Corbyn Coup Misjudges Public Mood

The article below has just been posted on The Huffington Post website. Why not click on the link & show Corbyn some love. Wherever you are in the world!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tess-finchlees/jeremy-corbyn_b_10760550.html

The Blairite coup against Jeremy Corbyn has sorely misjudged the public mood. The economy is in free fall and the rampant racism unleashed by the Leave campaign makes the “No blacks, dogs and Irish” signs of the 60’s seem welcoming. Vigilante bigots now roam our streets attacking “foreigners”, issuing unofficial deportation orders demanding, “We want our country back”.

The first parliamentary debate I attended ten years ago was on the Darfur genocide. I took my place in the press gallery just as the then secretary of state for International Development, Hilary Benn, stood up. His opening words served as my first lesson in political chicanery, “I am delighted to see such a full house”. There were 6 people present, including himself.

After wards, I asked John Bercow (my then MP and Darfur ally) why Benn had implied there was a full house. He said, “One word Tess. Hansard” (the official public record). Since then I’ve never taken what a politician says at face value.

The architects of the Corbyn coup, including Benn, defend their treachery by claiming that, if Corbyn couldn’t convince Labour voters to Remain, then he can’t win a general election. But, Corbyn delivered a 2/3 Labour majority for the Remain camp, something Margaret Hodge, who tabled the motion of no confidence against Corbyn, ironically couldn’t achieve. Her constituents voted to Leave. 

The truth is that the coup wasn’t staged because Blairites don’t think Jeremy Corbyn could win the next election. It was because they fear he could. A Corbyn win would be an unequivocal endorsement of his progressive Labour and yet another outright rejection of Blair’s right wing New Labour/Thatcherite agenda.

As chair of the Labour In campaign, Alan Johnson’s line up of pale, male and stale spokespeople failed to inspire. Women, young people and ethnic minorities hardly got a look in. Producing the toxic trio though (Blair, Brown and Campbell), was the final nail in the coffin. I know people who voted Leave out of protest at being pontificated at by “The war mongering Bliar”. The idea that the men who presided over the global financial crash would boost trust and credibility to the Remain camp signals the extent to which Alan Johnson, like his Blairite plotters, is in denial about the incendiary legacy of New Labour.

The Blairites went up against Corbyn nine months ago. He won the leadership with a landslide victory. The membership rejected their right wing austerity agenda, which lost Labour the last election. They rejected the “Tory light” candidates, who failed to vote against Tory welfare reforms last July, which proposed abolishing legally binding child poverty targets, cutting child tax credits and Employment Allowance, as well as housing benefit for young people.

Among the several thousand people that flooded parliament square on Monday to show Corbyn their support, were junior doctors. They weren’t there to mourn the resignation of Shadow Health Secretary, Heidi Alexander, who refused to stand by them on the picket lines. They were there to reciprocate the unequivocal support Corbyn showed them during their months of bullying by Jeremy Hunt.

New Labour supported the Con-Dem’s Health and Social Care Act, which sanctioned the privatisation of the NHS. Heidi Alexander had the opportunity to reverse elements of that by backing Caroline Lucas’ NHS reinstatement Bill, but she declined to do so. At a time when the NHS is under constant attack, Alexander lacked the conviction to fight for it.

One of the few people on the political landscape that people trust, whose integrity we cling to as we drown in a quagmire of Brexit fallout, has been stabbed in the back. The brutality of the attack has fuelled the contagion of hate and makes the Tories look like teddy bears.

When all Labour’s guns should be pointing at the industrial incompetence of the Tory wreckers, the Blairites are plotting to oust their own leader. Someone even they agree, is an honourable, decent man. They want to replace him with a Teflon Tony or a PR Dave. Media darlings they may be, but arguably two of the worst Prime Ministers in this country’s history. If ever there was a time for principled leaders, like Jeremy Corbyn, it’s now. 

Britain is Broken

In a vote that became about hate & fear v's love & hope, hate won. Like many immigrants waking up in Britain today, I'm not feeling the love.

My Independent article this week (below) unleashed a barrage of hate. Outrage at the temerity of suggesting that austerity, not immigration, is the cause of the shortage of school places, GP appointments and social housing. Immigrants didn't cause the global economic crisis & without our taxes the UK's debt would/will rise and, as for austerity? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Britain is broken. A piece of my heart is broken too.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/now-my-eight-year-old-thinks-he-could-be-deported-because-of-leave-rhetoric-clearly-its-time-to-face-a7095016.html

"Am I a foreigner mum?" Why I don't want any part of a little Britain

The article below was published in today's Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/now-my-eight-year-old-thinks-he-could-be-deported-because-of-leave-rhetoric-clearly-its-time-to-face-a7095016.html

An Ode to Michael-John

Remembering my dear Dad on Father's day. Michael-John Foley grew up on a farm in county Mayo, Ireland. He walked bare foot across the fields to school. He was my hero.

I remember your favourite colour was blue

That you liked crew neck jumpers & a dapper shoe

I know you had your fair share of strife

& that West Brom’s performance was the bane of your life

Never knowingly short of a yarn, your stories always had me gripped

Out for a stroll in Bridie’s field

A convincing ghost – you had us all tricked!

Poaching salmon on your neighbour’s land, who today would understand?

Foraging barefoot you brought home the grub

Your mother was proud, ‘till you became an honorary Dub!

