Democracy

Owen Smith Yearns To Defy The British People And Thwart Brexit. Let Him Try.

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

–

Owen Smith’s desperate, EU-loving Labour leadership candidacy is a giant F-U to the very people the Labour Party needs to be courting if it ever wants to regain power

Fresh from announcing his plans to host a jolly afternoon tea party for Islamic State in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, contemptible Labour Party nobody Owen Smith has continued to set about alienating Labour’s already furious working class base by pitching himself as a champion of the metro-left’s childish demand that democracy be overturned and the EU referendum result disregarded.

From the Guardian:

Owen Smith has accused Jeremy Corbyn of having never believed in the European project and is seeking to turn the issue of the EU referendum into the key dividing line in the battle for the Labour leadership.

The Labour leader hit back by telling his challenger that he had to respect the result of June’s referendum and accept that Brexit was on the table.

In his strongest attack yet, Smith – whose team are planning to place debate over the EU at the heart of their campaign – said:

“I think Jeremy can’t bring himself to say he would argue for a second referendum or put into a Labour manifesto that we would stay within the European Union because he fundamentally never believed in the European union.

“That is why he steadfastly refuses [to promise a second referendum], even though he acknowledges a likely Tory Brexit will diminish workers’ rights; damage social protections; damage our ability to deal with tax avoidance. Even though he thinks that is likely to happen, he thinks it more important that we stay outside the EU – I think that is a deep deep mistake.”

Smith, who is trailing well behind in the polls, hopes that a pledge for Labour to take Britain back into the EU will appeal to pro-European Labour members and boost his chances.

“We should be fighting harder, why can’t you say you would fight to stay in?” he shouted.

Why won’t he FIGHT, mummy? Why won’t the Bad Man fight for us to stay in our pwecious European Union? Why won’t he stand up to the Evil Tor-eees and make the wefewendum wesult go away? It’s not fair mummy, it’s not fair!

Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. If by some complete miracle (probably involving the abduction of Jeremy Corbyn by aliens) Owen Smith does become leader of the Labour Party, what little is left of Labour’s depleted working class base will march off into the sunset forever. Labour will be able to add northern England to Scotland on the growing list of UK regions where anyone wearing a red campaign rosette is no longer welcome.

You know what? Good luck to him. I hope Owen Smith actually wins the Labour leadership contest and joins up with other antidemocratic snakes like Hampstead & Kilburn’s Tulip Siddiq in trying to derail Brexit in Parliament. If Smith thinks that things are bad now, I look forward to observing the expression on his face when the entire fabric of the Labour Party comes apart in his well-manicured, pampered, ex-lobbyist’s hands as he loses his faltering grip on constituency after Brexit-supporting constituency.

I look forward to future generations of politics students learning about the daring exploits of Owen Smith, the man who stuck two metropolitan fingers up at Labour’s own working class voter base and led his party to true, permanent electoral Armageddon.

So bring it on, Owen. Hug the European Union even tighter, tell all the Brexit-supporting people whose votes your party needs to go to hell again, and bring. it. on.

 

Owen Smith - Labour Party Leadership Coup

European Union - United Kingdom - Britain - Flags

–

Support Semi-Partisan Politics with a one-time or recurring donation:

–

Agree with this article? Violently disagree? Scroll down to leave a comment.

Follow Semi-Partisan Politics on Twitter, Facebook and Medium.

Mandatory Reselection Of MPs Should Be The Norm For British Political Parties, Not A Scandalous And Controversial Idea

Samuel Hooper7 Comments

Jeremy Corbyn - Mandatory Reselection Labour MPs

–

MPs do not have a divine right to represent their constituencies forever once selected by their local party, Jeremy Corbyn is quite right to consider mandatory reselection for MPs and all political parties that profess to care about democracy should follow his lead

The Telegraph leads today with a breathless piece warning of Jeremy Corbyn’s intention to press for mandatory reselection of MPs whose constituencies are changed as a result of the coming boundary review, assuming he prevails in the Labour leadership contest.

Jeremy Corbyn’s allies are planning to end the parliamentary careers of dozens of critical Labour MPs by approving plans for mandatory reselection by the end of the year.

The Telegraph understands his supporters will use their increased majority on the party’s ruling body to clarify rules about which MPs can stand for election after the 2018 boundary review.

