Squaring the Brexit Circle

by Les May

IN the 2016 referendum I voted that the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union (EU). I assumed that if a majority of people voted like I did the result would be honoured. Even though the outcome was not what I would have wished I believe that the result should be honoured and the UK should leave the EU in accordance with the expressed wish of the majority of the people who voted.

The ONLY question on the ballot paper was about the continued membership of the UK in the EU. There were NO questions about immigration, the European Court of Justice, the Common Fisheries Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy or indeed ANY of the myriad things which are claimed to have been an expression of ‘the will of the people’ by what former Tory politician Chris Patten has called the ‘Maoist Tendency’ of his party. Patten meant by this members of the European Research Group (ERG), one of two publicly funded services maintained for Conservative MPs. The public funding has been to the tune of more than a quarter of a million pounds since 2010.

Is it not remarkable that ‘the will of the people’ just happens to coincide with the wish list these MPs have drawn up and which they want to foist on the rest of us? They make their claims about knowing why people voted in 2016 because they think they have a right to shape the nature of the future relationship of the United Kingdom with the European Union. The outcome of the 2016 referendum DID NOT give them a mandate to do this because there were no questions about it on the ballot paper.

If you doubt what I said in the last paragraph you might like to note that the 116 Tory MPs who voted against Theresa May in last week’s leadership ballot did so because they did not like the nature of the future relationship with the European Union, NOT because she had declined to implement the outcome of the Referendum. Like one or two Labour politicians they have persistently conflated the question of being a member of the EU with the question of our future relationship with it. These questions need to be separated.

The Referendum told us how the first of these questions should be answered i.e. we should leave the EU. It did NOT tell us HOW the second question should be answered.

For the past two years the people who have monopolised discussion of the second question have been that same ‘Maoist Tendency’ of the Tory party. Theresa May’s policy throughout has been to produce a solution which would placate this group. And it’s not just May. Politicians on all sides have been behaving like rabbits trapped in the headlights of the ERG’s speeding car whilst Theresa May squawks ‘Brexit means Brexit’ from the roadside like a demented parrot, too paralysed to make a move towards outlining possible alternative models for our future relationship with the EU after we leave.

That there are alternatives is shown by the fact that parliament will not vote for the ERG’s ‘no deal’ scenario and the ERG will not support May’s present offering. Simply calling for a second referendum, as Tony Blair and Vince Cable have done, or saying ‘all options are on the table’, is a symptom of that paralysis not an example of leadership.

In case you think I am letting Corbyn off the hook here I should make it clear that a Labour government would face all the same problems which are the downside of leaving the EU. So called ‘Labour moderates’ like Chuka Umunna have vacillated between initially toying with alternative models for the UK’s future relationship with the EU and now supporting a ‘people’s vote’ which is a second referendum in all but name. The same criticism can be made of Conservative MP Anna Soubry.

What is needed is a solution which honours the result of the referendum, and which both honours our obligations under the British-Irish Agreement of 10 April 1998 with regard to Northern Ireland and minimises the disadvantages of not being a member of the EU. That means frictionless trade between Britain and the EU.

Should you be one of the people who think there will be no disadvantages I will mention that from 1 February 2019 Europe and Japan will be joined in a free trade area for goods and services covering 650 million people and one third of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). After we leave the EU we will no longer be part of it. Negotiating this deal took five years which may be a pointer to how long it will take a post EU Britain to do likewise.

Why I don’t want a second referendum

I agree with Theresa May that calling a second referendum would undermine our democracy. In my view it would fuel the rise of right wing populism based on the argument that an ‘elite’ had chosen to disregard the expressed view of a majority of the people who voted in the Referendum that we should leave the EU. Anna Soubry has already been subjected to this. I repeat that there was only ONE question on the ballot paper.

I voted Remain in the June 2016. I still believe that we would be better off remaining as members of the EU. I have that in common with the people who are calling for a second referendum whether they are calling it that or giving it the more grandiose title of ‘A People’s Vote’. But I think they are mistaken.

Blair, Cable, Ummuna, Soubry, et al, who all oppose the UK leaving the EU, seem to assume that a second referendum will produce a different result. I can see no reason to take this for granted. No one can be sure that it would not produce the same result again, possibly on a smaller turn out. What then?

Does anyone seriously think that voters will be better informed than last time? The draft Withdrawal Agreement being touted by Theresa May runs to more than five hundred pages. How many voters are going to read and understand it? For that matter how many MPs are going to spend their Christmas holidays reading it? Already the ERG has ‘helpfully’ condensed the 585 pages of the document into a handy seven (7) page guide! Again it seems that the ERG are going to try to monopolise HOW we leave the EU, not just whether we leave the EU.

Nor do I think that any consideration has been given to what question would appear on the ballot paper. Asking the same question as in 2016 simply looks like an attempt to gerrymander the ballot. It says ‘we’ll keep you voting until you come up with the right answer’. So how about if the question is ‘May’s deal or no deal’? That’s just as bad because it precludes any of the alternatives which I, and others, would find more acceptable than either option.

