Dutch Election - Wilders Falters, Labour Crash, Green Left Gain

The political establishment across Europe are celebrating yesterday’s Dutch general election result, where Gert Wilders' party, PVV, did not make the large gains that opinion polling have been suggesting. The turn-out, at 80%, was unusually large.

The PVV stood on an unambiguous platform of anti-EU, anti-Muslim immigration policies, and it was thought would follow the right wing popularist trend of Brexit and Trump in recent protest votes. Well done to the Dutch people for rejecting this type of divisive politics.

The high turnout and spread of votes amongst several parties, played a part in halting PVV's advance, but perhaps more significantly, the centre right VVD party, stole some of the anti-immigration rhetoric from PVV, and the public row with Turkey probably helped as well.

Echoes of the UK, where the Tories are playing the same game, and thereby gaining former UKIP voters with anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. It is a widely held view that the rise of the National Front in the UK in the 1970’s was halted by the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government, which was big on patriotism.

The Labour Party, PvdA, were the big losers, after participating in a coalition government with the centre right party VVD, with further echoes of the Lib Dems, this time, in the UK, and a continuing slide by social democrat parties in Europe that have embraced neo-liberalism. PvdA went from 38 seats to just 9.VVD won the most seats, with 33, down 8.

Smaller parties were the main gainers, with the Dutch GreenLeft Party (GroenLinks in Dutch) gaining 10 seats, going from 4 to 14. As the name suggests the party is a left wing environmental one, and describes itself as "green", "social" and "tolerant." Not explicitly ecosocialist, it is after all a reformist party, but certainly heading in an ecosocialist direction.

The result demonstrates that a Green Left party can take significant votes off social democratic parties, particularly in the bigger cities. GreenLeft topped the poll in Amsterdam.

A coalition government will have to be built between at least 4 parties, but GreenLeft have said all along that they will not participate in a right or centre right government. It would be wise to stick to that after what happened to the PvdA at this election.

This is an English translation of a statement by GreenLeft about yesterday’s Dutch general election. 

From their website GroenLinks:

Thank you for voting, thank you for your commitment to the campaign. We have shown along that ideals do matter in politics. We showed together that we can get the country moving. We have written history.

Together we form a great new movement, which connects green and leftist values together. A movement for change. We go on.

Join us so we can listen to you. We need you, to share concerns with each other. To exchange new ideas. To discuss how we proceed not only from The Hague, but also in the country to bring real change in the Netherlands.

Let's change the Netherlands together.

Congratulations to GroenLinks from Green Left in London.  

Lords Urge MPs to get some Backbone with Amendment to Allow EU Nationals to Stay in the UK after Brexit

Yesterday the House of Lords voted by 358 to 256 in favour of amending the Brexit bill, to give EU nationals living in the UK the right to stay in this country. The amended Bill we now be passed back to House of Commons to vote on.

MPs rejected a similar amendment last week, but the tide may have turned on this issue. It is now said that around 30 Tory MPs are considering voting for the amendment, which could swing the vote in favour of the amendment.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP and co leader of the party tweeted:

'Great to see Lords defeat govt over rights of EU citizens. Govt must now concede - will fight for that in Commons.'

Government Whips will be out in force to try and ensure rebel Tory MPs toe the line and reject the amendment, and they may be successful. The government has promised that this will be the first issue to be resolved when negotiations begin, and hopes a reciprocal arrangement for UK nationals living in the EU, can be concluded early on in talks.

They also implied that the EU are holding things up, by not allowing pre-Article 50 talks, but this rings hollow, and is probably an indicator of how things will be spun, particularly in the right wing media. Expect furious stories in the Mail, Express etc on how unreasonable the EU is being by not letting us have everything we want out of a Brexit deal. It will not be pretty.  

There are around 1.2 million UK nationals living in the EU and around 3 million EU nationals living in the UK. The government has refused to guarantee EU nationals the right to remain here, saying that this will be part of the negotiations on the UK leaving the EU. It does rather look like these people are being used as bargaining chips in the negotiations, which the government denies, but what other conclusion can be drawn?

Nicolas Hatton, the chairman of the 3 million campaign group which has been lobbying for the rights of EU citizens said that while he had some concerns about the amendment it was a relief that for the first time since the referendum, a majority was secured in parliament to support the rights of the 3 million EU citizens “who came in good faith to live and work the UK”.

I think the government is wrong on many levels in taking its approach:

First of all, we need to reassure people living in the UK about their future here. It is not fair to people, who need to make life decisions. It must be a worry for EU nationals in the UK. As even a Brexiteer like Michael Gove said just after the referendum result, ‘it is a matter of plain decency,’ to allow these people to continue to live and work in the UK (if they wish).

The vast majority of the EU nationals living in the UK are young, whereas the largest grouping of UK nationals living in the EU, are pensioners, living in Spain, roughly about half of the EU total. Younger people are productive in the UK economy, whereas our ex-pats in Spain are not, to a large extent, anyway. 

If these older people come back to the UK they will need more health and social care, a sector of the economy which at present has large numbers of EU nationals doing the work.

The idea of expelling 3 million productive workers is a recipe for a collapse in the UK economy. EU nationals work across all sectors of the economy, and of course pay tax here. It would be madness.

