fahrenheit451:286

In an excellent article  New Statesman published 19 September Jonathan Rutherford examines the decline of the Labour Party.

This gleaned from his introduction:-

" The future of British politics will be about the nation state of England, the union of our four nations, and their democratic and economic renewal. It will be about the renascence of the everyday life of work and family. Yet the problem for the left is its domination by an older political generation that lost faith in the idea of the nation, is sceptical about the future of work and doesn’t seem to believe in the family.
Throughout its history, the Labour Party has embodied the paradox of being both radical and conservative, and so it has played a vital role both in maintaining the traditions of the country and shaping its modernity. These dispositions are not party political. They are qualities of mind and character that are woven into the fabric of our English culture. In the words of John Stuart Mill, one demands the uprooting of existing institutions and creeds; the other demands that they be made a reality. One presses new ideas to their utmost consequences; the other reasserts the best meaning and purposes of the old. England’s paradoxical nature is embedded in our constitutional settlement. "

Well,thanks for that Jonathan.As you can see from social media and MSM ,it's all gone spectacularly tits up,again.

#labconf2018 was so brim full of otiose cant and vacuous platitudes, plans that will never be implemented and policies that will never see light of day,it's difficult to discern what is truly important.Though on this occasion, the in-roads made by the EU funded #PeoplesVote campaign is clearly the most insidious of all the aspiring ne'er do wells.

Keir Starmer ,metropolitan elitist shyster extraordinaire,went off piste in his Peoples Vote speech in the conference main hall to stake his claim to the Labour leadership,whose throne many feel might become vacant sooner rather than later.

Fellow metropolitan MP David Lammy,norf landan paranoid conspiracy theorist nonpareil, also staked his claim to the forthcoming leadership vacancy during an address outside at a Peoples Vote outdoor meeting where Tottenham's finest out-hyperbolised Starmer.

Yet another metropolitan MP,Chuka Umunna ,who is a person of "Collar " is also in the Peoples Vote triumvirate of putative next demagogue to lead Labour contest.

Len McCluskey ,UNITE union general secretary who on a 12% membership turnout to elect the union's next general secretary garnered  less than 50% on a 3 way split ballot. The point with Len is that he told  shyster Keir Starmer off for going off piste and saying that the option to Remain in the EU will be on the referendum ballot should Labour get into power and seek to reverse Brexit.

Which underscores, even for the lame of mind and dull of wit the scale of the imbroglio Labour have ineluctably been drawn into.

Virtually all Trades Union leaderships had committed their respective memberships to supporting Remain in the 2016 EURef and to providing the door step canvassing cannon fodder that is the mainstay and lifeblood of all MPs parliamentary sinecures.

It largely didn't work out that way in practice on the ground.Some 70% of  parliamentary constituencies with Labour MPs voted Leave. Which totally buggered everything up for the smug,condescending,PC metropolitan elitist political class.

So another conference ends for one moribund,no longer fit for purpose major parliamentary party and another one,the Conservatives is about to begin.

They both need to implode existentially and sooner rather than later. They are both historic corpses the malodorous stench of which will only get worse the longer they remain unburied.

Their gravediggers are getting impatient.

fahrenheit451:285

Well, that went rather well,don't you think?

The much heralded EU leaders' " Informal " summit  held in Salzburg, Austria ( September 19-21 ) achieved its all too obvious objectives with a noticeable degree of continental diplomatic savoir-faire.

No lesser historic personages such as Metternich and Talleyrand would have been all too duly impressed by the inimitable aplomb with which Merkel, Tusk and Macron accomplished their traducing of Theresa May.

Quite how on earth ( and evidently not as its even remotely likely to be in heaven ) the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ended up with, Theresa May - the Anglican Tea Lady of the Year - as its supreme representative at such gatherings will remain a mystery until such time as a putative future historian can fathom it all out.

The unadorned " facts " are that some 80% of our current itinerant Westminster benchwarmers are for Remain including a solid majority within the governing party not least of whom is Prime Minister.

It is beyond naivety to imagine or expect that a committed Remainer would somehow by some act of thaumaturgy alter their own personal ideological commitment let alone successfully take charge and lead, against pre-existing impossible odds, a political process that would actualise the public's vote  to Leave the EU.

All the rest is persiflage.Included under that heading would be the quasi-pious remonstrating by the Anglican Tea Lady of the Year about the lack of respect shown toward her and the UK by the EU leaders during and after the Salzburg Summit.

