#LabourConference2022 delegate from Edinburgh Vijay Jackson quotes Keir Hardie on why the labour movement should oppose the #monarchy

#QueenElizabethII #KingCharlesIII #NotMyKing #Labour #Lab22 Image
This is what Hardie said:

"Even under a representative system of government it is possible to paralyse a nation by maintaining the fiction that a reigning family is a necessity of good government. Now, one of two things must be – either the British people are fit to govern
themselves or they are not. If they are, an hereditary ruler who in legislation has more power than the whole nation is an insult. Despotism and monarchy are compatible; democracy and monarchy are an unthinkable connection.
If we are for the Queen we are not for her subjects. The throne represents the power of caste – class rule. Round the throne gather the unwholesome parasites who cling to the system which lends itself to their disordered condition.
The toady who crawls through the mire of self-abasement to enable him to bask in the smile of royalty is the victim of a diseased organism.
No healthy, well-developed people could for one moment tolerate an institution which belongs to the childhood of the [human] race, and which in these latter days is the centre, if not the source, of the corrupting influences which constitute Society.
The great mind, the strong heart, the detestation of wrong, the love of truth whether in cot or palace will always command my respect. But to worship an empty form, to make pretence to believe a gilded mediocrity indispensable to the well-being of the nation
where is the man who will so far forget what is due to his manhood?

In this country loyalty to the Queen is used by the profit-mongers to blind the eyes of the people. We can have but one feeling in the matter – contempt for thrones and for all who bolster them up.

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More from @LabourLeftInt

Sep 26
Labour conference has voted for policies including:

Public ownership of rail, Royal Mail, "utilities + essential industries"; £15 minimum wage; free, public social care; "unequivocal support for workers taking strike action"; support for joining pickets including by MPs.

#Lab22
Motions still to come on climate; violence against women and girls; health; workers' pay; early years and childcare.
All this is after an incredible degree of bureaucratic stitch-ups by the Starmer leadership + party machine, keeping many left-wing motions / demands out.

Motions by themselves obviously aren't decisive. But the left and labour movement should use these as platforms to campaign.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 26
Despite the exclusion of multiple motions, expulsion of delegates, resulting right-wing victories in the priorities ballot and then open exclusion of CLP delegates from compositing, Labour conference will still vote on multiple left-wing policies, including:

#Lab22
At-least-inflation pay rises; a £15 minimum wage; "unequivocal support for workers taking strike action"; a suggestion of joining pickets; public ownership of rail + Royal Mail; and "of utilities and essential industries"; free, publicly funded and provide social care...
Plus "job security and proper sick pay"; "reform of the welfare system to protect dignity and provide adequate
income"; "affordable, good quality childcare"; CEO-worker fair pay ratios...

A lot of it is vague, admittedly, but not all.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 26
A vibrant and militant picket line at the Liverpool docks this morning #solidarity ImageImage
“Statistically this job is more dangerous than the military. You’ve more chance of dying as a docker than you do in the army, where your job is to get shot at.”
“[During the pandemic] nothing stopped for us. They gave us some cards saying ‘critical worker’ in case we got stopped by the police. When it ended they took the card off us again, as though we’re not critical anymore. We’re critical workers 365 days a year mate.”
Read 4 tweets

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