My biggest objection is to those MPs who want a ‘A People’s Vote’ because they do not think there is any outcome which a simple majority of MPs would vote for.

My answer to these MPs is, ‘You lot got us into this mess, so you can get us out of it. It’s your job to collectively explore the options which will both respect the vote to leave the EU and minimise the disadvantages of not being a member of the EU. Ensuring that the UK honours its obligations under the British-Irish Agreement of 1998 is a job for Parliament not for the voters. In other words show some leadership’.

Respecting the vote and minimising the disadvantages

The European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and the European Economic Area (EEA) are not synonymous, but they are linked. Both are outside the EU, both are trading partnerships and neither are ‘political projects’ demanding ever closer political integration.

Membership of EFTA would deliver four things on the ERG wish list; withdrawal from the EU, no common fisheries policy, no common cgricultural policy and the right to enter into bilateral third-country arrangements. EFTA does not issue legislation, nor does it establish a customs union.

Membership of EEA would additionally allow access to the Internal Market of the EU. Specifically excluded from the EEA relationship with the EU are: common agricultural and fisheries policies, customs union, common trade policy, common foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs, direct and indirect taxation and economic and monetary union. Joining would require a continued contribution to the EU, albeit a smaller one resulting in a saving of 12 to 25%, and acceptance of the free movement of goods, capital, services and labour. Norway thinks these are a price worth paying.

I repeat what I have said several times before. The ONLY question on the Referendum ballot paper was about whether we wished to remain in the EU. The EFTA/EEA option delivers not only leaving the EU but many of the other things on the ERG ‘wish list’ which are claimed to be ‘the will of the people’.

If indeed Labour’s policy is ‘If we cannot get a general election, Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote… ’ then the EFTA/EEA option has to be on that table. A customs union, which seems to be Corbyn’s preferred option would only cover goods not services.

What it does not deliver is an end to immigration. Some Labour MPs, e.g. Caroline Flint, are happy to set this demon loose, albeit indirectly. Flint was very careful in her choice of words, but it is clear that whoever posted her exchange with Anna Soubry on YouTube thought she meant immigration and immigrants. She should be warned that in my part of the world the word ‘immigrant’ is frequently taken to mean Pakistanis, many of whom have lived here all their lives.

Instead of asking for a re-run of the Referendum or ‘A People’s Vote’ the MPs who recognise that leaving the EU will bring with it significant disadvantages need to press for wide public discussion of the options open to us which both honour the expressed wish of those who voted to leave the EU and minimise the damage from doing so.

A good start would be to say loud and clear that Theresa May’s primary objective for the past two years has been to appease the ERG by acting as if the Referendum gave her a mandate to deliver all the things on their wish list even though they had never been voted upon.

At some time in the not too distant future Labour has to face the fact that whilst its policy of accepting the result of the Referendum but not committing itself to any definite proposals for the future has been shrewd, putting its faith in winning a vote of no confidence with seemingly no other alternatives being considered may be reckless given the time frame.

If Labour fails to win a no confidence vote and get a general election then I think the Corbyn project would be finished. If Labour wins it, then wins the election which follows and forms a government before 29 March, it will find itself presiding over a chaotic mess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Research_Group#Your_Right_to_Know_Dossier_18th_November_2018

https://www.britishirishcouncil.org/about/british-irish-agreement

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/police-protect-anna-soubry-as-brexit-yellow-vest-protesters-surround-her-and-shout-hitler-jibes-a4022286.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mppVchHyaiA

https://brexitcentral.com/erg-publish-right-know-case-governments-brexit-deal/

http://www.efta.int/About-EFTA/Frequently-asked-questions-EFTA-EEA-EFTA-membership-and-Brexit-328676

http://www.efta.int/eea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsPo2XhoM54

'NAE PASARAN!' – and the Labour Government

Review by Chris Draper

I’VE just watched the film “NAE PASARAN!”, the story of how some Scottish workers disrupted Pinochet’s fascist regime and would urge you to catch it when it arrives in your area.  If it’s not being shown in your town then persuade your community group, union branch or political friends to organise a screening – you won’t be disappointed.  In September 1973 Pinochet, backed by the CIA, seized power in Chile and established a dictatorship with concentration camps, torture and mass murder.  Condemnation of the coup was immediate, worldwide and included many who may not have supported the system destroyed by Pinochet yet were appalled by the barbarity of his regime.

'Nae Pasaran!' tells the story of how workers at an East Kilbride factory in 1974 refused to handle aero engines sent by Pinochet’s airforce for repair and servicing.  Their action infuriated the regime but gave hope to Pinochet’s opponents.  'Nae Pasaran!' movingly reveals the personal stories of four men, one now dead and three very old, who initiated the action. One of the four, Bob Foulton was a church elder who started the ball rolling by refusing to handle the Chilean engines on humanitarian grounds.  To me the key underlying theme of the movie is the importance of direct action rather than Parliamentary politics.  The men refused to do what they considered wrong didn’t just write to their MP or await union instructions, they acted first and sought support afterwards.  It’s just as well as they received scant support from the Labour Government and although this isn’t a central concern of the film 'Nae Pasaran!' prompts politically-inclined viewers to reflect on this issue and it’s worth examining the facts.

