Large up Clare Short

[metalboxproducts]

"Short faces expulsion from Labour Party
By Andy McSmith
Published: 15 September 2006
Clare Short faces being thrown out of the Labour Party for a call she made in The Independent for a "hung Parliament".

The former International Development Secretary, who has said she will stand down at the next election, has been accused of encouraging voters to switch away from Labour. The Chief Whip, Jacqui Smith, announced yesterday that she is lodging a complaint with Labour's national executive, arguing that Ms Short has broken a rule which bars any party member from encouraging electors to vote against a Labour candidate.

"We have had calls coming in from MPs all day about this, and people are very angry," a party source said. "Jacqui has written to Clare twice before about her interesting thoughts that her parliamentary colleagues should be defeated. Previously we tried to arrange a meeting with four or five of the most marginal MPs who wanted to talk to her about it, but she refused."

Sally Keeble, MP for Northampton North, who was Clare Short's deputy at the International Development Department, said: "She has done more damage to herself than anybody else could have done to her. Now it has become a disciplinary offence and the party will have to deal with it. There is a gut instinct that you stay loyal to the party."

Another West Midlands MP, John Spellar, described the article as "extraordinarily self-indulgent".

The words that could cost Ms Short her party membership card were published in yesterday's Independent, in which she argued that "the change we need is a hung parliament". She added: "The Chief Whip has warned me that I cannot recommend a hung parliament because it would mean Labour MPs losing their seats. I am standing down so that I can speak my truth."

The national executive will now have to judge whether these words are an incitement to voters to abandon Labour. Labour has a majority of 353 out of 637 voting MPs in Parliament. For there to be a parliament in which no single party has an overall majority, the number of Labour MPs would need to fall to 318 or fewer.

"Clare Short's public admission that she would welcome the defeat of her Labour parliamentary colleagues and the Labour Government at the next general election are completely unacceptable," Jacqui Smith said in a statement yesterday. "As Chief Whip, I can recommend the Whip be withdrawn from parliamentary colleagues or suspend them from the Whip. However, I am now taking the matter further by referring her conduct to the party chair and the general secretary of the party."

Having the Whip withdrawn would mean that Ms Short was still an MP and a party member, but she would no longer be counted as a Labour MP. An unrepentant Ms Short told Sky News: "If she does that, that's fine. She must do what she must do, I am doing what I think is right."

But some Labour MPs hoped a compromise could be reached to avoid expelling one of Labour's most famous members. David Winnick told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: "I have always had time for Clare. She does invite controversy, has done so since she entered Parliament and I don't suppose for one moment she loses any sleep, leaving aside the present situation."

Stephen Pound, another MP, said: "The general feeling in the party is that she was actually a good International Development Secretary, so let's talk it through and not get precipitous."

If Ms Short is expelled, she will be only the fourth sitting Labour MP to suffer that fate in 15 years. Ironically, Ms Short herself played a prominent role in removing two, Dave Nellist and Terry Fields, who were thrown out in September 1991 for belonging to the far-left Militant organisation.

"She sat and did her knitting waiting for the decision so that she could rush out and announce it," Mr Nellist said. "Clare's problem is going to be that there is no one left in the Labour Party to fight for her."

'Blair has dishonoured the UK'

I have been thinking long and hard about whether to contest the next election as a Labour candidate and decided that I will not. For me it is a big decision...

There are many good things that New Labour has done since 1997, mostly things Labour committed itself to before the New Labour coup, but I... am profoundly ashamed of the Government. Blair's craven support for the extremism of US neoconservative foreign policy has exacerbated the danger of terrorism and the instability and suffering of the Middle East. He has dishonoured the UK...

Gordon Brown's commitment to a replacement of Trident, in one throwaway sentence, is an insult to democracy...

The change we need is a hung parliament which will bring in electoral reform... Labour would have one-third of the seats in the Commons, the Tories something similar, and we would be likely to see some Greens and others.

The Chief Whip has warned me that I cannot recommend a hung parliament because it would mean Labour MPs losing their seats. I am standing down so that I can speak my truth."

Reseck

[paulie]

Another West Midlands MP, John Spellar, described the article as "extraordinarily self-indulgent".

That pretty much sums up Ms Short.

[shonky]

Think she was well and truly fucked over on Iraq, the concessions "granted" to her making her look like a massive hyprocrite when she resigned over it all later after being tricked into giving her support to the war.

I like her, she's got integrity and that's a bit of a rarity in politicians these days.