Rhea Wolfon, elected to the Labour’s National Executive Committee [NEC] this week, hinted at the move by saying the party must have a “conversation” about “mandatory reselection”.

However Andy Burnham, Labour’s new mayoral candidate for Greater Manchester, said it would “pull the rug from under our MPs” and fuel a “climate of distrust”.

While Politics Home reports that Steve Rotheram, Jeremy Corbyn’s PPS and now Labour’s candidate for the Liverpool city regional mayoralty, has also made approving noises about challenging the “divine right” of MPs to remain in their position come what may:

Steve Rotheram, who serves as Jeremy Corbyn’s parliamentary private secretary, said elected politicians should not think Westminster is the “repository of all the best ideas”.

It comes after Rhea Wolfson, a newly elected member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, said the party should have a “conversation” on the mandatory reselection of MPs.

When asked whether he was in favour of such a proposal, Mr Rotheram said he was “attracted” to Tory MP Zac Goldsmith’s 2014 plan that would see misbehaving MPs face a by-election if 5% of constituents signed a “notice of intent to recall” and 20% then sign a “recall petition”.

He said he did not support Mr Goldsmith’s defeated amendment to the Recall of MPs Bill amid concerns about the exact motion he was putting before the House of Commons.

The MP for Liverpool Walton added: “But yes, I think that MPs should reflect what the membership who select them are putting them into parliament to do. We shouldn’t believe that we’re down here and that we’re the repository of all the best ideas.

“We really should be looking at what our members are telling us to do and I think that’s part of the role as a Member of Parliament.”

Cue shock, horror and clutching of pearls from the political establishment – Andy Burnham, himself about to jettison a Westminster career cul-de-sac in the hope of municipal glory in Manchester, says that it would be “pulling the rug” out from underneath MPs. Well, perhaps MPs need to have the rug pulled out from underneath them. Perhaps they need the rug to be yanked hard enough so that they either become genuinely responsive to the party activists who work to get them elected or quit the field of play altogether.

The great thing about democracy at its best is that it rewards those who show up when the times comes to choose. Old people reliably vote in large numbers, therefore government policy when it comes to housing, welfare spending and any number of other policy areas is generously skewed in their favour. If only young people could put their Pokemon Go games down for long enough to make it to a polling station, government policy might begin reflecting their concerns too. But they don’t, so it isn’t.

Unfortunately, the way MPs are currently selected by Britain’s main political parties takes this important aspect of democratic responsiveness and throws it out the window. Once an MP has been chosen as their party’s nominee, they have very little use for their own party activists. These dedicated and principled people are hardly likely to ever support a candidate from another party, and therefore an unscrupulous MP can abuse and betray them to their heart’s content knowing that they automatically qualify as their party’s parliamentary candidate the next time a general election rolls around.

And inevitably this can lead to a growing gulf between the political stance of a constituency party and the views espoused (and votes taken) by that constituency’s Member of Parliament. This is what we now see happening to the Labour Party, where depending on your view either the parliamentary party has shifted to the right or the membership has shifted dramatically to the left (in reality a bit of both) and no longer stand for the same principles.

The brutal truth right now is that many Labour MPs, including some quite prominent ones like former leadership contender Angela Eagle, are now irreconcilably out of step with their own local parties. Why, therefore, should they have the automatic, divine right to continue to represent local parties who despise them and wish to put forward someone for parliament who more closely reflects their own priorities and positions?

When viewed this way, Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal seems quite tame. In fact, this blog would go further – MPs should not only face mandatory reselection in the case of constituency boundary review (the specific circumstance currently under discussion) but every five years ahead of a general election. This would bring Britain into line with other countries like the United States, where Representatives and Senators do not have “jobs for life” and must compete in party primaries if they wish to run for their seat at the next election. Such a move would put the wind up an often self-entitled political class, forcing MPs to justify their worthiness of a place on the ballot at regular intervals and forcing many of the older, less useful bench warmers off into retirement.

No constituency should be lumbered with a doddering old MP who doesn’t care any more, or a sharp-elbowed go-getter who ignores their constituency as they focus on climbing the greasy pole. Mandatory reselection goes a long way to solving those problems.

