Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

This is promising. Mark Lynch says to grow up and recognise Labour under Starmer is the only sensible choice.


https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/24/mick-lynch-says-voters-must-grow-up-and-see-starmer-is-only-alternative

I never said Israel can do no wrong.

You've definitely heavily implied it. Zero empathy for Palestinians or consideration of the negatives of Israels behaviour.

[Razgovory]

Multiple times I have said that Israel's settlement's in the West Bank are bad.

[Sheilbh]

Via Anya Martin. I really like cooling towers, "but it's hilarious how the "monstrous blight on our community, must not be built at any cost" to "cherished & beloved community asset, must be preserved at all costs" pipeline is real":

West Burton A: Appeal to save 'carbon Stonehenge' from demolition
2 days ago


Do cooling towers deserve to be preserved - like windmills - as relics of our industrial past?
By Greig Watson
BBC News, Nottingham

A date for the demolition of some of the UK's last cooling towers has prompted a plea about their future.

West Burton and Cottam coal-fired power stations dominated north Nottinghamshire's landscape for more than 60 years but closed in 2023 and 2019 respectively.

It has now been confirmed West Burton is due to be cleared by 2028.

Campaign group the Twentieth Century Society (TCS) said such "engineering marvels" should be preserved.


Cooling towers dominated parts of the British landscape for decades after World War Two

Built in the early 1960s, the 14 power stations of the River Trent's "Megawatt Alley" once produced about a quarter of the UK's energy needs.

Now the drive for cheaper, cleaner and more environmentally-sustainable power has led to only one still operating - at Ratcliffe upon Soar - which itself is due to shut in September.

Demolition of West Burton A - a gas-fired B station shares the site - began earlier this month with low-rise buildings known as Precipitators 3&4 being levelled, and the boiler house of Cottam went on Thursday.

The cooling towers at Cottam are due to be demolished next year.

But TCS, an architectural campaign group which calls for the preservation of significant modern buildings, said the beginning of demolition was a "sad milestone".

Oli Marshall, head of campaigns, said: "We're in danger of wiping out an entire chapter of our industrial heritage.

"The cooling towers of our post-war power stations are silent sculptural giants; they're an engineering marvel unlike any other man-made structure. The Stonehenge or Avebury of the carbon age."

The group said while they are large enough to fit the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, parts of the concrete shell were only six inches (15cm) thick.

It pointed out that in Germany and South Africa, redundant towers are being repurposed as the centrepiece of extreme sports and amusement parks.


Due to steady demolitions, the number of cooling towers has gone from 250 to fewer than 50

Mr Marshall added: "The British landscape is dotted with the remnants of power and industry from previous centuries - from smock windmills and gasholders, to mill chimney stacks and bottle kilns.

"Long after the sails have stopped turning and the furnaces have been extinguished, these functional structures have gradually assumed the status of regional and national landmarks.

"The cooling towers of our post-war power stations are simply the latest example.

"At their peak in the 1960s, there were as many as 250 individual towers, now less than 50 remain.

"With five to 10 being demolished every year, they exist on borrowed time."

TCS tried to get the West Burton towers listed but instead a Certificate Of Immunity (COI) was issued, effectively blocking any attempt at preservation.


The towers are about 300ft (91m) high and in places have walls only six inches (15cm) thick

A Historic England spokesperson said: "The Certificate Of Immunity (COI) from listing was granted to West Burton Power Station in 2017, and renewed in 2022.

"We are aware of the plans for the closure of the last post-war coal-fired power stations, and in response we have implemented a detailed recording programme, and are working with the Science Museum Group to ensure the selective retention of artefacts.

"This will ensure valuable information and evidence relating to this industry is available for posterity and study by current and future generations."

People just don't like change.

In fairness I'd have no issue keeping one or two as I love a cooling tower. But...

