Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out.

Malcolm Blair-Robinson, writer and blogger,  has been a keen political observer for more than sixty years. Born a Tory, he became a founder member of the SDP, before gradually migrating left. In 2014 he published his idea of Dynamic Quantitative Easing which aroused interest in high places and this forms a core element of this powerful and compact analysis of Labour’s opportunity to regain power. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution. He is dismayed by the unfairness of the current economic model and is driven by the hope of a better future for the rising generation.

Get your copy now. Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99     AMAZON UK

We now have three crises running in tandem. The first is financial and economic, with short and long term threats. The second is political where both government and opposition are floundering and where no plan exists even in outline of what to try and achieve in negotiations with the EU and how we benefit from Brexit. The third is constitutional. There is no clarity on how a snap general election can be called since we passed a law to stop it when we tinkered with the constitution and introduced fixed term parliaments, or whether there would need to be another referendum to accept the quit deal offered by the EU and above all because the Union with Scotland is already breaking up.

Each of these is a show stopper. All three together is beyond the competence of any political leader now in sight. We must hope that one emerges or that all the Kings horses and all the King’s men can in fact put Humpty back together again. Because Humpty is our nation’s future and that means ours, and at the moment it is bust wide open.

In future new posts will try to deal with each crisis separately. Their only link is the Brexit vote. That has now happened, it cannot be either ignored or reversed and everyone has to set about picking up the peaces. Including this blog.

They said ‘Nothing will change immediately’ if we go Brexit.

No. The market and sterling have sunk and are just about afloat, Moody’s has downgraded the UK’s credit rating, the prime minister has resigned, so have half the shadow cabinet in an attempt to rid themselves of the hated Corbyn, the government is split and all but dysfunctional, no party grouping actually has a majority in the Commons except for Remain MPs cross party, the UK is now in the process of breaking up, with Scotland pursuing its own agenda both domestically and in Europe.

There is total silence from Leave except to row back from the undeliverable promises they made in order to win. Nobody has a clue what happens next. To all practical purposes there is a state of political collapse of a kind unknown in the United Kingdom. There has been nothing like this in peacetime nor in war. All we can say is that it is a mess beyond everybody’s wildest imagining and, worse, nobody knows where we are headed, or what damage has been inflicted on the EU itself. Because make no mistake, if that goes pear shaped, there are no sunny uplands awaiting the surviving remnants of the UK.

The markets will need to be very patient. We will see tomorrow. And a final thought. Never were the risks of having no codified written constitution more obvious, a danger that may in the end prove fatal to the ongoing notion of Great Britain.

At last New Labour in parliament judges its moment has come and is mounting its attack on Corbyn’s leadership. This Blog exhaustively has studied why Labour lost in 2015 and where the votes to give it victory were to be found and they are not where New Labour supposes. Corbyn has the biggest popular mandate of any political leader in Britain, signatures on an online petition backing him are approaching 180,000, Labour upped its vote in the two by-elections under his leadership by a greater margin than polls suggested and did much better than everybody was spinning in the local elections, where Labour’s vote was nearly 4% up and the Tories 4% down. He has added more than 200,000 members to  the Labour membership to make it the largest political party in the UK by far.

But the big snag to most of the parliamentary party is that Corbyn is far to the left of their establishment sentiments. They are too blinkered to see that it is in the unfairness and inequality of our banker dominated economy which New Labour helped build, which has abandoned the old industrial heartland and  impoverished large parts of the United Kingdom, that the key votes are  to be harvested to give a crushing Labour win in 2020. These forgotten political areas where UKIP picked up over 3 million votes and which New Labour abandoned, are also the ones that voted Brexit. That is not Corbyn’s fault. It is New Labour’s. If the parliamentary party goes to war with its members in the country, it will have signed its death warrant, which will be carried out in a spectacular electoral massacre in  2020. Just like the SDP in 1983.

Well here we are Post Brexit Day Two. Moody’s have downgraded the UK’s credit rating from stable to negative. The only British Commissioner in Brussels has resigned (fired), leaving the City of London exposed. The Scottish Cabinet has approved the opening of discussions with the EU institutions  to determine how Scotland’s EU membership can be protected and in case there is no other way, work is to start on preparing  for a second independence referendum.

None of that can be described as good news. Why did the Brexit campaign not mention these possibilities? Is this what 17 million people voted for?

In the middle of yesterday’s drama Mark Carney appeared on TV to announce the availability of £250 billion in emergency funds to support the banks, whose rash bets on Remain had caused overnight financial mayhem.  One of the reasons there was a surprise Brexit win was that to vote for something really stupid on a lot of false promises which cannot be met, was at least a way of protesting at an unfair economic model which doles out billions on demand to reckless banks, but has no funds to support the steel industry and all the skilled and hard working families who have made it their lifetime vocation, in many cases for generations.

The United Kingdom is now entering the most critical period of uncertainty and crisis management since the end of the Second World War. Yes there have been problems before, but they have always been at a level which did not throw into doubt where the country was trying to go, how it was going to pay its way, with whom and on what terms it was going to trade and above all, of what would the United Kingdom in future consist?

We now, on Referendum  plus .75 of a day, have a lame duck caretaker government with a shattered prime minister, a cumbersome electoral process for the ill-starred and sundered Tory party to elect a new leader to form a new government creating great political uncertainty, shares and the pound in turmoil, warnings of a ratings downgrade, pressure on the banks and the very likely prospect that Scotland will break away to independence in order to remain in the EU, with the further prospect that Northern Ireland may well leave the UK to unite with the Republic of Ireland.

Meanwhile business investment is all but grinding to a halt, since such is the confusion, no rational manager can determine what the future holds and where the opportunities might beckon. That in turn will trigger a downturn in a country not yet out of the clutches of the aftermath of the 2008 crash. And all of this self inflicted so that we can ‘take back control’, ‘set ourselves free’, and become ‘independent again’.

I beg your pardon?

There were some who said if Brexit won nothing much would happen the next day.

Well so far the pound has had a record plunge, shares opened by falling off a cliff, the Bank of England had to issue a statement of reassurance, then the Governor had to appear in person to outline emergency measures had been put in place to prop up the banks if once again they run into trouble as their shares fell by as much as 30% and the Prime Minister has resigned.

And it is not yet 9.30 am.

Actually it looks like quite a day. One to remember perhaps?

This is my final post before the vote. As regular readers will know I am unmoved by economic arguments either one way or the other, or immigration fears and passions. I would vote Remain even if it cost me, because to me and my family the Union of independent states in Europe is the greatest political achievement since the fall of the Roman Empire, and the bloodletting of centuries costing the lives of millions is at an end. At an end not because of the force of an imperial gun, but because all the people in all the states are free to mingle, work and live side by side as neighbours and friends. Nobody is thirsting for a fight because at last they have drunk from the cup of fellowship and peace. The scourge of conscription into mass armies and slaughter across the countryside and through the cities, is over. To me that trumps everything else anyone can say and to put it in jeopardy or to walk from it, is to nullify the sacrifice of all those whose blood led us to a dream none thought possible.

You must vote Leave if you want to and I wish you well. What saddens me is that after twenty-five years of planning, your champions have been unable to offer a single clear view of where that will lead you and what sacrifice you will have to make to reach the land you have been promised. Could that be because they do not know? Could it be they dare not tell? Could it be that promised land is not there at all? You must be the judge of that.

As I walk into the polling station tomorrow I shall carry in my pocket my passport. My passport which designates me a Citizen of Europe. I shall walk with pride.

Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution which can propel Labour back to government in 2020.

Check it out now. Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99     AMAZON UK