Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: United Kingdom

  • Labour Leadership Election News

    • Lisa Nandy has won the endorsement of the Jewish Labour Movement, one of the party’s largest affiliated socialist societies.
    • Keir Starmer has been endorsed by most affiliated groups and trade unions, most recently the TSSA transport union.
    • Rebecca Long-Bailey, the most left-wing candidate who is seen as outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn’s ideological successor, has also qualified for the third and final voting round by members.
    • Emily Thornberry fell short. (more…)

  • No, Project Fear Wasn’t Wrong

    European Union flags
    Flags of the United Kingdom and the European Union outside the Berlaymont in Brussels, January 29, 2016 (European Commission)

    Brexit is due at midnight. Cue the inevitable glee from Brexiteers when the sky doesn’t fall. “Project Fear”, they will claim, was wrong all along.

    No thanks to them. The very mandarins who warned against the consequences of leaving the EU have been working for the last three years to prevent their own predictions from coming true. (more…)

  • Labour Leadership Election News

    • Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Keir Starmer have won enough nominations from Labour Party affiliates to qualify for the third and final voting round in the contest to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.
    • Emily Thornberry is still short.
    • Jeff Phillips has withdrawn, saying she is not the candidate to unite Labour, and endorsed Nandy.
    • Len McCluskey, the Unite union boss who backs Long-Bailey, has responded to suggestions that centrist lawmakers might quit if the Corbyn loyalist prevails: “Good riddance.” (more…)

  • Labour Leadership Election News

    • Keir Starmer has been nominated by eleven constituency parties, one trade union (Unison) and one affiliate (environmental group SERA).
    • Rebecca Long-Bailey has won the support of Momentum, although the far-left pressure group founded to support outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn only gave its roughly 40,000 members the choice between endorsing and not endorsing her.
    • Long-Bailey has also been nominated by three local parties and one affiliated trade union.
    • Lisa Nandy has been nominated by one trade union.
    • Jess Phillips and Emily Thornberry have yet to receive any nominations. (more…)

  • Five Candidates Qualify to Succeed Corbyn as Labour Leader

    Five candidates have qualified for the second round of the Labour leadership election in the United Kingdom: Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips and Emily Thornberry won the required 10 percent support from lawmakers to make it into the next nominating round.

    • Clive Lewis pulled out after receiving only five endorsements. Some of his supporters switched to Thornberry, who received 23 endorsements, only one more than needed.
    • Keir Starmer won the most endorsements by far (89), including from former leader Ed Miliband.
    • Starmer is also backed by Unison, the largest trade union with 1.4 million members.
    • Rebecca Long-Bailey is expected to win the endorsement of Unite, the second largest union with 1.2 million members and led Len McCluskey, an ally of outgoing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
    • Long-Bailey has the support of Corbyn loyalists in Parliament, including Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.
    • All the leadership candidates last week voted down the withdrawal agreement that regulates Britain’s exit from the EU. It nevertheless passed the House of Commons with 330 votes in favor and 231 against. (more…)

  • Britain’s Labour Leadership Election, Explained

    After leading the British Labour Party into its worst electoral defeat since 1935, Jeremy Corbyn is stepping down as leader.

    The contest to succeed him will take three months and pit defenders of Corbyn’s legacy against centrists who believe the party must change.

    Here is everything you need to know. (more…)

  • Price of Brexit May Be United Kingdom Itself

    British parliament London
    Westminster Palace in London, England (Unsplash/Matt Milton)

    Britain’s Conservatives won the election this month, but it may come at the expense of the union of the United Kingdom their party — which has “Unionist” in its name — is sworn to protect.

    Conservatives neglected their responsibility to the union by calling the EU referendum in the first place. David Cameron hoped to resolve an intraparty dispute over Europe. He ended up dividing the four nations of the UK. Majorities in Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain in the EU. They were outvoted by majorities in England and Wales.

    Rather than attempt a “soft” Brexit that might appease Scots and prevent either a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, Cameron’s successors Theresa May and Boris Johnson negotiated a hard break: leaving the European customs union and single market in order to regain full control over immigration and economic policy.

    The price could be Scottish independence and Irish unification, making Britain smaller than it has been in three centuries — and making a mockery of Brexiteers’ aspiration to lead a “Global Britain” outside the EU. (more…)

  • Second Scottish Referendum Should Wait

    Edinburgh Scotland
    Night falls on Edinburgh, Scotland (Unsplash/Jack Barton)

    Scotland’s National Party is arguing for a second independence referendum after gaining seats in Britain’s general election on Thursday.

    Party leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon believes she has a mandate and Britain’s imminent departure from the EU changes the situation from 2014, when Scots rejected independence 55 to 45 percent.

    She is right on the first point, but not yet on the second. (more…)

  • Election Shows Britain Needs Electoral Reform

    British parliament London
    Westminster Palace in London, England (Unsplash/Matt Milton)

    The outcome of Britain’s general election on Thursday underscores the need for electoral reform.

