flyingrodent

As an historian I often wonder how people learned nothing from the twentieth century and how we have fallen into the mess and rise of fascism yet again and here we are. People simply *don't care* that they are in a military alliance with and dependant on a fascist state when capitalism requires it.

I mean: if the insane rampage of death, destruction and domination continues for a decade after it became indisputable that none of it had anything to do with peace, freedom and democracy, then it does begin to just look like an insane rampage for regional dominance, and nothing more.

Perhaps this is a smart and justified move? It’s hard to tell, because there’s no diplomatic element here beyond “how can we at least appear to comply with and rubber stamp whatever they want this week”.

Asked if an IRGC terrorist listing by EU will lead to severance of EU-Iran diplomatic ties, Kallas EU foreign policy chief said: "These risks have been calculated. The diplomatic part is out of this Revolutionary Guard listing. The interactions with the Foreign Minister are not under this. The estimate is that the diplomatic channels will remain open, even after the listing of the Revolutionary Guards"

Yeah, the thing about this is that it’s been repeatedly demonstrated you all just do whatever you’re told to by America’s latest mad emperor, whether that’s blacklisting US enemies or agreeing that some new catspaw is the real president of a country they’re trying to crush.

Never anything but

I recall it at the time

Doesn’t always copy across correctly, I’m afraid

Anyway, let’s leave it there tonight. Next up, it’s the war crimes and genocide, including the hilarious lies, the obviously concealed complicity and the ludicrous parliamentary stitch-up.

Somer Project. To begin with, they point to a troubling lack of political fret, Stamers pitch as leader has often centred on his met a a man of the law and of integrity. While Starmer's unpan of frebies was legal, it is obvious that questions mad ane about why he accepted the freebies and whether wring as expected in return. That something is legal does wit make it ethical, wise or free from credible accusations of mlicts of interest. Second, they point to the fact that the Starmer Project's war a the left did not just yield political control-it also allowed may of the project's allies and fellow travellers to earn sal-anes as lobbyists with access to the incoming government. Conism threatened a long-running and cosy relationship between the Labour Party, lobbying firms, and big business, al of whom were frozen out by a leadership that was instinctively hostile to the sort of corporate glad-handing the Labour night tinds so comfortable. In defeating Corbynism, the Starmer Project returned the party to this Blairite political mode-a ransformation that worked to the personal financial benefit of many of its most ardent supporters. Finally, and most obviously, they suggest that the Labour Party under Starmer has arguably been co-opted by big business and the mega-rich-maybe even captured. This is likely to have serious and material implications for the party's policymaking in government. Indeed, the extensive corporate and lobbying relationships cultivated by the Starmer Project raise serious red flags pointing to the risk of corruption. Freebies may be legal, but they are also one way that companies and billionaires secure enhanced access to political figures, whom they can then lobby behind closed doors. Indeed, this is often how corruption starts: a few lavish meals here and there, lubricated with fancy wines and cocktails, where unscrupulous actors can suss out who in government might be open to collaboration. Similarly, a HE FRAUD 471

Indeed my man, indeed.

Those early interviews with the journos squirming with embarrassment at the very belligerent retorts they were getting were hilarious, at the time. It was very obviously dawning on the hacks that they had just helped elect a bunch of clueless children who thought they were untouchable superstars.

The post-election bungs scandal was IMO intended as a shot across the bows: the equivalent of the guy whispering in the Emperor’s ear - Remember that you are just a man, remember that one day you will die. Labour’s response was: Fuck you, I earned these Taylor tickets and these free fancy duds.

Again: everyone understood the ludicrous wrecking campaign and the half-decade of absurdly corrupt stitchups were the work of the party’s former billionaire bungs officer, and they were all fine with it. This is also the reason why the very first scandal was about all the bribes the lads knew about.

I remember the newspapers and magazines politics podcasts talking about this at the time. The lads were *absolutely beside themselves with joy* at the way Big Business was lining up to shove money into the party’s pockets. And as you can see now, the economy is booming and we’re all rich.

You’ll remember this from stories about how all this shit showed “Labour are back… and serious about governing”. The point of taking all these bungs and freebies isn’t only to get stuff: it’s to demonstrate your incoming government too will be much more generous to its new corporate friends.

