To My Friends In Labour

[The Jukebox Rebel]

This is the campaign of the regular, everyday folks. Real folks. Real issues. Real politics.

 

There’s a blogger / author by the name of James Forrest who has written one of the most powerful, thought-provoking pieces of the entire debate.

 

He speaks as a former Labour Party activist and addresses his “Labour family”.

 

Are they comfortable where they stand today?

 

Could the likes of James point the way for the emergence of a new post-independence Scottish Labour Party?

 

Might this piece offer some food for thought for Labour voters this week?

 

 

Of the many highlights I find this to be most striking…

 

“Today you’re on the side of the big corporations you know full well are among the biggest obstacles to our progress as a country. In this campaign they’ve used every scare tactic that they once deployed to cow the labour movement. Threats to move capital. Threats to cut jobs. Holding a gun to the heads of every person in this country, in an effort to prevent us coming to an informed democratic decision, just as they did before every general election where Labour wanted to change things. I know you recognise it. You’ve seen it before.

 

Only this time, you’re standing with them.

 

Today you’re on the side of the right-wing media, waging war on people’s aspirations and hopes, acting as the mouthpiece for political and business interests which are diametrically opposed to the interests of millions of our citizens. They’re spreading lies, half-truths, scare stories and smears, all of it designed to whip up every negative emotion in an electorate that needs facts and information like never before.

 

They’ve done this to Labour each and every time your party has made a progressive move, and the result is that they’ve cut off any dissent, stifled any independent thought and strangled at birth any progressive idea. You know all this, you’ve mourned their awful influence and the devastating impact it has on our political discourse many, many, many times. You know many of them are professional liars, spinning on behalf of other professional liars.

 

Only this time, you’re standing with them.

 

There’s a week left to go. It isn’t too late to make it all worthwhile. The choice is yours, and no-one will ever get you off the hook by presenting an alibi for that. This will be won and lost by Labour voters. The power is in your hands.

 

It’s time to decide, my brothers and sisters. Whose side are you really on?”

[The Jukebox Rebel]

The article in full (written a few days ago)…

 

 

To my friends in Labour

 

By James Forrest

 

Hello. Some of you will know me, but most of you won’t. That’s alright. That’s not important. All you have to know right now is that I’m just like you. We may well be on different sides in this referendum race – I’m on team Yes – but we are the same.

 

I come from a working-class family, in a working-class area of Glasgow. My father worked for Glasgow City Council in the Parks department, and I followed him there and spent seven years out cutting grass, planting flowers, picking up litter and raking leaves in the rain.

 

I joined the Labour Party when I was 17, and was a trade union activist a year later. I was a local branch chair at 21, and I was proud to have worked alongside the team at Keir Hardie House to deliver a Labour government in 1997. The Labour Party was my second home.

 

In 2001 I decided to go to university, so I signed up for night school and for a year I went religiously, doing three subjects a week on top of my job. I passed them all and chose Stirling, where I quickly became involved in student union politics. In my first campaign for an executive post I was tagged one of “Blair’s Poodles”. I wore my party colours on my sleeve.

 

But, I already had deep misgivings about where we were headed as a party. I was tribally loyal despite them, but they came to a head in 2002, when the Parliament at Westminster, with a Labour Prime Minister at the lead, chose to send our soldiers to invade a country that had done us no harm, to overthrow its government in contravention of international law, after a fear-and-smear campaign many of us knew was based on lies.

 

It was one step too far. I couldn’t stomach it any longer. The disconnect between the things I believed in and the things the party appeared to care about was just too great. I gave up political activity, tore up my membership card and I’ve not gone back.

 

I considered returning when Ed Miliband became leader. I believed he reflected my values and shared my ambitions for what a Labour government should do. He also apologised for Iraq, something neither Blair nor Brown had ever done. Circumstances since have made me glad I didn’t do it.

 

I’m a keen student of politics and political campaigns. I’m astounded at the way this referendum has galvanised people across the country. Nearly a million who have never voted before – an entire section of our society which has been disenfranchised – have found their voices. If the polling is correct, a majority of them intend to vote Yes.