[celedhring]

We had a similar thing with a nearby power plant. Considered one of the ugliest things on the Barcelona seaside when I grew up, managed to survive the major seaside cleanup and remodelling that kicked in the 1990s, because of costs and red tape. Now, it suddenly has moved onto nostalgia status as part of our "industrial heritage" and will be preserved. 

https://www.wmf.org/tres-chimeneas-sant-adri%C3%A0-de-bes%C3%B2s

[Sheilbh]

I can see a bit of the appeal there - but I feel like you also need to have a plan to do something with those spaces if you preserve them. They shouldn't just be allowed to decay.

There was a campaign to list an old steel blast furnace here and its iconic tower for storing coal. It was eventually listed (which basically means it's specially protected for architectural or historical interest). That decision was eventually overturned by Nadine Dorries, the then Secretary of State, in a decision that was called "heartbreaking". The unused furnace and coal tower:

[HVC]

You're all a bunch of cranky contrarians. I blame your weather


*edit* I don't know what the catalonians excuse is.

[Josquius]

I had replied here but it was eaten.

We've quite a few good examples of industrial buildings repurposed here.
The Baltic Flour Mill/Art Gallery is the most well known one.



Then there's the Wills Building. Historically it would have been out in the fields far from anything. It was a fag factory and is today flats. Quite the landmark along one of the main roads into town.



And less respected but I think quite cool, is Tesco in North Shields built on ex-industrial land but they kept a chimney in a way I actually quite like. Visible from some distance away cunningly yet it doesn't bring rage the way such advertising should.



Oh, and of course the "Boiler Shop". It just opened a few years ago and is probably the main mid sized concert space in town.  It was formerly part of Stephenson's train manufacturing setup. Really historic industrial heritage. We've a few other lesser industrial buildings used as concert spaces too- seems to be a good common use in elsewhere in the world also.






Away from architecture...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/25/muslim-council-of-britain-letter-conservative-party-braverman-truss-anderson

Could we be seeing a long overdue reckoning of the Tories with Islamophobia? Practically an echo of Labour's Anti-Semitism mess- only with the Tories this is far more deep rooted albeit less criticised.

[celedhring]

I can see a bit of the appeal there - but I feel like you also need to have a plan to do something with those spaces if you preserve them. They shouldn't just be allowed to decay.

There's been a plan to redevelop that area as a media production center, but it has never been carried out. Right now, it's just a very depressed and unsafe zone with some damn ugly chimneys fenced off.

[Sheilbh]

Something almost reassuring about reading that Labour's left faction is apparently possibly going through a bit of a split. Slightly mad that John McDonnell is now seen as "workerist" - and interesting that foreign policy seems one of the key differences with the New Left being far less tankie the old Campaign Group (which is Corbyn's tradition). Probably a good thing - I think Finland is broadly speaking a more positive place to focus on than Venezuela or Cuba.

Inside the Labour left's split
The rise of a "New Left" grouping has exposed divisions within the Socialist Campaign Group.
By George Eaton

Denizens of the Socialist Campaign Group: John McDonnell, with Nadia Whittome (left) and Rebecca Long-Bailey (middle) in the background. Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images

It was in December 1982, in the aftermath of the titanic struggle between Tony Benn and Denis Healey for Labour's deputy leadership, that the party's left split. Those who had supported Benn formed the "hard left" Socialist Campaign Group, while those who had backed Healey, such as Neil Kinnock, remained in the "soft left" Tribune Group.

Over the decades that followed, the radical left was cast into the wilderness. Unlike Benn, who lost by just 0.8 per cent to Healey, his immediate heirs never came close to winning the leadership or deputy leadership. But for the political tenacity of John McDonnell, who chaired the Campaign Group during the New Labour era, it would likely have disbanded.

Though Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership, the left's project later imploded as the party suffered its worst general election result since 1935 and Rebecca Long-Bailey was comfortably defeated by Keir Starmer in the contest that followed. Today, the Campaign Group finds itself in a familiar position – one of marginalisation.

Since the 2019 general election, five of its 35 MPs have lost the Labour whip – Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Andy McDonald, Kate Osamor and Claudia Webbe – and a further two have been deselected: Sam Tarry and Mick Whitley. Having once held numerous frontbench positions under Keir Starmer, its members are now confined exclusively to the backbenches.

