“Seumus, I don’t think this is a very good idea”: Inept and incompetent Jeremy lost 2017 election before it started

Good politicians learn from history’s mistakes, great politicians make sure those mistakes aren’t repeated. With trouble on the horizon, Theresa May’s announcement of a General Election shows she won’t be repeating the mistakes of Gordon Brown, and Jim Callaghan of missing the chance to go to the country.

It could be a perfect chance for a strong opposition to challenge a party pursing a divisive hard-line policy. Instead May’s Conservatives are 20 points ahead, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour at a historic low-point, and there is next to no chance of him forming the next Government.

In a strategic swoop, May will shoot Labour’s fox. By July he’ll be gone, and the Prime Minister will have a 50-70 strong majority. With a Liberal Democrat resurgence likely in the South West, and no prospect of either party meaningfully gaining seats in Scotland, reports of a 100+ majority for the Conservatives are likely to be strongly overegged.

From there, Labour will have five years to rebuild, get a leader with a solid team behind him, and could really challenge in 2022, especially if Brexit goes as badly as some fear.

It didn’t have to be this way. Corbyn was the left’s Ronnie Rosenthal moment. Huge excitement at the prospect of an open goal being put in, before realising that with the goal gaping wide, the man’s impotent. Nobody from the left will be allowed to play up-front again, instead they’ll be Left Back on the back benches.

The problems aren’t his policies, as proven in polling over the last few weeks, many are popular. Universal free school meals, good idea. Bumping up the carer’s allowance, likewise. All on top of previously established plans. His chancellor, John McDonnell’s economic strategy and ideas have been a breath of fresh air to a stale status quo, but it’s all rather pointless.

The problem is Jeremy’s team is ineffective, he’s an incapable media performer, with the strategic mind of General Haig at the Somme. Sadly for Labour MPs, they’ll be the ones playing the role of the honest Tommy cannon fodder in June.

For the media, his team take ages to respond to enquiries and request. You would have thought that a party on an election footing would have a statement ready to go if Theresa May called an election. Apparently not. As a course mate pointed out, our shorthand tutor managed to get a statement out before the British leader of the opposition did.

Our shorthand teacher managed to get a statement out 14 minutes before Jeremy Corbyn this morning pic.twitter.com/M7C34vZVNN

— Rachel Lewis (@RMLLLL) April 18, 2017

On Brexit, the party makes dishwater look clear. Dipping a toe in the water, before jumping out again isn’t a way to sell an idea to people. It’s at best, confusing, and at worse, looks as though you’re selling an idea you don’t believe in.

Policies are all well and good, but unless they’re fronted up effectively, they’re useless. A reason why I suspect the Liberal Democrats won’t do all that well is that they’re fronted by the equivalent of a Lancashire parish reverend.

The sad thing is, most of his backers could never have envisaged that things would go this badly wrong for him. Hostile MPs haven’t helped, but Jeremy’s hardly lived up to any sort of promise many had.

One plus point is that it will give the next Labour leader the chance to regain credibility. I’d imagine there’d be a 10-point bounce from a new leader. However that’s one of few plus points. This will be the last election fought on current boundary guidelines. The extra two years will give May time to smooth over any Brexit difficulties. A larger majority will give her a freer hand to do as she wishes in Westminster, before and after any EU negotiations.

If the 2015 result was galling, 2017’s will be worse. While I’d always back the Labour Party to be best chance of genuine progress in Britain, after the last two years, it’s difficult to see how others who weren’t convinced will be attracted to the cause. This could be the starting pistol of a very difficult five years. 20 years on from one of their biggest triumphs, Labour could be starting back at square one.

Wednesday in Westminster

Fate never checks your diary. But to be honest, if it did and had asked me when I’d have been happy to be caught up in a terrorist attack, I think we’d have struggled to fix a date. For a period on Wednesday, I wondered if I was moments from being killed.

Melodramatic, you may think, but after terrorist attacks across Europe in recent years, I doubt I was the only one.

It was an ordinary sort of day, they always are. I was in Parliament having had a tour in the morning, lunch in the lords with a friend and was preparing for an afternoon in the company of political journalists from across Westminster. All our days were about to take a very sudden turn.

