Don’t let Jeremy Corbyn become the next Rosa Luxemburg
As I write this, Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party is under attack from the party’s MPs, while a huge proportion of the party’s membership continue to support him. My personal views aside,1 I’m starting to become concerned by elements – I’m seeing mostly younger people but there maybe other ages too – within the Labour party who are using violent language and cult-of-personality tactics to attempt to drown out reasoned debate on the subject. I was moved to write this post after I saw a post on Facebook from a former Green Party colleague who switched to Labour in the Corbyn era: a very rational, reasoned argument for why he cannot support Corbyn any more and is supporting one of his opponents in the coming leadership...
EU: I’m voting to Remain, but not for those reasons
In case it escaped your notice, there’s a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union on 23rd June. The biggest campaigns on either side are Stronger In and Leave.EU.1 I’d like to tell you why I don’t support either of these campaigns and why I’m voting to Remain. It’s true that the EU is a mess. The multiple interlocking levels of government are confusing even to the people who work there. Many of the power and decision-making is made by unelected or indirectly elected bodies. And there’s a huge transparency crisis where secret negotiation of treaties like TTIP threatens public services in every member state without accountability to their populations. Awful. Here’s the thing about the Leave...
The dangers of “curbing extremism”
I’ve come out of blog hiding for this because I think it’s really important. And I’ll try to keep it short. These are words spoken by David Cameron this morning about the Tories’ proposed new measures for “curbing extremism”: “The problem that we have had is this distinction of saying we will only go after you if you are an extremist that directly supports violence. “It has left the field open for extremists who know how not to step over the line. But these are people who have radicalised young minds and led to people heading off to Syria or Iraq to take part in this ghastly slaughter.” The reason we’ve had this distinction is quite simple: one is an incitement to violence, the other is political...
The Humanity Party: a manifesto
The European elections are around the corner, in just two days. Like many others, I am tired of all the major political parties. It’s a race to the right, with every party spouting the same anti-immigration, anti-poor rhetoric. So I put together a mini-manifesto for a political party I could believe in. Who else would vote for the Humanity Party? The Humanity Party Every person in this country, regardless of who they are or where they come from, is a human being and entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. Every person is entitled to all human rights laid out in international law. The Humanity Party believes that human rights supersede all other laws. A Humanity government would never introduce or vote in favour of legislation that contravenes or...
I want to talk about immigration
Yes, this is my first blog post in a very long time. I’ve been focusing primarily on Leeds Beer Quest, which is going brilliantly and has recently hit 100 reviews! It may be my imagination, but I feel like I am hearing more and more anti-immigration rhetoric all the time. And the policies of the current government are getting more and more anti-immigration all the time. High-profile incidents recently include the “Go Home campaign” and immigration officers on the Tube randomly stopping people who look or sound foreign to ask for papers. These are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to recent changes in the way the government is handling immigration to this country. What is the basis of this crackdown? Why are people becoming more hostile...
Lords Reform: Time for a Senate of the modern age?
The House of Lords is a bag of balls. We know this – you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone other than a foaming traditionalist who believes that having almost two-thirds of our country’s lawmakers being appointed, rather than elected, is a good idea. The recent news about the latest bill for Lords Reform — the latest in a line of small-scale tweaks — is the most exciting yet because it promises a large proportion of the seats to be democratically elected. But do we need another set of politicians elected the same way as the Commons? Will the public even understand why they’re voting for two different representatives? Will they care? It’s hard enough to get people to turn out for elections when they’re only voting for one. In...
Leeds-based non-binary nerd and sewist. I won't break my streak on Duolingo for anyone. 
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