Turning up with a dog's breakfast ( one that even the mangiest hungriest mongrel would turn their nose up at ) of a proposal hastily labelled  " The Chequers' Plan " was simply never going to work. Except perhaps in the barren imagination of a genteel country parsonage make-believe alternate reality that constitutes Theresa May's intellect and political nous.

If Thatcher was effectively nothing more than a political pygmy standing on the shoulders of giants, then all that May ( and indeed the entirety of the present generation of politicians ) is a dwarf stood on the shoulders of pygmies.

To all intents and purposes,and here is the ultimate irony for all those with intense ideological commitments to savour, the 48% have won. And the EU funded seditionist metropolitan rabble that are #PeoplesVote campaigning earnestly to overturn Brexit don't even know it.

Schadenfreude all round it is then!!

fahrenheit451:284

Very occasionally another commentator hidden among the swamps and jungle of the MSM and on-line media will put together a succinct exposition of a complex and pressing issue.

Which is great for me as I then don't have to spend any time whatsoever re-inventing the wheel.

Whilst the two major UK indigenous tribal parties continue their brutal exchanges of epithets and hyperbole which threatens to boil over into possibly something being done about it at some point in the not too distant future if at all; Syria remains the escalator of serious big power rivalry that is inexorably moving toward the end game and a resolution one way or the other.
And neither of them offers hope to a world watching helplessly on from the sidelines.
The city and province of Idlib is said to be the final redoubt of anything in the order of 10,000 head-chopping islamic terrorists ( ISIS/Daesh,Al Qaeda and all the theological factions in between .)
The governments of Russia and Turkey with Iran and last in the queue Syria attempting a grand compromise and Realpolitik interim solution from the Metternich/Talleyrand playbook on how to do grown up international diplomacy.
Herewith gleaned from IRIN -The inside story on emergencies-website this enlightening piece on just who the heck is who and why they're trying to kill everyone else in Idlib,Syria.

Aron Lund

( Freelance journalist and analyst specialising on Syria, and regular IRIN contributor )

As the Syrian government prepares for an offensive on the rebel-held province of Idlib, rebel factions are divided in their loyalties and outlooks. Here’s a look at who would be fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in what could become the last major battle of Syria’s war.
While Turkey controls the rebels in nearby Afrin and al-Bab, the landscape in Idlib is more complex. Two major factions dominate – the National Liberation Front and Tahrir al-Sham – and they differ on their positioning towards Ankara.
Turkey’s favourite is the NLF, which is led by Fadlallah al-Hajji, a Muslim Brotherhood ally. The NLF includes Turkey-friendly Islamists like Ahrar al-Sham, the Noureddine al-Zengi Brigades, Failaq al-Sham, Jaish al-Ahrar, and groups that fought under the Free Syrian Army banner, like the Victory Army and the 2nd Coastal Division.
Big but brittle, the NLF is held together by Turkish sponsorship and shared enemies: al-Assad’s government, Syrian Kurdish groups, and hardline jihadists.
The NLF’s main rival in Idlib is Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group that controls the provincial capital, the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, and other key areas in Idlib.

Led by Abu Mohammed al-Golani, Tahrir al-Sham grew out of what used to be the Nusra Front, Syria’s official al-Qaeda franchise. It is classified as a terrorist group by the UN as well as by the United States, Turkey, and many other nations. Moscow and Damascus typically point to the group’s presence when launching new military offensives.
Tahrir al-Sham has a murky relationship to Turkey. Al-Golani appears to engage pragmatically with Turkish intelligence but refuses to fully submit to Ankara’s diktat.
To his dismay, Turkey keeps pushing for control over the entire Idlib insurgency. Turkish officers tell rebels the only way to appease Russia and keep al-Assad out of Idlib is for Tahrir al-Sham to dissolve and let its members join the NLF.
Some Tahrir al-Sham members seem to agree. Syrian analysts, including Ahmed Aba-Zeid, a well-connected Syrian researcher who supports the non-jihadist opposition, told IRIN that Turkey now dominates one wing of the group.
Al-Golani is also under pressure from jihadist hardliners who portray him as a Turkish tool and a sellout.
“Al-Qaeda leaders in Syria tend to see Tahrir al-Sham, and Abu Mohammed al-Golani in particular, as unprincipled and treacherous,” Cole Bunzel, a research fellow in Islamic Law and Civilisation at Yale University, told IRIN. Bunzel said hardliners view Tahrir al-Sham as “having disobeyed the al-Qaeda emir [leader] in breaking off from the organisation, and since then persecuting al-Qaeda members in Syria.”
Some of al-Golani’s jihadist critics, many of whom are Jordanians and Palestinians, have gathered in a pro-al-Qaeda splinter faction known as Hurras al-Deen. The group is small, but its religious criticism stings and adds to al-Golani’s challenges. He must now simultaneously fend off further defections to Hurras al-Deen and prevent his other flank from being peeled off by Turkey, whose “good cop” attitude is backed up by the threat of a regime offensive.
A Tahrir al-Sham official again rejected calls for the group’s dissolution on 28 August, but added that it seeks “a salutary solution in the liberated north that spares our people the expected aggression.” Behind the scenes, the group appears to be negotiating with Turkey, while Turkey negotiates with Russia.
In Aba-Zeid’s view, how Tahrir al-Sham evolves in the future will depend on Ankara and Moscow.
“If Turkey reaches an understanding with Russia to let Turkey handle the jihadist file in Idlib, one can expect to see Tahrir al-Sham split” between members who join the Turkey-backed block and hardliners who draw closer to Hurras al-Deen, he said.