The current system, by contrast, is an abomination – incumbent MPs, often initially selected to stand for parliament in their constituencies through dubious, opaque or even downright corrupt means are then largely free from scrutiny by their own party for the rest of their career. As soon as they enter parliament they are enveloped in the Westminster self-protective cloak which serves to insulate parliamentarians from the consequences of their behaviour and political decisions.

If you know that nothing you can do will ever get you fired – if there is no political betrayal (like, say, pretending to be a eurosceptic during selection and then turning around and supporting the Remain campaign) for which you will ever be held to account – then there is every incentive to lie about your real political beliefs and motivations during selection, and then behave in as abominable and self-serving a way as you please as soon as your are elected to the Commons.

The status quo needs to change, and whatever else one may think of Jeremy Corbyn (and however self-serving his motivations may be), he should be applauded for taking a stand for democracy and accountability and against the entrenched privilege of the political class.

If political parties are to be accountable to their supporters then there needs to be an established process for the base to hold their candidates to account for decisions taken in office. Mandatory reselection – together with a proper right of recall, empowering constituents to recall a failing or unpopular MP subject to a certain percentage of the local electorate signing a petition – is an important aspect of that process.

Under a properly democratic system, MPs should fear the wrath of their local constituency party and be closely responsive to their priorities and concerns. At present, too many MPs take their local party for granted as soon as their selection is assured, shunning the activists who knock on doors and deliver leaflets on their behalf in order to cravenly pander to the centre.

This needs to change. This can change. And Jeremy Corbyn should be commended for trying to do something about it.

 

Ed Miliband Labour One Nation

–

Top Image: Huffington Post

–

Support Semi-Partisan Politics with a one-time or recurring donation:

–

Agree with this article? Violently disagree? Scroll down to leave a comment.

Follow Semi-Partisan Politics on Twitter, Facebook and Medium.

Brexiteers Are Not Violent Savages. In Fact, More Brexiteers Than Remainers Strongly Oppose The Death Penalty

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Darwin - Evolution of man - EU Referendum - Brexiteers

–

The BBC uncovers ‘devastating evidence’ linking support for Brexit with being a primitive Neanderthal

The latest act in the BBC’s ongoing effort to catastrophise Brexit and discredit Brexiteers is this delightful article from last week’s News Magazine, exploring the link between Brexit and the death penalty:

Immediately after the vote, commentators said it was about class – about professionals living and working in big cities, especially London (who voted Remain), versus working class people in smaller towns, especially in the north of England (who voted Leave).

So you would think that if you know that someone is working class and has a low income, you’d be able to confidently guess they voted Leave. But according to Stian Westlake, Head of Research at the think tank Nesta, this is not the case.

“If you look at someone’s class status and their income, and you try and use that to guess whether or not they voted Remain, it turns out it’s not that much better than guesswork. It gives you around 55% accuracy, and obviously a guess would give you 50% accuracy,” Westlake says.

His figures come from the British Election Study, in which around 24,000 people were asked about their voting intentions in the EU referendum.

Respondents to the survey were also questioned on their views on other things, such as the death penalty – and this provides a much better indicator of how people voted, Westlake argues.

“If you look at attitudes to questions such as, ‘Do you think criminals should be publicly whipped?’ or ‘Are you in favour of the death penalty?’ – those things are much better predictors, and you get over 70% accuracy,” he says.

“To give you an idea of how good a predictor that is, if you ask someone, ‘Do you think there is too much European integration?’ – which you’d think is a pretty good indicator – that only gets you to the high 70s. So if you can get to 71% or 72% prediction from these questions about traditional values, then it suggests it is that, rather than income or class, that is really driving the vote for Leave.”

So now Brexiteers are violent savages, dangerous authoritarian people who cannot keep their base desire for retribution and “an eye for an eye” under control. Brexit Britain will see a return of the stocks, the scold’s bridle and even the gallows in the town square if we get our way, the BBC is effectively telling its readers.

And of course this fits in with everything that Remainers like to think about themselves, and tell themselves about those who want Britain out of the European Union. To their minds, Remainers are compassionate, progressive, outward-looking, tolerant and fair, while Leavers are sneaky, conniving, closed-minded, inward-looking, highly intolerant and “post-factual”. Remainers want to hug a hoodie. We, apparently, want to bash their heads in with a brick and hang them from lamp posts as a warning to others.

