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Cameron's case for attacking ISIS in Syria is flimsy, but I can see why Labour MPs would go with it
2015-11-27 06:48:55
Whether Britain acts against ISIL in Syria isn't about provoking them or if they pose a threat, but whether our actions will be effective and justified. Whatever we decide, we will get attacked by ISIS; it's their aim and in their interests. The bigger question is whether we should join our international allies against a terror group that has already declared war on us.
If we have to engage with ISIS sooner or later, then we have to evaluate whether this is the right time and we have the right plan. I said earlier that Cameron hadn’t properly made the case, and want to continue evaluating that.
The people who made up their mind ages ago - whether for or against - are the ones I tend to ignore. It’s clear they aren’t interested in the details and are driven more by ideological than operational reasons.
Yesterday, Cameron set out his case for air-strikes against ISIL (over 36 pages) and then Jeremy Corbyn responded with seven questions. Some of those questions are quite important and I find it odd that some in the shadow cabinet have already made up their mind without see Cameron’s response.
Labour’s Dan Jarvis MP also set out five tests for Cameron in an article earlier, but no one has yet published a checklist to see if Cameron passed them.
Cameron’s arguments for action
1) There is now an agreement at the UN Security Council for action against ISIL. The major world powers aren’t divided. This wasn’t the case in the past during Iraq for example.
2) As part of a coalition, we would help other countries in their actions against ISIL too. By staying out we shirk our moral responsibility (more relevant now Germany as joins in).
3) ISIL recognises no borders between Iraq and Syria, so we cannot attack it without being operational in both countries.
4) There is a diplomatic coalition in place - the International Syria Support Group (US, EU, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other Arab states) - but there can be no solution until ISIS is degraded, so Assad can also be transitioned out of power and elections can be held.
5) We cannot degrade ISIL's main fundraising activity - selling oil - without disrupting its operations in Syria. That requires bombing them.
6) If ISIL is the only major alternative to Assad (as he says), then countries like Iran and Russia would rather have him. To get rid of Assad, ISIL has to go first.
7) There are around 70,000 ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels who could fill the vacuum if we degrade ISIL’s capabilities. [This claim seems highly doubtful. The US military has lately backed off making claims about ‘moderate’ non-ISIL rebels].
Cameron’s case against ISIL in Syria, is essentially more a moral one than an operational one. Since Paris, he points out, it looks odd for us to stay out even though ISIL has already declared war on us.
Arguments against action
1) The biggest problem we have against ISIL is that Arab countries, which have more to lose, are happy to sit on the sidelines. The Saudis are focusing on Yemen and Turkey on the Kurds. Even Jordan has scaled down its bombing after the initial burst of anger when its pilot was executed. Without Turkey closing off its borders or Saudi Arabia seriously challenging ISIL ideologically (yeah right), this is going to remain a stalemate for a long time. Perhaps for longer than a decade. Without their help on the ground, ISIL cannot be seriously pushed back in Syria or Iraq.
For this reason, Iraq is already in a stalemate. As the Guardian's Ewan MacAskill said yesterday: "Pilots [in Iraq] frequently return to base without having fired missiles or dropped bombs, partly they say because of fear of hitting civilians but mainly because after a year there is little left to hit. So what can the UK add? Nothing much that is not already being done by the US, France and other allies."
2) The only way to make gains against ISIL is through ground troops. But Arab states aren't willing to do that yet. In Syria, Kurdish groups are likely to stay within their territory. This has forced Cameron to conjure up 70,000 non-ISIL Syrian troops who will apparently take our side. Who controls them? Are they interested in fighting ISIL or (as is more likely) Assad? None of these questions are really answered, so we can assume they aren't a serious part of the plan.
3) We are essentially hoping that once ISIL is degraded, Russia and Iran can be persuaded to transition Assad out of power. It may work, it may not. What if he says no? We are back in a stalemate again.
4) It's difficult to tell whether we will succeed in Syria going by our operations in Iraq because Cameron's details of our success in Iraq runs into... one paragraph.
5) There's not much of a plan for post-reconstruction settlement either, though I accept can't play a huge role here.
So... should we or shouldn't we?
I'll be honest, both those against bombing ISIL in Syria and those for it are painting it into a bigger deal than it is. ISIL are already very clear about attacking us, and a slight increase in the bombing campaign will force ISIL to change tactics but won't lose them much territory (without ground troops).
This makes the political considerations a bit more relevant. If Labour MPs vote against action in ISIL, constituents will say: 'you've got a pacifist leader who doesn't want to protect us if ISIL start shooting in the streets (shoot to kill) and then you vote against bombing them too! Doesn't look like you care about our security'.
Their job is to represent voters (who want action against ISIL), not members (who don't) - and they have to deal with a leader who already looks weak on national security. Taking this into mind I suspect many Labour MPs will vote for action in Syria.
Put it another way. For Labour MPs, there is more upside to joining the international coalition against ISIL than downside. Cameron's plan is too weak and wishy-washy to do much damage to Syrians or ISIL.
Why many on the left need to change their approach to ISIS
2015-11-22 19:23:59
When Islamic State came to notoriety last year, many commentators including myself made assumptions about its plans.
I wrote for Al-Jazeera that it “poses a far greater threat to Muslims than it does to the west” - and this has remained true. I also said its impact on community relations in Europe and the US “could be devastating” - an obvious prediction that is also turning out to be true, sadly.
But I said something else which now doesn’t apply: “Its leaders believe fighting ‘apostates’ is more important than fighting non-Muslims for now. They want to unite the Middle East under their banner before truly turning their sights on the US and Europe.” I wasn’t alone in this assumption: Obama and his team have not engaged ISIS more forcefully also because of the belief that ISIS did not pose an immediate threat to US interests (see this and this).
But following the attack in Paris it’s clear that despite Islamic State’s initial focus on local sectarian wars, its priorities have now changed. The execution of journalist James Foley and aid worker Alan Henning showed it that it gained a lot (attention, supporters and perhaps donations) for going after western targets.