The TL:DR is: they took a member-led, member-funded party that made its own policy decisions and turned it into a viciously reactionary engine for turning millionaire bungs into favours and contracts, negotiated directly with donors, and a gravy train of jobs for a tiny number of very specific lads.

Co weare Starmer prepared to make tough choices' that wel lut por people. In july 2023, he announced that the Waker Party would not scrap the two-child benefit cap intro-ard by the Tories in 2015. This was a screeching U-turn on a policy that almost the full breadth of Labour MPs and support-considered appalling. Just a month prior, for example, the dadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth had told The Mirror that the cap was among the 'most heinous elements of the system which is pushing children and families into poverty today: 30 In a moment laden with symbolism, Starmer defended this decision in front of a well-heeled audience at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Starmer complained to Blair that, we keep saying collectively as a party [that] we have to take decisions, and in the abstract everyone says, "yes, that is nghr".... But when we get [to] a tough decision,... they say, "well I don't like that"3 In 2024, the party confirmed that it had no intention of reversing a Tory decision to remove limits on bankers' bonuses, and further that it would not increase corporation tax during the lifetime of the next parliament. Britain's corporate tax rate, al 25 percent, is the lowest in the entire G7; it was increased from 19 percent by the Tories in 2023, meaning that Labours policy was, in effect, to simply keep what the Tories had already implemented. In the space of less than a year, between mid-2023 and early 2024, Starmer's party had thus stated that they intended to keep taxes on corporations and the rich low, and allow bankers to be paid the sorts of bonuses that were widely Viewed as having contributed to the 2008 financial crash-all 459

two-child benefit cap. Labour tracked the Tories on civil liberties, too, which was striking considering the Tories' unusually authoritarian legislative agenda. In May 2023, in the midst of the much-criticised preventive arrest of anti-royalist demonstrators, Starmer said that the party had no intention of repealing the Tories' Public Order Act passed that month. The Act massively expanded the scope of police powers to disrupt and stop any protest considered disruptive, and even gave police the power to issue protest-banning orders that would prevent individuals from attending events Starmer assured critics that there simply hadn't been enough time for an act that erased fundamental rights to bed in', and that any defects could be resolved by case law and fresh guidance. 33 It was under the powers granted by this Act that five Just Stop Oil protestors would be sentenced to five years in prison in July 2024-much longer than the average sentences for assault or robbery. Their offence was planning to disrupt a motorway, in order to bring attention to the climate crisis that threatens the foundations of modern life. Amnesty International has argued that the Act's other con-sequence-the introduction of stop-and-search powers that police may deploy against protestors without any cause for suspicion-would be counterproductive and likely to increase racial discrimination'.34 Party policy on the NHS was equally concerning. Despite repeatedly pointing out the near collapse of the service, the party refused to commit to any increased funding after a lengthy period of austerity and a devastating cut in real-term wages for NHS staff. Instead, the party promised reform, holding out that the NHS' many problems would be resolved by artificial intelligence, while the shadow health minister Wes Streeting explained that Labour would look to bring in private sector contractors to expand NHS capacity in the short run.

The stuff about policymaking for 2024 is about as edifying as you will remember it being.

should be let in. Red Shift was clear that neither the Activist Left nor the Centrist Liberals were in play. They would vote Labour regardless and were in any case concentrated in safe Labour seats. The central strategic question was thus: 'who wins the Patriotic Left and the Disillusioned Suburbans? These were the two demographics that Labour needed to target to win a majority, even if their views were incommensurate with those of the Activist Lett and Centrist Liberals. This was a slap in the face for Centrist Liberals, who arguably formed Starmer's natural cultural constituency but were now being told that their loyalty to Labour would be rewarded with irrelevance. But Red Shift went beyond just suggesting that the Activist Left should not be targeted. It argued that, in fact, Labour's core 2019 voter base should be actively repudiated, along with the party's membership and even some Labour MPs.