 

I understand why. This campaign has sparked something magical. The same awakening that has happened with them has brought me home. Not back to your ranks, not to Labour, but to politics, to engagement, after twelve long years outside.

 

I came to the Yes side late. I never expected to be campaigning with members of the SNP, for Scotland’s independence. It was an issue that had never resonated with me, something I would have voted against myself, but I’m content that I’ve done it after much thought and I know the decision is right. It chimes with everything I believe in, and care about.

 

I’ve heard many arguments as to why Labour members and voters should stand on the side of the No campaign. This is the time to put those arguments to bed. Think through what you’re being told, about what you’re really doing. Take the next day or two and consider whether or not you’re fighting for the right side.

 

I consider all of you my brothers and sisters. I consider the Movement one big family, and it’s painful to see the splits in that family as we head into the home straight. But as a part of the family I think I can tell you some hard truths without it upsetting you too much.

 

I am on the Yes side because I believe the things we want cannot be realised as part of the Westminster system. The social justice and fairness agenda will not be pursued by the next Labour government, whenever that is, because the political system as it stands at this moment is incapable of delivering real change, except to divert more power towards those who already have too much of that already. Demographics, electoral maths, over-dependence on the south, even the structures of the party itself. Even if the will existed at the top of the party to pursue the kind of politics we care about, the present political system isn’t built for it.

 

No Labour Party that wanted those things could have them unless it was prepared to march into the guns and face down a wholly-hostile media, and big business interests that would rather democracy itself was a thing of the past, all the better to let them pursue profits. Do you believe we have such a Labour Party today? Do you believe men like Jim Murphy, the man who fled the streets because of a single protester throwing an egg, will march into those guns?

 

You can admit this to me. We’re family. We know it’s never going to happen.

 

From almost the day I joined the Labour Party I was being told that the utopia was just around the corner, and in spite of everything I saw, as the party moved further and further away from that ideal I stuck with it. I swallowed my doubts long past the point of reason, suspending disbelief like a cartoon character who’s walking across a canyon, protected only as long as he doesn’t look down. Eventually, brothers and sisters, everybody looks down.

 

You know this because you’ve had to swallow your own doubts. You know this because you, too, have struggled with your conscience. Don’t be scared to admit it.

 

There’s a moment in From Dusk Till Dawn – one of my favourite pieces of cinema – when Harvey Keitel talks about the conflict that pulls at the heart of every man or woman who ever chose to take up the service of God, and the truth of it resonates way beyond some clever writing and a fine piece of acting. Keitel’s pastor is talking to his daughter, and he tells her:

 

“Many, many times during your life you will look at your reflection in a mirror and ask yourself: am I a fool?”

 

How many times have you asked yourself that question? Was it over single-parent benefits? Was it when Mandelson talked to a room of business moguls and told them the party had no problem with people who wanted to get “filthy rich”? Was it when we took money from a Formula One boss in exchange for giving them an exemption from the ban on tobacco advertising, and thus put the soul of our entire party up for sale?

 

Was it when Derek Draper and others boasted of a “circle of influence”, and offered access to it for cold, hard cash? Was it our failure to give the unions better rights or when we fixed minimum wage legislation so young people were paid a lesser rate? Was it over PFI or when we gave interest rates to the Bank of England?

 

Did you finally snap over the sight of our Parliamentarians trooping into the Commons to vote for an illegal war? Was it with Brown’s scrapping the 10p tax rate, in a bribe to Middle England? Was it during his elevation to the leadership without a debate on our future direction, or during his term as Prime Minister when all the promise he’d once shown was squandered in a run to the middle of the road?

 

You must have swallowed your doubts since Ed Miliband became leader too, as one after the other some of our most progressive ideas have been buried. You must have winced as we shifted from being opposed to the speed of austerity to the point we’re at now where we are engaged in a competition with the Tories about much more to cut. You must surely have shivered at a Labour Shadow Minister boasting to the media that we would be “tougher on welfare than the Tories.”

 

You must be shaking your head with every ramping up of the rhetoric against immigrants. You must have harboured misgivings over the way they handled the Falkirk affair and the way the right wing of the party used it to finally sever our historic link with the unions.