At the time of Pinochets’s September 1973 coup Ted Heath’s Tories were in power but within months (February 1974) Harold Wilson’s Labour Government was elected and was in office when the East Kilbride workers began their action (March 1974). Besides the eight aero engines, Pinochet’s regime was also anxiously awaiting other vital military supplies from Britain including two frigates, two submarines and a refitted destroyer.  To the absolute shock, surprise and disgust of loyal Labour supporters, in April Wilson’s newly elected government announced it would honour all existing Chilean military contracts!

Rather than adding strength and legitimacy to the action of the East Kilbride workers the Labour Government did precisely the opposite.  It successfully leant on the national leadership of the AUEW union to direct the workers to handle the engines (the men only partly complied). As the film describes, the engines were eventually returned to Chile through subterfuge and likely Labour government collusion. It is not mentioned in the film but the 1974-1979 Labour government refused to isolate the Pinochet regime.  Minister Michael Meacher met a delegation led by the Chile Solidarity Campaign and informed them that he would not impose a trade embargo as it might harm British jobs and business.  In fact between 1974-79 British investments in Chile more than doubled from £13m to £28m.  Although the government did permit entry to Britain by some refuges from the Pinochet regime as Labour Home Office Minister Alex Lyon laconically admits in the film, they were first individually screened on the basis of information supplied by the CIA!

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Labour apologists argue that 'next time it will be different'.   It was therefore significant to witness what happened in 1998 when, under another Labour administration Pinochet was held in Britain in response to an International Arrest Warrant charging him with Human Rights Violations, including the murder and the torture of 94 Spanish nationals. Instead of belatedly making amends for Labour’s previous record Jack Straw, the responsible Minister sought every possible opportunity to evade his moral obligations.  After the Law Lords repeatedly ruled Pinochet should stand trial Straw resorted to the dubious device of claiming he was medically unfit.  When Pinochet flew back to Chile, on descending from the plane he mocked Straw’s claim by rising triumphantly from his wheelchair to greet his adoring fascist supporters!

Labour loyalists will inevitably still insist 'next time it will be different' and some find reassurance in Jeremy Corby’s denunciation of Pinochet to a BBC reporter on his 1998 arrest, 'one of the great murderers of the century'.   I would remind such simpletons that Tony Blair derided Thatcher’s administration as 'the Party of Pinochet' while Peter Mandelson called Pinochet 'a brutal dictator' whose claim of immunity was 'gut wrenching'.  Even as Harold Wilson’s newly elected Labour government prepared to sell the 'Nae Pasaran' workers down the river, in Parliament he hypocritically denounced Pinochet’s regime as an 'oppressive fascist government'.  Doesn’t madness reside in doing the same thing time-and-time-again in expectation of a different result?

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DEMOCRACY & the PRESS in ROCHDALE

by Clive Jones

DEMOCRACY in Rochdale is dying !


The Council has a voice the local press the Rochdale residents have little or no voice.  You can write in to the Council with your concerns and it may or may not get a result.


A democracy is a dynamic environment where public concerns should circulate freely.  This means that information must flow freely to the public and the best vehicle for this is the press.


However, press freedom is being eroded by the power of certain authorities both central and local including intimidation etc.


If the press has a one sided voice it is not democratic and we are not in a democracy.

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Emperor's New Gender & Liverpool Leaflet

Left click on above leaflet to get clear image.
Last April the above leaflet got a lad thrown out of the Anarchist Liverpool Book fair for distributing it.  Readers must make their own judgement about the issues and intricacies of gender politics.  British Anarchists these days are fragile plants who can't cope with criticism even when it is badly written and poorly produced as above.  Northern Voices stands up for free speech and doesn't take sides in this knock-about stuff.  Life is hard enough without having to obsess about all this trivia with the drama Queens of anarchism.

Disgraced Councillor Brett Offer's Apology

YESTERDAY at a Hearing Rochdale Council leader Allen Brett, through his solicitor, gave an unreserved apology for having threatened to gerrymander funding for highway maintenance so that a ward that didn't vote Labour in last May's local elections was disadvantaged.

The Audit & Governance Hearing found that Councillor Brett had been in breach of Paragraph 5 of the Councillor's Code of Conduct, when earlier this year he discussed acting in an unlawful way at a meeting of the Labour group which included other Labour councillors.

Even where the unlawful comments made are claimed to be made as 'banter' or as a joke, such remarks are not afforded the protection that public officials can claim them to be private remarks under 'Chatham House rules', as Councillor Brett sought to claim in his defence.