You strutted your stuff on a Saturday night

The clubs of Camden provided much needed respite

Travelling around from town to town

The cold dank digs didn’t get you down

The crib you made with your own bare hands

For me that was Christmas, magical & clever

The bedtime stories you created

Enchanting & funny. Thanks belated

The Sunday roast you always cooked

Because, you said, “The Shelbourne is booked”!

Hide & seek in Phoenix Park

Picnics & caravans, up with the lark

Behind the curtain in economy class

You said, “I have a dream” & the passengers laughed

In Bogota, pursued in the street

Wearing a Chicago bulls cap – not exactly discreet!

There are those consumed by bitterness & anger

& there are those, like you Dad, who rise above rancour

A gentleman – you never complained

Whatever your burden you bore it alone

Your grandsons meant the world to you, in them your legacy lives on

Last Christmas with Archie was so very special,

Memories abound to look back upon

When mam died you were broken hearted

Death did you part, now at last reunited

A loving father right to the end

Determined to shield us from what no-one could mend

You died like you lived, with dignity & grace

No-one can ever fill your space

Wise, witty, warm & true

Our lives won’t be the same without you

Michael-John, you’ll be in our hearts forever

Memories of you we’ll always treasure

Child sex abuse stories buried under EU referendum hysteria

This blog was published in Monday's Huffington Post. Just before Clement Freud (BBC quizz show star & liberal MP) was exposed as a rampant paedophile.

Every child sex abuse news story triggers a Pavlovesque reaction in me. It’s as if a jagged blade is lodged in my heart and someone’s twisting it. The physical pain is searing.

Searing, but transient. It comes from having worked with, and opened my heart to, sexually abused children and adults. For survivors, the blade and the concomitant pain is constant. Every breath a possible trigger.

Stories of child sex abuse featured every day this week, albeit buried under EU referendum hysteria and spin. Although hard, survivors, who have often been silenced and disbelieved, welcome the truth about the scale of child sex being exposed to sunlight.

Twenty years after the Rotherham child abuse scandal, the first arrest was made yesterday. In the wake of the Jay report, which revealed the rape and trafficking of 1,400 children between 1997 and 2013, the National Crime Agency (NCA) began an investigation in 2014. This week it was announced that the investigation will take at least 8 years to complete. Two years in and having already been ignored by the South Yorkshire Police for a decade, this protracted timeline adds insult to injury for beleaguered survivors. Justice delayed is justice denied.

In January, Les Paul was convicted (for the third time) for abusing four boys whilst he was a care home manager in Lambeth in the 1980s. The Goddard historic child sex inquiry is currently investigating claims of high level systemic paedophile networks operating throughout Lambeth care homes in the 80’s and 90’s.

A recent Newsnight investigation revealed that, in 1986, Lambeth discovered that one of its care home managers, Michael Carroll, had a previous conviction of child abuse which he hadn’t disclosed in his job application. Yet, the conviction, and his failure to disclose it, did not result in his dismissal. It gets worse, when Carroll asked if he could turn one of the care homes into a centre to provide therapy for victims of child abuse, Lambeth agreed. It wasn’t until Carroll was sacked for fiddling his expenses in 1991 that the press was made aware of his child sex convictions.

In a report published yesterday, Leicestershire County Council pledged its full support for the Goddard historic child sex abuse inquiry. The council is one of several organisations required by law to contribute to the inquiry’s first investigation which is looking into allegations against former Leicester Labour MP Grenville Janner.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, some survivors have expressed misgivings about the pressure being brought to bear on Justice Goddard by lawyers representing the myriad of institutions accused of exposing children to abuse by powerful politicians.

When Justice Goddard took over the inquiry she promised to put survivors at its heart. If she is to instil trust and credibility, survivors’ voices cannot be silenced and side-lined by loquacious lawyers acting on behalf of powerful institutions and individuals.

I publicly criticised Justice Goddard’s predecessors. Their establishment links undermined trust amongst survivors, without which the inquiry could not claim credence. I gave Ms Goddard my conditional backing when she was appointed sixteen months ago. I said then and repeat again now, that survivors must have absolute trust in the integrity of the process. Otherwise, it will unravel.

Theresa May described the inquiry as “A once in a lifetime opportunity”. We owe it to survivors to get it right.

Other child sex abuse stories in the news this week:

·         Richard Huckle, described as “Britain’s worst paedophile”, was given 22 life sentences in a London court. He admitted to 71 charges of sexually abusing children in Malaysia and Cambodia from the ages of six months to twelve. He exploited sexual taboos to silence his victims.

·         While Nigel Farage was recently engaging in racist Brexit scaremongering about migrants sexually abusing Brits, a former UKIP aide, Aaron Knight, had just started a prison sentence for paedophile attacks on a boy.

·         A United Nations whistleblower, Anders Kompass, who was suspended for exposing the sexual abuse of children in the Central African Republic by peacekeepers, resigned over the organisation’s failure to hold senior officials to account.

·         Teenage sisters abducted a toddler from Primark in Newcastle. They had allegedly run internet searches on how to kidnap & rape children.

·        A former Eton student, Andrew Picard, eluded a prison sentence after making and sharing more than 2,000 graphic images of child abuse of children as young as two, which included rape and bestiality. His lawyers argued for leniency on the basis of the promising future that awaited him.