Lying Media Gets It Wrong Yet Again. Labour Could Have Polled Even More Votes In Oldham Were It Not For Bombardier Benn Of Cad's Army

Britain’s odious media serves as both an echo chamber and propaganda mouthpiece for a despised ruling elite. And neither the media nor their paymasters has any basis of popular support in society or any real understanding of how out of touch and hated they are.

In Oldham, this attempt to manufacture public opinion came into headlong collision with actual public opinion.

The by-election proved that there is a clear shift to the left in the thinking of workers and young people who are angered by the destruction of their livelihoods and deeply concerned at the growing war danger in the Middle East and internationally. Far from Corbyn being the pariah they would like him to be, it is the Tories and the Blairite wing of the Labour Party who are hated and despised for the political crimes they have committed.

Labour’s Oldham by-election victory and Corbyn’s refusal to fight the right-wing

By Robert Stevens of WSWS

Thursday’s Oldham West and Royton by-election in the northwest of England saw Labour’s candidate Jim McMahon win 62.2 percent of the vote, up from 54.8 percent in May. The UK Independence Party trailed in second place on 23.3 percent.

Labour won the election by a majority of more than 10,000 votes, increasing its share of the vote by 7 percent from May’s general election. The ruling right-wing Conservatives saw their share of the vote halved to 9.3 percent, while their 2010-2015 governing partners, the Liberal Democrats, lost their deposit receiving just 1,024 votes.

For weeks, Britain’s media proclaimed that the by-election in the northwest of England would be the acid test of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

Oldham was the first important national election contest since he won the leadership of the party in September in a landslide victory, after campaigning on an antiwar and anti-austerity ticket. With the overwhelming support of hundreds of thousands of Labour members and supporters, he trounced his three Blairite challengers.

The media declared that this was all the result of a semi-putsch by the “Corbynistas”—an unrepresentative group of left activists. Oldham would be the first occasion where the “real general public”, “traditional Labour voters” or, alternatively and in explicitly racial and racist language, “the white working class” could register its hostility and rejection of Corbyn’s “Trot”, “lefty” dreams—proving once-and-for all that Labour is unelectable under his leadership and must be replaced.

Making this result more important still for the ruling class, the vote in Oldham was held just one day after the vote in Parliament for British military air strikes in Syria. Corbyn and anyone else who opposed air strikes were denounced by Prime Minister David Cameron as “terrorist sympathisers”.

Now the voters of Oldham would be able to echo the disgust felt by Cameron and prove that Labour must turn once again to the “sensible” right-wing pro-war cabal of 66 MPs who voted with the Tories, possibly replacing Corbyn with Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn.

Both the Tories and the anti-immigrant, anti-European UKIP fought their campaign on the basis that Corbyn’s policy of opposing war in Syria meant he was a threat to “national security.” UKIP went as far as to release a “wanted man” window poster with a photo of Corbyn and the words “SECURITY RISK” emblazoned on it in capital letters.

On the morning of the election, the Daily Mail was counting down the hours to what it had described as Corbyn’s “Waterloo” moment. “Tonight will deliver the first proper electoral verdict on Mr. Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, it wrote, adding, “It is also a timely reassessment of [UKIP leader] Nigel Farage’s aspirations to make UKIP a credible alternative to Labour in the urban North of England.” There was “no doubt” that Labour’s majority “will be slashed”, it confidently trumpeted.

As the polls closed, the Sun described Corbyn’s supporters in the Labour Party as a “moronic Marxist mob” who had denounced Benn as a “warmonger instead of feting him as a hero.” Voters “are repulsed” by such attacks on Benn, it added. “By the time you read this, we will know what those in Oldham think of it.”

The liberal Guardian waded in, commenting that Labour’s candidate “McMahon had to contend with Corbyn’s unpopularity among many voters, particularly the white working class targeted by UKIP.”

Dan Hodges, a Blairite who writes in the Conservative Daily Telegraph, cited a “northern MP” who said, “The white working class vote is haemorrhaging. And it’s haemorrhaging in our heartlands.”

Sophy Ridge, the “Senior Political Correspondent” for Sky TV, said Wednesday that she had met UKIP leader “Nigel Farage pounding the aisles at Tommyfield Market, in the centre of Oldham's shopping district.” Ridge predicted, “If the outspoken shoppers and store holders at the market are anything to go by, UKIP should win this seat.”

What then could possibly go wrong?