Minor factions and Chinese jihadists

Complicating the picture in Idlib are several second-tier rebel factions.
On the jihadist side, Hurras al-Deen is accompanied by a number of small foreign-led factions close to Tahrir al-Sham, including the Chechens of Junoud al-Sham. The so-called Islamic State also operates clandestine cells in the area, hunted by both the NLF and Tahrir al-Sham.
Jaish al-Ezzah, a Free Syrian Army-flagged faction based near Hama, has not joined the Turkish-backed NLF like many of its former comrades. Some see the group as a covert Tahrir al-Sham ally, while others say their base is simply too far from Turkey for joining the alliance to make sense, so they are surviving by ducking out of intra-rebel rivalries.
In the western part of the enclave, Jisr al-Shughour has emerged as a stronghold of the Turkestan Islamic Party, TIP, a group of Uyghur Chinese jihadists. The TIP’s presence in this strategic area (it’s near the border with Turkey and government-controlled Latakia) plus its links with both Tahrir al-Sham and Turkey could give this group a pivotal role in any upcoming battle.
TIP has worked closely with Syria’s jihadist factions in the past, but also seems well acquainted with Turkish intelligence. After staying out of intra-rebel clashes for years, the group shed its neutrality policy this spring to help Tahrir al-Sham beat back a surprise attack by Turkey-backed Islamists.
Aba-Zeid, who follows intra-rebel conflicts in Idlib closely, said TIP helped swing that battle in al-Golani’s favour. But, he still believes that “Turkey’s influence on TIP remains greater than the influence of their alliance” with Tahrir al-Sham.
If all of this sounds complicated, it is. But to the Syrian government, Idlib’s rebels are all terrorists pure and simple – and the Idlib fighters themselves also see al-Assad as their primary enemy, transcending factional divides. Aba-Zeid insisted that if Russia green-lights a Syrian government offensive on Idlib, no matter how the various groups view Turkey or each other, they would all “prioritise repelling the attack”.
Mustafa Sejari, a leader in the Ankara-backed Moutassem Brigade, agreed. “This is the last fortress of the Syrian opposition and preserving it is everyone’s obligation,” he said.

fahrenheit451:283

September 12 2018 is the last day of the Trades Union Congress annual conference. Its social media hashtag has been #TUC150 .

Imagine one of the creatures in Jurassic Park wearing a happy birthday hat.

The TUC's greatest historic strength in past decades and its greatest weakness these last 40 years, is its symbiotic relationship with the Labour Party - what once was only supposed to have been the organised labour movement's parliamentary wing.

And so it goes. Parties and movements and the ideas that they are founded on to promote and which motivate them must all at some stage come to falter ,fail and die out.The late 19th century born idea of Social democracy /parliamentary Socialism is the latest case in point.

But long after the actual material circumstances conducive to a particular political ideology's growth and development have evolved and become increasingly less favourable to that particular ideology,the proponents of it continue their sterile endeavour of essentially continuing to march ( and dragoon everyone else to march along with them ) in the entirely wrong historic direction.

And once Class politics is abandoned and the distinctive Class oriented parties and movements enter instead the murky quagmires of identity and gender politics,then truly their cause is lost.

That the headline speaker at #TUC150 is the Archbishop of Canterbury,sums up the predicament of the movement succinctly.

That the other day, Congress actually approved a motion in support of Gender-self indentification as a policy priority,underscores the TUC's predicament.

The TUC's timely death as with that of the Labour Party and equally so the Conservative Party's ought to resonate across all echelons of the  British polity irrespective of any level of political awareness.