should be let in. Red Shift was clear that neither the Activist Left nor the Centrist Liberals were in play. They would vote Labour regardless and were in any case concentrated in safe Labour seats. The central strategic question was thus: 'who wins the Patriotic Left and the Disillusioned Suburbans? These were the two demographics that Labour needed to target to win a majority, even if their views were incommensurate with those of the Activist Lett and Centrist Liberals. This was a slap in the face for Centrist Liberals, who arguably formed Starmer's natural cultural constituency but were now being told that their loyalty to Labour would be rewarded with irrelevance. But Red Shift went beyond just suggesting that the Activist Left should not be targeted. It argued that, in fact, Labour's core 2019 voter base should be actively repudiated, along with the party's membership and even some Labour MPs.

Libs and the left would vote Labour regardless, so they should be disregarded and indeed insulted and denigrated.

Beginning in April 2022 and ending with a whopping £900,000 donation made in June 2024 to boost the party's general election war chest, Lubner donated £5,930,000 to the Labour Party and a further £288,000 to the associated Co-operative Party. In 2023, he also made four donations valued at £125,000 to Labour to Win, the body used by Luke Akehurst to out-organise the left in the party. Lubner's choice of recipients was a powerful recognition of the importance of both Labour Together and Labour to Win for the Starmer Project. By early 2024, Labour Together was reported to be so well staffed and funded that it had placed large numbers of its own employees into the Labour Party. By May 2024, the Financial Times reported that the organisation was paying the salaries of staff working with nine separate shadow ministers.? Recipients of the largesse included the offices of some of Labour Together's brave band' of eight MPs who were credited with defeating Corbynism and securing the rise of Starmer, such as Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves. From late 2023 onward, Labour Together thus effectively became a hybrid entity: although formally existing outside of the Labour Party, it directed substantial resources to staffing the party, with a no doubt commensurate impact on policy. Electoral Commission figures show that Labour Together gave cash and non-cash donations valued at £607,914 to the Labour Party from October 2023 to July 2024, including over £75,000 in cash and non-cash donations during the 2024 general election. Josh Simons was clear that Labour Together effectively coordinated its work with the most influential people in the party, also confirming the continued importance of Morgan McSweeney to its work. 'Everything we do is coordinated closely with Morgan McSweeney and Sue Gray and with Deborah Mattinson, Simons told the Financial Times in May 2024, illustrating how the lines between the party leadership and Labour Together had become difficult to distinguish. Gray was…

Nothing says “meaningfully real actual democracy” quite like a hidden party within the party, which nobody in politics or media wants to talk about.

and July 2024. (See Table 4.) The scale of Labour Together's resources, in the conten of the UK's broader political funding environment, is hard to overstate. An analysis by Scottish paper The National in fune 2024 showed that the £1.92 million donated to Labour Together in 2024 was equal to 56.5 percent of all political donations to regulated donees, as in those not made directly to parties in the same period? Transparency International UK (TI-UK), the British atm of the global anti-corruption organisation, has sounded the alarm about the impact of such huge political donations on the health of British democracy. "These sorts of giant amounts so far removed from most of the public's disposable incomes risk further undermining public trust in the system, as it looks like democracy for sale? TI-UK has sensibly proposed upper limits on the political donations that can be made by individuals. TABLE 4. Donations to Labour Together, (continued) 446 PAUL HOLDEN January 2023-July 2024° Amount Donated Donor €2,102,000 Martin Taylor £663,900 Gary Lubner £313,000 Lord Sainsbury Francesca Perrin €210,000

Donor Ecotricity Group Ian Laming Sir Trevor Chinn Nick Marple Daniel Luhde-Thompson Fiona Mactaggart William Perrin William Reeves Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Lionel Cooke Memorial Fund Phillip Chambers Labour Climate and Environment Forum Mike Craven Amount Donated £150,000 £100,000 £86,500 £75,000 £50,000 €50,000 £50,000 £50,000 £40,000 £30,000 £20,000 £20,000 €10,000 Labour Together stalwarts Chinn and Taylor were joined by some notable new contributors. One was Fran Perrin, philanthropist and daughter of the billionaire Lord Sainsbury, alongside her husband. Her father was the organisation's third-biggest donor over the period. Lord Sainsbury had been a prominent supporter of Tony Blair.