Britain’s odious media serves as both an echo chamber and propaganda mouthpiece for a despised ruling elite. And neither the media nor their paymasters has any basis of popular support in society or any real understanding of how out of touch and hated they are.

In Oldham, this attempt to manufacture public opinion came into headlong collision with actual public opinion.

The by-election proved that there is a clear shift to the left in the thinking of workers and young people who are angered by the destruction of their livelihoods and deeply concerned at the growing war danger in the Middle East and internationally. Far from Corbyn being the pariah they would like him to be, it is the Tories and the Blairite wing of the Labour Party who are hated and despised for the political crimes they have committed.

For this very reason, the Oldham by-election result is an indictment of Corbyn for his refusal to wage a political struggle to expel his right-wing opponents from the Labour Party.

Corbyn is betraying the very antiwar sentiment and hostility to the ruling elite that his election as party leader reflected. Since the moment he became leader he has done nothing but retreat in the face of his opponents. The nadir of this was in Wednesday’s vote on war in which he gave the Labour right a “free vote”—meaning they would not be censured or disciplined in any way for supporting war. This resulted in 66 Labour MPs backing military action, granting the Tories the significant majority they politically required to start bombing Syria.

This again allowed the right-wing Labourite cabal to go on the offensive, claiming they were being “abused” with threats of deselection as MPs, by, in Cameron’s words , “terrorist sympathisers ” supportive of Corbyn. The right-wing press was mobilised once again, with the Daily Express describing those attempting to deselect Labour MPs as “hard-line socialists” and “ anti-airstrikes bullies ” .

Prior to the vote on war, Corbyn commissioned a vote of Labour Party members showing that 75 percent were opposed to British military action in Syria. The vote in Oldham proves that if Corbyn had backed the demand to kick the right wing out of the party, he would have won mass support not only in Labour’s ranks, but throughout the country.

Prior to allowing nearly 30 percent of Labour’s MPs to vote for war, Corbyn said those that did would have to face “consequences”. In reality, the immediate response of Corbyn and his closest supporters to calls for deselecting the party’s hated warmongers has been to oppose any action against the right wing.

In a letter to party members from Corbyn and Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson, one of the 66 MPs who voted for military action, they described calls to remove pro-war MPs as “abuse and intimidation” that “have no place in politics. And the party as a whole will not accept such behaviour, from whatever quarter it comes.”

On Thursday, Corbyn’s supporters in the Momentum group dutifully pledged, “Momentum is not a threat to MPs who voted for bombing. We have made clear that we will not campaign for the deselection of any MP and will not permit any local Momentum groups to do so.”

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Anonymous: - ISIS - What You're Not Being Told.

ISIS Don't Like It Up 'em

UK parliament sanctions Syria bombing as Labour right votes with government

It is not the Paris terror attacks, but Russian military intervention in Syria that has spurred a significant section of the British bourgeoisie to force a parliamentary vote despite significant misgivings. By joining military action, the UK government aims to solidarise itself with the US war drive against Russia. In doing so, it is dragging working people in Britain into the vortex of a potential Third World War involving nuclear powers.

By Julie Hyland of WSWS

The UK parliament voted in favour of bombing Syria late Wednesday night. The support provided by 66 Labour MPs, the Democratic Unionists and the Liberal Democrats meant that the government motion was carried by 397 to 223, a majority of 174.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn cleared the path for war when he capitulated to his right wing and agreed to a “free vote” on military action. This ensured that it was Labour that handed Prime Minister David Cameron the majority he sought, reversing the defeat he suffered two years before.

So complete has been Corbyn’s surrender to the pro-war lobby that a cross-party amendment opposing military action was tabled by the Scottish National Party, as Labour declared it had no official position on bombing. This was defeated by 390 votes to 211, a majority of 179.

The pro-war motion tabled by Cameron was modelled on that passed by the Labour Party conference in September. As the World Socialist Web Site wrote at the time, Labour’s motion gave “carte blanche for the military carve-up of Syria.”

Just weeks after winning the Labour leadership on an anti-austerity, anti-war platform, Corbyn agreed at the party conference to abandon any discussion on Britain’s Trident nuclear programme in the face of trade union opposition to its scrapping. A debate on whether to support the bombing of Syria was allotted just 20 minutes, followed by a non-binding motion opposing UK bombing missions unless backed by the United Nations.

Now, under the pretext of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, the imperialist powers, with UN support, are deepening their neo-colonial war campaign in the Middle East.