The moment ,TUC General secretary O'Grady announced that the TUC would add its " might " to the #PeoplesVote campaign for a second referendum of the UK's continued EU membership, is the moment the TUC -all it ever did and all that it is ever likely to do- passed irrevocably into the annals of history;its death notice failing to be recorded in the obituary columns.

fahrenheit451:282

The track record of the United States and its NATO satrapies' foreign military and political adventurism is as follows:-
Yugoslavia ,failed. Iraq (twice) failed.Afghanistan,failed.Libya,failed.Syria..failed.

Mad-dog Erdogan's imperialistic hubris and mismanaged economic policies have left Turkey facing the perfect storm of impending fiscal implosion and recession. Aircraft and bombs and boots on the ground in neighbouring Syria costs money,lots of it and in US Dollars, of which the Treasury in Ankara has less of with each passing day.

Idlib is the last redoubt of what remains of both ISIS and AlQaeda forces on the ground in Syria.The mutually antagonistic islamic terrorist organisations continue to knife each in other in the back with unrestrained alacrity and commendable homicidal fervour. Like rats tied up in a sack,it would be expedient and best all round just to leave then to go at it;the outcome being far fewer rats to deal with and in much poorer shape once you open the sack.

Many thousands  of "rats" have already scarpered,shaving off their pietistic facial bum-fluff and donning the burqa and niqab to give a semblance of femininity as they scuttle back ( with our own domestic security services standing idly by ) to the immigrant,unassimilated ghettoes of Brussels,Paris,Berlin,London and many other safe houses in dozens of major cities all across Europe.

The United States ( and to a lesser extent its major NATO bootlickers ) has been skilfully politically cozened by two diametrically opposed Religious regimes in the region- Israel and Saudi Arabia into conducting  a badly flawed and strategically inept campaign in Syria that has left the Syrian government and its allies within striking distance of a final victory on the battlefield.

The sideshows to the main event - western backed and orchestrated regime change in Syria - such as the Turkish campaign of ethnic cleansing of Kurdish populated ares bordering Turkey and the opportunity for localised revanchism among various tribes against other tribes ( pro and anti-Assad according to how the wind blows )  has only added to the incoherence and fragility of any putative outcome let alone meaningful resolution of the Syrian imbroglio as a whole.

The UK ,France and Germany ( with interlocking disputes and instability afflicting their own backyards ) are first among the shroud-wavers and virtue signallers raising the all too familiar cry of " humanitarian catastrophe " whilst the slavering bloodthirsty Vultures ,Israel and Saudi Arabia continue circling the carrion they hope to be feasting on.

Syria,Russia and Iran meanwhile have a job to finish.

fahrenheit451:281

One more  "wrong" move in the Syrian imbroglio,another miscalculation by the US and the world is gone to hell in a handcart.

The democratic will of the British electorate as expressed in the Vote to Leave the EU is facing an existential crisis that could hurl the UK into unimaginable political and social turmoil should the EU-funded,metropolitan elitist led anti- brexit forces prevail as it seems that they might.

Neither of these pressing issues of our contemporary Age are what currently occupy the Corporate MSM and social media space in general.

No,its all about the Labour Party.The interminable internal,fratricidal,internecine faction squabbling and mutual venal posturing that is Labour.

It is axiomatic that all political parties and social movements throughout recorded history have, at some stage, broken apart,collapsed and faded away into the collective memory hole never to be revived or heard from again.

ALL parties and movements have their time in the sun,attain their apogee or at least succeed in moving the general movement of historical forces onto another plane whether for the general good or ill.

We shan't for example be hearing from the Anti-Corn Law League anytime soon again.Nor the Levellers or Whigs or Jacobins or Bolsheviks.

And sooner much rather than later the present day Labour and Conservative parties will be irrevocably broken apart by the massive contradictions, and irreconcilable ideological tensions and paradoxes that are part of their respective and distinctive institutional DNA.

There are no exceptions.The iron laws of History cannot be negotiated with nor amended let alone circumvented by human will.

The more acute the perceived crisis or series of mutually reinforcing crises within a political party the more voluble and extreme the expressions of antagonism between the contending factions.

Everyone is a traitor,renegade,rebel,maverick,heretic,saboteur.It depends solely on who has the whip hand at any particular time. Nothing whatsoever to do with some indefinable.innate quality of pseudo- morality or being on the side of progress or enlightenment or justice or righteousness.There ain't any.Ever.

Corbyn,Momentum,Blairites,Thisites and thoseites,Frank Field.Margaret Hodge.Everybody lies,everybody is a coward.History couldn't give a damn.

As for me,sufficient unto the day the Schadenfreude thereof.