Fagin

I hope that Labour's enquiry into anti-antisemitism within the party looks at the disgraceful campaign waged against Michael Howard in 2005 - with Fagin and Flying Pig posters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36175660

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4217009.stm

A second referendum would be justified

ENGLAND 41% to 43% to OUT
WALES 35% to 42% to OUT
SCOTLAND 51% to 34% IN
OVERALL 42% to 41% to IN

If Scotland forces the rest of the United Kingdom to stay in the EU a second referendum would be justified.

https://t.co/ZDWeh2Db1n

The Remain side is relying on Labour voters getting them over the line

Interesting too speculate what effect the current in-fighting in the Labour party will have on the EU referendum.

If the Remain side is relying on Labour voters getting them over the line this may well have been the week that nixed their chances.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-labour-anti-semitism_uk_5723b9ace4b06bf544e1be6b?43pzxgvi

John Major has a vested interest in the United Kingdom remaining in the EU

Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but John Major has a vested interest in the United Kingdom remaining in the EU.

If we leave (as we must) the cornerstone of his premiership record is immediately undermined.

There will be no Major legacy of any kind (even the Cones Hotline was a flop).

Already seen as one of the shittiest Prime Minister's ever, his reputation will fall even further.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/665655/John-Major-Brexit-campaigners-NORTH-KOREA-EU-Remain-rant

https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/725950567072301056

They are losing the intellectual argument

What to make of this incredible accusation by John Major that the Leave campaign wants to turn the United Kingdom into North Korea?

Most people of course will just ignore him.

This is the Prime Minister whose greatest legacy was the Cones Hotline.

But when the Remain campaign resorts to abuse does it not indicate that they are losing the intellectual argument? (they've already lost the emotional argument).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z

As Daniel Hannan MEP has just pointed out on Twitter:  Today EFTA signed a free trade agreement with the Philippines. The talks took less than one year.

https://twitter.com/DanHannanMEP

"There is an institutional ganging-up against the British voter".

Wonderful interview with Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom talking about the EU on Newsnight this evening:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk25

She was calm and rational and told us "there is an institutional ganging-up against the British voter".

"Crisis, what crisis"

Do you remember all those smug lefties who said they were enjoying watching the Tory party tear itself apart over Europe?

Well now it's our turn:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36160135

And I LOVE Jeremy Corbyn's reprise of "Crisis, what crisis" - he is truly a 1970s man.

If the EU protects workers rights, what do we need trade unions for?

Rather obtuse article by Kam Gill on the Left Foot Foward website:  http://leftfootforward.org/2016/04/eu-health-and-safety-laws-have-protected-workers-rights-says-tuc/

If the EU protects workers rights, what do we need trade unions for?

One rather thinks Kam Gill has just talked himself out of a job.

And he rather overlooks the fact that the TUC would have NO INFLUENCE WHATSOEVER on the EU high panjandrums.

A “Social Europe” is in practise impossible to achieve.

Candid and realistic assessment by Danny Nicol (Professor of Public Law at the University of Westminster) of the implausibility of a "social Europe" on Left Futures website:  http://www.leftfutures.org/2016/04/implausibility-of-a-social-europe/

It should be required reading for all those lefties who are thinking of voting Remain.

Particularly pay attention to the paragraph:  EU Treaties provide no means of discarding the TTIP; and the other reforms would require a complete absence of neoliberal governments throughout the EU.  Sadly these policies are so heavily protected against repeal that a “Social Europe” is in practise impossible to achieve.  No doubt “another Europe is possible” – but outside the European Union.

The SNP has been taking money from Vladimir Putin

Interesting comment on last night's Newsnight by David Frum (Senior Editor, The Atlantic) that the SNP has been taking money from Vladimir Putin.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk25

Dry as dust and dull as ditchwater

Pro-Remain article by Andrew Dismore for Progress:  http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2016/04/27/london-is-stronger-in/

Dry as dust and dull as ditchwater.

A succession of highly-selective stats that might be half-true or might be entirely spurious - it depends on your point of view.

But nothing that addresses the sense of bewilderment ordinary people (including ordinary Londoners) feel that their country has become an alien place where they are no longer safe or cared for.  That impersonal forces are making unaccountable decisions beyond any suggestion of democratic control.  That their country is being taken from them.

