The Nasty Labour Party - what they really stand for.

Luckygirl

" Please do not panic - there is no danger of Britain having a Marxist government. There might be a possibility at the next GE of a bit of a swing to the left - and that is fair enough."
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Do you believe that a ' possible' future Chancellor of the Exchequer who states ' I am a Marxist', called for 'Insurrection' , openly says his economics are based on 'Das Kapital' , believes in overthrowing Capatism , 'feted' Chavez and Modurro and thought 'WE' could learn from their Socialist Government , that worked out well didn't it!

McDonnell /Corbyn et al , certainly Corbyns ' Inner Circle' like to let it be known their liking of Mao Zedongs Little Red Book as well as Das Kapital so why would Labour under the Labour/Jeremy For Leader / Momentum party not be a Marxist Government? It may take biting their tongue for a while but when their feet are well and truly under the table it will be too late .

I will agree with one Mao quote and I fear we are seeing the seeds planted and growing at a pretty fast pace since the formation of the Corbyn /Jeremy For Leader/Momentum party :-

' A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery... A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another'.

Well said POGS. With all the posts referring to peasants etc , war on ‘Class ‘ is certaintly uppermost in the minds of some.

this is just a new wave of McCarthyism,evrybody getting wound up about reds under the bed ...honestly I wouldn't get your knickers in a twist .There are too many "labour" party members who are still Blairites ...like Annie to let the left wing be even SOCIALIST never mind communist .It wont happen.Corbyn and cohorts will talk a good talk but when they get to No 10 they'll be the same as the rest .

Corbyn has enough to cope with , all this news about Russia, his brothers / comrades

everybody getting wound up about reds under the bed

But they are not 'under the bed' are they paddyann?

They are OPENLY honest about their far left beliefs, many of them Marxist.

Not only that, we have seen a profound and notable transformation of the Labour party since Gordon Brown's tenure. You'd have to be living in an underground bunker all your life not to have noticed how far left activists have gained hold of Labour's NEC - how many far left Momentum/Corbyn supporters make up the NEC? Have you not been aware of deselection of moderates?

It's just disingenuous to state it's not happening.

Labour is moving to the far left. Reds are ON the beds.

Paddyann claims Gordon Brown isn’t a socialist , that is rubbish

Blair and Brown were in no way, socialists. They were in fact closet Tories in similar fashion to some on this forum.

As evidence of the above the below BBC documentary lays out the Blair/Brown collusion with the Bankers to keep deregulation in place in the early years of the two thousands. That brought about the banking crisis of 2008 that we are still all paying for as a nation today.

I believe all who watch the below documentary will witness that The Blair government was in no way socialist and cared little for working people in Britain.

Documentary web address:-
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bmbhzb via @bbciplayer

Gordon Brown is a socialist , his actions through his life prove this. Actions not endless Empty talk. He is also a gentleman .

One of the endearing features of the Labour Party is their predilection for saying piously, whenever, they look at a current MP whose views they do not agree with, or previous labour governments whose views they no longer believe in that they were not real socialists, but closet Torys. Its a quick 'get out of gaol' excuse.

A tactic much used, in the past, by the
-socialist- communist countries of Eastern Europe, and especially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, where it could be described as a quick get in to gaol tactic, although it could also lead to summary execution.

Beware those who deny their past.

M0nica, regarding your post @ 16:56 today, the Labour government years of 1998-2012 are years that should be denied as anything resembling true socialist. The beginnings of the Gig Economy, zero hours contracts and denying the trade unions relief from the Thatcher legislation that so restricted their ability to fight the foregoing very much demonstrates Blair's lack of any real socialist principles.

However, that lack of principle while still taking money for the Labour party from low paid trade unionists by way of their affiliation fees eventually brought forward the trade union grassroots activists to once more "take back" the Labour Party into the broader Labour movement by means of democratic but necessary radical action.

Whether that rejuvenated radical Labour Party will gain the majority electorate support will be known following the next General Election whenever that comes. However, I have great respect for those that have taken back what they had always paid for, and whether they succeed or not at the polls, Labour once again has policies that are true to its founding.

And that is the way it should be.

Apologies, should be Labour Government years of 1998-2010, not 1998-2012 above.

Far be it from me to start arguing about the records of past Labour governments but the 1998 - 2010 governments put money into schools, initiated Sure Start and put money into the NHS. Weren't they also responsible for Working Tax credits?

I agree that they could have been a bit more radical while they had a thumping majority but they were, I think, constrained by the prevailing economic belief in the need to cut national debt and deficits by restraining government spending (hence PFI).

