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...

Labour's defence industrial strategy framework is meaty: it learns the lessons from dirigist countries and marks a break from DSIS2021 - some highlights: 1/ The trade unions are at the table - and so are regional employment objectives... unions will be on the sector council ... 🧵
2/ It is frank about what is wrong.

Jeremy and his merry bunch echoing Putin's talking points - so let's take them one by one: 🧵1/ it is Russia who has escalated. Firing ATACMs and Storm Shadows is both Ukraine's right; both have been used before and changing the targeting is incremental. Yet they make no criticism of Putin firing the IRBM. Why? ... 2/ There is no threat of "all out escalation" between NATO and Russia. NATO is not fighting Russia. Nor did NATO supply the missiles fired at Russia: Britain and USA and France did. This is not a semantic difference. NATO is a defensive alliance ...

Trump's apparent victory has 5 big implications for the UK: 🧵

1️⃣ It can happen here. He will back Farage, the Musk propaganda machine will crank up against Labour; the Tories will remould themselves into Trump-lite Islamophobes ... 2️⃣ The UK needs to become the European leader of NATO, and all European countries need to hike spending on defence and democratic resilience. America is a permanently unreliable ally in this century

With Harris strengthening in late polls, there are three overnight scenarios: 1/ Harris wins clearly. Trump refuses to concede but is reliant on vexatious claims and lawsuits. Harris declares victory. World community recognises result quickly (btw look at these kids' faces!)... 2/ Harris wins but result relies on one or two states and MAGA begin a mixture of Jan 6, Charlottesville, Brooks Bros riot targeting these states alone. Recounts and lawsuits fly. At this stage Western govts have to seize first opportunity to recognise result or that fuels tension....

"We shall have only one class in this country - the working class..." Who said that? The woman in the picture behind @RachelReevesMP as she prepares the first real growth budget for 14 years. 1/ Here's what that means...🧵 2/ Today's budget is about choices. The first choice Labour will make is to promote growth - because the 2008 crisis, Brexit and post-Covid have all suppressed it, and we cannot deliver to working class people without growth...

See what's happening here? Putin's sympathisers - far left and far right - are calling Ukraine's justified demand for permission to defend itself "escalation" ... 1/ but it's not just about StormShadows for Ukraine ...

2/ The Western alliance of democratic countries is on the verge of big choices that, once taken, will lead to Russia's defeat. First off - ignoring Putin's claim that permission to strike equals direct war. If true Iran would be at war with Ukraine

Today's OBR report into the the long-term impacts of climate and ageing on UK debt is typically sobering: to follow neoliberal strictures, we would need 50 years of unremitting austerity...1/ But here's why we don't need to...🧵 2/ The OBR methodology is to project demands on spending against policies in place in March 2024. This always produces dire graphic projections... but there is good news: higher productivity wipes out the debt burden of demographic ageing and climate

Last night's anti-racist demos were a moral victory over fascism - much bigger in their political impact than their local effect 👇... but it's only the start. 1/ The fact remains: hundreds of thousands of English people hate their neighbours badly enough to attack them in riots... 2/ I was at Walthamstow. It was relaxed, peaceful, confident and well policed. But one train-load of "football lads" arriving would have led to disaster because - make no mistake, the targeted communities are ready for self-defence...

About tonight's fascist hit-list. It's been widely circulated but some far-right influencers are now putting it around that it's a "state provocation", and saying don't show up... 1/ There are counter-demos planned, and strong policing/security in the most likely targets - but... 2/ the real test comes this weekend. I am monitoring far-right channels and can see no further public calls for targeting. The fascist networks are now stirring a new narrative: that it is Muslims perpetrating the violence...hence the fascists most likely COA is provocations...

The latest from numbskull county... what's happening on UK far right channels today 1/ They're warning each other to ditch phones, remove exif data and mask up...might have been sensible to do this *before* committing riot and disorder but hey... 2/... known far right influencers are saying "don't target Mosques because we're not ready for that conflict... yet" - instead the emerging fantasy is of an economic boycott of taxi and food apps (because their workforce is minority) and a run on the banks...