This goes to the heart of why I’ve been arguing with Al-Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan over this issue. Mehdi wrote that Russian bombs provoked the ISIS attack, and so do western bombs. The implication is that if we stop bombing ISIS, maybe they’ll stop retaliating. That’s two separate arguments there, one about provocation and other about our response.
Keep this in mind: I agree with Mehdi on foreign policy issues far more than I disagree with him. This isn’t a debate about whether western foreign policy is counter-productive or not (it can be, frequently). I should also add that I don't think he is excusing or justifying ISIS, as some claim.
My problem is that just as the Right try and divert debate about ISIS to immigration and refugees, many on the Left try and divert it to foreign policy. I think Mehdi et al only see world events through the lens of western foreign policy. All this obscures more important issues that we need to debate about tackling ISIS. (I spend 90% of my time criticising the right for their diversion, so I’m allowed to criticise fellow lefties too). And it assumes the world revolves around what we think / do.
Does western foreign policy drive ISIS?
There is little doubt that western foreign policy has enraged some Muslims enough to join terrorist groups, including ISIS. It has served as a recruiting tool for some of them. But this isn’t the whole picture. After all, there are plenty of other minority groups who have grievances against the government (young black men who get stopped and searched or face harassment) - but they don’t kill innocent people in response.
What annoys me about this narrow focus on foreign policy is that it allows Mehdi (and his fellow travellers) to avoid focus on the other factors that attract Muslims to ISIS.
Last week a NY reporter asked a Dutch ISIS fighter why he joined them. He responded:
Ask yourself which other group is implementing the Shariah as complete as possible? Ask yourself which group is fully taking care of the affairs of the people as complete as possible? No other group but the Islamic State, so me joining the Islamic State was just a matter of time, for they are able to govern the people and implement the Shariah on a large scale — protecting the Muslims, their wealth, health and religion.
This isn’t unusual. When the Luton family of 12 left for the Caliphate, their statement said they were now “free from the corruption and oppression of man made law and is governed by the shariah”, and, “That [Muslims, globally] are willingly leaving the so called freedom and democracy that was forced down our throat in the attempt to brainwash Muslims to forget about their powerful and glorious past and now present.”
When the Canadian ISIS fighter Abu Muslim (aka Andre Poulin) spoke to camera about ISIS, he similarly said:
Everyone can contribute something to the Islamic State, as it is obligatory on us ... If you have knowledge on how to build roads and houses, you can be of use here.
In fact, read Islamic State’s magazine Dabiq and you see repeated calls for Muslims to make Hijrah (‘migration for the cause of Allah’) and posters like this:
And calls such as:
So do not say to yourself, 'I will never succeed in my Hijrah.' Most of those who have tried, have successfully reached the Khilafah. Amongst them are those who travelled by land, sometimes on foot, from country to country, crossing border after border, and Allah brought them safely to the Khilafah.
For ISIS, reaction to western foreign policy isn’t the motivational driver, it doesn’t even seem to be the key driver for its recruits, as much as some wish it to be. It is the call to join the true Khilafah that is driving ISIS propaganda and apparently many of its recruits.
Unless this is challenged in a pretty substantial way, western foreign policy is a bit irrelevant.
Will bombing ISIS provoke them into attacking us?
According to Mehdi Hasan et al, yes it will. But that is the wrong way to look at it.
The key question is: would avoiding any military engagement with ISIS make us safer? The answer is a resounding no, especially if the experience of others is anything to go by.
Ethnic groups that have been attacked by ISIS unprovoked (Yazidis, Hazaras, Turkmen, Shabaks and Christian nuns) - all of which started before the world had even heard about ISIS. Countries attacked by ISIS (or its affiliated groups) unprovoked: Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Somalia, China and more.
So clearly, the claim that Islamic State’s actions are a reaction to provocation is ignorant. Its own videos repeatedly cite verses from the Qu’ran about killing all infidels.
To summarise:
1) ISIL wants to conquer the world;
2) it kills non-Sunni Muslims indiscriminately;
3) it regards the west as satanic;
4) it gains (attention, notoriety, support) when it attacks western targets.
So how on earth can anyone seriously claim we shouldn’t provoke them, or that we can avoid conflict if we stay out of their way? This is seriously naive.
It’s true that Islamic State’s reasons for attacking people are “multi-causal” (as Murtaza Hussain said on Twitter) - but that is rather irrelevant. Whatever excuse they conjure up for each target (after all, they even justified sexual slavery), we know they seek a battle with western nations. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, ISIS want western nations to attack with soldiers. What does it matter what reason they give for fighting us?
Mehdi then claimed (on Twitter) his point is simply that ISIS are more likely to attack us (or will do so sooner) if we attack them. This may be true. I don’t think western troops should return to Iraq or Syria for strategic reasons, but air-strikes have so far helped avoid the Yazidis being wiped out and the Kurds in limiting ISIS advances. Should we just sit by and let ISIS commit massacres one after the other in fear of being attacked earlier? That is advocating cowardice.
Will we avert conflict with ISIS if we sit around and do nothing? No. Is it right to sit to do nothing? No.
ISIL’s modus operandi is massive disruption: it doesn’t care who it attacks (it even ridicules the Taliban and Al-Qaida in Dabiq) and its soldiers aren’t afraid of dying. It’s willing to kill innocent people (even Sunni Muslims) in any country without provocation. Arguing about whether our actions make it less or more likely to hit us sooner or later seems like a very stupid debate to have.
“But surely our foreign policy helps ISIS? We need to admit this!”
Let me summarise:
Did the invasion of Iraq create the conditions for ISIS? Yes, it did. But ISIS has “six fathers” - of which the invasion is just one. As Amir Ahmad Nasr wrote, “the mindset that helped birth it has become far-too-common.” And the invasion was 12 years ago, while most fighters have gone over in the last 2 years while America has retreated from the Middle East.
