BC UK
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Yesterday, of course, Jeremy Corbyn launched his Peace and Justice Project, to much excitement on here. Laudable goals too:

Take on Murdoch ✅
Green New Deal ✅
Support for food banks ✅
Speed up vaccine delivery in developing countries ✅

That's all excellent.

 I'm not sure if anyone can argue with those four aims: they're irrefutable and all massively important. You bet I'd like to see Labour doing likewise; you bet I'm frustrated that it's so quiet on all of it.

HOWEVER...
Contained within the announcement was exactly the same selective blindness which makes the entire thing all too easy to shoot down - and again, means Corbyn is pretty unlikely to persuade anyone who's not already persuaded.

The sort of blindness which makes me tear my hair out.
Peace and Justice - sounds great, doesn't it? So why did the Peace and Justice project proudly announce the support of a corrupt criminal not remotely interested in either of those things?

https://t.co/YimyrjqhCO
Rafael Correa, former President of Ecuador. Let's run through his record, starting with the positives.

Slashed poverty from 36.7% to 22.5% ✅

Reduced inequality from 0.55 to 0.47 on the Gini index ✅

So far, so good. Except, um...
Rafael Correa is guilty of bribery. Sentenced to 8 years imprisonment in abstentia for corruption so vast, his political movement was financed in exchange for awarding state contracts to businessmen and his cronies.

Tremendous. How 'just'. 🙄

It gets worse too.
Correa was so personally interested in 'peace and justice' that:

- Ecuador defaulted on its national debt and international obligations

- He was accused of involvement in kidnapping a political opponent

- His government filed a criminal charge against a critical newspaper
- He doxxed a whole bunch of his critics on social media, leading to their being harassed

- When a 17-year-old gave him a middle finger gesture in Quito, Correa stopped his motorcade, berated the teenager, and he received 20 hours' community service.
Try imagining any of the above - except the government corruption - happening in any genuine 'peaceful, just' democracy.

When ordinary citizens and newspapers are threatened by the government for 'offending the President', that is not a democracy. It's an authoritarian state.
So why does Corbyn look the other way?

Exactly the same reason he looks the other way on Venezuela, on Bolivia, on anywhere in this continent where someone claiming to be of the 'left' is in charge.

He romanticises the place. He thinks the Latin American left is Robin Hood.
It'd be nice if he stopped for a single moment to consider just how offensive that is to untold numbers who suffer appallingly under corrupt, criminal, atrocious governments here.

But he doesn't. Because his whole world view is so ludicrously black and white.
He should be running a mile from the endorsement of someone like Correa. Instead, he flaunts it. Unbelievable.

And there's really no excuse for that. To say that it plays straight into the hands of his many enemies is a huge understatement.
On a similar note: his longstanding hostility towards NATO (tempered, I know, as he pursued the premiership) is so blind towards the whole of Eastern Europe, it drives me nuts.

These are countries which gained their independence only 30 years ago. They NEED our protection.
These are also countries which know, through painful and recent experience, what Russia would try and do to them if NATO - and the EU too - weren't there to protect them.

And that's where Corbyn's whole peace and love thing really starts to collapse. It doesn't deal in reality.
We ALL want a peaceful world of interdependence, co-existence and friendship.

We all NEED that sort of world if we're to avert climate catastrophe too.

But just as his supporters adore him for his views never having changed at all, that's also his giant, almighty flaw.
The reason other politicians don't say all the nice, instinctively agreeable things he does is because other politicians - especially, other leaders - deal with geopolitical reality.

In this continent, for example, Venezuela is a completely failed state.
One million per cent inflation. 5 million refugees. As the Inter-American Development Bank put it in July:

“There is nothing we can do for Venezuela. No country in the history of humanity has seen a contraction as deep as Venezuela without a war or natural disaster or both".
So what does Corbyn do? He only continues to support the man responsible.

That isn't supporting human rights at all. That isn't supporting peace and justice at all. It's inexcusable.

Before anyone interjects with "1973.. CIA..." - Venezuela was a rich, successful place once.
Then both right and left combined to screw it all up, and then some. As this article explains superbly.

https://t.co/58cJn2jNvz

This continent and its people deal with the appalling consequences of Venezuela's rogue regime every day.
That's their lived reality. About which, Corbyn appears to care precisely nothing.

By the way: in international affairs, he's been right on many many many things.
- A hero on apartheid (FAO Rachel Riley: get stuffed you absolute disgrace)

- An implacable fighter against Pinochet

- Absolutely correct on the Iraq war

- Quite right about US imperialism and its many evils too
He's also dead on about:

- Our horrendous coddling of and deals drenched in blood with Saudi Arabia

- The demonisation of Iran (but has he ever spoken out about its human rights record? I ask because I don't know)

- Israel's treatment of the Palestinians
But his absolute blindness on so many other issues loses him so much credibility. It makes him look completely unserious and is far too easy to highlight.

It saddens me, truly. Because he's a good man who wants to HELP PEOPLE.
That's why so many will be inspired by his announcement. Everyone on the left wants to help people wherever we can.

