"For all those who still had any illusions about Gordon Brown's accession to the Labour Party throne being a move back to Labour's mainstream, tonight's intervention by Brown into the EU summit should certainly clear matters up.
The Brown spin doctors are briefing that Brown demeaningly ordered Blair back to the summit negotiating table to hold the line on a key issue.
What was this critical issue which so alarmed Brown?
Was it concern over the EU attempting to prevent a Labour government intervening in the economy to protect jobs or protect public services or extend trade union rights?
No, true to his neo liberal philosophy, the reason Brown demanded Blair go back into the negotiating room and dig his heals in was because he was fearful that the French were undemining the free market. He was angry that Sarkozy of all people was seeking to "dilute" the operation of free competition in the EU market."
The words of John McDonnell, the man who should have become the new Labour leader, on Gordon Brown, the man who will be.
In the nominally 'left of centre' Brown we will have a Labour leader and Prime Minister far more committed to neo-liberalism than the 'right-wing' leaders of France and Germany. Nikolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel believe that for the common good, there needs to be restrictions on the operation of 'market forces'. Gordon Brown doesn't. Doesn't it tell you just how far out on a limb we are in Britain, when a Labour Prime Minister, yes a Labour Prime Minister, is more of a cheerleader for undiluted capitalism than Sarkozy and Merkel?
4 comments:
I can't work up any enthusiasm about a Brown premiership. All we've done is replaced one neo-liberal US puppet with another.
When the rump of the Labour Party and its hangers on gathered in Manchester to cheer Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, what, exactly, were they cheering?
Brown believed everyone else in the room to be unfit to occupy what is now little more than the ceremonial position of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and he is still talking of non-Labour Ministers, who, since they cannot now be Lib Dems, must be Tories. He could have kept Britain out of the Iraq War, simply by instructing his backbench followers to vote against it; the same is true of many, many other things. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the “renewal” of Trident. And he spent much of the last few days successfully demanding that the French destroy their workers’ jobs and their public services by signing up to neoliberal economics.
As for Harman, she was the nominee of Gisela “Vote Bush” Stuart and of Denis “Vote Sarkozy” MacShane, identifying her as a member of the separate party that trades under the names of the Euston Manifesto Group, The Henry Jackson Society, and The Orange Book, among others. Those of its members who trade under the name of The Orange Book, Brown wished, and wishes, to bring into government. Those who trade under the name of The Henry Jackson Society, he undoubtedly will bring into government.
And Harman, with Patricia Hewitt, ran the old National Council for Civil Liberties when it was hand in glove with the old Paedophile Information Exchange. That powder has been kept dry up to now. It is being lit tonight...
I've just been reading Tony Benn's Arguments for Democracy (c1982) in which he describes how the labour and disarmament movement were defeated by an orchestrated conspiracy to demonise them by the media; how the media promoted monetarism and the Atlanticist SDP; how prime ministers were getting far too powerful and, in the case of Labour, simply ignoring party democracy.
It's a book well worth reading to get a picture, in hindsight, how we have arrived in the sorry situation we are in now.
Cheap copies are available from Amazon.
Rory, CHIMES OF FREEDOM, http://chimesofreedom.blogspot.com
You're right Rory, it is a great book. And still enormously relevant.
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