I, with friends had returned from lunch with another friend from the Lords, and we stood and passed the time of day stood in the corner of Portcullis House’s lobby, talking about various bits of political gossip, and spotting various MPs (Jess Phillips), and journalists (Laura Kuenssberg, more on her later).

Up we went, outside the room our afternoon sessions were due to take place. People started filing back, and my foremost thoughts were how I was going to leave and meet a Times journalist halfway through our session, and later meet my other half for her to get a tour around Parliament.

All of a sudden, people rushed forwards towards the glass panels overlooking the atrium. I went over, thinking that someone may have collapsed, an altercation could be taking place, or someone had been spotted. Instead, a clutch of armed officers were bustling outside through the doors of Portcullis House, while a few remained behind, before telling people to move away.

Seconds later it turned up to 11. They began shouting at anybody in sight to get to the back of the atrium. “Go! Run! Get away now!” Not the language armed police use if a handbag’s been stolen. You quickly realise that this was not a drill. In amongst this, BBC’s Kuenssberg was stood on the phone, reporting while people fled past her. The type of steel you can only envy.

A friend checked Twitter and found Kevin Schofield’s tweet that someone had been shot outside. Parliament was under attack.

Security lockdown in parliament. Rumours someone has been shot. Lots of shouting. Police everywhere.

— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) March 22, 2017

In this fight or flight scenario, mine was clear. Flight the fuck out of there.

My first thoughts were logical. Where had this taken place? How many people attacking were there? Was this the first wave of a few? Were armed police prepared? Was there anybody inside? Was Portcullis House about to be overwhelmed? Well, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities.

After watching this unfold from our vantage point, a security staff member came up and told us to move to the back of the floor. I passed the message onto others that it may be best to pre-emptively ring home and tell family we were okay, and safe for now.

“Mom, this is going to come onto the news in about 30 seconds…” I began.

I relayed the information to her. The most difficult part was when she asked how I was. Not that I am devoid of emotion, but I very rarely shed a tear (although watching Up is always a risk). However when I told her I loved her before I ended the call, my tear ducts nudged the rest of my face, reminding it they were there. Only a staccato “Yes, fine.” I went.

Worse was when I text my girlfriend, Tasha, and it took me four attempts to finish a text telling her I loved her and couldn’t wait to see her later. By now we had been moved to a large room in Portcullis House, with around 60 others. All I could think was that if an attacker found us, we’d be mown down in seconds.

Any time I thought of my family, Tasha, my friends or our own mortality, my tear ducts were starting to hold the rest of my face to ransom. I’m not against crying. It’s just that 1) I look dreadful on the rare occasion I do cry, and 2) in a situation that’s bad enough already, it’s an absolute priority not to panic anybody else.

Pathetic, you may think. Melodramatic too. That may be, but you never know until you’re faced with that very real situation. You never know when you’ll be making that last call to your loved ones.

Once those calls were made, I decided to mill around asking others if they were okay. It’s easier to take attention off yourself that way, and in any situation, there’s always people in a worse position than yourself.

I looked around room for possible escape options if someone was to burst in. Two inch thick Perspex covered the windows, and there doors opened out onto the same corridor. If anything was to happen, it was unlikely I’d be doing a John McClane impression.

The time in that room was otherwise spent running my phone battery down checking Twitter for updates. I’m a big advocate of the idea that people give too much attention to their phones, but what people did that situation pre-mobile I have no idea, and it would have been far spookier without it.

Eventually we were moved to a building adjacent to Portcullis and put into a Tory MP’s office, with their staff and told to lock the door. Conversation was exchanged, and it’s always easy to feel slightly better when you know that by chance there’s someone with counter-terrorism training in the room. Firm advice was given not to reopen a door once it’s been locked. It was followed.

Yards away, out of the window was Westminster Bridge, and on the TV was Westminster Bridge. Surreal does not begin to cut it.

We were eventually put into the lobby of that building, and found ourselves in the same area as the BBC’s Kneussberg, and the Telegraph and former Labour MP Tom Harris. To kill boredom, I took to wandering the corridor and popping my head into the offices of MPs whose staff was there watching TV. A flat phone battery and an information vacuum meant it was the only way to keep up-to-date. That, and idle chatter is a great way to pass time, especially when you’re united by a shared experience. Happily I bumped into a staffer of Tory MP Justin Tomlinson, a fellow Harrier in the House as it were.

