Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Again, these are generally drawn from the Commons. The only constant cabinet member drawn from the senate is the government representative in the Senate... I can only think of one minister from the Senate, and it's Michael Fortier in 2006, which was also unusual in that he was a "civilian" when named to the cabinet - neither elected, nor a member of the senate. He was later named to the Senate. Can't think of any other since.

Interesting - that is different. There is a Leader of the House of Lords whose job is to basically manage/plan the government's business in the Lords but I'd guess almost every department has at least one minister in the House of Lords who answers questions on their specific area but also widely for the department in the Lords and is responsible for managing their department's legislation through the Lords (which tends to be more thorough in a lot of ways than the Commons). But they are rarely at cabinet level (except for the leader of the Lords).

And we don't have a concept of "civilian" ministers - they need to be accountable to either the Commons or the Lords. The easy route if you want to appoint someone from outside government is that you make them a lord - so Gordon Brown went big on this with his "government of all the talents" when he got prominent people in their field to join the Labour Party and become a minister and a Lord. We had a leading surgeon/researcher on robotics in surgery become health minister, former head of the navy join as a security minister, former head of the CBI join as a trade and investment minister. That still goes on - for example there's a very successful commercial QC who's become a Lord and a minister in the justice department with particular responsibilities for how the court system runs.

Obviously there is a huge elite bias in this - and in appointing "civilians", I imagine. It was something Blair sort of gestured at reforming with his idea of "People's Peerages" but that never really got off the ground. And though the House of Lords - especially the independent cross-benchers - are packed to the gills wtih the great and the good, the party benches are more likely to be filled with successful Labour/Tory/Lib Dem local government leaders, or former MPs/ministers, or former special advisers who will primarily be loyal party men most of the time. And I think they probably make up a larger proportion of ministers in the Lords.

[Sheilbh]

Latest from Batley and Spen - there's a fake Labour leaflet doing the rounds showing Starmer taking the knee (which was awkward) with the slogan "Labour supports taking the knee" as well as lines that "Labour is proud of its woke credentials", "the biggest threat to our precious multicultural society is whiteness" and about "fighting White Privilege" etc. Contrary to electoral law it doesn't identify who is printing or distributing this. My guess is this is doing the rounds in more white working class areas.

Separately there is a leaflet from Galloway - I imagine for Muslim areas - saying that Keir Starmer is the "top supporter" of Israel and demanding "parental involvement in the school curriculum. I don't want my children to be taugh in a moral vacuum". Given the presence of activists from the anti-LGBT education protests in Birmingham it's pretty clear what he means.

Thrilled that in his new guise George Galloway can now stoke resentments in two communities in a constituency

[Tamas]

Latest from Batley and Spen - there's a fake Labour leaflet doing the rounds showing Starmer taking the knee (which was awkward) with the slogan "Labour supports taking the knee" as well as lines that "Labour is proud of its woke credentials", "the biggest threat to our precious multicultural society is whiteness" and about "fighting White Privilege" etc. Contrary to electoral law it doesn't identify who is printing or distributing this. My guess is this is doing the rounds in more white working class areas.

Separately there is a leaflet from Galloway - I imagine for Muslim areas - saying that Keir Starmer is the "top supporter" of Israel and demanding "parental involvement in the school curriculum. I don't want my children to be taugh in a moral vacuum". Given the presence of activists from the anti-LGBT education protests in Birmingham it's pretty clear what he means.

Thrilled that in his new guise George Galloway can now stoke resentments in two communities in a constituency

See and he doesn't even need Facebook adverts for it.   

[Josquius]

Latest from Batley and Spen - there's a fake Labour leaflet doing the rounds showing Starmer taking the knee (which was awkward) with the slogan "Labour supports taking the knee" as well as lines that "Labour is proud of its woke credentials", "the biggest threat to our precious multicultural society is whiteness" and about "fighting White Privilege" etc. Contrary to electoral law it doesn't identify who is printing or distributing this. My guess is this is doing the rounds in more white working class areas.

It clearly underlines that the UK is a decaying country that this would even be something the right would even use as a smear. Jesus.
At least when I had this idea it was with highlighting real policies of the dodgy parties- copy their leaflets aimed for working class Asian areas and drop them through doors in white middle class areas for instance.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think that's come from the right - I think it's from Galloway. My understanding is Batley and Spen is a constituency with a lot of different types of voters - so there's about 20% Muslim who are traditionally Labour, there's a few wards that are a little bit Red Wall-y, there's a few wards that are basically like the current Labour vote (educated, a little bit younger etc) and there's wards which are typically Tory - countryside and affluent suburbs.

All of the fighting is between Galloway and Labour - the Tories just need to keep their head down and get out their own vote.

