Update: 19 Labour MPs defy EU whip
Update at 12:10am
The names of 19 Labour MPs who voted for an EU referendum and rebelled against the three line whip are:
Ronnie Campbell
Rosie Cooper
Jeremy Corbyn
Jon Cruddas
John Cryer
Ian Davidson
Natascha Engel
Frank Field
Roger Godsiff
Kate Hoey
Kelvin Hopkins
Steve McCabe
John McDonnell
Austin Mitchell
Dennis Skinner
Andrew Smith
Graham Stringer
Gisela Stuart
Mike Wood
Green MP and Libdem Adrian Sanders also voted for the motion.
The full list is here.
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Up to 10 Labour MPs could defy the party’s three-line whip to vote against a debate on the EU referendum, sources have told Liberal Conspiracy.
At least eight of those have publicly signed up to the People’s Pledge campaign, which calls for an EU referendum.
These are: Ronnie Campbell, John Cryer, Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, John McDonnell, Austin Mitchell, Graham Stringer, Gisela Stuart and Keith Vaz.
There is an expectation that Roger Godsif MP will also defy the whip, as he is on the People’s Pledge Advisory Council. More may still to come out of the woodwork.
Both Kelvin Hopkins and Graham Stringer (a former Labour whip) spoke at the People’s Pledge congress on Saturday.
Hopkins said Ed Miliband was “very unwise” to call people “barking” for wanting to leave EU, while Stringer said Britain’s participation in the EU cost the country thousands of jobs.
Keith Vaz, who also spoke at the event and admitted to being pro-EU, said the decision to enforce a three-line whip against a referendum was “a farce” and promised to defy it.
Gisela Stuart confirmed last night she was also going to defy the whip.
Update:
Jon Cruddas hinted over the weekend he could defy the whip:
“This is about democracy,” said Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham, who wants a referendum but would then vote to stay in. “This is not about if you are for or against Europe. It is about respecting the people. Successive generations have not had a say on the European debate. All parties have promised a referendum over the last couple of years. This will fester until a proper open discussion is allowed by the political class. If we do not, anger and resentment will grow.”
But he now tells me he will wait for the debate to make up his mind.
Update 2: Ian Davidson will also join the rebels.
Mothers, kids invited to occupy half-term
A group of mothers from Cambridge have issued an invitation to every mother in the UK to join them at Occupy London Stock Exchange on Wednesday 26th October 2011.
#OccupyLSX will welcome Occupy Half Term at noon this Wednesday.
Parents and children are invited to meet members of the occupation, as well as supporting groups including Anonymous (UK) and Global Women’s Strike.
Through a special workshop, put together by OccupyLSX’s Tent City University, children will have the chance to practice direct democracy in an open and inclusive space.
There will also be a short dance and a procession back to Liverpool Street Station at 2.45pm, for those taking the train from London back to Cambridge.
Started by a mum with a mortgage who is sympathetic to Occupy London, Occupy Half Term has evolved into an event for everyone who is curious and who would like first-hand information about the London occupations – now including the site near the London Stock Exchange and the new site opened this Saturday at Finsbury Square.
More information can be found at the facebook group Occupy Half Term and at the blog http://www.libertyandowain.blogspot.com/
From a press release
Why an EU referendum wouldn’t necessarily lead to UK leaving
The front page of today’s Sunday Express claims that 75% want Britain to quit the EU now.
This is pure nonsense.
As described on Tabloid Watch, to get to their 75% figure, the Express have added together the proportion who say they’d leave (28%), with the much larger proportion who say they’d vote to renegotiate membership (47%).
continue reading… »
Tory MP agrees with #occupy, ‘capitalism skewed against us’
Conservative MP Mark Field expressed sympathy with the #OccupyLSX protests today, on BBC Radio 4′s The World This Weekend.
In an interview he said:
“I do appreciate there is an increasingly strong sense of injustice, and its not just the usual suspects on the left of politics, but increasingly a lot of middle class even Tory voting people who feel that capitalism is a game, that somehow its rules are skewed against us.”
He adds: “I think its resonating quite strongly and I suspect when the economic reckoning works its way through, as it will in this country in the next year or two, you’re going to see more and more of these sorts of protests which will resonate beyond the usual suspects on the left of politics.”
Listen
via @suttonnick
The hypocrisy of people refusing to defend #occupylsx or Dale Farm
“Closing St Paul’s? It’s elf n’ safety gone mad.”
We’re not being deafened by this opinion. Nor were some traditional defenders of the rights of property owners much outraged by the Dale Farm evictions: compare the Mail’s coverage with the generally sympathetic reporting it has given to other people who broke planning laws.
Such double standards are, of course, not unique.
continue reading… »
Watch: Mensch ridiculed on HIGNFY #occupyLSX
Last night the Conservative MP Louise Mensch tried to make some jokes about OccupyLSX, and failed miserably. Then, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton tear her arguments apart.
It’s a brilliant piece of television.
Thanks to @latentexistence for the clip
Stunning: how US banks defrauded investors
The New York Times publishes this excerpt in an article about financial regulation in the US:
In what may be a new low for conduct by a major Wall Street firm in the walk-up to the financial crisis, Citigroup settled charges (without admitting or denying guilt) that it defrauded investors by creating a package of mortgage-backed securities for which it selected a pool of mortgages likely to default, bet against the security for the bank’s benefit by shorting it and then foisted it off on unwitting investors without disclosing any of this.
According to the S.E.C., one trader characterized this particular security in an all-too-candid e-mail as “possibly the best short EVER!”
Compared with this, Goldman Sachs mortgage traders look like Boy Scouts. In settling its fraud charges for $550 million last year, Goldman was accused by the S.E.C. of being the middleman in a similar deal, allowing the hedge fund manager John Paulson to help choose the mortgages and then bet against them without disclosing this to the other parties.
