Bojo Bows Out In Blow to UK Soft Brexit

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On Monday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said in a statement:

This afternoon, the Prime Minister accepted the resignation of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. His replacement will be announced shortly. The Prime Minister thanks Boris for his work.

On 8 July, Brexit Minister David Davis resigned over disagreements with the government’s policy, as Eurosceptics, Davis included, view the Brexit plan presented on 6 July as a major concession to Brussels, particularly as far as access to the EU common market and customs union is concerned. According to media reports, Johnson strongly criticised the plan. On Monday, Johnson was set to participate in a press conference alongside his German and Polish counterparts on the sidelines of the Western Balkans Summit taking place in London. However, he didn’t turn up at the summit. Political analysts say that such a turn of events may put May in an exceptionally difficult position and cause a struggle for leadership in the ruling Conservative Party. In theory, it could result in May’s resignation as party leader and the country’s prime minister. Johnson served as British Foreign Secretary for nearly two years.

9 July 2018

TASS

http://tass.com/world/1012474

Western Media: Russia Won Without Firing a Single Shot

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We can summarise the official results of the “decisive” attack by Western countries on Syria. Russia proposed a resolution to condemn the attack at the UN Security Council. Three permanent Security Council members (who participated in the attack) vetoed it, so the resolution failed. In the world of real facts, we can generally establish the figures… the attackers launched 103 rockets. True, US President Donald Trump promised that they’d be “new and smart”, but most of them were elderly Tomahawks. As they approached strategically important facilities, elderly Syrian air defence systems developed by the Soviets precisely to counter Tomahawks shot them down. The British fired eight SCALP standoff weapons, “each was five metres in length”, the BBC proudly noted. In addition, they’re newer weapons, developed only twenty years ago. The role of the French remains unclear… the French leadership asserted that they also released eight SCALP weapons from fighters and three from ships. However, the Russian forces dryly pointed up that they detected no French Rafales. Therefore, it’s possible that this US ally received credit for participation without actually acting… to maintain the unity of the coalition.

As for damage, most weapons strikes hit unoccupied buildings in Damascus and Homs Governorates, that is, confirmed strikes that hit targets in Syria. Otherwise, despite the surprise of the attack and the fact (heavily stressed by US officials) that “that we didn’t warn Russia”:

• There were no civilian deaths
• There were no deaths in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA)
• The strike destroyed no aircraft or helicopters
• No aircraft or weapons system flew into the zone of responsibility of Russian air defence systems
• No weapon hit any Syrian airbase
• Syrian defences shot down 71 of the 103 attacking systems

The actual effect was even less effective than that of the attack on the Shayrat airbase a year ago. Then, 59 Tomahawks managed to at least:

• Damage a few aircraft
• Crater the taxiways, putting the airfield out of action for several hours
• Kill several Syrian troops

That’s the end of the facts, as a group of experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons arrived in Syria only a few hours after the raid. They were there to establish whether anything happened at all to justify the resolute US “response” and to find out exactly happened in Douma. Therefore, the real battle unfolded after the attack, and as expected in our strange era, it happened in the media space. A struggle began around the question of how to understand what happened.

Donald Trump, Theresa May, and Emmanuel Macron insisted that it was a vigorous and accurate retaliatory blow. They stated that they achieved their goals… they asserted that it dramatically reduced the ability of sneering monster Assad to produce chemical weapons to poison his people. Moreover, if he tries again, then, another equally devastating strike will recur, despite Russian objections, because the time for negotiations is over. The Western media wasn’t convinced that it was a forceful and severe consequence. For example, the Huffington Post bitterly stated:

• Trump’s stated objectives were to stop “Assad’s murderous behaviour and show his strength to Assad’s patrons Russia and Iran”, but it achieved none of those goals.
• At the time of the attack, all significant military and administrative targets were under the Russian “umbrella”, which Trump was afraid to touch.
• In the end, Assad “didn’t stop the offensive” and “it didn’t challenge Russia”.

In an editorial comment “The Main Danger in Syria is Russia”, Reuters reported:

• Assad has already almost won the six-year war and doesn’t intend to stop.
• Moscow, warning in advance that “in the event of a threat to the lives of Russian troops, we won’t only take out any missiles, we’ll also take out their carriers”, turned this action of unrestrained justice into something purposeless. Because, the author notes, neither Russia nor the USA is interested in a real battle between themselves in Syria. Moreover, they aren’t interested even in showing each other their newest missiles and anti-missile systems… why feed the enemy information? Therefore, the same iron hoplites of the Cold War from the last millennium fought over the deserts and mountains of an ancient country.
• There was no success in the end. Even worse… even though it’s clear that the USA can deploy many ships off Syria, including an aircraft carrier, all that it did was to fire off a lot of old missiles. However, it’s not so much a demonstration of force as “a demonstration of the impossibility of demonstrating strength”. As per usual, Russia “held a master class on how to achieve maximum goals with limited forces”.