Is western foreign policy helping get ISIS recruits? Yes, I’m sure it is. But a large proportion of its international recruits seem more interested in joining because they think it’s their religious duty and want to help build the Khilafah, than anger over foreign policy.
And should we provoke them? Well it would be a pretty stupid idea to wait until they get more powerful and then fight them.
So in this broad context, it's pretty naive to just focus on foreign policy, which is what Mehdi Hasan seems to be doing. And if they want to kill us anyway, why shouldn’t we try and impede their advances?
But more importantly, what about other drivers such as the Khilafah ideal? Who will talk about that? What about a debate on why British Muslims are losing the war against ISIS? What should the strategy be in Europe and the Middle East to counter it? The answer to all of this isn’t and cannot just be ‘have a better foreign policy’ or ‘let’s not provoke them’. That is almost as ridiculous as right-wingers who just focus on refugees/immigration/multiculturalism in response to every terror attack.
That ISIS is imperialistic and hell-bent on war should now be beyond dispute. So the debate on how to deal with them is not just about foreign policy (that may be a small component) - but many other issues that are being swept under the carpet while we argue about whether we are provoking them or not.
Yes I’ve changed my views since the election
2015-07-23 09:28:38
As is common these days, I get abused on Twitter by some lefties outraged that I’ve not fallen in line with popular opinion on the left.
In my latest column for LabourList I show why the assumption that Jeremy Corbyn will appeal to non-voters or UKIPers with his ‘clear principles’ or economic populism seem wildly optimistic. Britons who don't vote or opt for UKIP are largely culturally conservative Britons who prefer the Daily Mail and Express over the Mirror, and value policies that the left would not want to sign up to (patriotism, low immigration, cutting welfare). Their biggest gripes are about immigration and welfare benefits, and in favour of reducing them not increasing them.
When you know Corbyn is a bit radical, why the shock when someone points out he may only appeal to other radicals?
Anyway, my point is this: yes, I’ve changed my opinions views the election.
I haven’t changed what I believe in. I still believe in economic and social equality, I believe in an economy that doesn’t unfairly reward the already rich and privileged, I believe in the free provision of education and other public goods like health. I believe the railways should be nationalised and that large parts of the banking sector have become a parasite on our economy. I still believe that climate change, sustainability, clean energy and ending waste are among the biggest challenges of our time.
But the British left is broken. I’ve written several articles on how we are out of touch, out of focus and repeating the same mistakes. And I’m sick of going along with this farce. I want to see a left that isn’t dogmatic, is full of new ideas and not constantly harking back to the 50s, wants to win and is willing to build wide coalitions to crush the Tories.
None of that is going to happen with silly sloganeering about “the politics of hope” - especially if the only people being preached to are the already converted. I don’t want to provide false hope with my articles, I want to point out that the world is a complicated place and not everything is as clear-cut as people assume. I want to challenge the the groupthink and narrow focus because that's why the left keeps losing. I want us to think more about tactics and strategy not just repeating slogans that make us feel like we have principles.
Labour’s "greatest hits" are a list of things it has done while in power, not a record of principles held while in opposition.
We lost the election in May so badly that I felt intellectually jarred. The assumptions I had made about voters reacting to Labour policies and ideas came crashing down. The Tories totally outclassed us and many of us still don't know why. But the last five years have been futile not just for Labour, but even leftwing activism. Most of the big movements quickly fizzled out due to lack of focus, lack of strategy and infighting. Isn't it time to wake up to this?
As Gerry Hassan points out:
The left barely understands how it comes over to people not inside its constituency and fully signed up. ‘The world is wrong’ is self-evident; ‘why are you not one of us?’ runs the logic. The next step is to embrace resistance and defensive, oppositional language, invoking ‘austerity’ and ‘Tory cuts’ and feeling self-justification and self-satisfaction. Do people not stop to think that these comfort zones are a substitute for thinking about issues?
The Tory party thinks about winning power first, then implementing their agenda; the Labour party wants to have a massive fight over its principles first, and it doesn't even get near power.
If some lefties just want to just shout slogans and express their principles, that’s fine. They have a right to. Though they'd be better off joining a protest group or single-issue campaign. But if they want to win campaigns, to win political power and affect change, that requires a very different way of thinking. It requires building electoral coalitions and speaking to people who aren’t convinced by us. It require saying things that not everyone will find palatable at all times.
This is the kind of left I want to see. That's why I'm no longer willing to go along with the group-think and purity tests. If you want that too, come with me. If you want to carry on as before, feel free to ignore me from now on.
Hindu charity that broke Charity Commission rules by supporting Tories before election does it again
2015-07-08 09:00:49A few weeks before the General Election in May, I found that the National Council of Hindu Temples - a registered charity - posted a message calling on British Hindus to vote Conservative.
It was clearly in violation of the Charity Commission rules, which state that charities cannot be politically aligned, and I complained. The Charity Commissionimmediately asked them to make amends and they deleted their post.
I can reveal that the NCHT has broken the Charity Commission rules again. Its General Secretary sent out this email below clearly expressing political support for the Conservatives over Labour.
Furthermore, it disparages "genuineness" of Hindus who support the Labour party.
What's the NCHT's key complaint? That Labour supported legislation in the UK banning discrimination on the basis of Hindu castes. The (mostly upper-caste) Hindu leadership of the NCHT opposes this piece of legislation. Yes, really.
Full email below (there's more coming on this later this week)
This is National Action, the neo-Nazis that Davies followed. Why aren't they called a terror group?
2015-06-26 05:02:22
"The revolution doesn't start a thousand miles away, it starts with you."
It could be a statement put out by ISIS, the group that has encouraged its sympathisers all over the world to take action in defense of the Caliphate. But actually that's the strapline on the front page of National Action, a neo-Nazi group in the UK that is committed to "fighting to recapture our country in an increasingly hostile and foreign environment".
Yesterday, Zack Davies was sentenced for the attempted murder of Dr Sarandar Bhambra, a man who was assaulted because he "looked Asian" according to Davies.