Citigroup dispensed with a Paulson figure altogether, grabbing those lucrative roles for itself. The S.E.C. said Citigroup earned fees of $34 million on this travesty and generated net profits of at least $126 million. (In a statement, Citigroup said it was pleased to put the matter behind it and has since “returned to the basics of banking.”)
Nonetheless, Citigroup is paying just $285 million to settle the charges, and, needless to say, its chief executive at the time the deal was marketed and closed, Charles Prince, will pay nothing.
Simply. Astonishing.
And yet, there are right-wingers who keep saying banks did nothing wrong and only government regulation was to blame for the crash.
Why Caroline Lucas has outflanked Labour on the EU vote
Yesterday, Caroline Lucas submitted an amendment. to the EU referendum bill.
She has spotted not just that the ‘status quo’ option (a) and the ‘nutter’ option (b) are unacceptable.
She has also spotted that the midway option (c) is still a Conservative ‘free trade’ option, under which the neoliberal norms embedded in the current Lisbon Treaty and the devalued but still dangerous Growth & Stability Pact would remain, while at the same time allowing for an assault on the things that Europe has done well, such as the freedom of movement within borders and (some) worker rights.
continue reading… »
Caroline Lucas backs EU referendum
Green MP Caroline Lucas today issued a statement backing a referendum on the EU.
She joins the two Labour MPs who have so far declared they will ignore party whip and also vote in favour of the referendum.
Lucas said:
I support a referendum on our membership of the EU because I am pro-democracy, not because I’m anti-EU – and because I want to see a radical reform of the way Europe operates.
The EU has the potential to spread peace and make our economies more sustainable, and to promote democracy and human rights, at home and throughout the world.
But it must urgently change direction, away from an obsessive focus on competition and free trade and towards placing genuine co-operation and environmental sustainability at its heart.
The Green Party leader will table an amendment to the Conservative backbench motion for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, stating:
(d) seek to build support for radical reform of the EU, increasing its transparency and accountability, refocusing its objectives on co-operation and environmental sustainability rather than competition and free trade, and enabling member states to exercise greater control over their own economies.
St Paul’s closes over #occupylsx: live updates
Updates now at the top
6:20pm Picture of an excellent little poster, captured by @HeardinLondon.
5:50pm The Daily Mail columnist Martin Samuel has just published a column telling St. Paul’s to stop being so greedy. ‘Protest? Not when it stops St Paul’s cash tills ringing‘
Yet just four working days into the protest outside and there is already talk of St Paul’s being closed. For safety reasons, apparently. Whose safety, God only knows. There have been no reports of injuries to visitors or anyone else.
The real damage would appear to have been done to the purveyors of a holy set lunch at £25.95 or a set of deeply religious cufflinks for £180. Naomi Colvin, speaking on behalf of the protesters, said that money might be raised to compensate the church for its losses, but she probably hadn’t studied a price list at the time.
…Canon Fraser, while swathed in a cloak of piety, is in fact a frontman for an organisation up to its neck in free market economics. Like many in his position he just didn’t have any idea how it worked. Now he knows the bottom line: and so do we.
Ouch! And that too from the Daily Mail!
5:20pm Richard Murphy shows governors at St Paul’s who informed the Cathedral’s decision draw overwhelmingly from the City.
5:10pm Even commentators of the Telegraph, albeit hostile to #occupy, think St Paul’s decision to close is “wimpish”.
5:03pm @HeardinLondon is live-tweeting reactions from the #occupyLSX debate being held.
4:50pm Protesters at #occupyLSX currently holding a debate on what they should do. Noises so far seem to indicate they don’t want to leave.
4:50pm A video of the Dean’s statement has now been posted online.
#OccupyLSX have responded to St Paul’s statement. Updates below
—–
In a shocking development today, just ahead of their week long anniversary, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral announced that he was closing the doors because the #occupyLSX protests presented a fire and safety hazard.
In a statement posted to their website, the Dean said
There is something profound about protest being made and heard in front of this most holy place: a gathering together of those concerned about poverty and inequality facing the great Dome of this Cathedral Church.
You actually have to be here to witness it for yourself because the extent of feeling and protest is not easily translated via media in that sense. But it is about the practical and safety issues which this peaceful protest has raised which I need to address with you today.
It should be obvious to anyone approaching the Cathedral that the size of the camp and the consequent compliance issues which it inevitably raises, has increasingly put us in a difficult position.
He added that health and safety officers had warned that access to and from the Cathedral was seriously limited. Plus, the abundance of stoves, fires and different types of fuels on their doorstep was a “clear fire hazard”.
He called the decision to close St. Paul’s Cathedral “unprecedented in modern times”.
#occupyLSX today sent out a press release stating that Unite union’s Len McCluskey had offered his support to the protest.
They were also expecting a thousand protesters to join them tomorrow.
Rumours are swirling now that the police is planning to move against #occupyLSX tonight.
UPDATE:
OccupyLSX have published a statement in response expressing their disappointment at St Paul’s decision. They say:
Since the beginning of the occupation six days ago, OccupyLSX have tried hard to accommodate the Cathedral’s concerns in any way we can. Over the past 48 hours, we have completely re-organised the camp in response to feedback from the Fire Brigade and we have also accepted the presence of two large barriers to preserve access to the side door of the Cathedral.
Both of these measures were accepted by the General Assembly in order that the Cathedral’s normal operations should not be unduly impacted by our presence. This afternoon we have been told, in a telephone call, by the fire brigade, that they have not issued any new requirements above and beyond those already communicated directly to the camp. Therefore, there are no outstanding fire safety issues.
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