By now, hours after the incident and the lockdown was put into place, fear, had given way to tedium and everybody just wanted to get home. We heard that they were clearing Parliament room by room, searching along the way. Rumours circulated that we would be in there until 10pm, thankfully we were out at 8pm in one massive snake along with various MPs. I briefly mused to John McDonnell on the way out on how strange a day it had been. I wonder if he still believes in the power of the bullet and the bomb.

Walking out of Black Rod’s entrance was a bizarre feeling. Freedom. We were safe, and it was over.

Freedom: The view down Millbank at the end of the day

 

As I write this a day later, staring out of the coach window into the pitch black M1, my only thoughts are how lucky I am. It’s true, we were never facing down a gun barrel. Yet we weren’t to know that the armed police had it under control. Just like those on Westminster Bridge, or PC Keith Palmer, who weren’t to know they wouldn’t be returning home that night.

It wasn’t so much a taste of one’s mortality, as the faint scent of it carried in the wind. Enough to make you worry that that phone call to your Mom may be the last one. Or that you might not be in the arms of your girlfriend that night. As the IRA pointed out, terrorists only have to be lucky once.

To look back, it’s endlessly surreal to think that we were caught up in it; probably one of the biggest events of the 2010s. We weren’t the story, neither were we eyewitnesses nor causalities but we were involved. The sad part is, it’ll no doubt be used to justify increasing anti-immigration feeling and more intrusive surveillance powers by those seeking to exploit the opportunity to fulfil their pre-existing narrative.

There but for the grace of god, and our magnificent emergency services, go we. Never was that truer than Wednesday in Westminster.

The demise of linear progress?

The world’s gone mad. Or rather, those who are deemed to have an expert view on the world have gone mad, letting the reins of reality slip from their hands and seem to be as disconnected from real people as many of the politicians who seek to represent them are.

For most of the commentariat, the last eighteen months have been a succession of incorrect predictions. A Conservative general election win, Brexit vote and Trump victory has left their judgement being questioned. Three things which, at increasing levels, there is concern is that it will hold progress back, or even reverse it.

Growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, it’s easy to think that progress is inherently pegged to time. Two linear lines running parallel to one another. As time goes on, society gets better. The history we’re taught enforces it, most of our own experiences do too. Decade on decade, since the Second World War, living standards have increased, people have had more money in their pocket, and society has become more progressive.

As somebody in their early 20s, it’s therefore seemed a given that progress will rise in-front of us as the years pass by, qualifications achieved, experience garnered, and opportunities taken up.

It’s been easy to have faith in our own futures at least.

However, the last 18 months are enough to hasten caution at least. Brexit, Donald Trump, the situation in the Middle East all operating under the spectre of global warming.  I’m not about to proclaim that we’re doomed, far from it, but it does make you lose your faith in the idea of progress.

Brexit, when we eventually leave, will most likely hold back the economy. If Donald Trump’s policies match his pre-election swagger, then there’s plenty of reason to worry. In Syria and the Middle East, things show no sign of improving. A situation that we helped create, the public seems to have no interest in helping sort. God forbid we’d offer to take more than a few thousand in, heaven forfend if they’re over 18.

Other nations have had lost generations, and only now are we back at pre-financial crash levels in our economy. Nearly 10 years later. With Theresa May’s politics mixed in with Brexit, and Donald Trump across the Atlantic, it’s difficult to see the next decade as one full of hope, prosperity and fortune. Rather it could be one where those with the means, progress, and those without, struggle.  An increasingly divided society, and if it’s anything like the last five years, those who do struggle will be encouraged by populists to blame anybody but those in charge. The vicious circle, could well continue.

The ideological bunker mentality of Labour

If we can’t discuss our ideas, how will we sell them to the public?

Do you know what annoys me? No, I don’t mean not over-eager traffic wardens, no, not slow moving pedestrians, nor lack of oil, although that really does grind my gears.