In his report to the Hearing the investigator Simon Goacher found that there was no evidence Councillor Brett would have acted on the 'threat' he made in his comment, and he had not acted in breach of paragraph 6 of the Code of Conduct, therefore in consequence '[h]e has not sought to obtain improper advantage/disadvantage for any person'.

What the Hearing did find, in keeping with Mr. Goacher's finding, is:  'he [Councillor Brett] has failed to comply with paragraph 5 of the Code as he has brought himself, his office and the Council into disrepute.'

The Hearing accepted that '[t]he comments made by Councillor Brett and widely reported will, understandably, have had a detrimental impact on the public's perception of Cllr Brett and the Council.' 

Perhaps we should leave almost the last word to Councillor Brett's solicitor, Mr. Dixon, who told the Hearing that with Cllr Brett 'What you see is what you get!'

The sanctions will require that the council leader to undertake further training relating to the code of conduct and the committee panel will publish its findings on the matter.

Following the hearing, Coun Brett in a statement given to the Manchester Evening News said: 

'I have said many times that my comments were not meant to be taken seriously and this process has finally concluded there was no way I could have influenced where our record road investment should be allocated.

'I now want to put this behind me and get on with the job of transforming our borough, which we are very much doing.

'I also want to look at ways of increasing our road repair programme even further because I know it's something many of our residents want
us to do.'

As a result of the hearing a recommendation has been made that in future all councillors undertake further training on the code of conduct.

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WOKE-up vs Sleepwalking politics?

by Brian Bamford
'Woke' is increasingly used as a byword for social awareness.

EARLIER this month Helen Steel and some other women were thrown out of the Manchester Anarchist Bookfair for distributing a leaflet with which the organisers apparently disapproved.  This leaflet was not as was initially claimed - a so-called Terf leaflet attacking transexuals, but rather was a considered argument against what the leaflet described as 'The Curse of Identity Politics'.

The authors of the leaflet offer a critique of the current thrust of anarchism in the UK, as is shown in their introduction below, but should this be accepted as grounds for their exclusion?:

'Anarchism in the UK is a joke. Once symbolising hard-fought struggles for freedom, the word has been stripped bare to make way for narrow-minded, separatist and hateful identity politics by middle class activists keen to protect their own privileges. We write this leaflet to reclaim anarchism from these identity politicians.'

Northern Voices may disagree with some of the contents of this leaflet but it ought not to be grounds for the exclusion of those putting forward these ideas.  Indeed, we seriously consider that there ought to be a mix of diverse views at bookfairs that profess to be anarchist or libertarian.

Whatever else the authors argue for authors which would seem to include Helen Steel are right conclude with the following statement:

 'Final note. To us anarchism is cooperation, mutual aid, solidarity and fighting the real centres of power. Anarchist spaces should not be for those who merely want to fight those around them. We have a proud history of internationalism and diversity, so lets reclaim our politics for a genuinely inclusive future.'

wokeanarchists@protonmail.ch - wokeanarchists.wordpress.com

 To read the leaflet that Helen Steel and the others were chucked-out for distributing go to:

 https://wokeanarchists.wordpress.com/

https://325.nostate.net/.../against-anarcho-liberalism-and-the-curse-of-identity-politics-...

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Northern Anarchist Network Statement:

 by Barry Woodling

I  AM shocked by reports on HelenSteel12 Twitter account and Mums Net that Helen Steel was physically assaulted and thrown out of the [Manchester] Anarchist Bookfair last Saturday.    The Partisan Collective hosted the event and has a duty of care to those who attended.     Helen is well known for her environmental campaigning and for her support for the Blacklist Support group.    She was handing out leaflets at the bookfair re the issue of trans gender and was then was dragged out.    This bookfair has form, it physically assaulted 2 Unite Trade Unionists last year and forcibly ejected them.     I have been banned from attending for the last 5 years for the specious and nonsensical reason that I am an anti-Semite, despite many of my mothers relatives perishing in the holocaust.   The Collective supported our ejection last year!     I would hope that the Partisan Collective treat this matter with the seriousness that it merits and initiates a full investigation into last Saturdays incident.    If the Collective continues to back the bookfair organisers under the pretext of "safe spaces" it will continue to alienate many of its erstwhile supporters.   

Barry Woodling

Northern Anarchist Network.

Another Anarchist Bookfair Drama in Manchester

by Brian Bamford

JUST beyond  the wrestling crowds of the Manchester Xmas Markets and the site of the current play 'The Producers' featuring 'Springtime for Hitler' at the Royal Exchange, in down town Salford on Saturday the 1st, December another knock-about farce took place seemingly provoked by a bunch of political drama-Queens at the Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair.

Based on the info on the Twitter, the website MUMSNET at around teatime on the night of the Manchester Bookfair, set up a thread which opened with the following:

Reports that Helen Steel and another woman were surrounded and physically dragged out of (another) anarchist bookfair for wrongthink

Since the night of the Manchester 'anarchist' bookfair not much else has been in evidence explaining why Helen Steel and the other woman were excluded from this event.  Northern Voices approached the bookfair organisers, and others questioned the Partisan Collective, the managers of the bookfair venue for an explanation, but answers came there none.  What we know of what happened comes mostly from comments on Twitter and MUMSNET.