That is, Russia, even without a single volley from its S-400 and Pantsir systems, effectively established a situation where the West didn’t dare to test its resolve. Note that this wasn’t a report by “Russian state propaganda trying to preserve the Kremlin’s face”. This is what authoritative British-American media saw. However, other authoritative Western media outlets trumpet and disseminate the version asserted by Trump, May, and Macron… “A bloody tyrant received a lesson; if necessary, we can repeat it”, and so on. All this confirms the depressing analysis we stated on the eve of the attack:

In fact, the only understandable explanation of what’s happening is some accursed universal hype, from which the Western élite can’t escape in any way. Moreover, it seems that no one wants real results from the anticipated strike. It seems that the Western leaders themselves would be satisfied with inflicting a crushing blow in a virtual-reality game, having the opportunity then to convince their audience that the enemy suffered heavy losses.

As a result, we see a schizophrenic picture. Based on unconfirmed viral videos, real aircraft took off and the Western forces fired real weapons. According to various estimates, the strike cost 70 to 150 million real-world USD (4.29 to 9.2  billion Roubles. 439.72 to 942.27 million Renminbi. 4.58 to 9.82 billion INR. 88 to 188.62 million CAD. 90.18 to 193.24 million AUD. 56.53 to 121.14 million Euros. 48.82 to 104.6 million UK Pounds). However, in the real world, this mega-strike didn’t hurt anyone. Moreover, in fact, it was necessary only to ensure that in a virtual world (where hype, tweets, and media exchange interpretations) someone convinced his audience that he had a good reason for this action.

It’s gratifying that the leadership of the USA and their subordinate allies still keep their internal media vids separated from harsh reality. They hold a “celebration of defiance of Russia” in specially designated places for this purpose. However, this is what it comes to. The next generation of Western leaders can no longer distinguish between where PR ends and a real war begins. Moreover, this makes the real world all the less safe and increasingly alarming.

15 April 2018

Viktor Marakhovsky

RIA Novosti

https://ria.ru/analytics/20180415/1518678200.html

“A Majority of Electors Rejected Austerity Policies”: CP of Britain

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Editor:

Although the CP of Britain is very small (+/-1,000 members), it has support from AKEL in Cyprus, which is one of the major parties there. We now have the colonialists being propped up by the colonials! Certainly, a turnaround, wot?

BMD

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Twelve million people voted for a left-wing Labour manifesto and a majority of electors rejected austerity policies. The Tories have no mandate for five months of public spending cuts, never mind another five years. In raising Labour’s share of the poll by 10 percentage points to almost match the Tories, enthusing huge numbers of young people, Jeremy Corbyn and his leadership have been vindicated. So, too, has the emphasis placed by the Communist Party on the role of mass struggle and class politics in raising people’s class consciousness, confidence, and political understanding. This will help bring further advances for Labour in the new election that will be necessary in the very near future, once Theresa May resigns.

Robert Griffiths

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain    

Britain’s Next Prime Minister Could Likely be Jeremy Corbyn

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Jeremy Corbyn has much of the Brexit coalition on his side and more. Brexit, which in many ways put British politics on the international map for the first time since the 1960s, wasn’t supposed to happen. The Establishment in all the major parties, the business sector, academia, the mainstream media, and the arts and science community (which still hold some influence in Britain) were all opposed to it. Likewise, on the night of the vote, the polling data was so set against Brexit that a sober Nigel Farage all but conceded defeat. Several hours and several drinks later, he emerged to give a victory speech. The people who voted for Brexit voted for a number of reasons and even more crucially in a key number of geographical places.

Many people voted for Brexit because they seethed with anger over those who opposed it. The élite were unpopular and the élite didn’t want Brexit, this meant that ordinary people in middle and northern England, as well as most of Wales, voted for Brexit. Other issues ranging from European border policy to trade and nostalgia for empire played far less of a factor than many pundits thought. Brexit was a visceral vote, not a calculated vote. The EU is a élitist institution and Britain’s local élite loved it. For most people, that was enough to make them support it.