Its people involved in politics, or members of a political party, who any time their view is challenged reverts to “I didn’t come here for a debate”, or “I don’t care what you say, I’m not changing my mind”.

What an utterly self-defeating point of view to take, usually espoused by people unable or unwilling to countenance any opinion that isn’t their own, living in a sheltered social media echo chamber where they love people coming en masse to support their views, but are somehow shocked and taken aback when anybody disagrees.

I’ve seen it an increasing amount of times over the last twelve months. Those who are Hilary Clinton supporters unwilling to accept any criticism of their chosen candidate, or those on either side in the Corbyn/non-Corbyn battle within the Labour Party, unwilling to think of the positives of the other sides approach, or learn from constructive criticism.

It’s part of a system that is typified by the no-platform policy from the NUS. The “Your views are abhorrent, I’m just going to pretend they don’t exist, rather than disagree with you and pick apart your arguments”, usually put forward by people who have grown up not used to being challenged in an almightily comfortable upbringing.

Having ideas that you’re not willing to discuss or debate is concerning at the best of times, but when it comes to those people involved in political parties, or holding positions then it becomes dangerous.

To defeat an opponent, you not only have to be familiar with their arguments, but you need to know how to defeat them. You need to know what they think, and why they think it. What’s the underpinning rationale behind everything? On the other side, modifying the famous Alastair Campbell/Philip Gould tactic of “If we were them, how would we attack our own policies?”. Discussing ideas tests them, and tests your opponent’s too.

Opinions, policy and thoughts aren’t a black and white colour palette. It’s akin to a Rubik’s cube, or kaleidoscope, a medley of different ideas coming together, being weighed against one another and hopefully at the end coming out with something that is complementary and convincing. You don’t get that without any outside influence.

Shutting yourself down when it comes to any discussion seems to be a way of saying “Listen, I have these opinions, I probably haven’t thought them through properly and they’re actually very superficial but I don’t want to look or feel stupid” or “Yes, I have this opinion, and it’s for a fairly bad motive, but I don’t want you to find out why”.

Personally speaking, as a former Times subscriber (Murdoch, boo, hiss), and thanks to the infamous Karl Rose someone who usually has a Facebook timeline abuzz with disagreement, I welcome somebody disagreeing with me. In fact I’d rather that than be welcomed with full agreement. Not because I seek confrontation, far from it, but rather because there’s often things I haven’t thought of, or perspectives I haven’t heard. I occasionally even learn something new. I’m relatively open to anything (said the Bishop to the Nun), and seeking out contrarian views means I wasn’t wholly surprised by a Leave vote in the referendum, in fact the possibility was worrying me for quite a while beforehand.

Labour has great heritage as the party of intellectual debate, the link between the party and the Fabian Society going back to its foundation. The party’s MPs used to be a focal part of setting the future direction of the party, Tony Benn, Roy Hattersley and Tony Crosland all weighing in with varying ­ contributions­. Today, you have Tristram Hunt’s attempt to confront Labour’s problem with national identity, and Peter Hain’s ‘Back to the Future of Socialism’ which was published 6 months before he left Parliament. Doesn’t quite match up. MPs seem more inclined to look to Twitter to share their views, rather than forming anything more developed on paper.

What concerns me most, is that this increasing mood, particularly among younger members of the party, to not contemplate views that disagree with our own will end up costing us dearly. If you don’t listen to outside ideas, yours will never evolve into something infalliable and something that will win elections. Isn’t that what the party exists for?

EU: What next for Labour?

Britain’s currently a country without a Prime Minister. The Conservative Party without a leader, but make no mistake, her Majesty’s Opposition is in turmoil and having an existential crisis. The referendum result saw Labour heartlands falling like dominoes to Brexit. Salford, Stoke, Sunderland and South Wales. All areas with a strong Labour heritage, all areas that voted decisively for us to leave the EU. The vote’s a stark contrast with the party, who are the main pro-European party of Britain, despite previous unsuccessful anti-EU stances.

The comparison with Scotland and the independence referendum is worthwhile. A divisive contest left a divided nation. Whilst the result was different, the anti-establishment vote led to the annihilation of the party in an area it had previously dominated. There’s a huge risk that following the Brexit vote, the same could happen again at the next election south of the border, and Labour could be wiped out in England and Wales.

