Meeting held on Monday 16th May 2022
Nine people were present. Nine sent their apologies.
The present prominence of the Northern Ireland protocol, which, in effect, provides for a trade barrier in the North Sea is an intractable problem. Johnson’s lie that the trade border would not be a problem was at the heart of his Brexit deal. We could see no other logical solution than the reunification of Ireland. Another prominent problem caused by Brexit is the shortage of labour with extreme delays in passport services and other civil services. In the face of this, government plans to cut the Civil Service further make no sense at all.
We then discussed the local elections in which the Tories lost many seats, but Labour did not do nearly as well as it should have. Starmer has not inspired support for his party. There was, however, very positive news from High Peak constituency, which has passed a resolution to send a motion to Labour’s Annual Conference which supports a degree of collaboration between anti-Tory parties, following Compass’s “only stand to win” campaign. This proposal is for a Labour Party rule change which would enable support for whichever candidate was most likely to beat the Tories. This was seen as providing a route to a change of government followed by a change of the ‘first past the post’ system to some form of proportional representation.
The Labour leadership was also criticised for the recent situation in the forthcoming Wakefield parliamentary bye election, where local nominations for parliamentary candidate were all excluded from the short list.
In the light of such problems with Labour, might the ‘Beergate’ episode (with Starmer being accused of ‘partying’ during lock down and his announcement that he would resign if found to have broken the law) be for the good? Perhaps Starmer has fulfilled his role of making the Labour Party appear electable, and should now be replaced by someone more inspirational, we wondered. What was need was some catch phrase that could stand to represent Labour’s project for government (like Trump’s ‘make America great again’ and Johnson’s ‘get Brexit done’)
Such catch phrases are part of a move towards populism in politics in many countries. It was suggested that populism inevitably pandered to bigotry in its support for prejudiced notions and fostering hatred. Abortion in U.S., Israeli/Palestine conflict, ongoing Russia/Ukraine relations and N.I under Brexit, are all polarised and seen as win/lose situations rather than problems to be addressed by discussion. This rejection of intelligent debate was supported by a mass media which inevitably prefers catch phrases, simplistic solutions and battles to win. Social media also give prominence to prejudice, hatred and simplistic views. Compass promoted a more deliberative politics.
A final brief airing of views on Royalty provided an opportunity for individuals to air varying republican sentiments in the context of our vastly unequal society.
The next meeting will be on 20th June.