Chuka Umunna should be attacking the Tories, not falsely accusing Labour of institutional racism

With Labour ahead in the polls and the Tories on the ropes, a Blairite sabotage attempt was predictable. The failed coup of 2016 wasn’t because they believed Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t win, it was because they feared he could. 

In 2016, a UN report singled out The Sun and The Daily Mail for inciting racial hatred. That Trevor Phillips courted these outlets to attack the Labour leader on Sunday, is shameful. But then this is the man who, as chair of the Equality body, was forced to apologise for propagating "bogus and alarmist" falsehoods that Britain was blighted by race ghettos.

I was involved in rolling out race training with the police in the wake of the MacPherson report. Just when we were making progress, Phillips told the Metropolitan Police board that institutional racism didn’t exist. "Time to move on", so they did and the Met remains institutionally racist as a result. 

It was Labour right winger, Chuka Umunna, who fed the media frenzy by scurrilously labelling fellow members, “attack dogs” and accusing his own party of "Institutional racism". A term that is indelibly linked to the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. 

Scrutinising Labour against Macpherson’s established parameters, Umunna’s allegation is not substantiated by the evidence. Labour has the most diverse Shadow Cabinet in British history, five of whom are BAME women. Of the 52 BAME MPs elected to parliament in 2017, 32 are Labour. Several seats with a high BAME population, switched from the Tories to Labour, achieving an incredible 11.5% increase in the vote share in the 75 most ethnically diverse areas. 

And then there’s the Labour leader’s record on race. Jeremy Corbyn has literally been on the front line, fighting racism, antisemitism and fascism, his entire life. To accuse him of racism is farcical.

Given that Labour is the natural home for those of us committed to fighting oppression, injustice and racism – in all its forms, it’s not surprising that the Chakrabarti report found that, although there’s much work to do on antisemitism, the Labour Party is not institutionally racist.

  

So where are these “racist" "attack dogs” hiding and who are they?

Is it the junior doctor who worked a double shift, got racially abused on the way home, then donned his rosette to campaign for his Labour candidate? Why? Because he knows that you can’t trust the Tories with the NHS.

Is it the teacher who went into the profession to inspire and educate children but found herself acting as “a shock absorber against the impact of Tory cuts”?

Or, is it arch Corbyn fundamentalist, Chelley Ryan, whose twitter timeline is riddled with this kind of antisemitism,

“To minimise the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, is Holocaust denial. 6 million Jews were killed, not 270,000. I am reporting & unfollowing this person and I hope a lot of my followers do the same. These people give Corbyn and us all a bad name. We must call it out!"

These are real people. Labour and Momentum members. I'm appalled that friends who pounded the pavements alongside right wing MPs are now being targeted for abuse - by them. Irrespective of whether the candidate was Left or right wing, Momentum indiscriminately mobilised foot soldiers to knock on doors - in every marginal last year.

The abuse continued on Sunday, when The Telegraph depicted Labour members as a vicious dog with a Muslim pulling its tail. Apart from being deeply offensive, it’s indicative of a moral crisis at the heart of Britain’s political discourse. Wherein denigrating Muslims remains an acceptable form of racism. Have we learned nothing from Jo Cox’s tragic death at the hands of a far right fundamentalist? 

Propping up the Tories

As Tony Blair said when he ousted Larry Whitty from the NEC chair, “All change is the difficult”. Nowadays, General Secretaries are elected (not appointed) and we have moved on from a time when Formula 1 tycoons could hope to buy tobacco advertising exemptions – from a Labour leader.

Although the move away from the corporatisation of New Labour is clearly hard to accept, Tony Blair’s recent attempts to sabotage the party’s democratically elected leader, are unacceptable. No doubt Blair’s unfettered attack on Jeremy Corbyn will have boosted Momentum membership last week but to have given cover for the Tories was unforgivable.

The astonishing admission by Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland Secretary, that she was clueless about the history and political sensitivities of the region when appointed, went viral on social media. Instead of leading with that news item, Tony Blair, who claims the Good Friday Agreement as his legacy, helped to bury it.