 

And I know you must have blanched, because I’m not a member and it made me physically sick, when Ed Miliband and the party high command decisively shifted us away from the principles of the universal welfare state, abandoning the last vestige of our party’s moral conscience in a gutter grab for the approval of Daily Mail readers.

 

Through all of it, I remained steadfastly loyal to at least the idea of voting Labour. I’m afraid, my friends, I’m through with that too. Short of a massive clearout of the party, from top to bottom, I will never vote Labour again. It’s really that simple, and my reasons for it are many, but here are the highlights.

 

I cannot conceive of voting for a party whose shadow Chancellor told an entire country of people getting ready to make the biggest decision of their lives that Labour’s response to that would be to deny them the assets of the state they paid into and helped build for three centuries.

 

I cannot conceive of voting for a party whose Scottish leader appears poisoned by hatred every time she has to speak the name of the man the people of this country elected as its First Minister. I’m not asking her to respect Alex Salmond, but her total disrespect for the office he holds, representing as it does the people of Scotland, is beneath contempt and hard to stomach.

 

I cannot conceive of voting for a party which has as one of its “leading lights” a man such as Jim Murphy, who sucks off the public teat, runs up hundred of thousands of pounds in expenses and then has the temerity to stand on a soap box as if he were the moral voice of the nation while during this campaign he’s libelled a sizeable part of the population.

 

Many of you have given your lives to the labour movement. Seriously, is this what you did it for? Because, I tell you, this is how you will be remembered.

 

Today you’re on the side of the big corporations you know full well are among the biggest obstacles to our progress as a country. In this campaign they’ve used every scare tactic that they once deployed to cow the labour movement. Threats to move capital. Threats to cut jobs. Holding a gun to the heads of every person in this country, in an effort to prevent us coming to an informed democratic decision, just as they did before every general election where Labour wanted to change things. I know you recognise it. You’ve seen it before.

 

Only this time, you’re standing with them.

 

Today you’re on the side of the right-wing media, waging war on people’s aspirations and hopes, acting as the mouthpiece for political and business interests which are diametrically opposed to the interests of millions of our citizens. They’re spreading lies, half-truths, scare stories and smears, all of it designed to whip up every negative emotion in an electorate that needs facts and information like never before.

 

They’ve done this to Labour each and every time your party has made a progressive move, and the result is that they’ve cut off any dissent, stifled any independent thought and strangled at birth any progressive idea. You know all this, you’ve mourned their awful influence and the devastating impact it has on our political discourse many, many, many times. You know many of them are professional liars, spinning on behalf of other professional liars.

 

Only this time, you’re standing with them.

 

Today you’re part of a coalition including the Tories, the yellow-bellied bed-hopping Liberal Democrats and every assorted lunatic and nutjob from the gutters and sewers of the far right. These are the people you’ve spent your life campaigning against, fighting to defeat. You point to the ranks of the Yes campaign, and you try to smear it as being the creature of Alex Salmond, but the system you’re trying to save is the one of the BNP, Britain First, UKIP and Combat 18.

 

It’s the one supported and defended by the Order and the Lodge. You can protest until you’re red, white and blue in the face that your version of Britain is different from theirs, but this is a campaign where your party has bent to those interests time and time again. It’s your leader who talked about “guards on the border”, to keep the immigrants out. It’s your party’s senior figures whose faces contort with hate when they talk of “foreigners”. Westminster’s elite is in a campaign with the far right, talking its language and pandering to its supporters.

 

Only this time, you’re standing with them.

 

Is this what you joined the Movement for? So that during the most important campaign you will ever be part of, you were on the same side as the enemy, mouthing its slogans, using its tactics, preying on the fears of the weak and the uninformed, dividing people, parroting every nasty scare the Daily Mail could dream up?

 

This isn’t about your party, it’s about what you believe. Is this what you want to look back on in years to come? Slithering through the slime with the Tories and the enemies of democracy?

 

Imagine how you’ll feel on the day David Cameron marches back into Downing Street, and he and his party begin the task of dismantling what’s left of the apparatus of the state. How are you going to look in the mirror? How are you going to look yourself in the eye?