As I indicated in ‘EU:The day after the night before’, my perception of the Brexit vote was a strong rejection of perceived ‘mass immigration’ and the European Union as an organisation. This leaves Labour between a rock and a hard place. They risk sticking to their guns and haemorrhaging voters to UKIP or changing their policies in line with immigration-sceptic and anti-EU voters, which could both seem disingenuous (immigration mugs anybody?), and risks losing their University educated, metropolitan backers.

The concern for the Conservative Party as well as Labour, is now the overt anti-immigration genie is out of the bottle and neither party are trusted to control it. Misguided Brexiters don’t realise that in order to survive outside of the EU but also have access to the free market, we will have to accept freedom of movement, as Norway and Switzerland have done. When Brexit doesn’t result in a sharp reduction in Schroeders Immigrant arriving in Britain, the support for both parties by the leave voters could evaporate overnight and switch over to the far-right. A dangerous scenario for British Politics and race-relations in the UK.

Whether sticking to their guns could pick up centre-right voters horrified at the turn the Conservative Party has taken remains to be seen, but with John McDonnell’s economic ideas usually out of kilter with theirs (aside from some surprising common ground) it’s unlikely.

The Brexit vote has resulted in a vote of no confidence and a leadership challenge to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. A wholly unfair blame game has set in. The winning margin was 1.3m voters, and I don’t think there’s anything Jeremy could have done to persuade every single one of them to vote differently. This is a proxy war against Corbynism, and should be recognised as exactly that. If he goes, the shame will be that he is the first Labour leader in a long time honestly and overtly acknowledging the pressures of immigration, pledging to do something about it by re-introducing the Migrant Investment Fund, whilst still talking about the benefits of immigration.

What to do? As always, it has to be a genuine hybrid of solutions. The argument over the EU and immigration has been lost. Whilst it’s not worth giving up efforts on changing ideas, there shouldn’t be a pinning of hopes on it, and neither should there be an expectation of ‘misguided voters returning home after their strop’. It didn’t work in Scotland and it won’t work now. Many of us recognise that the issue isn’t immigration, rather the lack of investment to support the population influx. However, with the prevailing narrative of two decades’ immigrant blaming set in, it’s a long way back from that position to convince voters of what the reality is.

From a socialist perspective there’s room for a firmer policy line on immigration. In order to provide an equally high quality service to each and every person in Britain, you have to control the amount of service users, so that inevitably some aren’t subject to overstretched services. It would be pitching equality of provision for all, but including a line on immigration that is counter to continuing the ‘come all ye faithful’ model of the mid-00s.

On the European Union, it will be subject to events in many ways. If Brexit goes swimmingly, it would make sense to continue the status quo but keep an open door to future European Union entry, depending on certain factors (Euro adoption). If Brexit does result in the economic turmoil that many of us suspect, then pitching swift re-entry would make sense to the already converted, but would further alienate those leavers who have voted Labour for decades.

What is crucial is that there needs to be a concerted effort to impress upon voters that the party honestly and genuinely understands their fears and concerns, without condescension. They need to convince the voters that the party believes their concerns and will seek to try to address them.

This would involve Labour MPs coalescing their views with those of the electorate and trying to find a middle ground between addressing their concerns and promoting the benefits of controlled immigration.  It’s not an easy position to be in, and not one I envy Jeremy Corbyn for, if indeed he’s in that position for much longer.

Brexit: Staying in’s the new going out

I’m no E.U apologist. For a while leading up this vote I’ve been firmly on the fence glancing occasionally at either side to which I might commit. However, over the last week I’ve had my day-trip to Damascus (it’s lovely there this time of year, I hear) and I’ll be backing Remain.

I’m naturally sceptical of authority, the Tony Benn ‘Five questions for the powerful’ usually applies, and whilst the European Union is a wonderful concept it has its excesses. The monetary policies it chose to follow crippled Greece and others, Freedom of Movement seems to have been the utopian pursuit of the 21^st Century, and some of the self-defeating bureaucracy that seems to envelope the E.U. institutions plays directly into the hands of the right-wing tabloids.