Peace in Northern Ireland is in the balance, thanks to Theresa May’s reckless incompetence, yet Tony Blair, and 36 hours later, Chuka Umunna, turned their guns on their own leader?

It’s akin to a Liverpool player tackling their defender so that Chelsea can score a goal. If you have more in common with the other team (war mongering, de-regulation, austerity, privatisation), either get off the pitch or just go and play for the other side.

The Tories are Cheating & Lying to Get Bonkers Brexit Through Parliament. Elsewhere - On Another Planet - Trump redefines the English language

Lib Dem MP, Jo Swinson, went ballistic this week when she discovered that Tory MP, Brandon Lewis, had voted in a crunch Brexit vote. The problem was that they had a pairing agreement. She was on maternity leave so couldn't vote and he agreed to not vote either.

Pairing is an arcane parliamentary tradition invoked if a member cannot vote for reasons of illness or maternity leave, for example. To make it fair, an MP from the other side agrees not to vote either. Except, Mr Lewis reneged on this arrangement, helping Theresa May inch a little bit closer to Brexit Armageddon.

He claimed it was “an honest mistake” but Swinson wasn’t having any of it. “It’s called cheating”, she raged. Or, “lying”!😈

Turns out that Lewis was apparently ordered by chief whip, Julian Smith, to break the pairing, and vote. The Times reported seeing evidence that that had been the case and Theresa May got herself into yet another pickle. Then it emerged that Mr Smith has form when it comes to targeting women on maternity leave. Apparently he had previously “lied” to Tory MP, Andrea Jenkyns, allegedly ordering her to come to London to vote, on multiple occasions, while she was on maternity leave. 

Fortunately, Tory veteran Michael Heseltine, waded into the row and helpfully explained the fundamental flaw that underpins the pairing protocol. “It’s a gentleman’s agreement” he said. Pausing whilst the slower listeners (it was a Radio 4 interview) caught up. There you have it. The gentleman's agreement, like the old boys' club, is strictly men only. Women need not apply, and if you dare? By god, there will be penalties.

Britain, like the Tories, is in the final stages of decrepitude. I can literally hear the bones creaking.

Elsewhere, Trump left our shores, amid contrails of flatulence and fury, to hang out with the man to whom he owes his presidency. Vladimir Putin. During a Press Conference in Helsinki, he dismissed FBI and CIA claims that Russia meddled in Trumps presidential election. Trump said there was no reason why Russia would interfere with the US elections. But, when it all kicked off back home and people in his own party were calling him a traitor, he helpfully clarified that what he meant to say (though it should have been obvs – PEOPLE – jeez – cue rolling, mad eyes) was wouldn’t. Got it? There’s no reason why President Putin wouldn’t interfere in his presidential election! It’s a double negative, apparently 😱

So, integrity, truth and decency in politics have been replaced by stupidity, lies and contempt for democracy -on both sides of the pond. What could possibly go wrong.

I’m off to have a Brexit breakdown at an undisclosed, secure location. On arrival, all gadgets and electronic equipment will be removed so that I won’t be a danger to myself - or others. For the next 5 weeks, I’m pulling the plug and going off grid. 

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this little vid - one of my personal favourites of the 2017 General Election. It's called Liar, Liar. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxN1STgQXW8

The NHS is 70 Today. Happy Birthday!

The NHS is 70 years old today. It was conceived and given birth to, by Labour. Resisted by doctors and blocked 21 times by the Tories, the NHS is Labour’s greatest achievement.

Nye Bevan created the NHS so that everyone, whether rich or poor, could have equal access to healthcare – free at the point of use. He warned at the time that the NHS would last only as long as folk are prepared to fight for it. In its 70 year history, the fight has never been harder and the stakes never been higher.

All around the country, hospitals are being shut, beds cut, services axed, all in readiness for full blown privatisation. The leaner the NHS machine the more attractive it will be to the US capitalists bidding for contracts. Everything from mental health to children services is being outsourced to privateers, whose priority is not patient care. It’s profit. Hiding behind the NHS logo, the NHS itself is being broken up and, brick by brick, it’s being dismantled and destroyed.

