Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

John McDonnell, Labour Party: I have been a member of the Labour Party and involved in politics for over 45 years.  I have spent these years as a campaigner in my local community and nationally for what I consider to be basic rights- the right to a decent roof over your head in a safe, secure, clean, green environment, a good quality truly creative education, a job and income you can live on, trade union rights at work and an NHS fully funded in public hands so that we receive the treatment we need when s ick.  Throughout the New Labour years, Jeremy and I stayed in the Labour Party and fought for socialism. That meant in 2015 we were there when our chance came. We suffered a defeat in December. But not because of our policies. Public ownership, ending tuition fees and reversing NHS privatisation are all hugely popular. They're all still Labour Party Policy, as is the Green New Deal, and we need to organise to keep it that way. Party members can be forgiven for feeling demo...

"All the politicians attacking the Bristol iconoclasts for removing the slave-owner Colston's statue---Johnson, Patel, Steer Calmer, Labour's Shadow Home (can't remember his name] and others, share one thing in common. Not a single one of them has called for the reinstatement of the statue. Wonder why? Calmer agrees it shouldn't be there, but numerous governments, Labour and Tory never removed it. Calmer and Johnson would rather it was done 'legally'. (Laughter). Worth remembering that Colston too was a believer in legality. Nothing he did was illegal! Slavery was the law of the land, free trade, etc." —Tariq Ali, 09 June 2020

The new socialism of fools

Conservative women reflect a conservative country "since Momentum joined Labour, I find it a hostile party for moderates.” It has been the so-called moderates who took Britain to war, privatised almost everything, incressed inequality, imposed tuition fees, ignored the City's corruption, bonused the banks despite the plunder and blunder, selling arms to autocratic friends, created a housing crisis ...imposed austerity ...

Labour's manifesto

Two weeks ago, an Italian student at an elite university told a language teacher: "immigrants are incompatible with the Italian society."  I immediately thought of how my iPad port is incompatible with my canon camera's lead.  Hostile Environment How Immigrants Became Scapegoats

If despite of what has happened since at least 2008-09, the young voters do not shift the balance and elect a Labour social democratic government, it will be a 'historic' confirmation of how conservative and reactionary the country is.

"Big issues transcend Brexit." Indeed. I remember when in late 2018 I asked someone who works in Parliament: with or without Brexit, will there be an end to obscene inequality, exploitation, austerity, tuition fees, support of dictators...? He replied: "No," with a strange look at me as if I had asked him questions that either he never heard of or they were irrelevant. Ken Loach

"When pollsters asked the British public what share of Labour members faced complaints of antisemitism, the average guess was 34 percent — over three hundred times the real total. With media insistent that Labour is “riddled with antisemitism,” Jeremy Corbyn’s efforts to fight it have done nothing to placate his critics." The corporate media is one of the pillars of the capitalist state apparatus. How Labour Became "Antisemitic"

The cartoons the Guardian refused to publish

Britain and beyond "There is a conspiracy at work here, though it is not of the kind lampooned by critics: a small cabal of the rich secretly pulling the strings of our societies. The conspiracy operates at an institutional level, one that has evolved over time to create structures and refine and entrench values that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few. In that sense we are all part of the conspiracy. It is a conspiracy that embraces us every time we unquestioningly accept the “consensual” narratives laid out for us by our education systems, politicians and media. Our minds have been occupied with myths, fears and narratives that turned us into the turkeys that keep voting for Christmas." I disagree though with Cook in describing Corbyn's election as the Labour Party leader an "accident". Cook should know that even in the most conservative situations, cumulative processes and contradictions create cracks, fissures, and openings, sometimes big, som...

Britain "After urging land reform I now know the power of the billionaire press"

"As Jews move to the right, they become more sympathetic to Zionism, British foreign policy and US imperialism. That has nothing to do with anti-Semitism." Let's be honest about Britain's obsession with "anti-Semitism"

Brexit New model party Politically parallels: Weimar Republic and Britain

Brexit A YouGov analysis of more than 25,000 voters suggests the following division of leave voters in the referendum, linked to the 2017 election result. •  Middle-class leave voters: Conservative 5.6 million; Labour 1.6 million.  •  Working-class leave voters: Conservative 4.4 million; Labour 2.2 million. (A few of the remaining 3.6 million leave voters supported smaller parties; most did not vote in 2017.) So the largest block of leave voters were middle-class Conservatives, followed by working-class Conservatives.  Just one in eight leave voters was a working-class Labour supporter. To be sure, had even half of these 2.2 million voters backed remain, the result of the referendum would be different. But to suggest that the referendum’s 17.4 million leave voters were dominated by working-class Labour supporters is simply wrong. Labout's Brexit tactics are "failing spectacularly"

How the charge of antisemitism has been deployed in Great Britain and against grassroots social justice activism to silence Israel's critics. Israel and the Antisemitism Playbook in Great Britain and Grassroots

The writer here has attempted to refute the Conservative's arguments. However, as I mentioned in my comment below the article I don't understand why he singles out the Conservatives and the Libertarians but does not include the liberals of "free market liberal democracy" and their defence of the system nationally and internationally with its implications from wars to exploitation and preserving the status quo albeit with what they call "reforms" . "Can democratic socialism set us free?"

Britain Leftists consider it "capitualtion" and "disappointment". They forgot that it was in 2017 Labour Manifesto. Labour wants to end free movement

Brexit One form of the fantasy is ‘CANZUK’ — a revival of a white, Christian, trading empire including Britain’s former settler colonies in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. In another form, Britain becomes an enlarged version of Singapore. For a Trump-supporting faction on the right, Britain would be a glorified airstrip for the US in a larger game of great power rivalry. None of it makes sense, but all of it can be pushed to the public, via rightwing media, as a new imperialist ideology. Behind all the hashtags, anger and parliamentary manoeuvring is the existential crisis of a ruling class. Britain is ruled by a super-rich elite with scant material interest in operations in the UK. If necessary it will form an alliance with people in poor, white, low-skilled communities to disrupt the multilateral order. It is an interesting read, but I don't like the silly t-shirt! Britain's impossible futures

"The day that a political project with impeccably pro-migration credentials triangulated into abstention on a miserable, destructive Conservative immigration bill." Labour's immigration U-turn