Tiny sums by US standards but enormous bungs, in UK terms. Remember: this whole project was led from day one by the party’s then-redundant squillionaire bribes officer.

(One thing the author doesn’t note is that as much of this bullshit as possible was done specifically in ways that would prevent legal challenge, because barely any of it would withstand five seconds in front of any legal authority who couldn’t be shitehoused with screaming newspaper headlines).

explains on its website. In late June 2023, Lawson received, seemingly out of the blue, a Labour Party notice of investigation. Lawson was told that he was being investigated for a tweet he had published in 2021. In line with Compass' big-tent approach, Lawson had retweeted a post from a Lib Dem MP suggesting that it would make sense for some voters to back Green Party candidates in local elections to achieve the best progressive (and anti-Tory) outcome. Lawson commented that this was grown-up, progressive politics' Lawson was told in 2023 that he was under investigation for supporting another political party-an auto-exclusion offence that could end his four-decade mem-bership. His case would only be resolved two years later, in 2025, when the charges were dropped with no explanation as to why it had taken so long to process an obviously absurd charge against him. Lawson's investigation appeared to come out of nowhere. But Labour Party emails show that Lawson was the subject of a complaint as early as 2021, filed by none other than Luke Akehurst, complaining about this 2021 tweet. Party emails show that in May 2021, Akehurst used the 'VIP Lane' to directly 432 PAUL HOLDEN

“But now we shall both drown”, said the frog. “LOL,” said the scorpion. “LMAO”.

Bottom line: everyone still knows the whole thing is a travesty of democracy and an insult to the public and they either keep quiet out of self-interest, or they love it and cheer it on. This is precisely why we now have such a popular, beloved, intelligent and capable government.

Neto enusion was particularly shocking given that Pret Report had only recently been published, to the r Pery s near-total indifference. The Voice criticised the taure to take Forde seriously and its failure to respond Aera's The Labour Files documentaries, which it accused kaders of trying to ignore!* 1 March 2019, the Labour Party had launched the Bernie Can Leadership Programme, named after one of the country's dest Black MPs. The programme was established to increase the aber of BAME candidates for parliament and offered train-Dog ir aspiring MPs.® By 2023, not a single graduate of the pro-pamme had been selected as an MP candidate. Maurice Mcleod bad been a graduate, as had Mish Rahman, a well-known It-ring campaigner. Rahman failed to make the longlist for Maberhampton West in 2023 despite being an elected member of the party's NEC. In effect, his own NEC colleagues had determined him unsuited for an MP role, indicative of how factional the body had become.* Those same NEC members would then select themselves for safe parliamentary seats, with no local party involvement, during the general election. In July 2023, Bernie Grant's widow Sharon Grant told The Guardian that she feared the lack of proper progress for Black MPs and aspiring candidates meant that the entire leadership programme may not be worthy of bearing Bernie's name, while also raising the real likelihood that black and brown voters may choose to stay at home or cast their vote elsewhere' The same Guardian article carried multiple quotes from graduates of the programme, all of whom remained anony-mous. The graduates' patent fear of reprisal for putting their names to their experiences lurks powerfully as an unstated theme of the article. In one disturbing paragraph, The Guardian noted that 'some BLP graduates, who have asked to remain anonymous, fear they will not ever be able to reach a Labour

And on, and on. You get the idea.

Bange the DNA of the Labour Party in its entire history; one amed Labour MP told openDemocracy in April 2023.? The process of selecting candidates for parliament ahead of the 2024 general election was closely overseen by Morgan MoSweeney, who was responsible for getting Labour elec-ton-ready. He worked with Labour First's Matt Pound and Matt Paulding. Faulding was appointed by Starmer's office, in late 2021 or early 2022, to take charge of the day-to-day management of the selection process. Faulding had previously served as the deputy director of Progress, a pressure group formed in 1996 to support Tony Blair. Luke Akehurst was often chosen as the NEC representative overseeing selection panels or participating in them. The result, bluntly, was that four white, middle-aged men, all linked to the party's most aggressively night-wing minority factions, unilaterally reshaped Labour's parliamentary presence in this unique period of flux. The stitch-ups were straightforward affairs. The NEC representatives overseeing parliamentary candidate selections worked alongside the party's regional bureaucrats to filter who could and couldn't make it onto each selection longlist. Key to this process was the introduction of a 'due diligence' exercise overseen by the right-dominated NEC, which scoured the histories of left-wing candidates to find any marginally credible