Except that in their haste to demonise Brexiteers, the BBC neglected to mention the percentage of Remainers who also back the authoritarian policies cited in the survey. And there is a reason for this – to some extent, the data actually exonerates Brexiteers, while painting Remainers in an equally bad light, if not worse.

BES - Death penalty - Brexit

This chart plots satisfaction with EU democracy (a reasonable indicator of general euroscepticism given the fact that sovereignty and democracy were given as the primary motivation for voting to leave, according to post-referendum polling) against strength of agreement with the death penalty. The data is taken from the British Election Study, and and can be freely found and researched on their website.

And what we see here is that of those who strongly oppose the death penalty, over 62% are eurosceptic (that is, either very dissatisfied or a little dissatisfied with EU democracy). Of those who disagree with the death penalty a little less staunchly, over 65% are eurosceptic.

Admittedly, more staunch eurosceptics take up a much larger proportion of those who agree or strongly agree with the death penalty. But the europhiles (taken as those fairly satisfied or very satisfied with EU democracy) hardly cover themselves in glory as principled death penalty abolitionists. The proportion of europhiles either against or strongly against the death penalty struggles to break much above 20%.

This would seem to suggest that however much the BBC’s “traditionalist” narrative may play a part, there are also a significant number of very firm eurosceptic death penalty opponents who supported Brexit. That would make sense. This blog is one of them, as is nearly every other Brexiteer I happen to know. But why report on the principled band of anti death penalty Brexiteers when you can just play to the gallery and point at those eurosceptics who want to bring back hanging? It just fits so neatly into the tidy little narrative about primitive, left-behind idiots voting for Brexit against their own supposed interests.

But perhaps if the data tells us anything  at all, it is that people with strong opinions on either side of the death penalty issue (and perhaps other issues too) tended to favour leaving the European Union, while Britain’s army of vague, wishy-washy and noncommittal people wanted us to remain, guided as always by their dithering uncertainty and fear of change. After all, when it came to strongly disagreeing (or even strongly agreeing) with the death penalty, Britain’s EU cheerleaders are almost nowhere to be seen. That hardly fits with their sanctimonious claim to be more open and tolerant than the rest of us.

But that doesn’t quite fit the BBC’s preferred narrative. Far better to concentrate on the spike and declare all Brexiteers to be violent, vengeful authoritarians. That is the narrative the BBC loves to tell and Remainers love to hear, so that is the narrative which we will continue to get.

 

Abolish death penalty

–

Bottom Image: ForceChange

–

Support Semi-Partisan Politics with a one-time or recurring donation:

–

Agree with this article? Violently disagree? Scroll down to leave a comment.

Follow Semi-Partisan Politics on Twitter, Facebook and Medium.

A Failed Military Coup In Turkey Is The Worst Possible Outcome For Democracy

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

People react near a military vehicle during an attempted coup in Ankara

–

This failed military coup has achieved the awful outcome of allowing Turkey’s tin pot dictator in gestation, the despicable President Erdogan and his supporters, to pose as champions of the very democracy they are busy subverting

Nobody in their right mind usually yearns for a military coup – the violence, confusion, civilian casualties, suspension of justice, martial law and human rights abuses which occur in the best of times are nothing to welcome, no matter how odious the status quo.

But once it became clear that a military coup was underway in Turkey, involving at least a subset of the military, it were better for that coup to succeed with as little bloodshed as possible than to have it fail.

Why? Because if you thought President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was bad before, just wait until paranoid, vengeful President Erdogan 2.0 is unleashed once he has finished putting down the coup and reasserting control over his divided country.

This is a vain and power-hungry little man who was at one desperate point last night reduced to addressing his nation via FaceTime, through an iPhone screen pointed at a television camera. He will not have taken kindly to this humiliation, and his vengeance will be swift and merciless.

President Erdogan was already well on the way to tin-pot dictator status, jailing critical journalists and political opponents, seizing control of independent critical newspapers and turning them into pro-government propaganda outlets, violently suppressing popular protests, subverting the constitution and building himself a palace fit for a king. All of this will now be accelerated.