His family said after the sentencing:
We are in no doubt, given the racial and political motivations, that this should have been rightly defined as an act of terrorism. By his own admission, the defendant Zack Davies had extreme neo-Nazi views and is a member of a white supremacist organisation.
So why weren't the actions of Zack Davies seen as an act of terrorism, when a similar attack by a Muslim man would have been?
And who are National Action, the white supremacist organisation that indoctrinated Zack Davies?
National Action, in their own words, a "National Socialist youth organisation" typically aimed at men "in their late teens or twenties". They're not an organised and hierarchical network and, in their own words, shun that sort of organising. It's likely National Action choose a leaderless style of self-organising after the collapse of the EDL once Tommy Robinson left.
Their website states their mission:
Britain has become a nation of weak cowards who are hypersensitive and scared to say anything. Lying through fear is now considered normal – we have allowed hysterical twits to control how everything is done while our people limp towards rivers of blood. Where are the men who will tell the truth? Where are the men who will stand up and fight?
In June last year the Sunday Mirror ran an expose on them, calling them a Hitler-loving group that wanted to 'ethnically cleanse' the UK. Its not clear when the group started but its likely they were formed after the collapse of the BNP and EDL.
The Mirror revealed that they were trying to recruit students on university campuses and heaped praise on Norweigan terrorist Anders Breivik.
In a manifesto called 'Attack' posted on their website, I found this paragraph:
A CASE FOR FASCISM
Nobody has ever gotten anywhere by being ‘moderate’. Nobody has ever gotten anywhere by being ‘nice’. Nobody has ever gotten anywhere by being ‘intellectual’. Nobody has ever gotten anywhere by being ‘respectable’. Men and movements got to where they did by one way and one way only. It is what the enemy calls Fascism, and so far as I have ever found it is the only thing that has ever worked. Just looking at it objectively the patriots in these two countries Germany and Italy used this method, this thing, and with it they kicked communism and took power all by themselves. Deep down isn’t that what we want? Only done right this time.
Done right this time. Hmmm. I wonder what that means. The emphasis in the text above is mine.
There are also comparisons to al-Qaeda inspired suicide bombers.
Fascism produced people who were willing to fight – who is really willing to fight for anything today? I mean really believe in anything enough to face hardship for it? Muslims are an example, they strap bombs to themselves. In our case though most of our people are for whatever reason unable commit perfectly legal acts like voting for nationalist parties – and nationalist activists are unable to hold open meetings and speak the truth. If the health of a people is judged by how vigorously they defend their right to existence then we need to find things that make them do that.
There is open support for Nazi style fascism and heavy implication that this should be achieved through violence or at least force. But these people are not harassed by the authorities.
On March 21st around a 100 National Action sympathisers turned out for a demonstration in Newcastle. There were no police attempts to arrest them of course.
Zack Davies, the extremist who tried to kill Dr Bhambra, posted an image of himself in a balaclava with a large knife and the National Action flag hours before he carried out his attack, reports Channel 4. A large amount of white-supremacist material was found at his house.
National Action regularly posts videos online showing themselves training to fight. C4 News reported yesterday that the group also helped to promote "Isis-inspired" neo-Nazi training camps inside the UK where members learned hand-to-hand combat and trained with knives.
So why aren't they labelled as a terror group? And why wasn't Zack Davies's stabbing called the attack of a 'terrorist'?
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Top image taken from the National Action 2014 'review' (PDF).
Do the Tories have a mandate for their policies? Erm...
2015-06-22 07:32:24Seamus Milne says:
Opposition to all this [austerity] has barely begun. But there’s no democratic reason for people to accept it. The Tories were elected by fewer than 37% of voters. Only 24% of those eligible backed the Conservatives – and that’s not counting the unregistered.
I know some people will not want to hear this but this is a ridiculous argument.
I'm saying this because I'm also opposed to Tory austerity: we have to find a better argument than 'the Tories have no mandate' because it sounds ridiculous to anyone outside the hard left.
1) The Tories went into an election offering even more cuts. They did way better than the party that warned against having that level of cuts. This means we have to find a different way of selling our argument, not repeating it endlessly in the hope that by some miracle people will rise up against austerity.
2) Voters, by definition, are the people who vote. Of the people who voted the Tories did the best and that DOES give them legitimacy. That is how people see it and by pretending the election was a fraud makes lefties look silly.
Also, if we are indeed focusing on election turnout, it may NOT be a good idea to have anti-austerity protests headlined by a celebrity who urged people not to register or vote*. It makes us look really confused.
I'm not saying all this to make people depressed, though it will undoubtedly will do that to some. I'm saying this because I hate this line of argument as it doesn't have currency outside the hard left, and because the Left really has to start being consistent on registration and voting.
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* the fact that Russell Brand changed his mind at the last minute doesn't absolve him, I'm afraid.
93% of Immigrants Are Proud To Live In Britain, Nearly 9 out of 10 Respect Our Political System
2015-06-16 07:57:47This came to my inbox last night, and I think the findings are worth sharing in full. Important to note, this was commissioned by a centre-right group, not a leftwing group.
Survation, on behalf of Bright Blue the independent think tank & pressure group for liberal conservatism, conducted an in-depth study of ethnic minority voter's attitudes to immigration to inform their new report: A balanced centre-right agenda on immigration: Understanding how ethnic minorities think about immigration.
The report has six main findings:
· Ethnic minorities, like the wider population, are more concerned with having a well-managed immigration system and admitting immigrants who will contribute to the UK than lowering the overall number of immigrants
40% of ethnic minorities think that an ideal immigration system is one that is well managed and keeps out illegal immigrants. 25% of ethnic minorities believe an ideal immigration system is one that includes only those who contribute. Only 10% of ethnic minorities think that an ideal immigration system is one with fewer immigrants or no new immigrants (7%).
· The most important policy relating to immigration for ethnic minorities, like the wider population, is restricting migrants’ access to benefits
The policy which ethnic minorities would most like to see introduced to improve the immigration system is increasing the time before new immigrants can claim benefits (43%). The second most popular policy is increasing border policing to cut down on illegal immigration (36%). These two policies are more popular than tightening the immigration cap on non-EU migrants (22%) or withdrawing from EU free movement of workers rules (16%).