As the Campaign Group adjusts to its reduced status, MPs both inside and outside of the caucus have made a radical prediction: that it will split. The fissure they identify is a "New Left" grouping that meets separately in parliament, holds awaydays, receives donations and even has its own WhatsApp group (perhaps the modern Westminster definition of a new faction). Its members include Clive Lewis, the former shadow defence secretary and leadership candidate, the former shadow women and equalities secretary Dawn Butler, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Nadia Whittome, Kim Johnson, Olivia Blake, the former whip Navendu Mishra and the Glasgow MSP Paul Sweeney.

There is sometimes a People's Front of Judea/Judean People's Front quality to left schisms. But this division reflects differences of substance rather than merely of style. One of the New Left MPs told me that the group was established to give greater attention to issues less central to the "workerist" Campaign Group: environmentalism, migrants' rights, trans rights and electoral reform. They also cited a desire for distance from the "toxic legacy" of Corbyn, who lost the Labour whip after suggesting that the scale of anti-Semitism had been "dramatically overstated" by the party's opponents.

Foreign policy is another dividing line. While 13 Campaign Group MPs signed a Stop the War statement condemning Nato expansionism the week before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, none of the New Left MPs were among them (11 subsequently withdrew their signatures after being threatened with the loss of the Labour whip).

Campaign Group MPs have previously expressed solidarity with countries such as Cuba and Venezuela but the New Left has alternative lodestars. Last year, Lewis and Whittome, along with Bell Ribeiro-Addy, visited Finland to learn from the country's social democratic achievements in housing, education and childcare, and met with leaders of the Finnish Left Alliance.

The trip took place in the shadow of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which prompted Finland to join Nato (the country has an 830-mile border with Russia).

"We spoke about Ukrainian self-determination and why it's so important to defend that practically rather than saying you believe in the principle of self-determination but you're not going to help arm Ukraine," Whittome told me. "In Finland's case, sharing a border with Russia, it knows first-hand the barbarism of Russian imperialism."

The Campaign Group insists that it is relaxed about the New Left grouping. Richard Burgon, the former's secretary (who, in a historical twist, holds Healey's former Leeds East seat), told me: "The Socialist Campaign Group has been going for over 40 years, it's always been a group where there's been different opinions on different issues, not everyone agrees on everything all the time. And that's very much in keeping with the history of the Labour Party. The Tribune Group includes MPs from other groups and then there's other groups too such as Labour First and Progress."

In a sign of shifting dynamics inside the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), the Tribune Group recently invited Campaign Group MPs to discuss the party's policy on a Gaza ceasefire in advance of the recent parliamentary vote.

But Jon Lansman, founder of the left activist group Momentum, suggested that now may be the right time for the Campaign Group to dissolve itself.

"It has long since lost its logic," said Lansman, who served as Benn's campaign coordinator in the 1981 deputy leadership contest. "Just as the left outside parliament really has to think in terms of a broader left, so does the left inside parliament. And that really does mean changing their way of thinking and changing who they work with.

"The problem with all parliamentary groups is that they're dominated by personalities and clashing personalities, and that clash of personalities is often more important than ideological differences. Most MPs are incredibly unstrategic, I despair of them really."

He added: "Clive [Lewis] and co are much more willing to work with a broader, softer left."

No formal split in the Campaign Group is expected before the general election (indeed, one New Left MP described reports of a split as "utter bollocks"). For now, most left MPs are preoccupied with keeping the Labour whip and looking anxiously over their shoulder.

Some still fear a pre-election "purge" as the leadership seeks to remake the PLP in its own image (though Starmer's chief of staff Sue Gray is regarded as a "restraining influence"). During the New Labour era, Peter Mandelson aspired to place the left in a "sealed tomb" but the lid proved loose.

One Campaign Group MP summarised the avuncular warning they had received from McDonnell: "Keep your f***ing head down and if you make a mistake you're on your own." As such, the group's members have avoided resigning the Labour whip in solidarity with those who have lost it (to the disappointment of some of their foes).

