The excuse "I met some people in a pub and they could not understand something" is not going to wash with Labour members who want their MPs to do very clear things: oppose No Deal, oppose May's deal, and trigger a second referendum if we cannot bring down the government... 1/~
2/ I can see the parliamentary logic of Labour not opposing the Immigration Bill at this stage, but not the moral logic. However the big issue is the @YvetteCooperMP amendment tomorrow. I call on all Labour MPs to support it...
3/ Cooper's amendment is the sure-fire way to take May's No Deal ultimatum off the table and return the government to sanity, given that there is no Commons majority for Labour's amendment.
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Four moves just happened in the US-Iran battle: Trump leaks peace conditions; Iran makes extreme counter-demands; Trump threatens to destroy energy plants; Iran threatens to destroy Gulf desalination plants... this is "escalate to de-escalate"... 1/
2/ analysis: First off, Trump is explicitly threatening a war crime; the UK should have no part in that. Iran's threat is also criminal. Second - Israel seems absent from the exchange. Third: Iran's maximalist demands are actually a plea for inclusion in a rules based order -
3/ If either escalation threat were carried out we would see an epic refugee and humanitarian crisis: Southern Caucasus, Iraq, Türkiye,Turkmenistan all vulnerable
The British government is not "confused" or unclear - it's been crystal clear it did not take part in the US/Israeli attack on Iran because there is no legal basis to do so; in addition its aims are ill defined... 1/ so Labour MPs need to get real...
2/ We're under political attack from a Tory party that would have willingly breached the UN Charter. We're sticking by the Charter - everything we've done so far is lawful under Article 51...
3/ We're also under attack from the Greens who want to leave NATO, & Plaid and the SNP who want to dismember the United Kingdom. You were elected as social democrats, act like one: get behind the government and deliver a massive majority for strong, lawful conduct during this war
As Morgan McSweeney resigns - here's some basic politics for any member of the Labour Party: 1/ We cannot have a leadership contest now. Why? Because the bond market is a "daily referendum on UK political stability"...the right wing press baying for Keir to resign know this ...
2/ The rat pack of podcasters and YouTubers will have a field day stoking up chaos... a doom loop of bad headlines and soaring bond yields. Therefore Keir Starmer has to remain PM. Let's have a clear report from the ISC - and it should not be difficult to get to the point...
3/ ... did the DV process throw up any problems with Mandelson? Did the security services warn anyone? Once we have that information there is a story to tell about what went wrong ...
In a jaw dropping interview with Channel 4 News, Zack Polanski claims he wants both "to reform NATO from within" and replace it with "an alternative alliance of countries based in Europe… plus Brazil and Mexico and global south countries"... let's unpack... 1/
2/ NATO is an alliance formed by treaty. It is the lynchpin of the rules based global order, together with the UN. All 31 countries are signed up to defend each other. Can you imagine what would happen if we, the 5th biggest economy, left it?
3/ If the UK left NATO it would collapse. There would not be "an alliance of UK with other European countries plus Mexico and Brasil" - there would be the Russian occupation of Estonia, Lithuania, probably Svalbard and likely the collapse of Ukraine...
Zack Polanski's puerile name-calling during an international crisis is testament to a profound lack of seriousness... here's the sum total of the GPEW's response so far... 🧵1/~
2/~ Starmer has not "appeased" Trump. He has conducted tough diplomacy over Ukraine, talking Trump back from a total sell-out; he has banned all relevant arms sales to Israel; and on Greenland he has made defence of Danish sovereignty and Greenlanders self-determination a red line
3/~ But at the last election the GPEW did NOT say "relying on US for nukes is dangerous"... they said give up nuclear weapons unilaterally... here's the manifesto...
Russia's talking point of the day already being echoed by useful idiot savants ... "They can't invade Europe because they couldn't defeat Ukraine" - here's why that's wrong ... 1/ They have 350k troops in Belarus trained to do exactly that ...
2/ Russia just carried out an attack exercise in Belarus where it practised only with its strategic forces - showing how it will use lessons learned in Ukraine to menace Europe once there is a frozen conflict in Ukraine
3/ Specifically Russia has 3x options - destabilise Moldova, seize Svalbard, attack a Baltic state - in each case it may judge that with Guardianista useful idiots and "actionists" plus far right parties in W Europe - and Trump in power - NATO would not respond... but...