· Ethnic minorities are more welcoming of different types of immigrants than the wider population
93% of ethnic minorities do not want a reduction in the number of international students coming to the UK. 92% do not want to see fewer professional workers coming to the UK and 84% do not want fewer skilled manual workers coming to the UK. Across all types of immigrants, ethnic minorities are more likely to say that their numbers should not be reduced than the wider population.
· Ethnic minorities are more positive about the economic and cultural impact of immigration than the wider population
72% of ethnic minorities agree that immigration has provided skills for our economy compared to 42% of the wider population. 65% agree that it has enriched British culture compared to 34% of the wider population. 52% agree that it has helped support our NHS compared to 40% of the wider population.
Ethnic minorities are also more likely to believe that immigrants are integrating. 73% of ethnic minorities think that most immigrants prefer to be in work than on benefits, compared to 46% of the wider population. 69% think that most immigrants contribute tax, compared to 40% of the wider population. 47% think that most immigrants speak fluent English, compared to 26% of the wider population.
· Immigrants themselves are positive about Britain and participate in local activities
An overwhelming majority of immigrants, 93%, are proud (either very proud or somewhat proud) to live in Britain. 87% of immigrants feel respect for the British political system. Moreover, in terms of social mixing, most immigrants participate in a range of local activities. 50% of immigrants go to the pub with friends or colleagues and 47% participate in local community organisations.
· Ethnic minority views of immigration represent a political opportunity for the centre-right
Changing the party’s immigration policy is one of the top changes (24%) which would encourage ethnic minority individuals not currently seriously considering voting for the Conservative Party to consider it, behind only changing NHS policy and changing economic policy. There is an opportunity for the centre-right, and the Conservative Party in particular, to develop a policy agenda on immigration that strengthens its appeal to ethnic minority voters. Rather than a narrow focus on caps and clampdown, the Conservative Party should have a balanced agenda on immigration. This should include the championing of the significant benefits from immigration, as well as practical policies to address the challenges, and ensuring the system prioritises immigrants who contribute and places competent management of the system at the forefront of debate.
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ENDS
Video: My talk at Cambridge Labour Club on mistakes and the future of the party
2015-05-17 01:17:40This week I was kindly invited by the Cambridge Universities Labour Club for a talk on where Labour goes from here.
In the initial part I talk about the wrong assumptions I made in the run up to the election. I've written about that here too.
From 8m 15 seconds, I talk about the three big challenges the next Labour leader will have to grapple with.
From 19m 22 secs, I talk about the main leadership candidates (which included Chuka Umunna at the time).
(the sound quality improves after a minute)
(ht @Puffles2010)
The mistakes I made and what I learnt from the election
2015-05-15 04:58:22A lot of people made mistakes in predicting outcomes in the 2015 General Election, mostly because the polling was so out of sync with the eventual result. I made predictions based on polling too, and it was embarrassing enough when they turned out to be very wrong.
But I made other assumptions in the last election cycle and its only right to own up to them. Partly, I feel its important for my readers, but partly I think its worth articulating them so I can learn from my mistakes.
The biggest mistake I made was this. Over the last 2 years, the Labour leadership's ratings on leadership and economic competence started trailing that of the Tory leadership. I.e. Cameron was consistently seen as a better leader than Miliband (a gap that grew), and Cameron-Osborne were ahead of Miliband-Balls on economic competence. Because the polling stayed broadly positive, I assumed this was having very little impact on voting intentions. I also assumed that when it came to the crunch, people would vote with their hearts than on competence. BFM (Big Fucking Mistake).
Clearly, it has now been proven beyond doubt that if voters don't see you as a credible and strong leader, then they won't trust your promises. It doesn't matter how much they like your policies (Miliband's policies were quite populist) - they just won't trust you to deliver them. They won't place their faith in you. This should be a lesson for all of us on the left. Ed tried hard to shift those perceptions, and he improved, but he didn't try harder and earlier. I had assumed (mostly because of the polls) that voters didn't think this was a big enough deal. Clearly, it was.
The other big mistake was with UKIP. I assumed, again based on polling data, that UKIP hurt the Tories more than Labour. Many in the Labour leadership assumed this too. And this was true to an extent. But we didn't anticipate that the Tories would be much better at tempting back Tory->UKIP voters than Labour->UKIP voters.
I suspect Tories did this mostly by raising doubts about Miliband and his tie-up with the SNP. They said the election was going to be close -- too close -- and that this metropolitan geek was going to be under Nicola Sturgeon's thumb. "It would bring chaos."
It played not only into their English nationalism but perceptions of Miliband's weakness as a leader. Ex-Tory voters clearly got the message and returned back. Far too many ex-Labour voters didn't, primarily because we didn't connect with them, emotionally and culturally (I'll come back to that point another time).
The point is that Labour-> UKIP switchers hit us harder than many of us (including myself) expected, especially in places like Southampton Itchen. That assumption was also a BFM, though its unlikely Miliband could have stemmed that flow easily.
So yeah, I hold up my hands and admit it: both of these were pretty big assumptions and I got them wrong.
What exactly is Jim Murphy's case for staying on leader of Scottish Labour?
2015-05-11 15:22:44Despite losing his seat in Westminster, Jim Murphy is trying to hang on as leader of Scottish Labour. I find this astonishing.
Late last year, when he became leader, he said they could hang on to most seats in Scotland.
He said he was "astonished" at how "easy it’s been to outwit the SNP". Yup, the SNP look totally outwitted.
Since he became leader of Scottish Labour, the SNP increased their leader over Labour until the elections.
Plus, his own ratings took a sharp dive after being elected. At the end of January 33% of Scots said he was doing well, with 43% saying he was doing badly. By March, just 26% said he was doing well, 51% said he was doing badly.