This year's incident in Manchester follows the series of conflicts at bookfairs that started at the London Anarchist Bookfair in October 2017, when a dispute ensued between certain transexuals and some feminists over the distribution of leaflets criticising proposals in the new legislation on the Gender Recognition Act.  During that case Helen Steel somehow became involved arguing for free speech and the right to debate the issues.

Since that time Helen Steel and others who think like her have been labeled 'TERF's', and it is understood that the Manchester venue 'The Partisan' does not allow space for TERF's.

After the disaster of the 2017 London Bookfair and the later conflicts at other 'anarchist' bookfair's like Manchester, Milan Rai the editor of Peace News wrote an editorial in the December-January 2018 issue entitled 'How to destroy our own movements':
'Activists need to find better ways to struggle with each other and to fight with each other, argues Milan Rai

"People ask me how we would defend the bookfair from a fascist attack, but I’m not worried about them out there. I worry about what we might do to each other in here." – one of the organisers of the London Anarchist Bookfair, on 28 October.
'A few hours later, a group of trans rights activists stopped some feminists handing out leaflets that they found oppressive to trans women. A nontrans woman, Helen Steel, objected to this censorship. 'About 30 trans rights activists then surrounded Helen Steel and shouted at her for having stood up for the leafleters.
'The confrontation went on for a long time. Some people (including members of the bookfair collective) surrounded Helen Steel to protect her from possible assault. An unknown person then tripped the fire alarm, leading to an evacuation of the building.'

The consequences of this conflict between trans-rights activists and feminists still prevails as was evident in Manchester earlier this month.  But it is a symptom of a wider problem of the inability of the broader left to communicate owing to a righteous arrogance which has developed within its ranks.  It is inevitably that today an ideology which roots itself in an orthodoxies such as political correctness and identity politics was bound to suffer from the inconsistencies of its own contradictions.

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BOLD & the local media

How much freedom of speech do we really have?
John Wilkins

THIS article summarises the problems a local campaigning group BOLD (Building Our Local Democracy) based in Middleton, has encountered with regard to freedom of speech.

It is an issue which is central to much of what the group is about as illustrated by the first two aims of the group:

1. Encourage more people to exercise their democratic rights, in order to bring power and decision making closer to the people.

2. Promote more democratic accountability and transparency in central and local government, public and private bodies.

Our last but one meeting focussed on the latest of a catalogue of scandals involving Rochdale councillors.  This being the caution accepted by the now Councillor Faisal Rana for casting votes in two different constituencies in the last round of Council Elections. Individual members of our group have contacted the Council, Heywood & Middleton Labour CLP and even the Local Government Ombudsman.

The last meeting concentrated on why many local people in Rochdale Borough will be oblivious of this and earlier scandals as there is inadequate coverage of local politics in the media here.  The local printed papers rarely print a letters column these days which was a way of getting more exposure on local issues.  Until recently Rochdale On – Line was an outlet for those wanting more political stories being put into the public domain.  A prolific contributor on politic issues as well as some of our members have complained about the dearth of comments from residents being published now as well as the archive of previous letters being deleted.

We have to speculate on the reasons behind this weakening of political expression. Could it be that the financial problems reported to be afflicting this news outlet means they are even more dependent on advertising finance from adverts placed by the Council?

In some ways this is not a new issue as a member claimed the child abuse scandal at Knowl View only became covered properly after exposure in 1979 with articles in Private Eye and later The New Statesan.

One member directly asked a local journalist why there was less coverage of public's letters in the local media.  His response was to the effect that there was little enthusiasm from management for printing views that were challenging to local politicians!  Some members regretted the loss of a political reporter for the local papers who was always willing to publish views from them.  One can only guess that his career change might have been due to the stifling of freedom of expression.

With regard to the national media there has long been an in-balance in newspapers with a more right wing agenda being pushed in 80%.  The BBC was also felt not to be always neutral and quite selective of issues it promoted.  A few years ago I asked the organiser of a meeting on TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) which such an important topic rarely got coverage.  The response was he had asked the same question of a senior BBC presenter to be told 'they 'were leaned upon' not to give the topic much exposure!

An example of the suppression of freedom of expression had been experienced by a member who edits a more left wing periodical.  The paper edition was blighted by the deliberate lack of distribution by the two conglomerates who have a virtual monopoly of it. Since then he has struggled to get just a few on-line editions out having suffered from a vendetta instigated by a local politician and taken up by the blogger Guido Fawkes. Unfounded insinuations of anti-Semitism have resulted in extensive abuse and also death threats to many contributors including a local MEP!