The mob vs Starmer. Why this is Britain's January 6th... 1/ The sudden upsurge of far-right violence has strong parallels with Russia 1905/Italy 1920 - plebeian far right suddenly lose the underpinnings of their political reality... theneweuropean.co.uk/the-mob-vs-sta… 2/ In this case, the violent racist right - which certainly numbers tens of thousands - suddenly lost "their" government - with no prospect of it ever returning... every incident reminding them of this maddens them... theneweuropean.co.uk/the-mob-vs-sta…

Yesterday's riots have woken people up to the scale of the far right challenge. But we’re still getting a lot of things wrong. 1/ The fascists achieved something: they have terrorised Britain’s BAME population. I’ve got people contacting me saying they don’t feel safe… 2/ 🧵The policing was followed the public order playbook, but it didn’t work. It’s no use just dispersing mobs and trawling the footage afterwards for arrests. It allows serious targeted violence against individuals - and with fascists, that is the point of the rioting…

The political dynamics of this week’s far-right riots are unique on many levels. 🧵1/ First: it’s organised/incited. Tommy Robinson’s lieutenant “Danny Tommo” issued a call: searchlightmagazine.com/2024/07/tommy-…
2/ The violence is not yet mass or self-replicating. It is symbolic, to be amplified on social media. Participants are a mixture of organised far-right, racist men and locals dragged in by disinformation/criminal loyalty… it's containable by tough public order policing…

There were racist mob incidents last night in Hartlepool, Manchester, Aldershot and Whitehall, in each case stoked by online disinformation. History tells us this could escalate so we need: 1/ Swift arrest and sentencing of those inciting and committing violence... 2/ Immediate action by Ofcom to shut down any platform whose algorithm is promoting incendiary content and disinformation...

Sunday Times becomes first Murdoch newspaper to back Labour ... the rationale is functionalist: my car keeps breaking down so I must change it... 1/ 2/ ... but it offers no clue as to why the car is so faulty... only that changing the salesman didn't help either...

One of the joys of not being economics editor of Newsnight anymore is... being able to state when the Institute for Fiscal Studies is talking out of its derriere. Today they've had a go at Labour's plan to offer statutory sick pay to the lowest-paid workers 1/... ifs.org.uk/articles/labou… 2/ At present there's a lower limit on SSP: you have to be earning more than £123 a week to get it. That leaves 1.1 million workers without access, two thirds of them women...plus you don't get SSP for the first three days of absence... .tuc.org.uk/blogs/scrappin…

In June 2021 the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender sailed past Russian-occupied Crimea, triggering the Russian navy to fire shots over its bow. Does Nigel Farage think our Navy "provoked this war"? 1/ I ask because he wants to be prime minister...🧵 2/ He says NATO and the EU "provoked this war" by expanding Eastwards... that's a pure repetition of the lie peddled by pro-Trump fascists and pro-Putin tankies... but let's explore the reality: before 2022 NATO ruled out Ukrainian membership...

Sunak's strategy was to squeeze Reform by pandering to racism. It's ended up with crossover: Reform emerging as a protest vote option for some conservative voters who could never vote Lab/Libdem ... and like Brexit it's driven by loathing of immigration 1/... Big consequences ... 2/ Reform surge could, if the Sunak fails to stop it, reduce Tories to double figures while putting a handful of Reform MPs in Parliament - a voice for outright Islamophobia and pro-Putin foreign policy... And then the fun begins: a multi-year project to elect a far right govt in Britain...

What does Labour's spending plan tell us? That the conditions where social-democracy could achieve change through fiscal expansion have vanished (for now). 1/ However redistribution can happen thru many channels - and this is a highly redistributive manifesto ... 2/ Each of Labour's Five Missions is redistributional... growth, thru higher real wages (boosted by the New Deal) ... Net Zero thru energy security and local control... crime and education thru enhancing individual opportunity ... and the NHS is an engine of social justice

Why is Sunak's campaign imploding and how bad could it get? I think we could - but not inevitably - be witnessing the end of the post-1945 Tory formation. A 🧵... 1/ They have achieved nothing in 14 years except Brexit... 2/ ... and since the 2019 election the swing voters who delivered Johnson's majority (@LabourTogether voter segments)...have begun to desert them because Brexit has failed, both materially and morally...