Worse, Murphy couldn't even convince Labour voters. Nicola Sturgeon's approval rating amongst Labour voters was just -4. Jim Murphy’s net approval rating amongst SNP supporters was -54.
If Murphy can't convince tempt back SNP voters, he has no chance of rejuvenating Scottish Labour. And in the last 6 months he has been leader, he made a bad situation worse.
His entire campaign utterly failed. As Adam Bienkov earlier pointed out:
The campaign run by Murphy has been complacent, uninspiring and counter-productive. Murphy's central message - that a vote for the SNP is a vote for the Conservatives - is purely negative and gives voters zero reasons to actively back the Labour party. This strategy may have once seemed like Labour's best chance of hanging on in Scotland, but the unavoidable fact is that it has not worked. Yet even today Murphy is still sticking to his script, telling reporters that the poll results are "good for the SNP and great for David Cameron."
With Cameron victorious, Scottish voters are now more likely to think that only the SNP can stand up for them, especially since Labour in Westminster is talking about 'moving to the centre ground'.
So what is Jim Murphy's case for staying on leader of Scottish Labour, since he has utterly failed over the last 6 months?
Memo to Labour: David Cameron did not win this election from the centre ground
2015-05-10 13:07:28Tony Blair writes today: "the route to the summit lies through the centre ground".
We expected this right? Tony Blair is becoming famous for repeating himself all the time.
There's also one glaring problem with this cliche: Cameron didn't win from the centre ground. In fact he moved further away from the electorate and voters rewarded him for it.
Britons saw Cameron as right-wing as Miliband was left-wing. They were both equally away from the centre.
In fact, Cameron was further away from the centre nearer to the election than he started off! And yet he increased his share of the vote and seats.
Furthermore, most of Miliband's major policies: cracking down on tax avoidance, abolishing non-doms, raising the 50px tax, focusing on the NHS etc - were very popular with the public. His analysis of people not being served by capitalism was right - even Tories like Fraser Nelson and Charles Moore admitted it.
So if this was about moving left or right, and about offering policies that chime with the public, why didn't Miliband win big?
Because people value authenticity, and they value competence. Labour gave them neither; Cameron at least offered latter. Miliband didn't have clarity of message either. People frequently misunderstood his positions or didn't believe in them. When it came to the crunch, they could not bring themselves to place their trust in the man (sadly). Miliband just wasn’t believed, whatever he promised and however popular that was.
There's a lesson here for the left: popular policies don't necessarily win you elections if the person offering them isn't believable. Unless he or she is seen as authentic and competent enough to follow them through, you can offer free owls to everyone and people will still reject you.
There's a lesson here for the Labour right too: elections aren't always won from the 'centre ground'. That era of triangulation is over. Obama won, twice, on quite a liberal platform, railing against inequality and the top 1%, because he was seen as competent and determined.
UPDATE: There are other inconvenient facts too. As Peter Oborne points out:
Their prescription is curious after a general election in which the three parties which rejected the centre ground — the SNP, UKIP and the Greens — made the biggest gains in the popular vote.
Meanwhile the party which made the greatest claim to the centre ground — the Liberal Democrats — was virtually annihilated.
But don't let the facts get in your way, Mr Blair.
Is Labour making a big (long term) mistake by rejecting "any" deal with the SNP?
2015-05-01 03:26:30
The Labour leadership have finally settled on a clear line on the SNP.
Assuming that Cameron cannot cobble together a majority on 8th May and has to resign, that gives Ed Miliband his turn at forming a government.
Miliband says he won't do a formal coalition with the SNP (Nicola Sturgeon ruled that out ages ago anyway), nor will there be an informal 'Confidence & Supply' agreement with them. Instead, Labour either do a deal with the Lib Dems to get a working majority, or they work as a minority government.
The Labour leadership are confident they can work as a minority government because the SNP and other minor left parties won't vote down their Queen's Speech and trigger a second election. In effect they are calling Nicola Sturgeon's bluff because she has already committed to voting down a Tory Queen's Speech.
So the Labour leadership are pleased because they think Sturgeon has little leverage. But can this strategy be sustained for long?
Firstly, this is from last night:
This is going to hurt in Scotland. Don't believe Miliband would reject votes from SNP to let Tories in; bad phrasing pic.twitter.com/angXsrs55r
— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) April 30, 2015The SNP are predictably spinning it as: Ed Miliband would rather let the Tories back in than work with the SNP. That is wrong. There is no conceivable prospect of Miliband resigning his government than having SNP on his side.
Caroline Flint later clarified it:
What [Miliband] ruled out was this idea that, somehow, to have a Labour government we’re prepared to do a coalition or some other kind of confidence and supply deal [with the SNP].
But, at the end of the day, whoever forms a government, parties will get a chance to vote for a Queen’s speech, vote for budgets, and vote for policies, that’s the same with any government.
In other words: Hey Nicola Sturgeon, you are still welcome to vote with us! Just don't expect a quid-pro-quo arrangement of any sort.
OK. So that was a misstep but this strategy is still sound, right?
I'm not so sure.
Keep one important point in mind: a large proportion of Scots don't view the SNP as negatively as the English do. In fact, a large proportion of them (many of whom are ex-Labour voters) think the SNP have their interests at heart more than Labour. This seems obvious but a lot of people seem to be ignoring this.
More importantly, Nicola Sturgeon isn't going to let herself be outmaneuvered by Miliband so easily.
Since Labour still needs a majority of MPs for votes on legislation, Sturgeon will just make his life harder by getting SNP MPs to abstain or complain over small things. That would put Miliband in a difficult position: either negotiate with the SNP (and have the Right savage him for it) or appeal to Tory MPs (thus alienating the left and giving an electoral boon to Sturgeon).
In Scotland, Sturgeon will keep arguing that Miliband would rather do a deal with the Tories than the SNP. In England, the Tories will argue that Labour are breaking their promise and doing deals with the SNP. Either way Miliband will be constantly attacked on all sides.
This isn't ideal. Miliband's administration could soon become paralysed.