As Mark Wallace rightly warns in Conservative Home:

If you thought he was a paranoid tyrant before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  Erdogan was already throwing his weight around – jailing journalists, seizing control of critical newspapers, sending riot police in to fight protests and so on. But now he has a concrete threat which he can use to justify any and all repressive measures. The odds are that we will now see even tougher clampdowns which sadly will extend will beyond those actually responsible and likely sweep up many targets whom the government finds it convenient to be rid of.

Worse still from a secular standpoint, the military’s bluff has now been called. Turkey’s military has historically served as a firewall, a last line of defence against creeping Islamism and theocratic control. While details of this coup attempt have yet to fully emerge – it may be the case that these events were plotted only by one specific subset of the military – it now appears that the military has gambled and lost. It is hard to see them serving their pro-secular role in future, especially once Erdogan has made further personnel changes, replacing the current general staff with his stooges.

This failed coup attempt is also bad news for everyone else who relies on Turkey being a moderately stable presence in the region, and a trustworthy negotiating partner. Erdogan already had the European Union over a barrel with its pants down, extorting huge sums of money from European taxpayers in exchange for taking the smallest of actions to stem the flow of migrants and refugees entering the EU via Turkey. Expect that price to go up (while Turkey’s commitment to abiding by its agreement goes down) now that Erdogan feels the need to shore up his own position.

But the truly depressing thing about this failed military coup is the fact that it allows an utterly despicable and contemptible man and his hardcore supporters to parade around like the champions of democracy when in fact they are its sworn enemies. Erdogan himself once remarked that he views democracy as akin to getting on a bus, and that once the bus reaches its destination he will get off – in other words, he will submit himself to taking part in elections until he has built up a sufficient power base, and then kill Turkish democracy in the crib so that he can never be removed.

Already in the early hours of the morning, when it appeared that the coup attempt was failing, we saw Erdogan’s supporters wrap themselves in the flag of democracy:

Sadly, some in Britain who should know better – including the normally reliable Brendan O’Neill – joined in the same chorus:

The events cited by O’Neill – the establishment’s horror at Brexit, the Islamist terrorist slaughter of innocent people in Nice on Bastille Day and this failed coup in Turkey – are hardly comparable. While the first two do indeed represent the hatred held by some people for popular liberal democracy, President Erdogan is no great believer in liberal democracy, using it as a vehicle when it helps him but quick to suppress it when it represents a threat to his interests.

The danger is that by ennobling Erdogan’s survival by lumping it together with legitimate democratic movements (like Brexit) we help to shore up the power of somebody who is no friend of democracy, and who fully intends to snuff out democracy altogether once he has used it to drag Turkey back to some primitive, theocratic dark age.

This really is the worst of all possible outcomes. Military coups are never something to be celebrated, even when aimed at deposing someone as unpleasant as Erdogan – his defeat should come at the ballot box, not at the barrel of a tank gun. But a failed coup is doubly bad since it weakens the military, hardens Erdogan’s supporters and makes the man himself even more paranoid and authoritarian – there are already talks of Turkey reinstating the death penalty to deal with the plotters.

Whichever side had prevailed in this coup attempt, democracy would have been the nominal loser. But democracy’s defeat will be particularly bitter now that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stands strengthened and victorious.

 

Postscript: The failed coup in Turkey also seems to have brought out the worst in several British politicians, notably Labour MP Chris Bryant who thought that turmoil in Turkey provided a perfect opportunity to smear Brexiteers:

In other words, Chris Bryant is literally blaming Brexit and the quest for British independence from ever-closer European political union for causing civil unrest in a country thousands of miles away.

“Sore loser” doesn’t even come close to describing this hysterical, childish behaviour from an elected Labour MP. So out of touch are Labour MPs with the mood of the country (and their own constituents – Chris Bryant’s constituency voted for Brexit, 54-46 per cent) that even now they are sulking and taking part in a tantrum, lashing out at the British people for having the temerity to ignore their doom-laden advice and drag them away from their beloved EU.

The next time you hear it said that the Corbynites are rendering the Labour Party unelectable, remember that it was the centrist Chris Bryant acting like a moronic child on social media while civilians were being killed in Turkey.

 

Turkish President Erdogan addresses during an attempted coup in Istanbul

–

Top & Bottom Image: Indian Express

–

Support Semi-Partisan Politics with a one-time or recurring donation:

–

Agree with this article? Violently disagree? Scroll down to leave a comment.

