Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Labour Party, Wales’ Category

Good Election News from Cymru(Wales) – Caerffili – Victory For Plaid Cymru But Defeat for both Labour and Reform UK

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Most recent election news from the British state has been very depressing. A labour party government led by Keir Starmer regularly responds to the electoral rise of the far-right Reform outfit led by Nigel Farage by attempting to be more racist and right-wing than the racists themselves.

This political instability is damaging ancient foundations of the British state – Scottish politics in the 21st century has been dominated by the rise of political separatism – and now Cymru/Wales is following that trend.

This will have, and is having, important side-effects in Ireland.

How do we explain an extremely welcome Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) electoral triumph in Caerffili?

Geoff Ryan’s interesting report is below – one of the factors he highlights is

The women of the small Ukrainian community played an important role in combatting the lies of Reform.


Link :


Caerffili victory for Plaid Cymru but defeat for both Labour and Reform UK

Caerffili – Victory For Plaid Cymru But Defeat for both Labour and Reform UK.

Geoff Ryan reports from Wales/Cymru on the Caerffili byelection result

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European Law might overrule bigoted British Supreme Court Anti-Transgender ruling in 6 County bit of Ireland – since Brexit, the north is different from Great Britain

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Voters in the 6 County bit of Ireland rejected Brexit in the 2016 British State referendum by a large margin : 55 to 45 per cent. This was a unique political event – opposition to Brexit broke down the normal sectarian divide on an important constitutional development in the north of Ireland : Almost all nationalists voted against Brexit, and they were joined by a significant number of Unionist (perhaps ex-Unionist) voters.

Afterwards a decision was needed : would a new European Union (EU) – Britain border divide the 6 and 26 county bits of Ireland – or would a new border emerge, dividing the island of Great Britain from all of Ireland?

Everybody knew a new Brexit border could not be imposed on Ireland. The British government needed window-dressing for its Unionist allies : the “Windsor Framework” was unveiled with a walk-on part for the reluctant British monarch King Charles.

This rickety constitutional construction kicked a sleeping dog. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement. copperfastened an imperialist crime – the 1922  partition of Ireland.  A promise that partition could be ended through an internal 6 county referendum is part of the GFA – but this was never meant to happen. The architects of the GFA reasoned, correctly in 1998, that an anti-partition majority in the north of Ireland was extremely unlikely. The Unionist Veto was safe. After Brexit, not any more.

The former Fine Gael leader and taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, is saying out loud what many people know is true but do not want to hear :

A Nigel Farage-led UK goverment could herald a united Ireland – Varadkar

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Britain’s tankies react to Prigozhin’s mutiny

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Here is another article in a series concerning Britain’s political tankies (left wing activists who identify positively with Stalinist tanks sent into countries neighbouring Russia to crush popular working class and democratic uprisings – for example Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968). A leading spokesperson of Britain’s “Stop the War” Campaign is Andrew Murray, who operates within a narrow political spectrum opposing active solidarity with the Ukrainian masses. Regrettably Murray shares practical common ground with activists from a different non-Stalinist background, the British Socialist Workers’s Party. This political poison – supporting any camp that is opposed by United States imperialism – is demolished below by the social democratic author Paul Mason. Mason might do his readers a favour by pointing to the fact that many currents with political origins on the left of Stalinism and Social Democracy – for example the Fourth International, solidarity movements such as the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine, many anarchist organisations and activists – advocate policies on Ukraine in accord with his own thinking. The main Irish radical left organisation – People Before Profit – is strangled by political campism. It needs rapid lessons offered by Scandinavian comrades :

Nordic Green Left Parties Declare Solidarity With Ukraine “we demand a complete and immediate withdrawal of the Russian armed forces from all Ukrainian territory”

https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article61764


Stop The War movement finds yet another reason to tell Ukraine to stop resisting…

Putin’s regime is in danger of collapse therefore Ukraine should stop fighting…That’s the message from Stop The War. Having been struck dumb by the events of Saturday 24 June, the campaign has finally come out with a line, penned by self-styled Ukraine expert Andrew Murray.

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“There is no route to Peace Without Ukraine Being Able to Defend Itself” – Mick Antoniw, Labour Party Member of the Welsh Assembly – Jeremy Corbyn is “Fundamentally Wrong”

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Mick Antoniw, a Labour Party member of the Senedd (Assembly) in Wales, says that Jeremy Corbyn’s recent comments on Ukraine are “fundamentally wrong”. The Welsh Labour MS was a big supporter of the former Labour leader and is heading to the war zone to deliver aid.

More about Mick Antoniw : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Antoniw