To mark the NHS’ 70^th birthday, the National Health Singers, have launched a new single, “Won’t let go”. It’s a kick ass fight back tune that Jeremy Hunt will be hoping flops. For that reason alone it’s worth buying - in a bid to help it on its way to Number 1 in the charts!

See the vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paUzAOCw228

Today, I’ll celebrate the heroes - the nurses, doctors, healthcare workers and porters that keep the NHS alive, but I’ll also be mobilising my community against those that are bent on killing it. We must fight - now - against cuts & closures to our vital services. If we don’t, there’ll be nothing left to salvage from the Tory wreckers' rubble. Complacency and apathy are not an option. Future generations will never forgive us if we fail to act now.

Happy 70^th, NHS 💙

Stop Tory Brexit!

This week, more than most, I felt like I was drowning in a cesspit of Tory generated excrement. Just when you think a new low is not possible, the Tories reached new depths of depravity.

By Wednesday, they had blocked upskirting legislation, lied about NHS funding, claiming it would come from a fictionalised “Brexit dividend,” and made sick and pregnant women cross the lobby in wheelchairs, in a bid to force through the doomed EU withdrawal bill. The Tory/DUP democratic heist has put us in the hands of the three musketeers. What could possibly go wrong?

Theresa May called a snap election last year to get a mandate for a hard Brexit. The people’s answer? “Not on your Nellie”! Yet, here we are, a year later, with the Brexit time bomb strapped to our collective chests. This is a Tory suicide mission and they’re bent on taking us all down with them.

Elsewhere, in the real world, the EU rejected Theresa May’s Northern Ireland back stop. The subject that no-body talked about in the referendum campaign, is now the circle that just can’t be squared. And still May carries on like a demented despot in charge of a runaway train.

The pundits got Brexit wrong. They got the outcome of the 2017 General Election wrong and they are doing it again. In their bubble of groupthink and incompetence, they have completely misjudged the anger out there on the streets. It is palpable for anyone who engages with real people in the real world. Far from getting £350 million a week for the NHS, Brexit is driving the final nail into the coffin. Closures to A&Es and hospital services are being predicated on staff shortages – brought about by the hostile immigration culture and fear generated by Brexit. When we need them most, foreign nurses and doctors are fleeing this country in their droves.

Who’s to blame for Brexit? The Tories and the right wing of the Labour party who, for years, threw immigrants under the bus, accusing us of stealing British people’s jobs, blaming us for the housing shortage and admonishing us for not assimilating into the British way of life, whatever that is.

Having scapegoated immigrants for years, Chuka Umunna, was a bad choice to be the poster boy of the Labour Remain campaign. It’s a bit like putting Trump in charge of UNICEF. Labour’s rhetoric had moved so far to the right, under New Labour (in a bid to woo UKIP voters), that there was a vacuum in political discourse - promoting the benefits of immigration.

As chair of the Labour In campaign, Alan Johnson’s line up of pale, male and stale spokespeople, failed to inspire. Producing the toxic trio (Blair, Brown and Campbell) was a serious strategic error. The idea that the men who presided over the global financial crash could boost trust and credibility to the Remain camp signals the extent to which Alan Johnson, like his Blairite plotters, was in denial about the incendiary legacy of New Labour.

New Labour was part of the problem. Progressive Labour can be part of the solution. That’s why I’ve signed Momentum’s Stop Tory Brexit petition 

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-tory-brexit-momentum-petition which calls for the many to have the final say.