Once the NEC had purged selection longlists of political impurities, the lists were given to local parties as the basis for developing a final shortlist to go to the membership. If local parties got uppity and tried to cultivate a non-factional shortlist, the NEC simply suspended the local committees and took over the selection processor pushed through their choices after head office interference caused entire CLP executives to resign, as happened in Wakefield in 20222 and in both Broxtowe and Copeland in 2023.2 By 2024, however, even this sham performance of democracy was jettisoned. In March 2024, it was reported that the NEC's Ann Black had sent a message to CLP WhatsApp groups stating that the remaining candidate selection processes would not involve local voting. Instead, candidates would simply be appointed by the NEC3 As we will see in the final chapter of this book, the process took on a farcical air after Prime Minister Sunak called the general election, with the NEC parachuting its own members, like Luke Akehurst, into safe Labour seats, without so much as a passing nod towards democracy. Starmer had, of course, promised the Labour Party membership during his leadership campaign that he would bring this sort of thing to an end. As part of his 'reform and unite' platform announced in early February 2020, Starmer declared that local party members should select their candidates for every election. The NEC should not impose candidates on local parties"3 Opposition to Starmer's dictatorial party management was not just the griping of a disaffected left wing. The only journalist who kept tabs on the Labour selection process in any depth was Michael Crick, the former political editor of the BBC's flagship political programme, Newsnight. His damning conclusion: 'Labour's selection processes are unfair, and verge on corrupt. Crick observed that selection procedures were systematically skewed in order to bring about the 'utter annihilation/' of the left, as virtuall…

This is all recent history which may of you will remember, and remember me talking about. Still, here it is if needed. Pages and pages of this stuff.

ignored in contemporary retellings * Laour Pary history, It is notable, in light of the gravity of Armat indings and the political implications of his subsequent fratment. that he barely features in Pogrund and Maguire's Ark on this period, Get In. Indeed, Forde is given just a single mention across 480 pages, and then only to note his appoint-ment. Pardes findings, the release of the report, and the party's respanse are not discussed at all. Extraordinarily, Forde also claimed that he had come under direct pressure from the BBC to alter the report's find-imps would be grateful if you would consider amending your repart in respect of your references to Panorama so that it more fairly reflects what the programme said, the editor of Anorama, Karen Wightman, had written to Forde in relation to his comments about how LOTO intervention had been reported in the media. Forde also received an email from Panorama journalist John Ware, who claimed that Forde's report has done significant damage to my reputation and to that of the Corporation for journalistic integrity. Ware demanded a response by the following day and copied in the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Jake Wallis Simons. Forde was taken aback' and felt that Ware's letter was akin to a letter before action. Forde diplomatically noted that, while Ware had followed the evidence', Forde's investi-pation was, in effect, more complete. This was because, unlike Ware, T also interviewed some of those who hadn't participated in (Panorama) from the alternative faction... and I would like to think as a Barrister now for thirty-eight years, I have a degree of forensic skill in determining the credibility of witnesses.

Well, I will leave you to put two and two together, about what was happening there.

Notes that Forde himself ended up having to explain his frustrations at his report being ignored to *Al Jazeera*, because the British press - once so feverishly, fervently focused upon racism in the Labour Party - suddenly developed an intense aversion, and nobody wanted to hear what he had to say.

Does this sound quite similar to, say, the very expensive, very forensic report into the Iraq War and its damning findings, which the press instantaneously binned and nobody ever talked about again, because they wanted to keep inviting Tony and Alastair on TV? It should, because it’s the same shit.

I won’t relitigate but will summarise: the Forde Report reveals in some detail that the public have been sold a load of old shite and *at very best* been told an extremely partial and one-sided account of what’s been going on. The press agree it’s boring, instantly bin it and never mention it again.