George Galloway takes the stage

Ally, we’re six months in and Starmer has been as purposefully blind as Sunak to what has been happening. Any debate has been stifled, indeed MPs punished for breaking ranks.

Evidently they have failed HB. I think Galloway is a self serving windbag, but he is a self serving windbag that is making his voice heard. Who else has spoken up in Westminster? Who has defended the tens of thousands who have marched peacefully against this genocide but being smeared from Sunak down as violent and anti semitic? Certainly not “whatever you’re having yourself” Starmer. It needs a shake up and if Galloway can cause a bit of a one, fair enough.

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You don’t think I’m advocating for Starmer, do you? Not on your nellie duff. Too establishment for me by a lang Scots mile.

No. I don’t think you are advocating for anybody Ally. I’m just pointing out that Galloway, dreadful as he is, is better than nothing.

I would put Starmer in the “nothing” bracket. No vision (that he has communicated), no policies and no plan. There’s something seriously wrong when Sunak is right :slightly_smiling_face:

Courage is needed. IMO Brexit was a monumental mistake and Starmer should be laying out a five/ten year plan for far closer alignment with Europe and confronting head on the people that brought the UK to her knees. All this shilly-shally, ohh let’s try and not offend anybody (until we’re in) isn’t leadership. It’s disappointing.

Yes it is disappointing - and it’s what politicians do - they need to keep as many people unoffended as possible to ensure the best possible election result for their party. Just appealing to the Labour (or Left / Centre Left) faithful won’t work - they need to seem bland boring and stolidly reliable at this stage - in a word “safe”…

Labour has been out of power for 14 years because they weren’t able to compete with the Tories’ media machine and its ability to carry out effective personal attacks on Labour politicians (Jeremy Corbyn being the prime example, but see also Michael Foot in an earlier era), and savagely dissect and destroy policy announcements in a way that they never apply to the Conservative equivalents.

Hence I can see why Starmer and Co. are being very cautious, even if like you I would much rather see them nail their colours to the mast and offer some practical plans and offer some hope and anticipation of a better future for the UK.

(Takes off political pundit hat and puts it in the cupboard for next time). :slight_smile:

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I feel the same about the LibDems, they lost my membership some years ago but I still get all their bumpf in regular emails. I quickly scan the headings for any mention of Brexit and then, having found non, consigne the rest to file, unread.

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Yes I am a lifelong Liberal / Lib Dem voter and i see no reason for them not to be vocal about the ill effects of Brexit - OK they are trying to appeal to disaffected Tory voters in many seats but since they are unlikely to form a Government there is no harm in being honest about their beliefs.

I don’t really get Starmer’s approach of ruling out reversing Brexit either - I think he could at least say “it doesn’t seem to be working, we will look at it when we are in office”.

I suspect that Starmer is reading his voting base, seeing that their opposition to immigration is possibly greater than their pain from Brexit, and recognising that the Tories have captured their votes with an anti-immigration stance. The irony is that labour might do better going for their opponents natural supporters who would like renewed links to the EU.

But I think many British have always been sceptical about Europe, and present company is likely relatively unusual.

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I agree there has always been some inherent undercurrent of “don’t trust Johnny Foreigner” - due to Britain being an island, and the obsession with the Second World War that still lingers here.

But UK residents have also been fed a steady diet of anti-EU propaganda for many years - when we joined the EEC the Tory comics like the Mail and Express were all in favour - but from the mid-70s onwards they gradually changed their stance.

I’m sure you remember headlines like the Sun’s famous “Up Yours, Delors” from 1990.

I think this (along with the gradual rise - and exploitation - of anti-EU sentiment among politicians) is why UK public opinion became more Euro-sceptic.

It’s instructive to remember that one of the architects of the Single Market was Margaret Thatcher - yet her party is now almost entirely purged of non-Brexiteers.

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I’m old enough to remember how long it originally took to get in and though I don’t think a return to EU membership would take quite so long, negotiations would probably take beyond the lifetime of a UK Parliament. And therein lies the rub…

Anti EU sentiment has continually been driven by press barons who live outside the EU - until the UK requires newspaper owners to be tax residents (like in the US) this will continue.

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