For anyone who hasn't read my angry Independent Brexit articles (there are many), here's one to get you going: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-referendum-alternative-facts-brexit-bill-white-paper-european-union-a7558886.html

One year on from Grenfell, survivors remain traumatised & homeless. Deprived of justice & peace

I wrote the blog below shortly after the preventable inferno at Grenfell tower that killed 72 people. Twelve months on, survivors remain traumatised, homeless and without justice. The raw feelings captured in this blog haven't diminished with time so, to mark the one year anniversary, I'm re-telling the story. Undiluted, unedited and unapologetic. 💚💚

The acrid stench infused the air. The landscape, adorned with messages and memorials, struggled to reconcile the veneration of dignified grief and irreverent, visceral anger.

I oscillated between both. Grief hung in the ether like a flammable fume. Volatile, toxic, debilitating. The photos of those whose lives were lost. The prayers, the pleas, the eulogies. The human faces behind the headlines.

Days before, some of the dead and feared dead would have taken the train journey I just took, walked the route I just walked to get there, sat in the park around the corner that I just sat in and exchanged perfunctory pleasantries with the local shop keeper like I just did.

The photo of Isaac caught my eye. He left school at the same time as my little boy that day. He will have had his tea, maybe smearing ketchup on his school jumper, like mine did and went to bed, forgetting to brush his teeth, like mine did. Wrapped in a blanket of love he may have told the spiders lurking in a corner of his room a story, like mine did, before drifting off to sleep clutching his threadbare teddy, like mine did.

The difference between Isaac and my child is, Isaac lived in a tower block with no fire sprinklers, exposed gas pipes, combustible cladding (cheaper than the non-combustible yet aesthetically pleasing variety) and dodgy electrics prone to potentially lethal surges. Illegal? You’d think so, but Tory cuts to legal aid means rights are now only available to those who can afford to buy them. That ruled Grenfell Tower residents out.

Five weeks on and survivors are still homeless and dependent on sporadic, demeaning state handouts. A hundred quid here and a voucher for a hotel there isn’t good enough. Survivors need certainty, security and dignity. That starts with a secure, safe home. Some children don’t know if they’ll be returning to the same school in September because they don’t know where their new home will be. Some survivors say they’ve been told to accept homes without being allowed to see them first. Others say they fear being forcibly rehoused outside the borough. I’ve been told of survivors who’ve been threatened that declining housing they’re offered, however inappropriate, would be deemed as elected homelessness, and would incur benefit penalties.

Even now, survivors are being excluded from key decisions that will impact their future. Security firms were employed, at tax payers expense, to “keep them out” of Kensington and Chelsea’s council meeting on Thursday. Scenes of survivors being kettled into a public gallery, side-lined and silenced, prevented from participating in decisions about their own lives, were a national disgrace. The footage of Tory councillor, Mathew Palmer, mouthing “Don’t let them in” spoke volumes about the Tories’ contempt for humanity, decency and democracy.

Making my way back to the tube, I was stopped in my tracks by a child. She was surveying the messages pinned to the street railings and was transfixed by an elaborate picture of a dove. She asked her Dad what the text around it said. “I don’t know love, it’s written in a foreign language”.  I squinted to read it, “It says, Suaimhneas stíoraí da anam, which is Irish for, may your souls rest in peace”.

If the souls that perished in Grenfell are ever to find peace, they must first be afforded truth and then justice. We owe Isaac, and all those who died with him, that much. 

Today is Repeal the 8th day. The Catholic Church has exerted jurisdiction over Irish women's wombs for too long

This piece was published in today's Independent.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ireland-dublin-repeal-the-eighth-amendment-referendum-crowdfund-travel-abroad-a8368726.html

I was in Dublin during the launch of the abortion referendum, and was completely winded when a man in a T-shirt with a picture of a foetus and the words, “Licence to kill”, verbally attacked me on O’Connell street. It unleashed an avalanche of painful memories.

When I was 16, I had a secret whip 'round to pay for a friend to go to London for an abortion. When drinking neat spirits and taking scalding hot baths didn't terminate her pregnancy, she became suicidal. 

We scraped together enough to pay for the abortion itself and Aine's (not her real name) fare, but it didn’t stretch to accommodation so she slept on the floor at Victoria bus station. She had to make that agonising journey across the Irish Sea, alone.

