Without many people noticing, Anneliese Dodds is putting together a credible, deliverable left-wing economic programme which can maintain business support politics.co.uk/comment/2021/0…
Dodds is very impressive indeed - a properly big brain thinking hard about how to attract business support for Labour while simultaneously setting out a radical and sustainable Keynesian agenda.
I can' tell you what a relief it is to read her speech. This is someone thinking things through, trying to come up with a long-term framework, and reflecting a sense of national and historic responsibility.
Read my piece if you've five mins- but if you've a bit more time it's worth reading her speech in full here labour.org.uk/press/annelies…
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So many on the British right were seduced by nativism. They took Trump's election, coming right after the Brexit vote, as a totem of a new global status quo.
It is fascinating to now see them dissemble, downplay, delete, deny and redefine their support in a desperate scramble to reformulate their position.
Some will have a true moment of reflection about where this kind of politics leads. Others will try to salvage their reputation, as they suddenly glimpse what a future evaluation of their behaviour will conclude. Others just want to preserve parts of the nativist project.
So easy to just say 'the Muslim ban is over' and leave it at that. But most people have no idea of the scale of human suffering repaired by doing so.
Countless people of Middle Eastern origin who had built lives in the US were unable to see their families. They couldn't come to see them and if they left they had no idea whether they'd be able to get back into America.
It's over now. But they had no way of knowing Biden would win. If it had been Trump, the situation would have continued for another four years. Perhaps it would never have changed.
This is correct. Johnson can hold off a referendum. But doing so would make the case against the Union more forcefully than any other course of action imaginable and all-but guarantee independence when it was eventually held.
Terrible situation to be in. But that is the situation they have created. At the moment, and unless something changes, Brexit is ushering in the break-up of the Union.
People asking what will change. The most obvious thing is the dynamic of a referendum. Brexit makes the political case for independence much stronger, but the economic case harder. Most SNP figures privately concede this.
The precise things which were warned about for four years during the Brexit debate are now happening, right before our eyes scotsman.com/news/politics/…
If it wasn't for covid, this would be the main news story, day after day. But it isn't going anywhere. Businesses already hammered by coronavirus are being pummelled into the ground.
So far, everything is playing out exactly as people warned it would: A sudden mass of bureaucratic requirements, the difficulties with groupage, the nightmare of export health certificates.