Speaking of fighting reports of Labour activists being assaulted - a few were punched and then the group punched them ran away but returned with boxes of eggs to egg them. Labour activists in the area are saying there's groups trying to stop them from campaigning in certain areas. Again, my guess would be that's Galloway supporters trying to stop Labour from even campaigning in areas with Muslim voters.

[Josquius]

I don't think that's come from the right - I think it's from Galloway. My understanding is Batley and Spen is a constituency with a lot of different types of voters - so there's about 20% Muslim who are traditionally Labour, there's a few wards that are a little bit Red Wall-y, there's a few wards that are basically like the current Labour vote (educated, a little bit younger etc) and there's wards which are typically Tory - countryside and affluent suburbs.

I know who it was and stand by it. Galloway despite being a far left nutter is very definitely targeting right wing sentiment, especially with muslims.
Its where right/left as a simple linear really shows its ineffectiveness really, but if you're basing your campaign on being 'anti woke' then that definitely places you on the right in my book.

All of the fighting is between Galloway and Labour - the Tories just need to keep their head down and get out their own vote.

Speaking of fighting reports of Labour activists being assaulted - a few were punched and then the group punched them ran away but returned with boxes of eggs to egg them. Labour activists in the area are saying there's groups trying to stop them from campaigning in certain areas. Again, my guess would be that's Galloway supporters trying to stop Labour from even campaigning in areas with Muslim voters.

Really needs to be some reform to protect against this kind of thing.
As it stands even if its tied to Galloway he'd get what, a slap on the wrist and a £500 fine?

[Tamas]

Yeah I think if left and right have any meaning still its the progressive/reactionary divide. If you rail people against progressive ideas and fan the fire of effin' imported third world ethnic conflicts, you are most definitely on the right. 

[alfred russel]

I don't think that's come from the right - I think it's from Galloway. My understanding is Batley and Spen is a constituency with a lot of different types of voters - so there's about 20% Muslim who are traditionally Labour, there's a few wards that are a little bit Red Wall-y, there's a few wards that are basically like the current Labour vote (educated, a little bit younger etc) and there's wards which are typically Tory - countryside and affluent suburbs.

All of the fighting is between Galloway and Labour - the Tories just need to keep their head down and get out their own vote.

Speaking of fighting reports of Labour activists being assaulted - a few were punched and then the group punched them ran away but returned with boxes of eggs to egg them. Labour activists in the area are saying there's groups trying to stop them from campaigning in certain areas. Again, my guess would be that's Galloway supporters trying to stop Labour from even campaigning in areas with Muslim voters.

Do you think that Labour is able to hold on here?

[Sheilbh]

I know who it was and stand by it. Galloway despite being a far left nutter is very definitely targeting right wing sentiment, especially with muslims.
Its where right/left as a simple linear really shows its ineffectiveness really, but if you're basing your campaign on being 'anti woke' then that definitely places you on the right in my book.

Yeah - he is the model of red-brownism now. But he's a hard-left former Labour MP and his latest party (the Workers Party of Britain) is a collaboration with the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which I struggle to place on the right

Also he's had other former Labour figures up helping him out, they've largely been people who were expelled at some point for anti-semitism and are big on the "Stop the Witchhunt" side of Labour politics. So Tosh MacDonald who was a Corbyn ally and General Secretary of the ASLEF union and Chris Williamson - the Voldemort lookalike former MP. Plus he's had quite sympathetic coverage from the "left" alternative media like Novara. So I'm not sure he's being treated as on the right - plus a large message he's pushing is "oust Starmer" which is intra-left factional infighting.

Really needs to be some reform to protect against this kind of thing.
As it stands even if its tied to Galloway he'd get what, a slap on the wrist and a £500 fine?

I don't know - in terms of the fake leaflets I think the crime would be not identifying who paid for and distributed those leaflets because that is required. But I think you are allowed to produce "fake" leaflets - I think the Electoral Commission have recommended cracking down on this. The way it's typically done though is not to make a fake leaflet of your opponent but to print it like a fake local newspaper - the Lib Dems always do this. At the minute that's legal as long as you identify on the leaflet that it is from x party. I think the punishment would be pretty low.

I know that if you lie about your opponent then basically your election can be cancelled, you can be banned from running for office and there's a by-election. It's the same with if you fiddle with the electoral register or bribe voters. In the mean time the person who came second takes your post. That came up when Phil Woolas - Labour MP - targeted his Lib Dem opponent as wooing Islamic fundamentalists and the court saw emails within Woolas's campaign team saying "if we don't get white folk angry he's gone". It's illegal to make a "false statement of fact" about a candidate's personal character or conduct unless you can show you did believe those statements or you had reasonable grounds to believe them - I think the fact that the Woolas campaign were saying they needed to get white people angry was a key point because it showed they didn't really believe that the Lib Dems were in cahoots with ISIS or whatever. But I don't know if that applies to stuff about your opponents as a party or how it would work in terms of getting to court - I imagine Labour would have to take it to court which they might not want to.