The image of Aine, so tiny and vulnerable, beneath the giant, forbidding steam ship at Dublin docks - on a dank, drizzly day, still haunts me. She had never been away from home before. I remember feeling ashamed of living in a country that subjected women to such punitive indignity.

This week, I helped fund another teenage girl's voyage across the sea - going in the opposite direction. She's going home today to vote "yes", in a bid to repeal the barbaric 8th amendment, which enshrines misogyny into the Irish constitution.

In 2018, even in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality, abortion remains illegal in Ireland. Over 170,000 Irish women have travelled to Britain for abortions in the 35 years since the inception of the 8th amendment. Around 12 women and girls take that lonely voyage across the sea, every day, to end their pregnancies.   

But travelling overseas is not an option for everyone. Teenage girls on the estate I grew up on can’t afford to go abroad. Many buy abortion pills online, risking their lives and incurring a custodial sentence.

The anti-choice propagandists are warning that, with “a licence to kill”, there’ll be pop up abortion clinics on every high street, from Bantry to Ballyjamesduff, offering two for the price of one and free subscriptions to Abortion Weekly.

As a therapist, I’ve worked with women who have had abortions and the decision is never taken lightly. Girls in Ireland, having been violently impregnated by rape, face the added trauma of being forced to give birth to their abuser’s baby. In case x, when a 14 year old girl was impregnated by rape and became suicidal, a court injunction was taken out preventing her parents from taking her abroad for an abortion.  

The anti-abortion rhetoric is imbued with the dogma of the Catholic Church, but an institution so mired in paedophilic scandals, is in no position to lecture women on the sanctity of life. Only last year, the remains of almost 800 babies were discovered “dumped” in a septic tank on the grounds of a convent in Galway.

In 2012, the needless death of Savita Halappanavar shamed the nation. She died of blood poisoning after being refused an abortion, even though her baby had a fatal foetal abnormality. “This is a catholic country!”, she was told. A change in the law in 2013, purportedly to allow abortions if the mother’s life is at risk or if she’s suicidal, has proved shockingly inadequate. 

In 2014, a clinically dead woman was kept alive on a life-support machine, against her family’s wishes, to protect the life of her unborn child. Last year, a 14 year old suicidal child was sectioned by her doctor when she sought permission, with her mother’s approval, for an abortion. But, instead of admitting that the girl was being sent to a psychiatric hospital, the doctor told them that she would undergo an abortion. Despite acknowledging the child was suicidal, due to her pregnancy, he denied her the legal right to a termination and tricked her into being sectioned.

Last year, the UN ruled, for the second time, that Ireland's harsh abortion laws violate human rights. A woman carrying a foetus with a fatal abnormality was, it stated, subjected to, “discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”. The woman had to travel abroad for an abortion, but was forced to leave her foetus’ remains behind. Weeks later, the ashes were delivered by courier. The UN has called for the 8^th amendment to be repealed, to allow women to terminate a pregnancy safely, at home.

The church has exerted undue jurisdiction over women’s wombs - and our lives – for far too long. By repealing the 8^th today, we transfer the deeds back to their rightful owners – the women of Ireland.

Polls are open until 10pm tonight!

"I thought my baby was going to die"! Mother warns health bosses that A&E closures will be the death of people

Meet Sarah. Friend and single mother to 5 children, one with a chronic illness. Under the cover of daily dead cats & Tory chaos, the decimation of our NHS is in full swing.

Click on the link to hear Sarah's heartbreaking story

https://twitter.com/Shropsdefend/status/994295678431059969

Angry about Windrush & austerity? Get out and Vote today!

Are you angry about Windrush? Or, the eight years of austerity that has seen the poor atone for the sins of the rich? Or, the decimation of our NHS? Or, the Brexit shambles? Or, the scandalous rise of homelessness? Or, the injustice of Grenfell, Or, [insert your own list] – Get out and vote today!  

As a therapist, I’m not afraid of anger, which is just as well because I’ve been angry every day for the past eight years. The only people I know who are not angry right now are either very rich (thus inoculated against the ravages of austerity) - or Yoga instructors.