We explored some solutions to this impasse, one of which was more use of social media which is where most of the younger generation got their news.  Northern Voices kindly offered us space to put our views out.  Following a jocular observation that we could fly-post our views on lamposts another suggested the group could produce newsheets to give out in the town centres, particularly as the older generation still often preferred a written format to digital.  The member editor of the paper, The WORD, suggested a leaflet on local issues could be inserted in his paper when it gets back into print again. 
 

It is ironic that as we come up to the 200th. anniversary of Peterloo, an event that captured the attention of newspapers at that time and led indirectly to the creation of the Manchester Guardian, that we are in such a situation now.  We might in the interim return to the spreading of ideas through being like the 'Pamphleteers' of previous centuries!

Follow us on Facebook at BOLD = Building Our Local Democracy or for more information on our group e-mail j.wilkins248@yahoo.com

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Can Councillor Brett Survive the banter

or his deputy Sara Rowbotham's scatter-gun?

A STRANGE recording was recently aired in a YouTube video.  It was filmed on behalf of a body called 'Survivors Matter'* and dealt with events which followed the last meeting of Rochdale Council.

The YouTube recording starts with a telephone exchange in which Councillor Sara Rowbotham, the deputy leader of Rochdale Council, is highly critical of two of her fellow Labour councillors.  Northern Voices has e-mailed Councillor Rowbotham asking her to confirm or deny that the recording referred to in the link below* is authentic.  Reply came there none! 

It seems clear that Councillor Rowbotham wasn't aware that she was being taped because, after criticising the two councillors, she then turned her scatter-gun on her Labour Party colleagues or as she called them, 'the nasty bastards behind me', of which one was her leader, Councillor Allen Brett, who was sitting right next to her in the Rochdale Town Hall Council Chamber.

In August, a draft report of an investigation into the council leader's conduct, involving his careless remarks or 'banter' about withholding funds for road improvements was leaked to the media.  It is reported that the draft report suggested that he ‘brought himself, his office and the council into disrepute’.

But if Councillor Brett may have brought Rochdale Council into disrepute, what now of his deputy leader Councillor Rowbotham, caught on tape blasting-off liberally against her colleagues?  May she too have had what the earlier draft report on Councillor Brett describes as had ‘a detrimental impact on the public’s perception’ of the council.

Both Rochdale's Leader Brett, and now his deputy Councillor Rowbotham seem to have behaved somewhat recklessly to say the least.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plcpbDLm6Pg

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'Where There’s Muck There’s Brass’

by Les May

THE Financial Times (FT) recently carried an editorial about Facebook which included the following;

‘The platform does not intentionally cause harm to users.  Too often, however, Facebook’s business model allows harm to occur.  The biggest problem is Facebook’s refusal to acknowledge that to a large degree it is a publisher, not just a digital town square.’

The editors of Northern Voices (NV) carry out their job under the guiding principle that freedom of speech is having the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.  But that does not mean that there is any obligation upon them to publish anything and everything that is sent to them.  As editors, they are treated by the law as the publishers of NV if, for example, someone claims they have been defamed or, an article is considered to incite violence or racial hatred. In other words if an article causes harm the actions of the editor are considered intentional.

As the FT article points out these strictures do not apply to Facebook because it claims NOT to be a publisher. In other words blogs like NV are expected to maintain higher standards in policing, and I use the word deliberately, their content for hate promoting or defamatory material, than Facebook.  Indeed Facebook benefits enormously when such material is posted on the platform because it leads to a backlash from people who disagree.  The more extreme the material, the greater the backlash, the more revenue it generates for Facebook.

The eagerness with which some people resort to calling something ‘hate speech’ or ‘hate crime’ whenever something is said or done which they do not like, only serves to obscure the real problem which is that some Facebook groups use the platform to incite hatred of, and violence toward, other ethnic groups. This played a part in the events in Myanmar where Rohingya and other muslims were targeted and the violence at Charlottesville.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html

There’s an expectation that Facebook will act against the white-supremacist and neo-nazi groups which orchestrated the violence at Charlottesville. (In this case I think the use of the word ‘nazi’ is justified.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/25/charlottesville-white-supremacists-big-tech-failure-remove

And who could object if they did take down these posts when and wherever they occurred?  The people posting this stuff are well beyond the pale.  A war was fought to rid the world of ideologies like these.

But wait a minute.  As I have written previously the bar for what constitutes hate speech or a hate crime is constantly being lowered.  Do we really trust a private company to decide what is acceptable?  Do we really trust any government to do it? Here’s why I don’t.

The people who run Twitter have published policies about what constitutes hateful conduct here.

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-conduct-policy

Scroll down a bit and you’ll find the line, ‘This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.’

In other words if you genuinely believe that someone with a full set of wedding tackle does not qualify to be considered a woman, just because he says he is, you’ll be contravening Twitter’s policies unless you refer to him as ‘she’.