Britain is a nation that has little affinity towards an ever-closer European Union. The 20.6 miles between Dover and Calais has a lot to answer for when reflecting upon the British, not European identity that many do subscribe to. A large part of the British vote still has delusions of empire, hence their assertion that Britain can be “great again”, once we “take our country back”.

I approach the E.U and a lot of these issues from a Eurosceptic angle, yet I’ll be voting Remain next Thursday.

Perhaps it is ‘Project Fear’ that’s got to me, but the reasons for staying in the E.U are much wider than that. Environmental issues, the trigger for eye-rolling from usual suspects, will without doubt be the most crucial problem of the next half-century. As Jeremy Corbyn pointed out earlier this week, pollution transcends borders. It’s a problem you have to fight on a cross-state level. You cannot fight it on your own and we’d be better placed co-ordinating our efforts with our European partners.

Whilst not being joined by a land border to mainland Europe, it would be a shame to sever ties with the key and historic countries of Europe. Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, all cities of a great historical and cultural significance that through the E.U Britain has ties to. To throw all of that away on a whim would be tragic.

‘Project Fear’ does seem to have taken over both sides of the campaign. You can’t flick on the news, or scan your eyes across the BBC website without seeing another thinly-veiled threat by either side. The recent Vote Leave advert, offering scare stories about Turkey joining the EU is reminiscent of the Harry Enfield and Chums “L is for Labour” parody. It’s beyond exaggeration and yet it’s managed to look almost respectable. Even worse, people believe it.

The EU, and its usual scapegoat bedfellow, immigration has long been the subject of blame from the Conservative Party, and anybody on the right-wing of British politics. A concern is, who will the guns turn on if the EU is removed from that equation and can no longer be blamed when the UK is going through economic hardship? Immigration and those who have come to Britain most likely. Leaving the EU would signify a real shift towards an increasingly divided, nationalist and embittered society, where those who are worse off seek to blame incomers for their problems, rather than their rulers.

That’s not to say that immigration isn’t an issue. For a long time, controlling immigration was something which was met with scorn, partially because there was a significant amount of people using that argument as a front for their xenophobia. However, the left position on immigration has to be reviewed. There’s nothing socialist about having services overstretched, and to still keep on taking in more migrants. No matter how well you fund services, there will always be a limit to what the potential capacity can be, whether looking at school places, NHS beds or social housing.

Often the areas hit hardest by immigration are those which are poorer off. I can’t imagine that the levels of migration into rural Hampshire or Oxfordshire is as high as into more deprived areas of the UK. Of course, there is a fair tendency for migrants to move to areas where similar people live, but often they will move into areas that place them in direct competition with those on low wages, for housing, for jobs and for school places. No wonder in a video earlier this week, Guardian journalist John Harris found many in Stoke would be voting out, despite some of their jobs relying on EU custom.

Yet these people, already in their own eyes hit by immigration, will be those the hardest hit if we do leave the EU. It’s not ‘Project Fear’ to realise that if the UK does leave the EU, there will be economic damage. Often these people are in the most unsecure jobs, and the most reliant on the state. It would be turkeys voting for Christmas.

There are benefits from migration, that much is irrefutable, but you cannot rule out that there are some who do lose out from the pressures that immigration brings. Therefore, the calls for restrictions and changes to free movement from Tom Watson this week are welcome, but it’s something you can only change from the inside.

There are many left-wing arguments for Brexit, and some are valid. Yet it would be Brexit under the likely Tory rule of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and Iain Duncan Smith. There would be no rebalancing of society, nor increased impetus on redistribution. It would be Patel ripping up whatever employment law (or ‘red tape’ as you may see it referred to) she can, and Gove preaching to those worst off about what’s best for them. Afterall, he knows best. If you thought the Cameron Premiership was right-wing, you ‘aint seen nothing yet.

 

Never forget, Gove knows best.

My vote for remain won’t be shrouded in gleeful enthusiasm for our European membership, and in a way I think the negotiations that Cameron has secured , far from keeping us central in the EU tent allowing us to influence reform, could instead resign us to being an awkward participant sat in the corner, like a protagonist in a My Chemical Romance music video. It’s a vote against the alternative. Whilst I have little enthusiasm for the EU, Brexit would be akin to cutting your nose off to spite your face, yet arguing that at least without your nose you’re now in control of your face. Therefore if you’re still undecided, I’d urge you to vote Remain next Thursday.