 

It’s time to understand just what it is you’re involved in here. You’re snatching away hope from people who’ve not had it in years, the people your party was supposed to represent, the folk it was meant to serve. How can you get up every morning, go out, knock on their doors and lie to them at the exact moment when we finally have the power to change their lives for the better?

 

You know that the offer being stitched together to buy us off is a despicable fraud. You know that for every penny the Parliament can raise in taxes it will lose from the Barnett Formula. We know what that “offer “ is really all about. It will force the Scottish Parliament to make ever more horrible choices, to hack away bits of the public services, to make draconian and savage cuts across the board.

 

It’s about political positioning, putting the SNP on the spot to choose from a list of dreadful options, and you know it will end in forcing the Scottish Government in Edinburgh to cut away the progressive gains that devolution has brought, including the ones that were brought by us.

 

Free education. Gone. Personal care for the elderly. Gone. The council tax freeze. Gone. Tens of thousands of Scots will be forced into deeper poverty as a result of the “deal” we’re being offered. You cannot be unaware of that, and yet here you are trying to sell it, blinded by the desire to destroy the SNP no matter what, then walk into the ruins and be kings of the rubble.

 

What are you doing? Did you join the Movement for this?

 

And while you’re pondering on that, ponder on this.

 

Yours has been the story of the Long Defeat. I joined the party in 1993, when John Smith was its leader. A year after that we had Tony Blair. I am 37 years old. Some of you are much older and have seen far more, and your Long Defeat makes mine look positively pale.

 

You’ve fought the good fight, in the hope that your work would bring about lasting changes, and in some areas they have. But it’s been a series of defeats nonetheless.

 

When some of you joined the Labour Party it supported the universal welfare state. It was anti-nuclear. It supported free education. Banking was still tightly regulated and our party was in favour of that because we knew London could not be turned into a casino.

 

We had trade unions worthy of the name, with full rights and full recognition in law, and they had real balls – they weren’t just PR arms and training schemes for Labour and the British state. They served their members and communities far beyond politics. We had affordable housing and a commitment to full employment. We had nationalised utilities and you even had something called Clause 4.

 

Now we have foodbanks and corporate bail-outs. We have unions which are emasculated. We have a media that’s out of control. We have multinational companies devaluing labour with the obscenity of zero-hour contracts. We have private utilities forcing people to choose between heating and eating. We’re pro-nuclear, itching to spend more on useless imperial status symbols. Is that your Labour Party?

 

Now it wants you to vote against a change that cuts Westminster adrift at last, that transforms our national life, that gives us a legitimate chance at utilising our strengths and talents and building a country that not only restores democracy and hope to its citizens but one that can serve as a beacon of light to those across the border who feel disengaged and cut loose.

 

Are you really going to spend the next seven days – the most important of your life – campaigning alongside the enemy, scaring people, crushing optimism and hope for the future, to sell a bill of goods you know is faulty in an act of emotional self-harm which will haunt your soul until the day you die?

 

Or do you want something better? Something more? Something that honours everything you believe in and everything you’ve done.

 

There’s a week left to go. It isn’t too late to make it all worthwhile. The choice is yours, and no-one will ever get you off the hook by presenting an alibi for that. This will be won and lost by Labour voters. The power is in your hands.

 

How do you want to remember this? How do you want to be remembered? This is what you got involved in politics to do. Change not just for your lifetime but for all time.

 

It’s time to decide, my brothers and sisters. Whose side are you really on?

[kni]

What a load of self-indulgent waffle! Are you proposing that there will no big corporations trading in an independent Scotland? If so, will their Scottish businesses and assets be nationalised? How will inward investment be delivered if successful businesses are highly taxed, regulated or nationalised?

[Meister Jag]

I'm with kni on this one... I don't think any government wants to deal with trade unions with "balls" and has been covered in many numerous posts, the yes plan revolves around the creation of a low-wage and low taxation economy. One that might appear attractive to investors. The last thing any investor would want to enter into is a hostile TU dominated economy where profits are threatened by high wage demands. Please don't take us for idiots.