Recently a panel of five judges sitting as the Supreme Court gave a ruling which reinforces our right to free speech and ensures that we cannot be forced to express views that we disagree with.  This was a case in which a Christian couple declined to supply a cake decorated with the words ‘Support Gay Marriage’.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2018/10/let-them-eat-cake.html

Twitter disagrees; if you want to use the platform the price you may have to pay is being forced to express a view you disagree with.  Canadian freelance journalist, Meghan Murphy, has been permanently banned for allegedly ‘deadnaming’ a trans person.  When discussing a story of a trans woman who was taking a bunch of beauticians to court for refusing to wax his balls, she used the phrase ‘yeah it’s him’.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/11/28/meghan-murphy-and-the-silencing-of-women/

Following the ‘gay wedding cake’ ruling the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said:

‘Freedom of expression – including the right not to express a view – and freedom of belief are rightfully protected in a democratic society and this case demonstrates the need for a more nuanced debate about how we balance competing rights’.

A nuanced debate would lead to something between Twitter’s insistence on telling people what they must think if they want to use the platform and Facebook’s ‘we’re not a publisher’.   I doubt there will be one.

I have no axe to grind on this because I use neither Facebook nor Twitter.  And I don’t think I’m missing much!

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Back To The Dark Ages?

by Les May

A WEEK or so ago Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan said that his government was spearheading efforts to get countries to sign upto an ‘International Convention on Preventing the Defamation of Religions’. Given that he is the head of a country which has perhaps the vaguest and most draconian blasphemy laws in the world, this is not good news.

The depth of Pakistan’s commitment to religions other than Islam can perhaps best be judged from the fact that in May the Punjab assembly passed legislation with the title Compulsory Teaching of the Holy Qur’an Bill, which makes it mandatory for children to learn the Muslim religious text in schools. The bill incudes the passage ‘Being an Islamic country, the free and the compulsory teaching of Holy Qur’an will definitely be a source of the establishment of a society based on the teachings of Islam’.

No alternative programme has been announced for non-Muslim students of Punjab.

Khan’s real intention seems to be to protect both religious and political Islam from criticism in an effort to maintain peace in his country where rioters have taken to the streets to demand that a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, be hanged for blasphemy.

The notion that his words ‘There were prophets of Allah other [than Muhammad], but there is no mention of them in human history.  There is negligible mention of them. Moses is mentioned, but there is no mention of Jesus in history.  But the entire life of Muhammad, who was Allah's last prophet, is part of history.’ might be offensive to Christians and indeed to anyone who, to paraphrase Tom Paine, ‘refuses to have their lives willed away by the manuscript authority of the dead’, does not seem to have occurred to him. (If you are offended you’ll just have to do as I have had to do, ‘get over it’.)

Modern scholarship has a different view of the origins of Islam which throws doubt on Khan’s claim that Muhammad is ‘part of history’.  This is what Amazon has to say about the book The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History;

Despite Muhammad's exalted place in Islam, even today there is still surprisingly little actually known about this shadowy figure and the origins of the Qur'an because of an astounding lack of verifiable biographical material.  Furthermore, most of the existing biographical traditions that can be used to substantiate the life of Muhammad date to nearly two centuries after his death, a time when a powerful, expansive, and idealized empire had become synonymous with his name and vision - thus resulting in an exaggerated and often artificial characterization of the prophetic figure coupled with many questionable interpretations of the holy book of Islam.

On the basis of datable and localizable artifacts from the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era, many of the historical developments, misconceptions, and fallacies of Islam can now be seen in a different light.  Excavated coins that predate Islam and the old inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem utilize symbols used in a documented Syrian Arabic theology - a theology with Christian roots.

Interpreting traditional contexts of historical evidence and rereading passages of the Qur'an, the researchers in this thought-provoking volume unveil a surprising - and highly unconventional - picture of the very foundations of Islamic religious history.

https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Origins-Islam-Research-History/dp/1591026342?tag=firstthings20-20#customerReviews

This book would undoubtedly fall foul of any international convention which enacted what Imran Khan is proposing, because it strikes at the beliefs of many Muslims, by questioning the origin of their faith.  That would mean that the authors and the publishers would be liable to prosecution.  The answer is not to ban it, but to provide the evidence that it’s conclusions are wrong.

Sadly Khan is only takIng to its logical conclusion a trend which is already well established in the West.   Increasingly we have people trying to grab the moral high ground by claiming that something they read or hear, and do not like, is racist, anti-semitic, islamo-phobic, mysoginistic, trans-phobic, homo-phobic, patriarchal or in the latest catch all phrase, ‘hate speech’, and should not be said.

These terms have become the first response of people who seem to think they have the right never to be offended, but are seemingly unwilling to engage in any kind of debate which might change their perceptions. It is not just ‘activist’ groups which behave like this, it is the default position of many columnists in the mainstream press.

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Another Visit To Hate Speech

by Les May

IN his inaugural address on 4 March 1869 US President Ulysses S. Grant said:

‘I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution’.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant%27s_First_Inaugural_Address

I have written two earlier pieces in which I questioned the eagerness with which some people want to want to bring about a situation where others who say or do something they do not like can be prosecuted for ‘hate crime’.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2018/10/say-no-to-hate-crime.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2018/10/say-no-to-hate-crime-revisited.html

Just how ludicrous this can get is best illustrated by a case reported in the Sunday Post last weekend.

