The failings of neoliberalism. the financial crisis, Brexit and the City, plus the revolt of Blairites [New Labour] to dump chosen Labour leader Corbyn in favor of Owen Smith. A bit opportunistic of mayor Khan as his constituents voted to stay in the EU contrary to rural Britain who have been kept back from equal opportunity to reap benefits from EU membership. For Downing Street 10 and the House of Commons [!] it’s all about the City.
City of London mayor Khan dumps Jeremy Corbyn
I’ve thought hard about my role in the Labour leadership election. I considered staying neutral because, as mayor, I need to work with everyone to get the best deal for London. But I’ve been asked how I’ll vote by many of the Labour members and supporters who helped me throughout my campaign, and they deserve an answer.
I played no part in the Labour turmoil earlier this summer. I’ve had the honour of being elected as a Labour councillor, MP and mayor, thanks to the hard work of Labour members, and I believe that the will of our membership should be respected. I value loyalty, and believe that internal disagreements shouldn’t be voiced in the media – because divided parties lose elections.
Our new members, like all of us, are desperate for a Labour government to make Britain fairer. And that is why I have decided to vote for Owen Smith – because Labour party members, and the British people, need Labour to win the next general election.
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Khan: I'll vote for Owen Smith." (Photo credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Europe)[T]his failure was most starkly demonstrated in a heartbreaking way throughout the EU referendum. Like most Labour activists, I campaigned hard for Britain to stay in the EU. Campaigners told me that Jeremy was failing to persuade Labour supporters outside London.
Throughout the campaign and aftermath, Jeremy failed to show the leadership we desperately needed. His position on EU membership was never clear – and voters didn’t believe him.
I know from my own election – up against a nasty and divisive Tory campaign – that, if we are strong and clear enough in our convictions, the message will get through to the public. That’s a test that Jeremy totally failed in the EU referendum.
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I served with Owen Smith in the shadow cabinet and he has the strongest Labour values. We were both politicised in the 1980s. Throughout that decade an ineffective and split Labour party allowed a Tory government to do untold damage to our country. On the big issues Owen and I have been on the same side of the argument, including opposing the Iraq war. [False mr. Khan, see Owen Smith in his own words below – Oui] Owen led and – more importantly – won our fight against the Tories’ unfair cuts to tax credits and disability allowances, which would have hurt the most disadvantaged people in our society. And poll after poll shows that Owen is far more popular with the public than Jeremy – and far more likely to win the next election.Murdoch press got my message wrong, I am still a supporter of Corbyn
Islamic State (ISIS) should get round the table with UK, says Owen Smith
Asked in a televised debate whether the terrorist group, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in the west, should be allowed to join talks about resolving the conflicts in the Middle East, Smith said “all actors” should be involved.
Smith, who was a special adviser to Paul Murphy, Northern Ireland secretary in Tony Blair’s government, said: “I worked on the Northern Ireland peace process for three years; I was part of the UK’s negotiating team that helped bring together the loyalist paramilitaries.
“My view is that, ultimately, all solutions to these international crises do come about through dialogue, so eventually if we are to try to solve this all of the actors do need to be involved. But at the moment Isil [Isis] are clearly not interested in negotiating. At some point for us to resolve this, we will need to get people round the table.”
Owen Smith’s comments sparked an outcry, with Johnny Mercer, a Conservative member of the Commons’ Defence Committee, saying they showed Mr Smith’s “unfitness for leadership”. A spokesman for Jeremy Corbyn also branded the remarks “hasty and ill-considered”.
Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson said Mr Smith had “got it wrong” and there could be “no direct parallel between the Northern Ireland peace process and dealing with the so-called Islamic State”.
UK Labour’s Rightwing Select Corporate Lobbyist to Oppose Jeremy Corbyn
More below the fold …
UK Labour’s Rightwing Select Corporate Lobbyist to Oppose Jeremy Corbyn | CounterPunch |
Owen Smith, who is the current Blairite-frontman of the ongoing and failing bid to depose Jeremy Corbyn, thus provides a perfect illustration why Corbyn continues to receive overwhelming support from the grassroots of the Labour Party.
I say this because Smith, before being elected as a Labour MP in 2010, had spent two years as the head of UK corporate affairs for the US biotech corporation, Amgen, following on from a lucrative stint as a corporate lobbyist for the controversial pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (between 2005 and 2008).
In 2006 Smith stood, and failed, as Labour’s parliamentary candidate in the Blaenau Gwent by-election, and during this campaign he gave an informative interview to the Daily Telegraph. In this interview Smith initially distanced himself from Tony Blair by saying that he personally would have opposed the war on Iraq, but then, when asked if he had “Any other areas of difference with Mr Blair?” Smith curtly replied: “No, I don’t think so.”
Owen Smith on the Iraq War, working as a lobbyist and the private sector’s role in the NHS Interview during Blaenau Gwent by-election in 2006 | Wales Online |
Owen Smith on …
The Iraq War
“We are making significant inroads in improving what is happening in Iraq.
“I thought at the time the tradition of the Labour Party and the tradition of left-wing engagement to remove dictators was a noble, valuable tradition, and one that in South Wales, from the Spanish Civil War onwards, we have recognised and played a part in.”
He didn’t know whether he would have voted against the war, as the previous MP Llew Smith did.
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A glum looking Owen Smith at the by-election count, which he lost (Credit: Wales Online)
The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics Opinion by Martin Jacques | The Guardian |
The first inkling of the wider political consequences was evident in the turn in public opinion against the banks, bankers and business leaders. For decades, they could do no wrong: they were feted as the role models of our age, the default troubleshooters of choice in education, health and seemingly everything else. Now, though, their star was in steep descent, along with that of the political class. The effect of the financial crisis was to undermine faith and trust in the competence of the governing elites. It marked the beginnings of a wider political crisis.
But the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye turned to corporate evasion.
It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present.