The left is clear-sighted about its reversals. Though the Campaign Group remains far larger than in the past – it had just 13 members under McDonnell in 2007 – there are few potential future recruits. Of the 150-plus parliamentary candidates selected by Labour, only five are regarded as of the left: Faiza Shaheen in Chingford and Woodford Green (who is expected to defeat Iain Duncan Smith), Chris Webb in Blackpool South, Lorraine Beavers in Blackpool North and Fleetwood, Connor Naismith in Crewe and Nantwich and the former Unite political director Anneliese Midgley who was recently selected in Knowsley and served as an aide to both Corbyn and Starmer.

Some Campaign Group MPs question whether any of the above will join it on account of its divisive reputation. For these reasons, the conversation around a New Left – one that bridges the 42-year divide between the "hard left" and the "soft left" – is only likely to endure.

"The Campaign Group is a barrier to breaking out of the left's isolation," Lansman concluded. "It's over to them."

[Josquius]

Something almost reassuring about reading that Labour's left faction is apparently possibly going through a bit of a split. Slightly mad that John McDonnell is now seen as "workerist" - and interesting that foreign policy seems one of the key differences with the New Left being far less tankie the old Campaign Group (which is Corbyn's tradition). Probably a good thing - I think Finland is broadly speaking a more positive place to focus on than Venezuela or Cuba.
[quo

These guys sound potentially right up my alley.
Fingers crossed they do become a major thing and come to dominate the left of Labour.
I do think folks like myself, of the left but...sane, wanting Britain to be more like other North European nations, are quite homeless in general. The Corbynistas say a lot of the right stuff domestically but then just as you're getting relaxed up they pop with Russia did nothing wrong, its all NATOs fault, etc...

The only dodgy point is the trans rights one... I'm all for trans rights but that is something where the left has to tread very carefully as the right are much too eager for an offensive fight there. The best approach with trans rights IMO is one of "Leave them alone and worry about things that actually affect 99% of people" rather than allowing the left to be painted as the ones who care about such niche issues at the expense of the majority.

Electoral reform is absolutely key to the UK having a future.

[Gups]

The movement away from Marxism in the western hard left continues. It's kind of amusing that its identity politics that's finished it off as an ideology.

[HVC]

Little tidbit I learned that I found funny. There's a town in England called Breedon on the hill. Name is made up of three languages. Celtic Breg, old English Dun and English the hill. Translates to Hill Hill on the Hill. Guess they really like their hill.

[Sheilbh]

These guys sound potentially right up my alley.
Fingers crossed they do become a major thing and come to dominate the left of Labour.
I do think folks like myself, of the left but...sane, wanting Britain to be more like other North European nations, are quite homeless in general. The Corbynistas say a lot of the right stuff domestically but then just as you're getting relaxed up they pop with Russia did nothing wrong, its all NATOs fault, etc...

I am more in the Mandelson put them in a "sealed tomb" camp where they can't do any harm (Tory governments)

Although looking at the list of MPs who are apparently around this faction - and I don't know all of them - but the one I do know don't seem particularly impressive. (Of course people, rightly, said that of Corbyn for the first 30 years of his career as an MP...)

[Josquius]

These guys sound potentially right up my alley.
Fingers crossed they do become a major thing and come to dominate the left of Labour.
I do think folks like myself, of the left but...sane, wanting Britain to be more like other North European nations, are quite homeless in general. The Corbynistas say a lot of the right stuff domestically but then just as you're getting relaxed up they pop with Russia did nothing wrong, its all NATOs fault, etc...

I am more in the Mandelson put them in a "sealed tomb" camp where they can't do any harm (Tory governments)

Although looking at the list of MPs who are apparently around this faction - and I don't know all of them - but the one I do know don't seem particularly impressive. (Of course people, rightly, said that of Corbyn for the first 30 years of his career as an MP...)

The party is always going to have a left wing.
Better to have them demanding voting reform and environmental protections than spreading anti semitic conspiracies.

[Sheilbh]

Fair. That's unarguable.