Doubt on the accuracy of George Osborne

Niamh-ni-Mhaoileoin, writing for Left Foot Forward, casts doubt on the accuracy of George Osborne in claiming the Leave campaign was causing economic slowdown:  http://leftfootforward.org/2016/04/osborne-blames-eu-for-gdp-growth-slowdown-but-what-about-his-policies/

Significant quote:

Lee Hopley, chief economist at the manufacturer’s organisation EEF commented that ‘’The extent to which this across the board weakening can be attributed to political uncertainty ahead of the referendum is open to question.’

While acknowledging that ‘referendum wobbles could make themselves felt in the coming months, she suggested that ‘global financial market volatility, stuttering world trade growth and challenges on the high street feel like more obvious explanations for the slowdown’

The moral corruption of British politics

on this evening's Channel 4 News Michael Crick revealed that the main unions have done a deal with Tory Remainers - David Cameron will drop key areas of union reform in return for the unions backing the Remain campaign:  http://www.channel4.com/news/

Never was the moral corruption of British politics exposed so nakedly.

It’s people’s jobs, prices in the shops and the proper funding of public services

With astonishing mendacity Lord Mandelson froths about the Leave campaign, accusing them of every vice he can think of.

But in one passage the prince of cats is absolutely right.

"“The economy is not something that can be opted into or out of in this debate – it is the future of this country that is at stake. It’s people’s jobs, prices in the shops and the proper funding of public services that are on the ballot paper in June" he tells LabourList.

We can agree with him on that:

• The EU has swamped the United Kingdom with cheapo migrants that have taken the jobs from British men and women by pricing them out of the Labour market.  
• In 1974 the entry of the United Kingdom into the then EEC was accompanied by a stratospheric spike in food prices as we were forced to buy food from French farmers with expensive socially-constructed framing models rather than from Commonwealth producers where economies of scale are able to deliver very low cost and high quality food - food prices that are still available if we will only free ourselves from the EU.
• The millions of eastern Europeans that have flooded into the country in the last 15 years have imposed an intolerable burden on public services, and effectively stolen the assets paid for by British taxpayers over the past five decades.

So thank you Lord Mandelson for drawing attention to these issues.

http://labourlist.org/2016/04/mandelson-brexit-campaign-has-slumped-to-a-ukip-lite-argument/

Voting REMAIN in the EU referendum is more important than the election of a reforming Labour government in 1945

Hilarious, laugh out loud speech by Alan Johnson MP earlier today in which he claimed that voting REMAIN in the EU referendum is more important than the election of a reforming Labour government in 1945.

Will Ken Loach be making a film entitled Spirit of '16 ?

Will luvvies sat on Andrew Marr's sofa tell us that the EU referendum inspired them to express their inner socialist in the latest production of Aladdin?

What a ridiculous man Alan Johnson is.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/redbox/topic/no-topic/alan-johnson-eu-ref-more-important-than-attlee-government

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/14451328.Alan_Johnson__Vote_to_stay_in_EU_perhaps_more_important_than_1945_vote_that_heralded_reforming_Atlee_government/

The Labour Party is split THREE ways over the EU referendum

On the Today programme this morning was a report on the split in the Labour party over the EU referendum.

The Conservative Party is of course split over the issue.

But the Labour Party is split THREE ways over the EU referendum.

The Parliamentary Party does not represent the Labour activists or the Labour voters.

The Labour activists do not represent the Parliamentary Party or the Labour voters.

The Labour voters are threatening to stay at home or indeed defect to UKIP (Frank Field MP, interviewed on the programme, revealed that up to 40% of Labour voters could vote Leave in the referendum).

What a shambles!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z

"The Brexit camp is charging ahead"

In Grimsby the Leave side is doing well.

"The Brexit camp is charging ahead".

Of course the metropolitan elite do not get as far as Grimsby.

Most of them will not even know where it is.

But to me it is part of the real England.

http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/Brexit-leads-way-Telegraph-online-EU-poll-time/story-29172169-detail/story.html

David Cameron is our Harold Wilson

Channel 4 News this evening reported the use of the phrase "notoriously slippery" with reference to Harold Wilson and the 1975 referendum.

With the implication that David Cameron is our Harold Wilson.

http://www.channel4.com/news/

The Leave side are the underdogs

Betfair shows a lead for the Remain side.

Which means the Leave side are the underdogs.

And we know how the British favour the underdogs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-odds-idUSKCN0XM0IK