While the dishonest and discredited élites ran the pro-EU campaign, Nigel Farage spearheaded Brexit from the right, while its most prominent leftist advocate was George Galloway. Both Farage and Galloway are figures one either loves or hates, but few people can legitimately question their sincerity. After all, neither embraced causes guaranteed to get them invited to Buckingham Palace. Many thought that if two straightforward men on different sides of the political divide both embraced Brexit, it can’t be all that bad for honest ordinary people, and furthermore, contrary to what the neoliberal mainstream media said, Farage’s supporters aren’t all racist obscurantists and Galloways’ supporters aren’t “only Muslims”. Such remarks slander both men and their supporters who are ordinary, decent, and normal people of all backgrounds, who for various reasons are tired of a broken status-quo.

Jeremy Corbyn may well be on the verge of achieving something similar to Brexit, only more. Corbyn, like Brexit, is anti-establishment, and like Brexit, the entire establishment is against him… with this notable exception… small, medium, and even some big businesses. Jeremy Corbyn will certainly appeal to working class Brexit voters in England’s north and midlands as well as Wales (AKA Brexit country) who long for a Labour leader that puts bread-and-butter issues first. Corbyn is all about jobs, funding essential services, and putting hospitals before banks, schools before hedge funds, wages for real people over tax loopholes for foreign companies. This is music to the ears of a Labour base, who are alienated from Labour after years of neoliberal policies first instigated by the war criminal Tony Blair.

However, what about business, will they vote for a socialist Labour leader? Many interestingly will. Generally, most businesses of all sizes benefited from some aspects of EU membership, most crucially from the Single Market which non-EU countries Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland are a happy part of. Corbyn said he’s committed to getting Britain a deal that involves retaining the benefits of the Single Market and this made many in the business community silently sympathetic to a Labour leader who took a stand on the Single Market, whereas Conservative leader Theresa May has a policy which amounts to little more than “Frankly, I don’t give a damn”. Therefore, this means Corbyn has the working-class and wider Midlands, Northern England and Welsh Brexit vote, the anti-establishment Brexit vote, and, ironically, also the business-minded pro-Single Market Vote.

Then, there’s Scotland. Scotland voted in favour of retaining EU membership. What’s more, when Scotland held a referendum on independence from the UK in 2014, one of the biggest selling points on the “Remain Part of the UK” side was that membership of the UK guaranteed membership in the EU. My, how times have changed! Because of this, Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Parliament want a new independence referendum. May responded to this call with disdain and contempt. Her refusal to engage in a dialogue with Scotland smacks of a colonial attitude when Scotland is a democratic part of the UK. It’s unreal that someone like May can think this way in the year 2017.

By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn said that he’d listen to Scotland, engage positively with the Scottish people, and, in any case, respect their exercise of democratic self-determination if that’s what they ultimately seek. This means that if the vote in England is a dead-heat, the Scottish Nationalists, who’d almost certainly win every major seat in Scotland, would have the ability to form a coalition with Corbyn and make him Prime Minister. Under this scenario, one sees that Corbyn retained much of the Brexit coalition, with the added bonus of almost all of Scotland’s backing if he eventually needs it, and more members of the business community than many think. Even those in the business community who might not like Corbyn’s tax policies realise that leaving the Single Market is a far bigger problem and one that could take much longer to reverse.

In the wealthy parts of Southern England, the Conservatives might be in for another unexpected shock. Most people in England’s wealthiest areas voted to remain in the EU and many are privately shocked that the once pro-EU Conservative party is taking such an undiplomatic and frankly unknowing approach to Brexit. Many such affluent voters might end up voting for the unambiguously pro-EU Liberal Democratic Party, who in most other policy areas are little different from mainstream moderate Conservatives. The polls that got Brexit and Trump wrong are still saying that the Conservatives will win, but only by a small margin. The reality could be very different. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour might capture most of middle and northern England, all of Wales, and find allies in Scotland. May’s Conservatives might end up losing some seats in their own affluent backyard, amongst those who still cherish the EU as much as they did when they voted against Brexit alongside former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

We could be looking at the most unlikely political revolution in British history… since last year, anyway. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of a would-be Corbyn victory is that he quietly managed to build an unlikely coalition without sacrificing his principles. Perhaps, this is the real lesson of the campaign.

30 May 2017

Adam Garrie

The Duran

http://theduran.com/britains-next-prime-minister-likely-socialist-jeremy-corbyn/