Brexit: second referendum only way to beat Nigel Farage, warns Tom Watson
Jeremy Corbyn’s deputy argues that Labour needs to give much clearer and more enthusiastic backing to another referendum and also spell out a positive, radical vision of how a Labour government could advance socialist values by working with other centre-left parties inside the European Union.
The last bit is the old promise of jam tomorrow, of course. The centre-left supports the bleedin EU fer Chrissake! The old left was defeated decades ago.
He adds: “Labour won’t defeat Farage by being mealy-mouthed and sounding as if we half agree with him. We won’t beat him unless we can inspire the millions crying out for a different direction. [He was speaking] after opinion polls last week put the new Brexit party ahead of Labour and the Conservatives
No doubt new 'cross-party talks' will build on the unity produced by the Faragist threat. Liberal newspapers can be relied upon to do their bit too, of course, mostly by personally rubbishing Farage himself, in a jokey, knowing 'popular culture' sort of way:
In his double-breasted blue blazer and ever-ready grin, Farage looked, as he often does, like an excitable chairman of a crown green bowls club with his own security detail...it was most certainly a very white crowd, almost as white as the Extinction Rebellion [J Snow has still not been forgiven for his jibe about too many white people on the Brexit march --many people have also pointed to the predominance of white people on the climate change protests].
[The Brexit Party] was set up by Catherine Blaiklock in January, but she had to resign when it emerged that, like so many before her in her previous party, Ukip, she’d written things that were not difficult to construe as racist [lawyers,please check] ....[Farage] called for a greater “civility” in British politics, before going on to denounce local Nottinghamshire MP Anna Soubry as “dishonest” and “undemocratic”. The audience yelped its delight, with many of its members more animated than they had been at any time since Nigel Pargetter fell to his death in The Archers.... Tice [the Chairman] called for a more honest, common sense politics, but with his precision-coiffed hair and daytime TV presenter looks, he looked about as sincere as a cosmetic surgeon addressing a gathering of billionaires’ wives.[ The new recruit A Rees-Mogg] seemed to channel Daenerys Targaryen as she sought to explain that her privileged upbringing should not be held against her.
The Observer did its best to argue that the only supporters are elderly white people -- gammon:
“I’m 90,” said Cecil Robinson...Gary Wilkinson, a retired railway worker....Sixty-nine-year-old Lynne Oldham...If it didn’t take such effort to get up at this stage of their lives, the audience would have stormed the podium and laid bouquets at her feet....The crowd struggled once more to its feet
What Farage said was glossed by comments on the 'tone' as usual:
[He] gave a declamatory speech, full of sweat, denunciation and sideswipes at the likes of EU Commission chief, Jean-Claude Juncker and Lord Adonis....“But he’s a clown,” whispered Alicja Bunkenburg, a German woman sitting next to me who was visiting England and worried about the far-right AfD party. [And, for the benefit of anyone really dim who had not yet caught the tone of the Observer report] She meant Farage.
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