In August 2013, Cameron unsuccessfully sought parliament’s backing for military action aimed at deposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The motion carried yesterday makes no mention of this goal. It claims instead that the target of British air strikes is Islamic State (ISIS), and that the bombing is in support of the so-called Vienna “peace process” involving the United States and Russia.

It is not the Paris terror attacks, but Russian military intervention in Syria that has spurred a significant section of the British bourgeoisie to force a parliamentary vote despite significant misgivings. By joining military action, the UK government aims to solidarise itself with the US war drive against Russia. In doing so, it is dragging working people in Britain into the vortex of a potential Third World War involving nuclear powers.

The parliamentary debate was a carnival of reaction. Even before it began, Cameron described those opposing the bombing of Syria as “terrorist sympathisers.” He made this smear in remarks to a meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs, in which he urged them to vote with the government rather than walk “through the [voting] lobbies with Jeremy Corbyn and a bunch of terrorist sympathisers.”

The Tory leader has repeatedly described Corbyn as a threat to national security and an apologist for terrorism. In the face of this abuse, Corbyn lamely referred to Cameron’s “unfortunate remark” and declared his hope that the prime minister would apologise so as to “improve the atmosphere of this debate.”

Cameron had no intention of doing any such thing and flatly rejected a retraction. In this, as in everything, he was supported by the Labour right wing. After Corbyn’s snivelling appeal to the prime minister to do the right thing, Labour MP John Mann rose to attack Corbyn and demanded that he withdraw his criticisms of those in his party who were voting with the government.

Before the debate, Corbyn had made a play of opposing the Labour right, warning there would be “no hiding place” after the vote for those who supported military action. The reality is that the war-mongers have a place. It is the Labour Party. And they have no need to hide since Corbyn has effectively thrown a cordon sanitaire around them.

In a survey of the party membership, 75 percent registered their opposition to the bombing of Syria. But this is of no consequence to Corbyn, who has repeatedly assured the right wing that they will not face disciplinary action or the possibility of deselection.

In his opening statement, Corbyn could only parrot the claim that IS represented an existential threat to the UK, while complaining that Cameron had failed to make the case for air strikes and had failed to achieve a “consensus” in parliament.

He glorified the Vienna “peace” talks, avoiding any reference to Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet, while holding out the fiction of a “negotiated political and diplomatic endeavour” that would bring peace to Syria.

While warning of the danger of “mission creep” and the “real possibility” that Western boots could be on the ground in the future, he made no mention of the US decision, only the day earlier, to deploy Special Forces in Syria.

In an unprecedented move, Corbyn had agreed to allow Hilary Benn, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary and a leading advocate of military intervention, to close the parliamentary debate for the party.

Benn is openly being touted as a potential replacement for Corbyn in a future palace coup. He used his closing statement to make a pitch for that role, farcically claiming that in bombing Syria, the UK was carrying out a struggle against a “fascist” threat akin to Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany.

While evoking party “unity” in his remarks, Benn had been tweeting against the Labour leader during the debate. When a spokesperson for the party leader sent a message that air strikes could increase the terror threat against Britain, Benn fired off a riposte rejecting the claim.

Having been given free rein by Corbyn, various Labour right-wingers were first up in the debate to pledge their fealty to the government and war. One after another, leading Blairites, who already have blood on their hands from the Iraq war, spoke in favour of military action.

Yvette Cooper, who came in third in the leadership contest, announced that she would vote with the government despite the fact that the prime minister had not “made the most effective case.” Declaring that he too would back the government, Alan Johnson said it was a “difficult” decision to make and went on to attack “the self-righteous certitude” of those opposed to war.

Other Labour MPs, such as John Woodcock, used the debate to complain of the “bullying tactics” they faced from constituents threatening to deselect them over their vote for war. He denounced a “sort of angry, intolerant pacifism” as he prepared to authorise the dropping of tonnes of bombs on Syria.

In a simultaneous debate taking place in the House of Lords on UK military intervention, Labour peer Jeffrey Rooker called on Labour to “get rid” of Corbyn. Stating that members of the Tory cabinet would make better prime ministers than his own party leader, Rooker identified ISIS’s “innate intolerance” for the “British way of life” with the “anti-British Trots in the Labour Party” who were “using our tolerance to try and get control” of the party.

Corbyn responded to the complaints from the right by posting a Facebook message during the debate opposing “bullying” and calling for “all of us in the Labour Party” to focus on building the party “in a comradely fashion.”

The bourgeoisie is acutely conscious of growing social and political tensions. Even the Times newspaper, which backed bombing, led its front page with polls showing that more than half the population is opposed to military action in Syria—despite the torrent of pro-war propaganda.