Follow Semi-Partisan Politics on Twitter, Facebook and Medium.

Vote Leave’s Stupidity Echoes On, Threatening To Undermine Brexit

Samuel Hooper8 Comments

Thousands Of People Take Part In The March For Europe

–

The flimsy, amateurish lies told by Vote Leave are coming back to bite, and threaten to undermine and unnecessarily complicate Brexit

Two weeks after the astonishing vote for Brexit in the EU referendum, and the sheer amateur stupidity of the official Vote Leave campaign is still causing problems, exactly as this blog and others predicted that it would.

The Guardian reports:

In a separate development, Anthony Eskander, a criminal barrister at Church Court Chambers in London, has posted an opinion arguing that politicians supporting the Vote Leave campaign might have opened themselves up to legal action for alleged misrepresentations over claims that quitting the EU would allow an extra £350m to be spent on the NHS.

It claims politicians might have committed offences of misconduct in public office by promoting the £350m claim. The figure has been called “potentially misleading” by the independent UK Statistics Authority, for failing to take into account the UK’s rebate from the EU. Vote Leave denied during the referendum campaign that it was misleading the public.

We’ve heard this charge that politicians’ claims should be vetted by some kind of Ministry of Truth levelled by lots of people, including an audience member on last night’s Question Time. But this is the first time I have seen it translated into legalese, and even if nothing comes of it (as is likely) it further chips away at the legitimacy of the Brexit vote, further dividing the country and encouraging pro-EU supporters to dig in and calcify their positions rather than accepting the country’s verdict and coming together to make the best of Brexit.

Now, of course if they were not hung up on the false £350 million claim they would have found something else to moan about. Many prominent Remainers (and those in the general public) have shown themselves to be exceedingly sore losers in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, seizing on the slightest fault, misstep or constitutional ambiguity to claim that democracy should be suspended and the result of the referendum overturned.

But still, there was no need for the supposed grown-ups in charge of Vote Leave to make it quite so easy for them. There was no need to persist in publicly airing a patently false and comprehensively debunked (by activists on both sides including thinking Brexiteers, incidentally) claim about how much money the UK stood to save from leaving the EU.

The true figure – closer to £160 million once the UK rebate and EU disbursements back to Britain are taken into account – is still a lot of money, and would have looked just as effective plastered on the side of a bus. But no, the Boris/Gove/Cummings triumvirate decreed that £350 was the magic number, and far too many prominent Brexiteers squandered their credibility by repeating it in some form or another over the course of the campaign.

It is now becoming crystal clear that rather than accepting the result of the EU referendum, many disappointed Remainers are determined to wage a guerilla campaign of attrition against Brexit, a last-ditch rearguard effort to prevent the UK from leaving the European Union. They will use the claims of prominent Brexiteers against them (while sweeping their own dubious claims and falsehoods under the carpet, naturally), explore legal loopholes, use delaying tactics and throw every procedural obstacle they can find across our path out of the EU.

None of this is remotely surprising. All of it could have been predicted – and was predicted by this blog. But still the shining ones at Vote Leave persisted with their strategy, handing the pro-EU crowd more ammunition with every new over-hyped soundbite.

That’s why it is good that both Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are now no longer in the running for the Conservative Party leadership, however dubious the choice before us now is. Remainers (and their celebrity chums) talk about the unravelling of Johnson, Gove and Farage as being akin to the captain abandoning ship after steering his vessel onto the rocks. But the Brexit vote was achieved in spite, not because of, the campaigning of Vote Leave. The fact that some of their leading lights have now been snuffed out is cause for satisfaction, not concern, because it increases the chances of a mature adult taking the reins and negotiating Brexit like a grown-up.

I don’t want somebody who stubbornly persisted in broadcasting a patently, risibly false claim – like a petulant child caught in an obvious lie – to represent Britain in the coming difficult secession negotiations with the EU. I don’t want anybody leading this country whose antics during the referendum and in its immediate aftermath make Brexit any more complicated than it needs to be.

And regrettably, that rules out many of the people most closely connected with the official Leave campaign.

 

Brexit - EU - European Union Flag - Missing Star - Britain - UK

–

Top Image: Spiked

–

Agree with this article? Violently disagree? Scroll down to leave a comment.

Follow Semi-Partisan Politics on Twitter, Facebook and Medium.