The assault stuff would be different because that would just be in the realms of normal criminal law rather than something specific to elections.

But as you say the really difficult bit would be tying any of it to Galloway because Galloway denies everything and I would be astonished if there's any written record of any of this. My guess would be that he is quite careful in making sure that he's minimally involved personally and can just blame over-enthusiastic supporters.

[Sheilbh]

Do you think that Labour is able to hold on here?

It feels pretty unlikely now I think.

In Hartlepool it was because Labour voters (and former Brexit Party/UKIP voters) swung to the Tories.

Here, there may be a bit of that - the Heavy Woollen District Independents (an eccentric localist UKIP-ish group) aren't standing and that may go to the Tories. But the bigger problem for Labour is if they lose just 5% of the vote to Galloway, that would be enough for the Tories to win even if everything else stayed the same and the Tories didn't gain any votes. It feels, at the minute, like Galloway will get more than that but is also trying to depress turnout for Labour in other areas they should do well in. Especially as turnout will be down and Galloway is very good at getting his vote out.

All things being equal I think it'd be a 50/50 seat and I'd guess Labour would hold it. But I think Galloway could take about 20% of the Labour vote which would be more than enough to hand the seat to the Tories.

[Josquius]

Yeah - he is the model of red-brownism now. But he's a hard-left former Labour MP and his latest party (the Workers Party of Britain) is a collaboration with the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which I struggle to place on the right

Marxists have a proud history of working with the right to crush the left

I know that if you lie about your opponent then basically your election can be cancelled, you can be banned from running for office and there's a by-election

Yet the Tories remain in office

[Sheilbh]

Ugh - Labour couldn't resist getting in on the action. They've also been sending leaflets - again generally to Muslim voters: "Don't risk a Tory MP who isn't on your side" is the slogan with an arrow "the risk of voting anyone but Labour is clear" and a picture of Boris Johnson with Modi.

I've seen some people defend it and I think the wider text - which discusses Labour's Kashmir policy (which is materially the same as the Tories) etc - does provide some context. But it feels like a pretty clear dog-whistle. As Jon Lansman - who founded Momentum - has put it:

This Labour leaflet in Batley & Spen is dogwhistle racism. Attack Johnson's Islamophobia & Modi's. Support Kashmiri self-determination. But DO NOT set BAME communities in this country against each other!

I think it's problematic - and not the first time I think there's been a bit of an emerging anti-Indian sentiment on the British left in the last 18 months or so (I think because there are prominent British Indians in government) - see the Steve Bell cartoon of Priti Patel (a Hindu) as a cow or the Guardian article about how East African Indians (which is I think the background of Patel and Sunak) aren't minorities in the same way because they were basically petty bourgeouis shop owners and merchants within the empire. Hopefully Labour/the left get a grip on this now before it gets out of hand.

[Josquius]

You just know the Tories are going to be able to turn this against Labour next election.
They tend to be good at making sure people remember what they want them to remember.

[Tamas]

To the "only Eastern Europe is corrupt" crowd out there:

A third health minister, Helen Whately, used a private email account for government business, the Guardian can reveal, as the UK's information watchdog said it was considering launching an investigation into the use of Gmail by Matt Hancock and James Bethell.

The Guardian can also reveal a number of emails were copied into Lord Bethell's private email account. His address was copied into at least four official exchanges relating to a businessman who was attempting to get government contracts during the pandemic.

[Sheilbh]

The story of that assault on Labour activists seems far worse than I'd first seen:

'Shaking and bleeding': plea for protection after violence on Batley and Spen campaign trail
Candidates and canvassers have been heckled and manhandled in byelection described as the 'worst ever'


Dr Abdulrehman Rajpura, one of the Labour party campaigners attacked in Batley ahead of the Batley and Spen byelection, has asked for police protection. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Maya Wolfe-Robinson and Alex Mistlin
Mon 28 Jun 2021 20.45 BST

"This is the worst election I have ever seen in my life," says Dr Abdulrehman Rajpura. The 77-year-old retired GP and former chairman of the local mosque had just hung up the phone to an officer from West Yorkshire police, pleading for protection for himself and his home.

On Sunday afternoon Rajpura was with a group of Labour activists in Batley when they were physically attacked and pelted with eggs, he told the Guardian.