The assembled parliamentarians are well aware that their debate is a fraud, based on a tissue of lies. Only the day before, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee voted four to three in favour of a motion that Cameron “had not adequately addressed concerns” about military action. All the more reason that, notwithstanding Corbyn’s pleas and retreats, the bourgeoisie is determined to do all it can to silence opposition to war.

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Looks Like I'm A Terrorist Sympathiser

I'm half expecting Cameron's 'thought police' to be knocking on my door at any moment and carting me off to the Tower for being a 'terrorist sympathiser'. And for why? Because I'm one of those people who oppose the bombing of Syria. One of the majority.

But I'll be in good company because more than half the population of England will be squeezed into the Tower as well, if that's possible. Some three quarters of Scots will also be locked up in some dungeon north of the border.

Let's face it, we have a prime minister in the UK who has lost complete touch with reality.

The only terrorist sympathisers I know about are the three pictured below - Erdogan of Turkey who buys cheap ISIS oil, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who supplies ISIS with weapons and Obama of the US who organises it all.

The big three terrorist sympathisers.

Smeared With ISIS Oil

The liar Erdogan smeared with ISIS oil

On Corbyn's Spinelessness

One of the first things Corbyn should have done after being elected leader was to root out all unreconstructed Blairites who have no support in the Labour party at large - not in Scotland, not in Wales and not in England. A simple process of deselection would have silenced them all by now. But spinelessness paved the way to war in Syria.

One of the few journalists I admire is Julie Hyland of the editorial board of WSWS and here is her take on Corbyn's abject failure to control the right wing of his party. 

Corbyn’s spinelessness is not simply a matter of personal inadequacy or misplaced party loyalty. The Labour leader and his supporters in the pseudo-left groups are acutely aware of how sharp class tensions are. Under conditions of deepening austerity and a sharp turn to militarism, they are determined to do all they can to contain and silence the voice of working people. It is this that accounts for the ability of the Tories to go on the offensive, despite the narrowness of the government’s majority.

The Strange Phenomenon Of Hilary Benn

Is Hilary Benn a 'chip off the old block'?

Certainly there is a bit of a resemblance to his father, but as soon as he starts his political pontificatiing you begin to suspect that he might have been sired by the milkman.

Or maybe his father wasn't all he was cracked up to be. Just maybe he was one of those aristocratic politicians whose job it was to disarm the working class and fool them into thinking that here was a man looking out for their interests. It's a common enough tactic.

Maybe then Hilary has just reverted to type.

Milkman or something more sinister?

Brainless Politicians

This morning as the vote about bombing Syria grows ever more imminent I wrote to my MP saying that I needed a politician with a few brain cells to explain to me what Cameron with his tin-pot little airforce hopes to achieve which the mighty Russian airforce can’t deliver?

By implication this politician was him, although let me reserve judgement on that matter for the time being.

Douglas Carswell of UKIP

Corbyn's Betrayal

Corbyn opens door to Labour backing for British bombing of Syria

By Chris Marsden of WSWS

The decision by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to allow a free vote on UK participation in bombing missions in Syria is a total capitulation to the right-wing, pro-war forces in his party.

Corbyn has done everything possible to ensure a “yes” vote on Wednesday, given that Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron did not have a majority without the support of Labour MPs and had said he would proceed to a vote only if there was a “consensus.” At least 15 Tory MPs are said to be opposed to the extension of bombing to Syria on the pretext of defeating Islamic State (ISIS).

Now, a supposed “consensus” has been handed on a plate to Cameron by Corbyn. If the Labour leader had imposed a party whip, those voting for bombing would have had to do so in defiance of their party. Instead, Corbyn has given the green light for more Labour MPs—free from censure—to back Cameron’s policy. The Tories are now boasting that up to 100 Labour MPs will vote with them.

In September, Corbyn was elected by a landslide to lead the party based on his declared anti-austerity, anti-war stance. A reported 300,000 people signed up to the party to support him. Yet at every major turn, Corbyn has betrayed his mandate in the name of maintaining unity with the militarist, pro-business, anti-working class cabal that dominates the Parliamentary Labour Party and its local government apparatus.

Of all the ignominious retreats he has made under fire, this is the most fundamental.

Millions of workers and young people oppose military action in Syria, and Labour’s annual conference ruled that the party would not back action in Syria without “clear and unambiguous” United Nations support.

