Paul Mason Profile picture
May 27, 2019 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
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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More from @paulmasonnews

Mar 23
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... Image
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 ... Image
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 .... Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Mar 14
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...
Read 6 tweets
Feb 13
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 🧵 Image
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... Image
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... Image
Read 5 tweets
Jan 9
UK bond yield opens at 4.9% There is no “bond market crisis” - however, the high and rising yield on UK debt is the result of a long-term loss of confidence after the Truss fiasco and the poor fundamentals left by the Tories and Brexit 1/…🧵
2/ … what’s happening throws Reeves’ budget into a new light. She rightly did a “belt and braces” on fiscal credibility, raising NI to plug the massive gaps left by Hunt - but the bond markets still do not see a growth story. Why? …
3/ ...because key elements of Labour policy are at the design stage: industrial strategy, green energy, workforce... whilel growth is flatlining… and because we have a doom loop built into our policy architecture…
Read 7 tweets
Dec 28, 2024
Every stunt Russia has pulled since the US election feels to me like a pre-programmed sequence: the cable cutting, the MRBM attack; destabilisation of Romania, Moldova and now Transnistria 1/ ... hard to know the purpose without intel...
2/ ... at baseline it creates uncertainty, shakes the tree, shows a range of options for escalation... but I keep coming back to Orban's taunt against Zelensky - "this is the most dangerous point of the conflict" - ie a warning of "escalate to de-escalate"...
3/ That was surely an echo of His Master's Voice... while Western governments are refusing to attribute RU blatant attacks. Why? Could be an agreed strategem; could be fear of domestic destabilisation. Either way, Finland has put a stop to that...
Read 8 tweets
Dec 8, 2024
What a day! Assad fled. Saydnaya liberated. Russian power in the Middle East evaporating. Yes there's a vacuum, yes there are competing forces but Syrians now have a chance to shape their own future free of Russian/Iranian imperialism ... and Britain's response matters 1/ 🧵
2/ There is every chance that Syria fragments into three or four chaotic states. That's a function of the "multipolar world" the Putin/Xi acolytes on the far left are so fond of. Multipolarity = chaos is the theme of 2023-4. And Trump saying "stay out of it" is delusional...
3/ The P5 powers could - if Russia/China want to show an ounce of responsibility - work with Turkey, Israel and Lebanon to stabilise the situation. Because if Syria as a state falls apart - its currency, treasury and central bank evaporate - that will be a case study in chaos...
Read 7 tweets

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