‘Police launched an investigation after a man claimed he was the victim of hate crime when a branch of the Post Office refused to accept his Scottish bank note. … An officer was asked to investigate the claim and it was recorded for official purposes as hate crime.’

Unfortunately in a burst of common sense the police decided not to bring a case against the Post Office, so we will never know if Grant’s dictum is correct. 

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Sauce For The Goose

by Les May

WHEN my wife got to sixty she got her State Retirement Pension (SRP). When I got to sixty I had to wait another five years until I was sixty five.   Some months before she reached retirement age my wife was contacted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) telling her what to do. Her pension was paid immediately after her sixtieth birthday.  Some months before I reached sixty five I contacted the DWP to set things in motion.  My pension wasn’t paid immediately after my birthday.  In fact it was not paid until I had written to the DWP twice to ask why I had not received it.

You will perhaps understand that I am less than sympathetic to all the whingeing from some women that they were not properly made aware that the age at which they would receive their SRP was increasing.

Incidentally these changes affected men too.   As the age at which SRP was paid was raised the age for receiving concessionary fares, a.k.a The Bus Pass, tracked this.   Previous to this the age had been set at sixty in 2003, though men were still expected to continue working up to the age of sixty five.

Finally one woman has set the record straight.  Writing in the ‘i’ a lady by the name of Kate Roberts writes;

‘I can’t remember exactly when I found out that I would not be getting my state pension at the age of 60 in 2011, but it was well before the change was made.

I doubt that I was unique in that – if something on the news or in the papers may affect me, I take notice.  I rang the helpline number for a pension forecast, and was informed the changes were to be incremental.

The information was easily and freely available unless you lived in darkest Peru.  I do have sympathy for anyone who is struggling to carry on working, but I really don’t see how it can still be coming as a surprise.’

Kate Roberts is quite right.  The Pensions Act 1995 contained the following provisions:

Equalisation of pensionable age and of entitlement to certain benefits

Schedule 4 to this Act, of which —

(a) Part I has effect to equalise pensionable age for men and women progressively over a period of ten years beginning with 6th April 2010,

(b) Part II makes provision for bringing equality for men and women to certain pension and other benefits, and

(c) Part III makes consequential amendments of enactments,

shall have effect.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/26/part/II/enacted

Under the Pensions Act 2011, women's State Pension age will increase more quickly to 65 between April 2016 and November 2018.  From December 2018 the State Pension age for both men and women will start to increase to reach 66 by October 2020.

Whilst the 2011 act accelerates the rise in pensionable age for women so that the rise to sixty five is completed two years earlier it is difficult to see how anyone can complain that the rise has come as a surprise to them. 

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Islamo-phobia or Fear of Political Islam?

by Les May

ACCORDING to 'Pakistan Today (PT)', Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, said at a conference a few days ago, “Moses got some mention, but Jesus Christ has no mention in history”, which may not be the most tactful thing to say in a country where mobs wander the streets demanding that Asia Bibi, who is a Christian, should be hanged for blasphemy even though the countrie’s Supreme Court has declared her innocent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXufFc-kAsc

Perhaps a little ‘tongue in cheek’ PT went on to say:

‘It merits a mention here that the two-day conference titled, "Finality of Prophethood and responsibilities of Muslims in light of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)", is the 43rd conference aimed at promoting religious harmony, tolerance, brotherhood and equality, respect for humanity, non-violence, unity, reconciliation and culture of dialogue’

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/11/21/video-pm-khan-draws-ire-over-controversial-remarks-about-jesus-christ/

What PT did not mention was that according to the 'Times of Israel', Imran Khan has also called for an international convention banning speech deemed insulting to Muslims.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pakistani-pm-west-using-muslim-anger-over-blasphemy-to-spread-propaganda/

There is a direct translation of the relevant parts of his speech here;

https://www.memri.org/tv/pakistani-pm-imran-khan-no-mention-jesus-history-anti-free-speech-love-muhammad/transcript

What Khan is saying here is that the price for civil peace in Pakistan is our freedom of speech.  The people who have rioted and are demanding that Asia Bibi be hanged are by any reasonable measure on the extreme right wing politically. They make Tommy Robinson and his ilk look like babes in arms. Yet the Asia Bibi case has been largely ignored by the Left which seems more interested in building up Robinson’s profile.

One blog which claims to be ‘of liberal stance and independent mind’ has had a story about Robinson ever day this week, but has not found time to campaign on behalf of a woman who spent eight years in a cell with a death sentence hanging over her.

So far Robinson has not spotted the political capital to be made out of the Bibi case. If he ever does he’ll find that the Left has been too busy burnishing its anti-racist credentials to make any credible response to why it has not taken up the case for Asia Bibi and her family being offered asylum in the UK.

There is an alternative perspective on the Bibi story here;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg-fJp_Lkts