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Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

Nov 21 • 11 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X

This post is problematic for a number of reasons.

A thread…🧵

1. For those attempting to make sense of Trump’s victory and the rise of the far-right across Europe - look no further than the PMs statement below.

Whether you like it or not, the far-right has a set of common narratives. We can probably all recite them…

2. Something like, ‘the reason you’re in an overpriced, damp rental; your gran lives in squalor; your job is low paid/insecure &your public services crumbling - is because elites declared war on workers, favoured immigrants & made your life more expensive with their ‘green crap

3. ‘Vote for us and we will deport the immigrants, stop the elites, cut the green crap & declare war on woke, Britain will be great again.’

4. This is a story. It has ‘beginning, middle & end or rather it sets the scene, explains why we are where we are and offers a solution. In other words it has goodies, baddies and happy ending.

5.Labour’s story, just like the US Democrats, doesn’t make narrative sense.
Rather than explain how 40 years of atomising, neoliberal plunder; the selling-off of & destruction of our public services; the undermining or our democracy, the hollowing out and selling off of our natural resources…

6. …at the hands of companies like Blackrock and other price-gouging corporations, billionaires & financial institutions, has led us here.

7. Instead we refuse to give a credible explanation for how we got here other than ‘it was Tory chaos’. Problem is when the political & economic permacrisis continues, that won’t be a viable explanation.

8. By refusing to identify who the culprits for this state of affairs is, we fail to make a convincing narrative story that explaims our predicament. Instead we become the defenders of the very elites/
- the business as usual brigade - that the right claim we are

9. Even though the far-right themselves are a core part of the very establishment that championed these policies.

10. Therefore we either develop a story as the agents of progressive change, identifying those responsible and pledging to fix it, or we make way for the inevitability of a far-right victory, just like in the US.

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Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

Nov 6

1/5 Trump's victory shows the authoritarian right can win even with rising GDP and supposedly 'good' economic figures. We must do three things if we don't want them to win here.

2/5 Firstly, accept that 'growth' alone is not a panacea. It has to be fairly distributed. That means significantly raising living standards and fixing our public services.
The quickest and fairest way to do that is to tax and redistribute excessive wealth and profits and find ways to stop profiteering on essentials like housing, energy, and food.

3/5 Second. Tell a story. Whether we like their stories or not, the authoritarian right has several - and they work. Even if you can get economic activity redistributed, you still need a narrative which explains to people what has gone wrong (neoliberalism), how you're fixing it (see above) and what the future will look like (narrative vision).
It also needs villains and heroes: extractive, price-gouging corporations, banks, and exploitative employers vs institutions that can rebuild social cohesion, devolved democracy and a sense of empowerment.

Read 5 tweets

Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

Feb 21

The House of Commons now supports a ceasefire.

However MPs arrived at this, whatever the scenes that unfolded, we must not forget the source of the suffering and anguish that has driven this fractious debate.

A thread on today's ceasefire debate.

1/6

Whether in Israel or Gaza, the ultimate truth is that it is fellow human beings who have been killed in the most awful of ways these past few months.

That must end, and all remaining hostages must be released.

2/6

Without going into detail about today’s chaotic parliamentary procedures, the bottom line is this.

Around 30,000 people in and around Gaza have so far been killed by the Israeli military and many more are in imminent danger from a new potential Israeli offensive in Rafah.

3/6

Read 6 tweets

Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

Feb 7

1. As someone with Grenadian heritage - I want to mark the 50th anniversary of the independence of Grenada.

A thread on the questions that remain unanswered.

2. To mark 50 years, I asked the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office a series of written parliamentary questions, one of which reads:

Whether his Department holds information on the location of the remains of Maurice Bishop, the former prime minister of Grenada.

3. To understand why I asked this question you need to know about the history of this Caribbean island.

This story starts in 1834, when Britain abolished slavery, paying the slave owners the equivalent of billions of pounds in today’s money.

taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/sla…

Read 12 tweets

Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

Feb 2

1. Instead of backing down, it is time for Labour to face down the Tories and win the case for public investment in the climate transition - of £28bn and beyond.

Thread.

2. The Conservative's failure on public investment and planning is writ large across our country.

Just look to the steelworkers and community of Port Talbot. They face the collapse of their livelihood due to the govt's failure to plan for or invest in the future of UK steel.

3. In this context, Labour should be boldly setting out its vision for government.

A vision about how judicious public investment will future-proof industry, revive our economy and make our homes, workplaces and communities safer, more pleasant places to be.

Read 13 tweets

Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

Jan 27

Holocaust Memorial Day is the day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

But whilst we remember we should also reflect.

A thread. 1/8

My own reflection often centres on the time I was fortunate enough to be taken to Auschwitz by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

There is no substitute for the humbling effect of seeing a camp that has become synonymous with mass murder and humanity’s capacity for darkness.

2/8

Whilst there, one of the key lessons I learned involved a guided tour of various photo exhibitions.

Some were the confiscated photographs of inmates, many of whom were murdered there, showing smiling family scenes before the horrors of Nazi persecution.

3/8

Read 8 tweets

Clive Lewis MP

@labourlewis

Jan 26

If the UK and US dismiss the ICJ ruling, this is those such double standards would play out across much of the world, according to the Chatham House Thinktank:

1. “The west cares about democracy, but not when it wants to install leaders it likes in other countries…

2. “It respects sovereignty except when it does not, as in Iraq. It argues for self-determination in Taiwan, not in Catalonia. It supports human rights, but not in countries from which it needs oil. It defends human rights except when it gets too difficult, as in Afghanist

3. “These accusations, if unanswered, give those countries that want to undermine the west a weapon even if their own hypocrisy is luminous.”

In this context, dismissal of the ICJ would compound the problem.

Read 4 tweets

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