For this to be the opening salvo of negotiations, it will likely harden attitudes in the EU, when we want relations to be as amicable as is possible. To state unilaterally, that the UK will allow all those EU nationals already residing here, to remain, would be a gesture of goodwill.  

And, because it is just plain right to allow people to stay. Natural justice demands that people who came in good faith to this country should not be penalised.

Stop Trump - One Day Without Us Immigrants - London Protest - Photos and Report

Thousands gathered in Parliament Square, London, in a protest organised by Stop Trump and One Day Without Us campaigns, as MPs debated the petition signed by almost two million Britons in Westminster Hall.

The Stop Trump Coalition aims to build a movement led by those most impacted by Trump's policies and rhetoric. There will be further protests leading up to Trump's state visit, if, as seems likely, it goes ahead in the summer.

A separate protest out side the Home Office earlier in the day was held to demonstrate against the the deportation of Erioth Mwesigwa back to Uganda where she was gang raped by soldiers. She was imprisoned, raped and interrogated because her husband was suspected of opposing Uganda President Obote. She has been refused refugee status in the UK.

Writing ahead of the Parliamentary debate on the Left Foot Forward website, Amelia Womack, the Green Party deputy leader said:

"Post-Brexit Britain risks ending up just a sad echo of the US, where many poor Americans voted in their millions for Donald Trump in the futile belief he would bring back long gone manufacturing jobs and offer respite from poverty. Now they can only watch as he lines his cabinet with Wall Street elite and stages photo opps in front of his gold and diamond encrusted front door."

"And although the Brexit vote set off this whole chain of catastrophic events, it also proved the same point that One Day Without Us events are making today. A breakdown of voting patterns in the referendum revealed the areas most affected by immigration were the least concerned about it."

"People fear the unknown, but the truth is that migrants contribute hugely to our society. They’re our friends, families and colleagues. Let’s hope today really is only one day without them and not a frightening indicator of the dystopian, insular future we’re heading towards."

A message to those MPs inside Parliament debating Trump's state visit from Londoners. We don't want Trump in our city, which is a diverse and harmonious place, people like Trump threaten our multi-ethnic way of life. Stay away Trump, you are not welcome in London.

 

Blair Seeks Redemption with call for Anti-Brexit Uprising

Photo credit: The Guardian

In a speech in London today to the pro-European Union (EU) campaign Open Britain, former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, urged the British people to ‘rise up’ against leaving the EU.

Pressed on whether he thought there should be a second referendum, he said: "All I'm saying is a very, very simple thing, that this is the beginning of the debate - that if a significant part of that 52% show real change of mind, however you measure it, we should have the opportunity to reconsider this decision.”

Blair, who was Prime Minister between 1997 and 2007, has never really regained his political credibility since his fateful decision to join the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The dodgy dossier, spin and downright lies employed by Blair to persuade Parliament of the necessity of the invasion, was laid bare by the subsequent failure to find  any weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

He struggled on as Prime Minister until 2007, but Iraq was the beginning of the end of Blair’s premiership. He was damaged goods and it was only a matter of time before the Labour Party moved to oust him.

In the intervening years, apart from regularly defending his decision to go to war on a false prospectus, Blair has always given me the impression that he craves to be back in the political limelight, but Iraq has hung like a millstone around his neck.

But it looks as though Blair has spotted an opportunity at redeeming his reputation by advocating that Britain should not leave the EU, despite last summer’s referendum in which a majority of the British people voted to leave. Brexit is of course the biggest political issue of the day, and so Blair is likely to get a hearing in the media, unlike perhaps his thoughts on the middle-east peace process, for example.

Blair is right to point out that the decision made on 23 June last year was a snapshot of the views of the British public, which doesn’t necessarily mean that this view can’t change, especially as the implications of leaving become clearer. We should remember too, that at 52%-48% for leave, this was hardly an overwhelming mandate anyway. Views can change, and do, one narrow decision on one day in 2016, cannot be set in stone forever.

The Lib Dems political revival is being built on a pro-EU platform, with some success, and it has surely not been lost on Blair that if they can be forgiven their broken promises when in coalition with the Tories, then why can’t he be absolved from past mistakes, when championing such a noble issue as the future good of the country?

Well, I’m not sure Blair has been forgiven, particularly by many leave voters who blame him, with some justification, for allowing the sharp increase in immigration from eastern Europe, when his government failed to apply a ten year ‘emergency brake’ on immigration, which was allowed under EU rules.

I listened to a political radio phone in show on the BBC last night, just as the news of Blair’s speech was breaking, and it was met with scorn by many of the callers. Even some callers who want to remain in the EU, although agreeing with Blair’s arguments, didn’t think it helpful that he personally is the messenger. That credibility thing again.

As one caller put it, ‘you can’t believe anything he says after Iraq.’

I’m no fan of Blair’s, he is one of the main reasons why I stopped voting Labour and joined the Green Party, but he may be onto something here.

At least he is issuing a rallying call to the 16 million British people who voted to remain in the EU, which may begin to lift the gloom that has enveloped many remainers. Particularly since Corbyn led Labour’s abject capitulation to the Tory agenda on Brexit.

Let us argue the case against the government’s reckless interpretation of this great political and cultural matter, whoever the messenger happens to be.