I’ve picked up the pieces of lives crushed by the cruelty of this Tory government. Injustice is hardwired into every sinew of the system, with Human rights now only accessible to those who can afford to buy them.

The hostile environment that spawned the Windrush scandal was no accident. It’s indicative of a culture that has enshrined racist rhetoric into practice. Dawn Butler described May’s hostile environment as the new face of Tory institutional racism, “ever present from Stephen Lawrence to Windrush”. She’s right.

In 2011, Theresa May vowed to get rid of Article 8 (the right to family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights because, she claimed, it “perverted” the removal of “illegal immigrants”. Her competence as Home Secretary was called into question when it emerged that the example she cited, that of a pet cat scuppering deportation, was untrue and appeared to have been lifted, “word for word,” from a speech made by (then) UKIP leader, Nigel Farage. In fact, the case had been mishandled by immigration officials.

The morality of her contempt for the right to family life largely escaped scrutiny and went on to underpin the 2014 immigration Act. It should come as no surprise that this resulted in the Windrush scandal that has seen families ripped apart, denied access to jobs, health care, justice, dignity and hope. Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell anticipated the “unintended” consequences for Commonwealth citizens and voted against it.

Racism has rarely been career limiting in the Tory party. In 2011, Tory Dover councillor, Bob Frost, described people involved in the Tottenham riots as “jungle bunnies”. He lost his job as a Maths teacher, but the Conservative Party only suspended him for two months. The emergence of Oliver Letwin’s sinister racist memo in 2015 did not result in him being sacked as David Cameron’s policy adviser.

Under Theresa May’s leadership, racism has become mainstream Tory policy. Directly (and indirectly) discriminating against black and brown skinned people - with impunity. When Theresa May appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, it seems she deleted the traditional job requirement, “Portfolio of diplomacy” and replaced it with, “Portfolio of racist remarks”.

As Commonwealth leaders gathered in London amidst the Windrush scandal, who better to mollify the mood, than Johnson? Regaling delegates with stories about “flag waving piccaninnies” and “Pangas” with “watermelon smiles”.

If a Labour Politician made even one of those remarks, they would be hounded out of office, and rightly so. Having been suspended for using the racist term “N***** in the woodpile” in July, Anne-Marie Morris had the whip re-instated after only five months. 

At least 12 Tory candidates had to withdraw from the today's elections having been suspended amid accusations of anti-antisemitism, Islamophobia and far right links. One of whom, a former UKIP candidate is alleged to have racially abused Diane Abbott on social media.

Theresa May should not be surprised that her "Go home" buses, hostile immigration environment, the appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Minister and her tolerance of racism generally, has acted as a recruitment sergeant for the far right. As David Lammy said, If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Today is channel your anger into action day. All you have to do is get up, get ready and vote the Tories out of your town! 

#Vote Labour 💓

Brexit is undermining The Good Friday Agreement & peace in Northern Ireland

It's the twentieth anniversary of The Good Friday Agreement today. My piece in Independent Voices below.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-good-friday-agreement-northern-ireland-troubles-violence-ira-border-a8297406.html

"It was the first time I had been to Northern Ireland since my friend, Bridie, wet herself when a British soldier pointed a gun at her. A bunch of 10-year-olds on a school trip, our bus was searched at the border.

Five years after the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), I was in Belfast again for work. This time there was no border, no indignity and no fear. Hearing my Dublin accent, a man in his sixties asked, “Are you Catholic or Protestant?”

“Neither, I’m atheist!” I said triumphantly.

“Yes, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”

Religion in Northern Ireland is like the Hotel California, I was told. You can check out, but you can never leave".

You might also like the article below 👇

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-referendum-alternative-facts-brexit-bill-white-paper-european-union-a7558886.html

Also this in The New Statesman:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/12/island-ireland-wants-move-past-if-brexiteers-will-let-it

The role lies about immigration played in Brexit👇

https://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

Irrespective of whether the BBC intended to frame Jeremy Corbyn as a “Russian Stooge”, the risks of that perception should have been apparent and intercepted.

