed the number of police officers accused of criminal inaction to just one person – Lutsiuk and is openly sabotaging the transfer of this case to an investigative body independent of the police and PGO.

Maidan supporters desperately trying to save opponents from the fire
The charges against Lutsiuk could also be laid against Volodymyr Bodelan, then head of the Odesa Emergency Services. Bodelan has admitted that he was personally responsible for delaying the fire brigade for 40 minutes. He finished his contract as planned, then stood for election to parliament. He disappeared for a few months after Lutsiuk was arrested, and liberally gave interviews to the Russian media full of misleading information and minimizing his role in the events. He recently returned, and obviously has his reasons for believing himself to be safe from prosecution.

An internal inquiry with the emergency services department found that nobody had been at fault, and the supposed criminal investigation is being carried out, as the international panel observed, by the Interior Ministry which cannot be considered an independent body.

There are no suspects, which the 2 May Group points out, allows the Interior Ministry to drag out the case indefinitely.

Failure to properly investigate events in which people lost their lives is a clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. This, as well as the numerous other failings in the so-called investigation, make it extremely likely that the European Court of Human Rights will in future issue judgements against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies are thus sabotaging an investigation which is of critical importance for Odesa and for Ukraine as a whole, given the cynical propaganda lies circulated about the tragic events. It is not only the victims and their families who have been betrayed.


*Watch an interview with the May 2 Group on Ukraine Today.

* Pilger's Guardian article a week after the events included content directly lifted from debunked Russian propaganda - see the weaselly footnote added by the Guardian.

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Sunday, 17 January 2016

A Children's Treasury of bat*hit Corbyn lines


Another day and another statement from Jeremy Corbyn which has to be explained, or 'Corbynsplained' as DPJ Hodges so neatly coined.

Today it was that a diplomatic channel should be opened with Islamic State and that they have "strong points". Thus hashtag #ISISstrongpoints trending all day today in the UK.

In the same interview with Andrew Marr Corbyn refused to say that the Falklands Islanders deserved the right to determine their future.

It so happened that I noticed that James Bloodworth had retweeted Harry Phibbs pointing to a exchange in the House of Commons:

(Bloodworth commented that this was "such a dishonest argument when he was against NATO *during* the Cold War.")

So, as you do, I went to have a read of said exchange (from, as John Rentoul pointed out, July 4 2013) and found it awash with gobsmacking statements from Corbyn.

I'm leaving out commenting much on the ones on NATO as I have covered that nonsense in earlier posts on Corbyn (see 'Corbyn and Ukraine: It's not pretty'). But there's him. complaining about NATO going outside the North Atlantic. In response to Labour MP Jon Spellar, he says about the anti-piracy operation off Somalia:
Of course piracy off the coast of Somalia is not a good thing. Instability in Somalia is very bad, but surely one solves that problem by political support for changes in Somalia—to some extent that is happening and considerable changes are taking place.
'Surely.' This is a prime example of the fake 'Man Of Peace', virtue signalling Corbyn.

Where to start. So the solution to the piracy is an elusive 'political solution'? What about the here and now Jeremy? (And doesn't that sound a lot like his proposals for Syria?)

He obviously is unaware that the NATO operation was started to protect World Food Programme shipments of relief. Or that the navies of Russia, China, India and 15 other non-NATO countries are involved.

No, the operation is about NATO "looking for something to do" - 'surely'.

Complaining that NATO is presenting itself as the "armed wing of the United Nations" - when? where? - he actually said:
It may be that the UN should have its own force.
Great idea! Why didn't anyone else think of that!?

Scrolling down comes this gem in his rant about Afghanistan:
Al-Qaeda was founded by US trainers.
This is an urban myth. It never happened. You can read the vast swathes of evidence confirming this as myth on Wikipedia, including this from CNN journalist Peter Berger (who interviewed Bin Laden):
The story about bin Laden and the CIA — that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. The real story here is the CIA did not understand who Osama was until 1996, when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.
@Twidun also noted that "he conflates the mujahideen with the Taliban (formed in 1992)." Of course its a convenient myth for Corbyn to propagate. But not one he's likely to be challenged over unless a journalist does and I would very much doubt they ever will. (Talking to you, Andrew Marr, et al.)

Carrying on ranting against NATO I am at an utter loss as to what he is on about here (highlight mine):
A whole new scenario seems to be being built up, namely that China will somehow occupy the Arctic and invade us from the Arctic ocean, and therefore we must develop a new missile shield—as we already have aimed against Russia—to protect ourselves.
China? The Arctic?

I would normally think this was a slip of the tongue but then literally the next thing he says is:
The USA is moving more into the Asia-Pacific region.
Eh? 'More'? Like it wasn't before?

And who among us cannot see this proposal as a contribution to world peace:
We have a growing arms race between NATO and Russia, despite the apparently cosy chats between members of the Russian Communist party and delegates to the NATO Assembly. I absolutely welcome those and wish they could be videoed and portrayed to the whole world. The same applies to China.
That was part of a rant about arms, something he has an obsession with, and I would note from my coverage of his views on Russia and Ukraine that he thinks the evil NATO is about:
Advancing military technology and a military presence further and further eastwards in order to create this ghastly scenario of some kind of hi-tech war with Russia in the future.
The war in fascist-run (Corbyn said that too) Ukraine is all about NATO trying out 'hi-tech' weapons? This will be news to the Ukrainians complaining about supplies to them from the West of non-lethal weapons, unless Corbyn thinks night vision goggles constitute that 'hi-tech'.

This daft idea you will not be surprised to learn comes from Seumas 'Uncle Joe' Milne but it also appears on the websites of Ron Paul fanboys and the pro-Kremlin conspiracist website globalresearch.ca.

Maybe the wingnut conspiracists are also writing about China invading the Arctic?

This was all from just one House of Commons session. There is lots more, of course, such as the Commons appearance where he goes on about how the world hates Britain cos Iraq when the truth is the opposite. Actual polling shows the UK is among the most respected countries in the World.

But these are facts and the Trump Corbyn fanboyz aren't big on those. Hence we are where we are.

Paging the News Quiz, Private Eye and satirists everywhere. The material writes itself, people.
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