Clare, Mo Mowlam and Robin Cook had far more integrity than most of the New Labour party put together. The old Labour folks (including Benn and Dennis Skinner) may have made the party unelectable, but they had heart and honesty on their side.

Hope she doesn't move to Respect though. Write some memoirs and leave it be I think.

[paulie]

Think she was well and truly fucked over on Iraq, the concessions "granted" to her making her look like a massive hyprocrite when she resigned over it all later after being tricked into giving her support to the war.

Oh do me a favour, she was incredibly naiive about all that. She should've resigned with Cook.

[shonky]

Think she was well and truly fucked over on Iraq, the concessions "granted" to her making her look like a massive hyprocrite when she resigned over it all later after being tricked into giving her support to the war.

Oh do me a favour, she was incredibly naiive about all that. She should've resigned with Cook.

Yeah, that's another word for it. If she had gone at the same time she would've retained a great deal more credibility, but again it does seem that she thought that she might have been able to do more good if she remained in the cabinet - should've known better in all honesty.

[metalboxproducts]

Another West Midlands MP, John Spellar, described the article as "extraordinarily self-indulgent".

That pretty much sums up Ms Short.

Politicians are by there very nature. So it's bit of a pot/kettle/black thing.

[shonky]

Whereas "artists" are all about the people and selfless devotion to helping the weak and helpless of course.

[metalboxproducts]

Whereas "artists" are all about the people and selfless devotion to helping the weak and helpless of course.

Yes they are. I mean look at Bono. Yeah right fuck off. Ego.

Ill rephrase my remark to most people.

[obiwan]

Its quite funny how she talks like she's either got tetanus, or been capped like fiddy or Kanye. Just lowering the tone, yep now its bass.

[obiwan]

Clare, Mo Mowlam and Robin Cook had far more integrity than most of the New Labour party put together.
.

I don't think Robin Cook had all that much credibility Shonky:

Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, is in a particularly awkward position. He has promised a more "ethical" foreign policy and a new approach to arms exports. Under the guidelines introduced by Mr Cook, Britain is not meant to permit the sale of arms to regimes which might use them for internal repression, external aggression, or abuse of human rights.

In theory, this represents a clear tightening of the stated policies of Conservative governments. Reality is more complicated. Until September 11th, when it announced support for a European Union embargo on new arms contracts with Indonesia, the government was still licensing defence exports to that country. Between May 1997 when Labour was elected and June of this year, the government approved 111 licences, covering everything from spare parts for machine guns to military helmets; in the same period, it turned down eight licence requests. Since the Tories refused to release statistics of this sort, no comparable figures exist for the period before 1997.

Under Labour's policy, what counts is not so much the importing country's record on human rights, but whether an individual export might be used for internal repression. But given Indonesia's abysmal history of human-rights abuses, in East Timor and elsewhere, it was always likely that British weapons would be misused.

In its defence, Tony Blair's government says that many of the most significant export licences were approved before it came to power. But by May 1997, no significant deliveries had been made on two large defence orders from Indonesia, licensed in 1996 by the Conservative government. The larger order, worth £350m ($560m), was for 16 Hawk fighters, manufactured by Britain's largest defence company, British Aerospace. There had been widespread (if unproven) allegations that previous consignments of British Hawks had been used over East Timor; and clear evidence that British-supplied armoured vehicles had been used in suppressing demonstrations in Sulawesi in 1996. But after considering the implications of revoking existing licences, the incoming government washed its hands of any responsibility for decisions made by the Conservatives. In July 1997 Mr Cook told the House of Commons that it would not be "realistic or practical" to revoke licences in force at the time his party came to power. The Foreign Office is keen to stress that the government took legal advice in arriving at this decision.

But despite the impression given by ministers, the government has wide discretionary powers to revoke export licences. According to legal advice obtained by the World Development Movement, a pressure group, the government can do so without having to pay damages or compensation to the licensee.

Undoubtedly, the commercial interests of Britain's defence industry weighed heavily in the government's decision. Mr Cook is said to have had these interests forcefully underlined for him by Mr Blair's office.

The defence industry has always been an effective lobbyist in Whitehall. The department with responsibility for maximising Britain's arms exports is the Ministry of Defence's Defence Export Sales Organisation (DESO), which has a representative in Jakarta. Evidence given to the Scott inquiry-conducted between 1993 and 1996-into British arms sales to Iraq showed how aggressive DESO is in promoting defence exports and how influential it is within government. When Margaret Thatcher was "batting for Britain", her government recruited big hitters from defence companies to head DESO, a practice still in force today.

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/aaddict.htm