Then he woke on Monday to find that someone had taken the poster outside his house endorsing Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater and replaced it with one of George Galloway, the Workers Party of Britain candidate and pro-Palestine campaigner who delivered a shock defeat to Labour in nearby Bradford West in 2012.

Both Leadbeater and Galloway are campaigning in an increasingly tense byelection campaign in Batley and Spen, which many locals worry has increased divisions within both the wider community in the West Yorkshire town, and the Muslim community more specifically.

On Sunday, Rajpura was with a group of Labour activists on Whitaker Street in Batley, including the former MP Tracy Brabin and Shabir Pandor, the leader of Kirklees council, when they were attacked.


Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin and other political activists have been attacked on the campaign trail in Batley. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Rajpura described being asked to look at a campaigner who had been knocked to the ground and kicked while on the floor. "He was shaking and bleeding from the right hand side of his head," he said. Police were called.

The former GP helped him find his glasses, which had been knocked to the floor, and headed back up the road with a young woman by his side. Then he says "an Asian man in a mask" threw eggs, which hit his leg and smashed, dirtying his clothes. "I thought: oh my Lord, this could be a stone."

Rajpura said he wished he could catch the assailant but was unable to "because of my age". A longtime Labour supporter, he is well aware that the murdered MP Jo Cox – Leadbeater's late sister – was targeted by a far-right terrorist in part because of her support for the local Muslim community and passionate defence of immigration and community cohesion.

He returned home from the incident on Sunday feeling, for the first time, "worried about myself, as well". The byelection had "definitely divided the community".


A male who police want to identify. Photograph: West Yorkshire police.

On Monday evening police issued an image of a male they want to identify in connection with assaults on males canvassing in Batley. Three men are believed to have been involved in the incident and were described as Asian and as wearing hooded tops.

Rajpura, who arrived in the UK from Gujurat, India, in 1974, began working as a doctor in Batley in 1980. "There have been so many elections done, but this is the worst election I have seen in my life. This is a democratic country. We are worried and concerned. This is a great country. How can we work together as British citizens?" he said.

The lamp-posts near Rajpura's home are plastered with leaflets for Leadbeater, Galloway and the odd poster for the Conservative candidate, Ryan Stephenson, who Labour fear will claim victory in Thursday's vote.

Galloway's green campaign bus frequently passes, while a taxi bearing Ukip's purple colours in Batley marketplace encourages locals to boycott the "London-centric" mainstream parties.

Leadbeater was canvassing a few streets away, flanked by two police officers. Last week she was chased and heckled on the campaign trail by men who were not from the area who demanded to know her views about LGBT rights and Kashmir. Galloway denied they were his supporters. There was an increased police presence across the area on Monday.

Another Labour activist who was there on Sunday claimed three or four young Asian men "started pelting one of our campaigners with eggs, another guy stepped in to stop them doing it and then they started swinging for him. They punched him a couple of times, knocking him down and then started kicking him when he was on the floor.


An election campaign placard for the Labour candidate, Kim Leadbeater. She was chased and heckled by men said not to be from the area. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

"They ... attacked a few people and then ran off and came back a couple minutes later with more eggs. The person stood furthest forward was an elderly retired GP and they were right in front of him, throwing eggs and basically attacking an old man."

The activist said that while no one was seriously harmed, the incident had left a lot of people feeling scared and reluctant to go out in the constituency for the remainder of the campaign.

"I was terrified to be honest. They reached in their bags to grab eggs but I was terrified they were going to pull out a knife. I'm scared to go out campaigning. We can't ignore the fact that this happened in the seat where Jo Cox was murdered.

"There was a big group of us campaigning together on Sunday. If it had been four or five, I hate to think what would have had happened."

The incidents have left many Labour activists scared, with one saying she feels apprehensive to canvass this week. Another, Jan Williams, had come from Knaresborough in North Yorkshire to leaflet on Monday.


George Galloway delivering his address at a free speech peace rally in the market square in Batley, West Yorkshire during the byelection campaign. His spokesperson denied his supporters had removed posters of the Labour candidate. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

A spokesperson for West Yorkshire police said: "Enquiries remain ongoing regarding an incident in Whitaker Street, Batley, at about 4.30pm on Sunday in which eggs were thrown at males canvassing for a political party.

"One man was further assaulted in the incident. Kirklees police has recorded four crimes of assault in relation to what took place and officers are conducting active inquiries into the matter today."

A spokesperson for Galloway said his supporters had not removed any posters but accused Labour councillors of doing so, adding: "We wouldn't be surprised if Labour had removed the poster themselves in a bid to whip up faux outrage."

Anyone with information can contact Kirklees District CID on 101 referencing crime number 13210322000. Information can also be given online here or anonymously to the independent Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111.