Carole Cadwalladr and Channel 4’s exposure of the Cambridge Analytica scandal reminded me of the legendary Washington Post editor, Ben Bradlee. Commenting on his role in exposing Watergate, he said,

“The more complicated the issues and the more sophisticated the ways to disguise the truth, the more aggressive our search for truth must be”.

When I advised the broadcast media on editorial ethics, I used this quote – a lot, but never before has the role of the media as honest broker been more crucial to the wellbeing of democracy, than now.

Listening to Cambridge Analytica’s recently sacked boss, Etonian old boy Alexander Nix, boasting about propagating the digital landscape with lies, fear and hate, to win elections, was chilling. To mitigate against these fake news propagandists, actual journalism must be underpinned by facts and unfettered by favour.

While Channel 4 conducted a masterclass in broadcast journalism this week, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, became mired in an unedifying controversy over its handling of Labour’s response to Theresa May’s Russia ultimatum. The choice of backdrop (a red infused picture of Jeremy Corbyn in a hat, as opposed to a suit, in front of the Kremlin) betrayed a crisis in editorial judgement. Irrespective of whether the BBC intended to frame Jeremy Corbyn as a “Russian Stooge”, the risks of that perception should have been apparent and intercepted.

When dealing with a highly charged and politically sensitive incident, such as a chemical attack, licence fee payers expect probity and integrity in the BBC’s handling of it.

Two days before Theresa May issued her ultimatum to Russia, a Survation poll put Labour 7 points ahead of the Tories and showed that 60% of those polled had had enough of austerity, including almost half of Tory voters. The same week, Philip Hammond scrapped free school meals for 1 million children in poverty, Unilever announced it was moving its HQ out of the UK and the Brexit impact assessment was finally published. Summary: Whatever Brexit we get, we’ll be worse off.

Instead of holding the governments’ feet to the flames over any of the above, Newsnight went after the leader of the opposition for daring to do his job. If the Russia ultimatum was a dead cat, it worked. A lot of bad news got buried beneath the bluster.

Analysing media failings in the lead up to the Iraq war in 2016, Ian Birrell wrote, “The initial reporting showed how a supposedly free and fearless press was powerless, vulnerable and gullible in a moment of national crisis concluding”, “…it meekly fell into line with Government propagandists”.

The Economist’s analysis of the Chilcot inquiry revealed: “That lack of caution, combined with a disregard for process bordered on the feckless…The intelligence was not questioned or challenged in the way it should have been, given how much was resting on it”.

MPs should have spoken out and demanded more and better evidence. Instead they put self-interest ahead of the national interest. Many of the same right wing Labour MPs who backed Blair’s reckless war, put self-interests before national interest again this week. Instead of backing Jeremy Corbyn’s sober call for calm and evidence, they were signing a letter blaming Moscow, ‘unequivocally” for the attacks.

Jeremy Corbyn is right to challenge Theresa May. There are few things as perilous as a weak leader trying to appear strong.  If she sees this as her Falklands moment – an opportunity to deflect from her huge unpopularity and domestic failures – she could take us into dangerous territory. This is a time for quelling - not fanning - the flames of hysteria.

The framing of Jeremy Corbyn as a “Russian stooge” by some media outlets is an obvious red herring. He robustly condemned the Salisbury attack but his track record is equally strong. Eight years ago, he signed a Parliamentary Motion accusing Putin’s Russia of corruption and human rights abuses and has called on the government for a UK version of the Magnitsky Act, which allows for financial sanctions. Something the Tories had previously resisted.

It is the Conservative party that has received £3m worth of donations from Russian donors and it was Boris Johnson who accepted £160,000 in exchange for a game of tennis with Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of a former Putin minister. The same woman bid £30,000 to have dinner with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson. Chernukhin’s husband was Putin’s deputy finance minister. Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s fund management’s firm has profited from a £60m investment in a Russian bank, despite being under EU sanctions since 2014. 