[The Jukebox Rebel]

Red Rag to a bull?

 

The point is – and kni’s instantaneous response suggests it may have passed him by – the modern day Labour politician is a middle class chancer careerist and, as a result, the Party has lost sight of its core values.

 

Political parties should have the interests of the people at the forefront. From what's on offer in Scotland at the moment, the best blend of modern-day, business-friendly, socially conscious politics lies with the Scottish National Party - and the electorate are tuned in to this.

 

The writer clearly feels the same.

 

Scottish Labour needs to wake up and reposition itself.

 

How many Labour supporters feel discomfort over Trident? They are tugged between loyalty to Labour and their personal principles and have opted to bed with the militarists. For what? This campaign highlights that rift. As they look across to the Yes side it must cross their mind that “I should be over there.”

 

Post-indy, I could see a Scottish Labour Party, free of Trident, being an attractive proposition to many.

 

I would imagine that’s why many Scottish Labour voters are ignoring Miliband and voting Yes on this one.

[The Devil's Point]

I don't think many folk give a toss about Trident to be honest.

 

It's the economy...........

[The Jukebox Rebel]

I don't think many folk give a toss about Trident to be honest.

 

It's the economy...........

 

It might reasonably be argued that the economy wouldn't be so devastated by debt if it didn't have to support such a futile, imperialist status symbol. You do realise that the replacement costs for Trident are over £100bn? In my opinion it's financially and morally repugnant.

[The Devil's Point]

It might reasonably be argued that the economy wouldn't be so devastated by debt if it didn't have to support such a futile, imperialist status symbol. You do realise that the replacement costs for Trident are over £100bn? In my opinion it's financially and morally repugnant.

 

Those costs would be spread over many years though. As it happens (and it makes no difference!), I don't think I agree with replacing Trident either.

 

But the question is should we be an independent country?

 

Sorry, but I think the economics are crazy. Of course Scotland could be an independent country, that is not in dispute, but the proposition put before us is blatantly unworkable.

 

I've already lost my pal to sucide this year, I'd rather not lose my country to suicide too.

[Garscube Road End]

Jesus fecking wept!

[kni]

Red Rag to a bull? The point is – and kni’s instantaneous response suggests it may have passed him by – the modern day Labour politician is a middle class chancer careerist and, as a result, the Party has lost sight of its core values.

 

Are suggesting that the "old" Labour Party did not have a middle class chanced careerists? Clement Attlee was educated at a prep school in Kent and the very expensive Haileybury College in Hertfordshire. Hugh Gaitskell was educated at the very expensive Winchester College.

 

Michael Foot also went a prep school. Tony Benn, like Nick Clegg, was educated at Westminster School in Central London. The former Viscount Stansgate owned the family estate in Essex and visited it regularly. He lived in a huge house worth several £million in Holland Park, the most expensive part of London.

[The Devil's Point]

Are suggesting that the "old" Labour Party did not have a middle class chanced careerists? Clement Attlee was educated at a prep school in Kent and the very expensive Haileybury College in Hertfordshire. Hugh Gaitskell was educated at the very expensive Winchester College.

 

Michael Foot also went a prep school. Tony Benn, like Nick Clegg, was educated at Westminster School in Central London. The former Viscount Stansgate owned the family estate in Essex and visited it regularly. He lived in a huge house worth several £million in Holland Park, the most expensive part of London.

 

I went to Cleveden Secondary School, and Kelvindale Primary.

 

I reckon that gives me the right to say No, No, NO.

 

And in honour of Iain Paisley.............

 

NO, NO, NO

 

x

[scotty]

. Tony Benn, like Nick Clegg, was educated at Westminster School in Central London.

Funny how Westminster school doesn't boast of another former pupil. Shane MacGowan!

 

I think a few folk are missing the point of the piece. But it's a bit like the clip further up. Don't have an answer? Next question please.

Edited September 16, 2014 by scotty

[Meister Jag]

I went to Cleveden Secondary School, and Kelvindale Primary.

 

I reckon that gives me the right to say No, No, NO.

 

And in honour of Iain Paisley.............