Trade Union bill will kill progress of tomorrow

Tonight the Trade Union bill passed its third reading. For those who aren’t procedural aficionados, it means that rather soon it’ll become law. It’s unlikely that we’ll see the “constitutional crisis” that affected the Tax Credits bill and see it thrown back into the House of Commons to be reconsidered or scrapped.

A lot of attention has been given to another proposal that will infringe civil liberties. The rejuvenation of Theresa May’s snoopers charter, a means for the Government to keep an eye on digital communications so to precipitate, and stop crime on the web.

The by-product of that is that it means the government will be keeping tabs on what all of its citizens are looking at, in general terms, for a year after. It’s the equivalent of before the internet, the government rootling through your post and recording the topics you had covered.

It’s all a bit invasive and over the top, letting the Government see into the private lives and interests of its citizens. As the Guardian’s Heather Brooke pointed out, it makes George Orwell look short-sighted.

Why then, if this ‘Snoopers Charter’ is so terrible, is the Trade Union Bill worse?

All it’s going to do is clip the wings of the unions who hold the country, its citizens and commuters to ransom every time they haven’t had a wage rise in the last six minutes? They have too much power anyway don’t they? Besides, membership is at an all-time low. Since when are they even relevant anymore?

Wrong.

What the bill does is far more than clip the wings of the Trade Unions. Instead it cuts their wings off, as well as lopping off their legs for good measure. Leaving Trade Unions a bit like a beached whale, sitting there, obsolete.

The bill will make strikes unlawful unless 50% of those eligible to vote, exercise their right to. That’s something that doesn’t apply to the majority of Conservative MPs who have been elected to Parliament. The same people who voted in favour of the bill.

They won’t allow electronic voting, which may encourage engagement. Despite it being okay for Zac Goldsmith to be selected as the Conservative candidate in London for the Mayoral election by this method.

It’ll criminalise pickets that have been formed without checking with the police. It’ll allow the Government to set a limit on the amount of time a public sector worker can spend on Trade Union duties, and require those on pickets to inform police in advance of the content they plan to put on social media.

It’s a bid to make any possible industrial action vettable by the police, who are there to inform the laws of the day’s Government. It’ll cut down on disruption yes, but that’s precisely what a strike is intended to do.

If a worker can’t withdraw their labour in protest at their treatment. What can they do?

It’ll make Unions less able to support, and stand up for their members, who are usually some of the most vulnerable in working society. Which if you’re unsure, is the main purpose of a Union.

Workers who are on a good wage, with money in the bank, if they’re being bullied or intimidated, can hire a lawyer themselves. It stands to reason if they’re earning good money, that they can also take their valuable labour elsewhere if their pay is substandard, or hours are unsatisfactory.

What about those that aren’t in that well-off position? Or whose work is manual, easily replicated? That’s where Trade Unions can come in, providing that legal support, standing up for better pay, fairer working hours. Without the Trade Union movement we wouldn’t have two-day weekends, eight hour working days, maternity leave, retirement age, good health and safety, or paid holidays. The list goes on.

These things were won with Trade Union pressure, not a kindly decision by company directors across Britain.

It’s a co-operative ideal, that if everybody clubs their funds and support together, it can benefit everybody, the manual worker and the executive. It’s a reason why Trade Unions such as Unison have a graded membership fee, so people only pay what they can afford to support one another.

Alas, that’s all in the past. It’s taken for granted. In fact many of my generation accept that as the norm, and don’t think its been different since the Victorian era.

The achievements of Trade Unions may have all come in the past, but the issue is the Trade Union bill will stop the progress of tomorrow, to give better working lives for Britain’s people. It’ll erode one of the few lines of protection for the British workforce. It needs to be fought and stopped for the benefit of the lives of future generations.

BBC Presenter and former Kidderminster resident, James O’Brien summed up the benefits of Trade Unions earlier this summer on LBC, and it’s well worth a listen.