For Miliband to argue in Scotland that he'd rather have Tory MPs vote with him than negotiate with SNP MPs would further alienate SNP voters (many of whom Labour need back). In effect he will be giving up on Scottish Labour without much gain in return.
By saying Labour rejects any deal with the SNP, I think Miliband is making a mistake. I don't think this strategy can be sustained.
Two big reasons a Tory-Lib Dem coalition is unlikely after this election
2015-04-30 14:36:08Nick Clegg clearly wants another coalition with the Conservatives. And I'm fairly sure Cameron recognises the necessity of carrying on their tolerable relationship. And a lot of people in Westminster assume the two will be joined at the hip when negotiating post-election.
But I don't think it will be that straightforward.
Firstly, it won't be easy from the Conservative side. Theresa May and Boris Johnson want their shot at being leader of the party and neither have time to waste. Neither want to wait another five years either, when more of the recent crop of Tories will want their shot.
Tory leadership hopefuls could make the argument to colleagues that another coalition would undermine the Tory party and force them to break more promises. Besides, Cameron has shown himself incapable of winning elections outright, so why not get rid of him and get a proper leader who will win in 5 years time? - they will say.
Many Tories, who will not want the straightjacket of another coalition, will find that a seductive pitch and may reject another coalition.
Secondly, its not a done and dusted deal from the Lib Dem side either. For a start, Clegg has to get approval from his fellow MPs and party members, and that won't be as straightforward this time.
There will be far more hostility from Lib Dems this time, for good reasons. These are some points made to me by Steffan John (@steffanjohn) over Twitter. I'm quoting him directly without embedding tweets to make it look cleaner:
1) Maths for majority isn’t there.
2) Even if a small majority was, no national interest in unstable government with 4yr leadership contest.
3) 2010 had financial crisis backdrop and 4) threat of swift re-election. Neither there this time, so less pressure on Lib Dems
5) 2010 had common ground on civil liberties, localisation, constitutional reform, environment, raising tax thresh. All gone.
6) Labour not hated as it was in 2010; Tories far more Right-wing now. LD won’t support again, esp. as Lab-LD-(SNP) is possible
Steffan John is a Lib Dem and makes some good points.
And here is Vince Cable's former SpAd Giles Wilkes
So let the Tories, in minority, try to cut 12bn off welfare, 25bn off unprotected departments, w/o LibDems there to excuse it.
— Giles Wilkes (@Gilesyb) April 19, 2015There is, I think, a real chance Lib Dems will reject a coalition with Cameron, especially if there are signs of hostility from Tory MPs (stirred up by May and Boris).
That clears the way for Miliband to be Prime Minister, with Lib Dems choosing to either work in a coalition or sit on the sidelines, while the Conservatives choose their next leader.
How Tory support collapsed after the 2012 budget
2015-04-22 00:46:17How the left got duped by the SNP on austerity, but will ignore it anyway
2015-04-20 20:30:17What would you rather have: 1) a party that tells you what you want to hear and does something different, or 2) one that tells you straight about what its going to do?
Most people, I suspect, would pick the latter option. Or at least, they would like to think they prefer the second option but they're easily seduced by the first.
Many of my colleagues on the left have been raving about the SNP for months. Today, when they released their manifesto, it turned out their spending plans and commitments weren't actually that different to that of Labour
@chrisshipitv @paulwaugh @TheIFS This is hardly news - both I & @resfoundation said exactly that several weeks ago
— Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) April 20, 2015I just feel sorry for those people who had raved about how SNP would challenge austerity, only to find their fiscal plans were largely the same as Labour's plans.
The Guardian's George Monbiot put the SNP in the same category as Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Féin, and the Greens. Follow your convictions, he extorted! Ignore those bloody bean-counters and accountants from the Labour party who offer nothing other than limp policies, he added.
Oh. Now it turns out the SNP nicked half their policies and ideas from Labour. As Stephen Bush points out, it feels as if it is the SNP being pulled leftward by Ed Miliband. Ouch!
My friends, this is what happens when you focus on empty rhetoric rather than actual policies and commitments. Monbiot and others had been saying for ages that Labour and Tory austerity was the same until it turned out... that wasn't true.
THIS is why I keep saying, focus on the actual policies rather than the rhetoric, otherwise later you'll be left asking why politicians don't live up to expectations.
How Muslims are smeared as 'entryists' in newspapers without reason
2015-03-15 19:17:35There is no other minority group in the UK like Muslims that you can make crass and bigoted generalisations about, and get away with it. Perhaps Roma people, but they are rarely written about as much. Not even Poles get the treatment like they used to.
I want to illustrate this point through a recent article by the Telegraph's Andrew Gillian, which screamed: Islamic 'radicals' at the heart of Whitehall.
Here's what happened: the government set up a group to advise them on tackling anti-Muslim prejudice, in parallel to the one tackling anti-semitism. It includes representatives from most major departments.
It is a very inclusive like few others, including Ahmadis, Ismailis, Sunnis and Shia Muslims together, plus other campaigners like Nick Lowles (Hope Not Hate). This is worth keeping in mind, especially since its conveniently ignored by Andrew Gilligan, because any "extreme" views would very likely be challenged by others.
The central allegation of the article is against Mudassar Ahmad, a case which is so flimsy you have to wonder whether a different agenda was being served.
Among its most prominent non-government members is Muddassar Ahmed, a former senior activist in the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), an extremist and anti-Semitic militant body which is banned from many universities as a hate group
In fact Mudassar left MPAC years ago and was never involved in any of the main activities it was criticised for (and I was a frequent critics of MPAC). The article admits that later on too.
The main quotes come from Fiyaz Mughal from Tell MAMA, who is said to have left the group over "concerns". But Fiyaz actually left earlier last year. He is referred to by Gilligan as a "senior Muslim leader" even though he earlier undermined and attacked Tell MAMA's work (which led to a complaint to the PCC from Tell MAMA). One minute Gilligan thinks TM is dodgy and then he's a senior leader? What does that say about Gilligan's journalism?