Although I'm not a fan of Blair, I remember the '90s, when the Tories seemed to be immovable when opposed by traditional Labour.
I got the impression that he decided to compromise some of his principles, just to get the Tories out. And it worked.
I thought it was a clever calculated move, taking into account the social changes at the time

MaizieD, there is much I can agree with in your above post, but I feel that it is the Banking crisis, the Iraq war, Blair's treatment of the trade unions that will be remembered as the legacy of those twelve years in office.

The above are happenings that never should have come about under any true socialist government and demonstrate the problem any centre left administration has in regard to affiliating that position with its ideological roots.

As evidence to the above, those trade unions gave me along with many thousands of others a lift in my education and specialised training that could not be found elsewhere. However, the Blair government gave them nothing despite the fact that those unions loyalty paid the vast majority of the labour parties bills throughout those years.

That is why I am pleased that the Labour movement as a whole now again has true socialist policies. Those policies should remain in place even if they do not draw majority support at the next General Election, for they are the core of the Labour movements being and in that they should always be on offer to the electorate whenever right wing and centre governments fail.

I am not arguing policies. I am just saying that this is what is happening. As MaizieD, says there are two sides to the argument.

Grandpa43 , you are arguing just like the Soviets did before all the show trials.

The Blair government also brought in the minimum wage, paternity leave, winter fuel allowance, introduced civil partnerships, banned fur farming and cosmetic trials on animals, free eye tests for over sixties, free nursery places for 3 and 4 year olds, introduced the equalities and human rights commission, wrote off up to 100% debt owed by the poorest countries, brought in 24 days holidays for workers.
And much more

And they are criticised by the alleged ‘ socialists i am not a militant’ group here.

Annie, I voted for Blair
I wont vote for Corbyn.

Dont asssume that those of us who are criticising Corbyns labour are "anti labour" traditionally

And the NHS and social care was CRIPPLED by slap dash spending on pipe dream projects that were abandoned and replaced with a new big spend project every few months...
Setting the NHS up to fail. Making it look unsustainable.

There were committees to set up committees to set up committees.
It was a FARCE. So much money wasted. They turned the NHS into a joke when they had the reins.

I've just looked up Blair's original constituency, Sedgefield.
Which now includes Spennymoor and Trimdon Colliery, old mining villages where I worked as a supply teacher in my youth.
Blair had a house in Trimdon Colliery.
Very different from his current home.

notanan, I am now called a Tory because I will not vote for Corbyn.

Anything done to the Unions is ..karma for the harm they did to this country in the seventies and eighties and the wickness they did to my village . If Corbyn wins the next election the unions will again run the country. They excel at bringing down governments

Forgot to add the list of achievements by the Blair government , they paid back the money taken from an appeal fund plus the interest lost over 25 years

Annie. I understand that the Aberfan disaster has caused you, and others, a lifelong trauma. Even just reading about it makes me wonder how anyone involved could in any way ever come to terms with it.

But I think you are being unfair.The unions did not cause it and the unions didn't behave badly after it. The NUM was just one union out of many in the UK. To implicate all unions and wish them all ill is not reasonable.

The union unrest in the 70s was caused by a number of factors; among them being a deep division between workers and management and rampant inflation causing their members wages to fall behind. Yes, and some greed and bloodymindedness. But it wasn't all 'pay and conditions'; I was living in Doncaster during the Miners' strike and those lads were fighting for their livelihoods.

But the history of unionism is the attempt to get better pay and conditions for working people. If 'management' is unwilling to treat workers fairly and give them a fair share of the wealth that their labour has created what means do they have to work with apart from withdrawing their labour? If we had no unions what would we put in their place?

And, as Grandad said, unions were at the heart of formation of the Labour party. The Liberal Party fell away because they were a well intentioned middle class elite who were doing things '(however worthy) to' people; Labour's appeal was that it was 'the people' doing things for working people.

Well, that's how I see it, anyway.

Maizie, there was a thread ‘Lord Robens’ , please don’t tell me it was only one Union. I support unions, I do not support unions controlling government . I have no interest in what grandad1943 has to say since he referred to that disaster as ‘an event which took place 50 years ago’ and claimed the health and safety act was a tribute to those children, codswallop, we wanted justice and it was denied because the unionS protected Robens.

As for the miners strike, please, you are telling the daughter, g granddaughter, g g granddaughter, niece, cousin of coalminers about the strike

Do you not agree then about the miners' strike? The lads I knew in Doncaster were clear about what they were fighting for. And I had to defend them against my southern friends and family who thought they were just after more money.

I'll just ask you why you don't think that 'the workers' should be part of government? Do we just have to leave it to our 'natural leaders', the traditional ruling classes?