THREAD: Why Labour should back Remain/Reform and fight for a general election... my Guardian column just out: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
2/ But Labour supporters have to look reality in the face. Since December, Corbyn and his advisers have got the Brexit strategy badly wrong. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
3/ Seumas Milne, Karie Murphy and Ian Lavery MP oversaw this fiasco. The strategy was wrong, the execution was wrong, the comms were wrong. Lavery even defied the whip. If we want to win, they should be replaced by politicians and professional strategists theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
4/ To renew Labour’s electoral alliance the party needs to unite around the strategy of remain and reform in Europe. It needs to tell voters honestly: it’s time to scrap Brexit and rebuild Britain instead. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
5/ Those of us who want a new strategy must acknowledge the challenge it will pose in former industrial areas. We need more working class politicians on the front bench, plain speaking about crime, drugs, anti-terrorism and defence... theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Being seen to deliver Brexit loses votes from progressive voters and wins none back from more socially conservative ones. That’s exactly what a leaked internal poll by Hope Not Hate and the TSSA union told Corbyn back in February. It was ignored. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
7/ We must decide what radical social democracy stands for. If it includes human rights defenders like Keir Starmer alongside Modi fans like Barry Gardiner it's an alliance of convenience, not an ism... theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
8/ Crass bureaucratic practice, ignoring negative polls because they are "Tory owned", briefing against comrades via Squawkbox, accusations of a coup - it's all from a wearyingly familiar playbook... theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
9/ There's a new situation. It's now hard Brexit versus Remain. The space for soft Brexit is gone. With every day the electorate asks "are you for or against Brexit" - as Brexit morphs into a xenophobic neo-colonialist project - we miss the chance to fight...
10/ The Labour right are clearly mobilising a new coup vs Jeremy Corbyn now. I will defend him unconditionally - but for advisers who don't listen, and suppress dissent, there has to be a price for failure. ENDS - read my column here... theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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What happened in D.C.? 🧵1/ We, outside the classified zone, won't know for a while - because the European leaders pulled of something surreal: they pulled Trump back from getting sucked in to Putin's mental framework ... but...
2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
There are 3 historical reference points for Trump's Alaska disgrace ... Munich '38, Berlin '40, Moscow '41... which is closest? 1/🧵we've had no readout from an honest source...
2/ At Munich democracies signed up to dismembering Czechoslovakia, sidelining USSR with which it had a mutual defence pact ... so this wasn't Munich, yet...
3/ The Aug 1941 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact dismembered Poland and started WW2...
Global investors are selling US stocks because they know Trump's tariffs will kill globalisation and trigger recession 1/... but why are they selling bonds at the same time? 🧵
2/ ....They're selling US bonds - which they would normally buy as a safe haven - because bonds have become gambling chips for hedge funds who are gambling on massive credit ... as @FT explains
@FT 3/ ... what comes next is financial contagion. After 2008 all banks required to keep a stock of capital to cushion instability ... that's rapidly eroded... sudden stop in trade plus massive losses in financial markets is bound to take down some bank somewhere...
Britain we - and we alone - have a major diplomatic problem. Witkoff, Trump's envoy to RU, claimed on record that the four disputed provinces of Ukraine plus Crimea were "handed over by Kruschev" 1/ We are signatories of Budapest...
2/ Here's what the Budapest Memorandum says. Very clear: that we, the USA and Russia respect the *existing borders* of Ukraine. If Witkoff's position is shared by the State Dept we are, as of now, the sole remaining guarantor of UA sovereignty ...
3/ Trump is already breaching Budapest by using economic coercion against Ukraine ... but if USA has de facto walked away from Budapest then UK has to public reaffirm our adherence to it... it conforms to the Vienna criterion for a Treaty under international law ....
Make no mistake: Putin wants a puppet government in Kyiv and enforced neutrality/demilitarisation for Ukraine. 1/ Having failed to do achieve this through war, he now wants to achieve it through destabilisation... so the prevarication about the ceasefire offer is just for show🧵
2/ As @ZelenskyyUa points out: prevarication and delay is Putin's modus operandi. I'd go further - it's part of the Reflexive Control doctrine he operates against "state victims" which in this instance is the UK/EU...
@ZelenskyyUa 3/ The immediate truce offer was agreed with Trump, designed by the Brits and places Putin in a bind. He cannot insist on conditions - since his own economy is on the brink of destabilisation, and on the front line in Donbas (not Kursk) UA is v operationally effective...
Hegseth's Rammstein speech is a watershed moment for Europe. It means the USA is no longer a reliable ally, even if its democracy survives ... 1/ ... but Hegseth is right on one thing. We now have to spend a lot more on defence 🧵
2/ The FT reports HMG quibbling over 2.3% of GDP on defence and 2.6% - but that's now irrelevant... Trump is demanding 5% and may accept 3.5%... and it's clear what we need to spend it on...
3/ Without the USA as an ally primarily committed to European security, we need Europe to own strategic enablers. Satellites, heavy lift, AWACS, carriers and a reliably independent nuclear deterrent...