    Support for the Conservatives rose from 42.4 to 43.6 percent, but in terms of seats they went up from 317 (48.7 percent) to 365 (56.2 percent) out of 650.

    Martin Sandbu of the Financial Times argues this hardly qualifies as a landslide. Boris Johnson “played the electoral system better” better than his predecessor, Theresa May. (more…)

  • British Post-Election Analysis and Opinion Blog

    Downing Street London England
    10 Downing Street, the residence of the British prime minister, in London, England, November 28, 2016 (Shutterstock/Dominika Zarzycka)
    • Boris Johnson has promised to lead a “people’s government” after winning the Conservatives’ biggest parliamentary majority since 1987.
    • Jeremy Corbyn has announced he will resign after leading Labour into its worst election since 1935.
    • Scotland’s National Party has won most seats in the region and is demanding a second independence referendum. (more…)

  • What Went Wrong for Britain’s Liberal Democrats?

    Nick Clegg Jo Swinson
    British Liberal Democratic party leaders Nick Clegg and Jo Swinson visit Bishopbriggs, Scotland, April 1, 2015 (Liberal Democrats)

    Britain’s Liberal Democrats were polling as high as 20 percent in September, when it seemed just possible they might beat Labour into third place. The projection now is they will end up with 11 percent support in the election on Thursday, up from 7-8 percent in the last two elections but still a far cry from the 22-23 percent Charles Kennedy and Nick Clegg won in 2005 and 2010.

    Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, even lost her seat in Dunbartonshire East to the Scottish nationalists by a margin of 149 votes. It means her party will need to find a fourth new leader in five years.

    What went wrong? (more…)

  • Conservatives Learned the Lesson of the 2017 Election

    Boris Johnson
    British foreign secretary Boris Johnson answers questions from reporters at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, June 18, 2018 (UN/Jean-Marc Ferré)

    Britain’s Conservative Party learned the lesson of the 2017 election, when then-Prime Minister Theresa May lost her majority on the back of some rather limp campaigning.

    This year, under the more charismatic, if perhaps less reliable, Boris Johnson, the Conservatives have been in an optimistic mood, emphasizing hoped-for possibilities of economic, political and social renewal after Brexit.

    The mantra of their campaign was to “get Brexit done” after three years of back-and-forth negotiations with the EU. The calculation was that this would appeal to working-class Labour voters in constituences that want to leave the EU. The exit poll released by the three major broadcasters after polling places closed on Thursday night appears to bear this out. (more…)

  • Conservative Landslide in British Election

    • Britain’s ruling Conservative Party is on track to win its biggest parliamentary majority since 1987.
    • The election on Thursday was the worst for Labour since 1935. Jeremy Corbyn has announced he will resign.
    • Scotland’s National Party is expected to win almost all seats in the region and demanding a second independence referendum.
    • The Liberal Democrats fell short of expectations. Party leader Jo Swinson even lost reelection in her own constituency. (more…)

  • Conservatives Projected to Win Majority in British Election

    Boris Johnson
    British foreign secretary Boris Johnson answers questions from reporters at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, June 18, 2018 (UN/Jean-Marc Ferré)

    Boris Johnson could win a 28-seat majority in parliamentary elections on Thursday, according to one projection that correctly forecast the outcome of the last election.

    YouGov, which accurately predicted no party would win a majority in 2017, gives the Conservatives 339 out of 650 seats, up 22, with 43 percent support.

    Other polls show similar support for the ruling party: 42 to 45 percent.

    YouGov’s 34 percent for Labour is on the high end. Other polls giving the second party in the range of 32-33 percent. That could give Jeremy Corbyn 231 seats in Parliament, down 31. (more…)

  • Liberal Democrats Are Least Bad Option in British Election

    Nick Clegg Jo Swinson
    British Liberal Democratic party leaders Nick Clegg and Jo Swinson visit Bishopbriggs, Scotland, April 1, 2015 (Liberal Democrats)

    British politics hasn’t given liberals hope in recent years.

    In 2015, we called for another Conservative-Liberal coalition. When the Conservative Party won an outright majority that year and veered to the right, embracing Brexit with a gusto, we switched to the Liberal Democrats. We still supported Ruth Davidson’s Conservatives in Scotland in 2017, but she is gone and with her any hope of moderation on the right.

    Boris Johnson, who once described himself as a liberal, has made common cause with the reactionaries in his party to take power; forced out 21 principled moderates who opposed his Brexit policy, including ten former cabinet ministers, two former chancellors and one former deputy prime minister; and unlawfully suspended Parliament in an attempt to prevent debate on his Brexit deal, which, for all his bluster, is essentially the deal the EU offered two years ago.

    Worst of all, Johnson frames this election as a choice between “the people” and Parliament. That is the sort of insidious rhetoric which paves the way for the erosion of liberal democracy. (more…)