 

NO, NO, NO

 

x

 

Getting childish... again!

[The Devil's Point]

Getting childish... again!

 

Ok, I hear your.

 

Adult version was a Business Degree from Napier, then Law from Glasgow.

 

Eight years of frontline advice work in the Milk. Hard as it comes, but it was done.

 

Straight out of Kelvindale...........

[The Devil's Point]

And I'd like to say another thing.

 

The Maryhill song means so much to me.

 

I don't know who wrote it, but it says everything.

 

Whatever happens, Maryhill is wonderful.

[gianlucatoni]

Aww ffs give yourself a big pat on the back - what a self indulgent piece of total waffle ( a disgrace to mention the old Clevo in amongst that p*sh ).

 

As for the Ian Paisley bit are you really sure you are supporting the correct team?

[Meister Jag]

I went to Cleveden Secondary School, and Kelvindale Primary.

 

I reckon that gives me the right to say No, No, NO.

 

And in honour of Iain Paisley.............

 

NO, NO, NO

 

x

 

P.S. I respect your right to vote no. But WTF has a Northern Irish politician (now deceased) got to do with anything? I'm not dedicating my vote to anyone. It's my vote, my decision... And yes, being a no can leave you unpopular and swimming against the tide of public opinion; but you have a right to hold your views and opinions.

 

But more importantly, I hope you are otherwise well and staying strong. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, get your arse to Firhill on Friday and forget all about politics for 90-mins (ideally longer!). Chill bro.

[Meister Jag]

Ok, I hear your.

 

Adult version was a Business Degree from Napier, then Law from Glasgow.

 

Eight years of frontline advice work in the Milk. Hard as it comes, but it was done.

 

Straight out of Kelvindale...........

 

Is that a rap? Is Kelvindale still a ghetto? I've heard of D12, but not G12!

[The Devil's Point]

Aww ffs give yourself a big pat on the back - what a self indulgent piece of total waffle ( a disgrace to mention the old Clevo in amongst that p*sh ).

 

As for the Ian Paisley bit are you really sure you are supporting the correct team?

 

Ouch, that hurt.

 

Not sure why I am being self-indulgent. I am only trying to articulate the views of Cleveden Road.

 

The Ian Paisley thing was a joke, sorry I thought that would have been obvioius.

 

NO, NO, NO

[gianlucatoni]

so you are the self appointed spokesperson for a whole road

[The Devil's Point]

so you are the self appointed spokesperson for a whole road

 

No, I've moved to Whiteinch.

 

Dumbarton Road says NO.

[The Devil's Point]

Kelvindale still a ghetto?

 

Yeah, its still pretty rough and mean. Has got better over the years, but you still wouldn't go out after dark.

 

Love the Jordanhill Flag in the north end, but am disappointed there has never been a Kelvindale one.

[Meister Jag]

Yeah, its still pretty rough and mean. Has got better over the years, but you still wouldn't go out after dark.

 

Love the Jordanhill Flag in the north end, but am disappointed there has never been a Kelvindale one.

 

When making it, for you are the chosen one, remember to miss out the "Loyal" bit. "Kelvindale PTFC Supporters Club" would, I think, be acceptable

[The Devil's Point]

When making it, for you are the chosen one, remember to miss out the "Loyal" bit. "Kelvindale PTFC Supporters Club" would, I think, be acceptable

 

I was simply going to go for 'Kelvindale Thistle'

 

As a fat capitalist, I will commission it.

[The Devil's Point]

( a disgrace to mention the old Clevo in amongst that p*sh

 

Well I bet you thought I hadn't noticed that. You probably thought you'd got off Scot free.

 

But when I look towards my friends in Labour I see exactly that, my friends.

 

It is in the interest of no-one for us to fight. What is needed is to combine the passionate hatred of of poverty from both the Labour and Liberal party into real policy that can be delivered. We have a great moment, we have the cards to negotiate social justice for Scotland.

 

The Establishment and the Union are on the ropes. Its tempting to use the killer blow, but wisdom tells us to hang back here. We are being offered plenty. Lets take it for now and we'll see what happens next.