Tag: Jeremy Corbyn

NORTHERN BUSINESS POST BREXIT

 

Business is faced with years of uncertainty following the Brexit vote but people are trying to make the best of a very bad job.

That was clear at a Downtown meeting in Manchester this week where our members and guests resolved to use the northern spirit of enterprise to seek out new opportunities if we are to be outside the EU.

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE.

Political uncertainty remains although I think Theresa May will be the next Prime Minister. However some members at the meeting felt that Andrea Leadsom’s claim to be the real Brexiteer will win her much support amongst the grass roots. The anti EU zealots are still alive and well in the Tory Party. They are suspicious that Theresa May, who was on the Remain side, will cave in to Brussels. Mrs May has countered that displaying a sense of humour that we all thought she completely lacked. Having been described by Ken Clarke as “a bloody difficult woman”, Mrs May remarked that the next person to think that would be the EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Brave talk but the negotiations are going to be hard and the darkening economic landscape is there for all to see.

Whoever the Tories choose, they are likely to be Prime Minister well into the 2020s having won the General Election against the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn. It looks as if the Labour moderates have failed to remove him. A week ago Wallasey MP Angela Eagle was poised to challenge. The pressure on Corbyn was at its maximum but she didn’t make her move. It may still come but in the past week Eagle has faced a left wing pro Corbyn revolt in her constituency and the leader strengthened his position in the wake of the Chilcot Inquiry. Corbyn reminded the nation of his opposition to the Iraq War whereas Tony Blair looked like a broken man.

Labour moderates need to realise the game is up. The Labour Party is now a socialist party. The political space just to the left of centre is waiting for them. In any case there will now be a ruthless process of deselection of moderate MPs mounted by the Corbyn supporting Momentum movement making them pay for their “treachery” to the leader.

THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK.

Against that political background there was agreement at the Downtown meeting that the next three years would be difficult. Not only would the UK’s relationship with the EU change but the EU itself might change. Tom Cannon from Liverpool University forecast the pound would be worth a dollar by Christmas as the American currency strengthened. He forecast big cities like Leeds and Liverpool would thrive in the post Brexit world but people in the communities that had voted most strongly to leave would suffer most from rising petrol and food prices.

Neil McInroy from the Centre For Local Economic Strategies felt that Chancellor George Osborne would go and the Northern Powerhouse, with which he is so closely associated, will slow or stop. It is difficult to see May (Maidenhead) or Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) having the same feel for the project as the man from Tatton.

Our own Chief Executive Frank McKenna said warnings from business, about how their bottom line costs would rise if we were out of the EU, had been drowned out by the noise of the politicians. He also feared extreme candidates could affect next year’s mayoral contests in Liverpool and Manchester.

So much uncertainty on the business and political front as Downtown’s business community looks to the future.

 

SECOND REFERENDUM FRONT AT ELECTION

REVERSE THIS MADNESS

Let’s ask the burning question for the North of England. People outside most of the large cities voted Leave in justified rage at being ignored. Would they vote Leave again after a week when billions of pounds have been written off our companies and banks? When investment decisions that could bring vital work to the very areas that voted Leave are being put off? When we have seen division grow between young and old, North and South, Scotland and England and Nigel Farage disgrace Britain with another loutish performance in the European Parliament? Even more worryingly some people feel the Brexit vote has given them a licence to openly abuse people from ethnic communities. We have seen the Vice Chancellor of Manchester University having to issue a statement trying to calm fears amongst her international staff about their jobs and European research funding.

In that list I have not even mentioned the political turmoil which is both adding to the crisis but may just give us an opportunity to stop this Brexit insanity in its tracks.

The Labour Party could be on the brink of extinction. Since the decline of traditional industries and mass union membership it has seen a struggle between its socialist and social democratic wings. When the struggle for the leadership is resolved, it is possible that Jeremy Corbyn will be re-elected as leader by the socialist grass roots completing the split between the parliamentary party and activists.

At the same time the Conservatives will have a new leader and Prime Minister who is likely to want a General Election mandate. It was significant that the party’s officials accelerated the timetable so that an October General Election is now possible before the winter sets in.

There is a growing chance that the new Prime Minister will be Theresa May. Although on the Remain side, if she lets it be known that she would appoint Andrea Ledsom from Leave to a new post of Cabinet Minister for Brexit, it may be enough to overcome Boris Johnson.

If a General Election is on the way, there is only one option for social democrats in the Labour Party and that is to link up with Liberal Democrats, Greens and any pro EU Tories who want to join in a grand alliance to ask for a second referendum. One candidate would stand against the Tories in each seat. A normal election would be possible in Scotland due to the strong pro European stance of the people and parties there. The Lib Dems are reported to be gaining members at the rate of one a minute following leader Tim Farron’s pledge to campaign to rejoin the EU. We don’t need to rejoin though, just stop the years of complex, acrimonious unravelling straight away now that people can see they were fooled. We have not triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which would probably put us beyond the point of no return.

There is an obvious risk that such a stance could see UKIP winning many seats accusing a “second referendum” alliance of ignoring the democratic wish of the people. However the situation is so serious that such a charge has to be taken on board and answered in the following way.

The brazen Brexiteers have already been found out on their promises for NHS funding, their ability to cut immigration and the claim that Turkey would be joining the EU soon. Remain forecasts of a massive economic impact on the markets has been proved right. Assertions that Brexit had no idea what shape our relations with the EU would look like have also been proved right and most fundamental of all the Remain campaign was right that our standing in the world would be diminished as we turned inwards to fight ourselves.

Europe must reform and democratise, the issue of immigration must be addressed, the arrogant Jean-Claude Juncker (President of the Commission) must be replaced. But we must stay in the EU.