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Our democracy has been hijacked and apostles of hate have stolen our privacy and exploited our vulnerabilities. Now is not the time to be deflected by dead cats and red herrings. The wellbeing of democracy depends on the media pursuing truth with the same determination as those in power seek to obscure and distort it. 

Other articles Tess has written on the media and Jeremy Corbyn:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-media-must-give-jeremy-corbyn-a-fair-hearing-a6804821.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/suffragettes-died-for-my-right-to-vote-so-dont-tell-me-that-i-shouldnt-vote-for-jeremy-corbyn-10495014.html

On the BBCs crisis of governance:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-scandals-over-jimmy-savile-and-newsnight-show-the-bbc-can-either-modernise-or-die-having-a-full-8322976.html

On the right wing of the Labour party: 

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

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/dont-think-jeremy-corbyn-is-a-worthy-leader-maybe-its-time-to-leave-the-labour-party-a6773741.html

Bonkers Brexit update: Theresa May's absence of a cogent alternative makes a hard border in Northern Ireland increasingly inevitable

Theresa May’s much awaited Brexit speech on Friday, failed yet again, to propose any workable alternatives to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

Disgraced/deluded Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, proffered some advice to Theresa May ahead of her speech. In a leaked letter, he urged her to be relaxed about the whole hard border thing. So what if the Good Friday Agreement unravels? – small price to pay for being able to decide the shape of British, err, bananas.

This is completely at odds with the fact that Theresa May signed off on phase one of Brexit in December, contingent on the fact that there would be no hard border in Northern Ireland and, in November, Boris Johnson himself said, “There can be no return to a hard border. That would be unthinkable, and it would be economic and political madness".

Why the change of heart? We don’t know, because the media hasn’t deemed it necessary to press the Foreign Secretary on his complete U-turn. This buffoon even compared Northern Ireland to London’s congestion charge this week and still the media afford him the veneer of credibility. Lies have long since been Johnson’s strategy of choice. Remember the £350 million a week he promised for the NHS?

The vacuum created by the absence of any cogent workable alternatives to economic and moral bankruptcy post Brexit, is being filled by anodyne soundbites, deception and lies. David Davis lied about the existence of the Brexit risk analysis and on Wednesday, Jacob Rees Mogg lied when he said Jeremy Corbyn voted against the GFA on Channel 4 news.

The people on the Island of Ireland, my family and friends, deserve better. They want to know what Brexit will mean for their livelihoods and their future. These are just some of the practical questions that Theresa May has yet to answer:

If Northern Ireland leaves the single market, a hard border is inevitable. What will become of the cross boarder collaboration enabling farmers on both sides to compete with their counterparts elsewhere in the world?

 25% of the region’s raw milk goes south of the border to be processed and 40% of Northern Irish lambs are processed in the republic. A hard Brexit would impede that flow, not just because of tariffs and customs checks, the burden of paperwork around traceability and standards would be prohibitive.

What will become of the joint initiatives on shared waterways? Access to medicine? And the current all-island approach to preventing the spread of animal diseases, such as, foot and mouth?

What will become of patients from the Republic who receive radiotherapy in the north and the children who travel from Belfast to Dublin for heart surgery in the only all-Island newly opened world class facility? How will emergency services continue to collaborate post Brexit?

What about subsidies? Northern Ireland already has the highest levels of unemployment and poverty in the UK and can ill afford to lose €3.5bn in EU subsidies up to 2020. Unless the magic money tree in Panama is raided, the British exchequer would struggle to fill that gap.

By getting into bed with the DUP and riding rough shod over the rigorous impartiality required by the Good Friday Agreement, the Tories are gambling with peace in the province. The majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. Despite the Tories having no mandate to impose a hard border and promising there wouldn't be one, their continued inability to propose concrete alternative plans and failing to address the above questions, makes the hard border inevitable.

In the words of a Dublin friend: "Jaysus, Mary & Holy St Joseph - We're feckin doomed!"