But his biggest failing as a politician was always that he's so damn stuck in his comfort zone. That's clearly not changed.
And if we don't persuade the unpersuaded, we'll never change anything.

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1/ Some EU frustration at UK griping over trade problems and suggestions Brussels needs to improve its attitude to make the relationship work better. There's a feeling of déjà vu, that the UK never really accepted the practical reality of the deal it wanted and still doesn't.

2/ In particular there's exasperation that the UK is moaning about the deal not including arrangements that it ruled out itself to keep its own red lines intact. It's seen as a pattern of behaviour - first there was visa-free travel for musicians, now it's shellfish.

3/ EU sources say the lack of provisions on shellfish exports was brought up numerous times in the talks as a concern. But the UK refused to engage, as it did on wider SPS issues, over fears of 'being drawn into the EU's regulatory sphere'.

4/ The EU has rules vis-a-vis third countries, they say, and the UK knew this. Indeed, as they see things it's the British attitude that needs a reset. 'The problem is it wants to be a better third country than others, and that’s not an option.'

5/ That's seen as particularly rich after the UK turned down the EU's offer for a much closer relationship in pursuit of a 'Canada-style' one. Recent complaints perpetuate concerns the UK still hasn't really come to terms with the sovereignty/access trade-off.
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Ian James Parsley
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@ianjamesparsley
The DUP is literally entirely at fault for the Irish Sea Border.

Its MPs held the balance of power when the crucial decisions were made, and cast the defining votes which made sure there would be one.

Let us just remember...

1/6

Shortly after the Referendum a DUP MP went on the radio to say there were no checks and the Norway-Sweden border.

He refused to apologise and accept this error even when he was shown pictures of the checks...

2/6

Another DUP MP then *visited* the Norway-Sweden border and argued the UK-Ireland border could be just like it.

Again, she was told clearly that it would only be like it if the UK were as close to the EU as Norway is.

*She then cast votes to make sure it wouldn't be.*

3/6

DUP MPs were then warned *during a parliamentary debate* that too great a distance from the EU could lead to food shortages.

One literally replied: "We'll just go to the chippy".

4/6

The DUP was also constantly warned that any regulatory border for goods would apply in the Irish Sea, because it is easier to apply these things where vehicles are already naturally stopped. Over and over and over again it was told this.

5/6
UK
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@paulmasonnews
If anyone's thinking to spend the weekend fantasising about a left split from Labour, here's an updated summary of why it's crazy ... 1/ Labour is the only route to a left government in Britain. Even Podemos ended up in power as junior partners to PSOE...

2/ 56% support for Scottish independence and Labour on 13% in Holyrood polls mean 2024 is the last chance saloon. If Scotland is out of the UK there'll have to be something akin to the US Democrats, or Popular Front in 36 - until the demographics change

3/ The culture/values conflict is unavoidable and will be intensified inside any left party. Trans rights, migration, Brexit - all the issues that divide the Labour left would divide anything to the left of it: so then there'd be two left alternatives...

4/ What we need is an organised left alliance in the Labour Party - bigger than the SCG and Momentum and based around policy and activism... instead we get the self-defeating project of disaffiliating Unite slice by slice...

5/ The scale of the Covid and climate crises mean even traditional social-democrats are having to re-think - just as French liberals did in the 1930s. That means an anti-capitalist left in Labour has to engage constructively...
UK
Ian Dunt
Ian Dunt
@IanDunt
There's a tragic irony to Johnson's love of Churchill.

When Churchill became prime minister, he said: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat". He was honest about the severity of the situation and what it entailed. He didn't pretend everything would magically be alright.

Johnson's approach is the exact opposite. He runs from bad news like a dog from fireworks. He invents nonsense timetables by which everything will be fine.

He assumes the public need constant good news and sacrifices his own trustworthiness in order to provide it - it'll be over in six weeks, by Easter, by summer, by Christmas, by February, whatever.

It's equivalent to Churchill using his first speech as PM to insist the war will be over by Christmas.
UK
Matt Chorley
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@MattChorley
Mood among Tory MPs is seriously bad. Even those who think this is the right thing to do now are dismayed that it’s come to this.

“Shambolic. Rudderless ramblings. constituents getting in touch furious or in tears.”

“Grim grim grim”

“I think it could be his Suez”

All a bit late and cobbled too.

Cabinet ministers didn’t know that furlough was being extended or that “Stay At Home” was back until they saw it on the TV.

💥 Conservative minister: “The incompetence is another level. Is this a deliberate destruction of the Tory Party? People only vote for us because they think we don’t care, but are competent. Lose the competence and we’re fucked. We’ve lost the competence. And we are fucked.”

Another minister says: “The science seems sound. The comms in the lead up to this was shocking. What’s the point in having a tight, intimate decision making group when it leaks like a sieve?”

There is also scepticism among Tory MPs about the scary charts from Whitty and Vallance. Is the data driving the decisions or are the charts being rustled up to justify decisions?
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