Prior to Monday, Corbyn said that Cameron had not made the case that the UN supported air strikes, so he was opposed to a free vote that would allow MPs to contradict party policy. He went on television Sunday to declare that “the leader decides,” implying that he was considering a three-line whip instructing MPs to vote against bombing Syria.

He then organised a poll of over 100,000 party members and supporters that showed 75 percent opposed and just 13 percent in favour of air strikes. Corbyn was reported by the Guardian as telling his allies that he believed he had sufficient backing from MPs and his grassroots supporters to try and “stop the war.”

Len McCluskey, head of the Unite union, Labour’s biggest financial backer, came out to warn members of the Shadow Cabinet, “Any attempt to force Labour’s leader out through a Westminster Palace coup will be resisted all the way by Unite and, I believe, most party members and affiliated unions.”

This was all for show. Behind the scenes, Corbyn was already in secret discussions with Deputy Leader Tom Watson and Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn, two of the overwhelming majority of his Shadow Cabinet in favour of air strikes. He agreed to a free vote in return for a non-binding, and therefore meaningless, statement that “party policy” was to oppose bombing.

Corbyn has rolled over before a bloodthirsty and politically discredited rump that enjoys little popular support outside the UK’s big business media. And he did so as he and his right-hand man, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, spoke of “democracy” and allowing MPs to vote “according to their conscience.” McDonnell said a free vote would mean that “people will hold together.”

“Democracy” now means the right to defy your party’s members, defy the wishes of the electorate, openly collude with the Tories, and threaten legal action to depose an elected leader. “Voting with your conscience” means not having one.

Yesterday’s Shadow Cabinet meeting saw this venal layer in the ascendant, shouting at Corbyn that his position that party policy was to oppose bombing was “absurd.” The meeting of the entire Parliamentary Labour Party in the evening was little different.

Corbyn was left with nothing other than to write a letter to Cameron urging a two-day debate before a vote is taken. Cameron dismissed this demand within hours, saying instead that Wednesday’s debate would be extended by a few hours. Benn has been given the right to close the debate for Labour.

Once again, events have supplied a devastating rebuttal to the claims made by Corbyn that he and his supporters could refashion the Labour Party as an instrument for opposing austerity and war by giving voice to its members and insisting on a “new politics” of democratic debate. This, he claimed, could bring change without threatening Labour’s “broad church.”

Instead, Labour continues to be a party of austerity and war. Its support for Cameron means that the bombs that will rain down on Syria, like the hundreds dropped by the Royal Air Force in Iraq since September 2014, will be Labour’s bombs. Syria will be labour’s war just as was Iraq in 2003.

Labour’s political and class character can never be changed by installing a new leader. It is determined by the party’s pro-capitalist programme and a history stretching over a century of defending the fundamental interests of British imperialism—not only against foreign capitalist rivals, but against the threat from below posed by the working class.

Corbyn’s mealy-mouthed reformist rhetoric never offered a political alternative to the party’s control by the right wing. Rather, his role has been to prevent the hostility to austerity, militarism and war that brought him to office from assuming the form of a political rebellion against Labour’s despised leadership. Indeed, without his defence of their position in the party, even including them in his Shadow Cabinet, many would have already been deselected by their local parties.

The exposure of Corbyn is at the same time a devastating indictment of Britain’s pseudo-left groups, all of which proclaimed his leadership to be a fundamental turning point in Labour’s fortunes. A week ago, Left Unity, the party formed just two years ago as a supposed alternative to Labour, declared at its conference it would no longer stand candidates against the party led by Jeremy Corbyn. On Saturday, the Stop the War Coalition held a protest against bombing Syria at which the central message from the organisation’s chair, Andrew Murray, was to urge Labour MPs to “stand behind Jeremy Corbyn.”

All these tendencies are guilty of disarming the working class and paving the way for war.

The struggle against war cannot proceed through the Labour Party and under the leadership of Corbyn. He will not move against the right wing of his party because he shares their pro-capitalist programme. He calls for a change in policy on austerity and war from the ruling class when both are the inevitable products of the capitalist system at this time of acute crisis.

The bourgeoisie needs austerity because maintaining its obscene wealth is dependent on ramping up the exploitation of the working class and destroying the social provisions on which millions depend. War is the product of the drive by the imperialist powers to seize control of oil and other valuable and essential resources on behalf of the super-rich.

What is required is the building of a new mass anti-war movement that seeks to mobilise the working class in Britain and internationally against the capitalist system and for socialism. That requires the building of the Socialist Equality Party to lead this struggle.

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