Cross party coalitions came together in the 1918 and 1931 elections. Grave times call for exceptional measures. All pro EU politicians must unite now or we are on the road to a painful exit from Europe and Conservative governments stretching long into the future.

CAMERON: SO RIGHT TO QUIT

 

David Cameron is right up there with Lord North who lost America and Neville Chamberlain who waved his pathetic piece of paper after meeting Hitler, as a contender for the worst Prime Minister in our nation’s history.

His achievement in reviving the British economy is completely overshadowed by his reckless gamble with not only this country’s future but the whole European Union. He only promised the referendum for narrow political advantage to fend off UKIP’s Nigel Farage who is now dancing on his political grave. And before people say he wanted to give the people their voice, there is a widespread belief in political circles that he never expected to have to deliver the promise. He didn’t expect to win the General Election and could rely on Labour and the Lib Dems to stop it.

I so wish I hadn’t been right in January 2013 when Cameron made the referendum promise. I wrote “if he wins the election he will attempt a major renegotiation. He will fail but pretend the scraps he does get will be a good enough for people to vote yes. He will be ridiculed by UKIP and half the Tory Party egged on by the Murdoch press and I fear the British people will vote to come out.”

Of course people voted on the issue of our membership of Europe but a lot used the referendum to express their total frustration with the political establishment and their expert advisers. That’s the problem with referendums, people use them for a variety of reasons. The binary choice leaves no place for nuance.

Alienation was particularly strong in parts of the North. What is striking is the difference between the large cities and smaller ones. So Manchester had a 60% vote for Remain, Liverpool 58% and Leeds 50%. But outside the big urban areas Labour voters picked up Jeremy Corbyn’s lukewarm approach to the Remain campaign. So Blackpool recorded a 67% vote for Leave, Blackburn 56% (Barbara Castle would have been pleased), Bradford 54% and Preston 53%.

It is true that the economic recovery has not been felt across large tracts of the North. Austerity has been the wider experience but voting to leave the EU is likely to make the problems of the depressed areas of the North worse. The short term damage to the British economy is already being done as the world’s stock markets give their damning verdict. This will be followed by medium term uncertainty as we try to ask our angry former EU partners for decent trade deals. In the longer term what’s left of the UK (Scotland may have left) will have to try and paddle its own canoe in a world which has consolidated around large trading blocs.

Until 2010 the North had the powerful Regional Development Agencies backed up by regional investment from the EU. The RDA’s were scrapped and replaced by the Northern Powerhouse which has clearly not convinced working class people that they are being heard. The architect of the NP is George Osborne who will surely follow the Prime Minister into resignation. As far as regional investment is concerned we will now have to rely on Whitehall rather than the EU.

The Conservatives will probably elect Boris Johnson as leader and Prime Minister. Labour need urgently to replace Jeremy Corbyn who is just not up to the job.

But ultimately these leadership changes will only mask the need for a realignment of politics with the creation of a left of centre party that one day can provide competition for the rampant right.

CORBYN SAFE FOR NOW

 

Labour are stuck with Jeremy Corbyn but have little prospect of winning the 2020 General Election. That looks to be the situation with many results still to come in today, including the vital London mayor election.

The Labour leader did better in England and Wales than his critics thought he would, but coming third to the Tories in Scotland means the party will lack the ballast of 40 Scottish Labour seats it would need to win in 2020.

That is why the Shadow Home Secretary and Leigh MP Andy Burnham is considering running for elected Mayor of Greater Manchester. He clearly doesn’t see the prospect of holding one of the major offices of state as very likely in 2020 and may settle for running Greater Manchester. Its a big job but not as big as being Home Secretary. Andy Burnham knows it will be 2025 at least before Labour form a government. By then we may have the realignment of political parties that I have written about before, but for now we must get back to what happened overnight.

Some commentators and Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies were poised to write off the Labour leader overnight.

The truth is that Labour were at a high point going into these elections following years of progress since they lost the 2010 General Election. It is a mystery to me that Labour spokespeople (including Corbyn) didn’t make this point more forcefully. All the easy wards to win had been won in the last five years and further progress would be difficult.

The most interesting northern result so far is in Stockport where Labour look set to gain minority control, ending a long era of the Lib Dems being in charge. On a night when there were signs of a slight Lib Dem recovery, the party self destructed in the town. A botched consultation on the market was followed by a nightmare evening which saw the Lib Dem leader Sue Derbyshire lose her seat and a Lib Dem councillor defect to Labour.

Joe Anderson was comfortably re-elected as Mayor of Liverpool but shortly the city is expected to revert to a leader/cabinet model as Joe stands for election to be Mayor of the Liverpool City Region.

Labour fended off a Tory challenge in West Lancashire but the Conservative flagship council of Trafford remained blue.

So where do the parties stand this weekend as they return to campaigning on the momentous issue of our membership of the European Union?

Parties in government usually start a rapid decline in local support once they are in national office. This hasn’t happened to the Tories despite their splits over Europe, probably because of Labour’s weak leadership and disarray over anti-Semitism. The Conservatives will be encouraged by holding Trafford and the performance of Ruth Davidson, their leader in Scotland, who may have a wider national role one day.

Labour are in stalemate with the results not bad enough for an immediate coup against Corbyn but with no prospect of winning in 2020. The Shadow Chancellor John McDonald has had a good campaign. He appears more sure footed than his leader and if Labour is to have a hard left leader, perhaps it should be him.

Stockport is a further blow to the Lib Dems but partly due to local factors, elsewhere in the North there are signs of a modest recovery after five dreadful years.

UKIP have made a few gains in places like Bolton but their effectiveness in taking decisions on local government issues instead of just banging on about Europe, remains a big question.

Now the battle for our membership of the European Union resumes, let’s see some passion from the Remain camp.