When the article came out, I said maybe Fiyaz was justified if any in the group had made inflammatory statements.
But Hope Not Hate's Nick Lowles said to me in response: "This is the first time the antisemtic charge has been levelled on the group or its members. It is a complete red herring and an insult to everyone on the group." I trust his judgement.
And yet, by implication, people in the group are being smeared as 'entryists' (Fiyaz Mughal has conspicuously declined to fully justify his claims).
These kind of generalisations about Muslims are rare now, but still remain despicable. The Telegraph would never (any more) run headlines like 'secret plan by gays to take over Whitehall' - so why is this kind of language acceptable regarding Muslims?
Why Amnesty (or any other proper human rights org) couldn't work with CAGE again
2015-03-12 14:40:32Amnesty International UK say they no longer consider it appropriate to share a platform with CAGE after their recent comments. About time.
Last week, Cage director Asim Qureshi was invited on to the BBC to justify his comments on Mohammed Emwazi and debate other stances the group have taken.
He went from bad to worse. Qureshi was asked about a claim on the Cage website that British individuals are "killed on the whim of British security agencies" - he couldn't think of a single example. Later asked if he agreed with Haitham al-Haddad's views on FGM, stoning of women, domestic violence and more - Qureshi said: "I'm not a scholar".
Watch
Post by BBC This Week.
To summarise, the leader of Cage, a self-described 'human rights organisation' can't even be clear on his own stance on several human rights issues. This is a joke, right?
A decade ago, when Asim Qureshi was speaking at a Hizb ut-Tahrir rally, he had no problems acting as a theologian and telling Muslims it was "incumbent upon all of us to support the Jihad [in Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Israel]". Has he become less informed about Islam since?
Supporters of Cage say this is about context, that he wasn't actually encouraging anyone to commit terrorism. Of course, jihad can also be non-violent according to the official definition, but its ridiculous to pretend that the wider context, where some Muslims think jihad implies violent extremism, is irrelevant. When Tommy Robinson said Muslims would pay if there was another 7/7 style attack - we know what he meant, he wasn't talking about financial compensation. At least he apologised; Qureshi hasn't.
I have two questions for Cage:
1) We agree that people should have access to justice and due process, and Cage keep referring to the latter re: the Mohammed Emwazi affair. So I asked: Did they think MI5 broke the law in any way in dealing with Emwazi?
2) Why didn't they release the full tapes of their conversations with Emwazi?
I've repeatedly put these two questions to Cage over Twitter. They've not answered, despite responding to attacks on me by others.
* * * * *
Its worth saying that Amnesty UK has never had a formal relationship with Cage. In an interview with Radio 4 they say their joint work involved hosting a few events for Moazzam Begg, and lending their name to some publications and letters. Recently they both signed a letter to Cameron calling for a judge-led inquiry into Britain’s alleged involvement in the rendition and torture of terrorist suspects.
5 years ago, when Amnesty UK's work with Mozazzam Begg was questioned by former employee Gita Sahgal, I came to Amnesty's defence (though I actually wrote the issue was more complicated than many pretended it was). Recent events show that Gita called it right and I called it wrong, as did Amnesty. I'm happy to admit that, and I regret some of the intemperate language I used.
At the time I was defending Amnesty (not Cage) against people (excluding Gita) who wanted to undermine the organisation for other reasons, i.e. its focus on Guantanamo Bay and Israeli war crimes. I continue to think Amnesty is a great organisation but it should have refused to work with Cage then. I made lots of calls which turned out to be right (unlike many of Amnesty's critics) but in this case I was wrong. Gita Sahgal's instincts have been vindicated.
What Jihadi John and CAGE said yesterday about how people are 'driven to terrorism'
2015-02-27 16:37:11Imagine this scenario. A white atheist kills a Muslim couple in cold blood. The media speculates endlessly about the "factors" that drove him to kill them: apparently he had a parking dispute with them; they dressed and talked funny; he was lonely and maybe they did something to provoke him? When this actually happened a few weeks ago, called the Chapel Hill shootings, Muslims were rightly horrified at the coverage looked like it was justifying the murders of several innocent people. So what if he liked cats and was polite to people? Why was his wife given so much time on air to defend her husband?
Or take another example. Imagine you're a white working class kid who lives in a town like Luton. You've heard stories of Pakistani-gangs grooming young white girls and that the police is barely doing anything about it. The gangs make your life hell and, on top of that, they go around harassing gays and soldiers and saying they hate this country. They want to shariah law in town, the gangs say. So you join the English Defence League because you see them as the only people standing up against them. Is he a racist? Or is he a boy driven to join extreme groups in response to events around him?
By now you'll know what I'm getting at, though some people will no doubt claim these are false comparisons. They're not.
I'm sick of people who try and "contextualise" terrorism on the basis that someone else is to blame for what that person did. But yesterday, CAGE, which calls itself a human rights organisation (yes and Putin is a human rights activist), said the blame for the radicalisation of Mohammed Emwazi (aka Jihadi John) lay solely with the intelligence services.
Of course it did. Because saying anything else would require admitting that he was actually taught by other Muslims to hate non-Sunnis, be ok with the enslaving of Yazidi women, and behead aid workers. CAGE would never admit that. In their world, radicalisation only happens when the police or intelligence services question Muslims. As a caller to BBC radio yesterday put it: "I'm a black man. I've been stopped and searched by the Police on numerous occasions for no reason. That doesn't give me an excuse to murder people."
There is no doubt in my mind that CAGE were making excuses for a terrorist. Trying to paint him as a victim who was driven to his heinous crimes by security services (who, by the way, only half-heartedly tried to recruit him). And yet, many people who are normally outraged when the national media make excuses for white terrorists or EDL members, were silent yesterday or supporting CAGE, with a few honourable exceptions
Being so angry about foreign policy that you take it out on some innocent aid workers, journalists, local people -- makes zero sense.
— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) February 27, 2015Let's be clear about a few things. The security services are not going to stop questioning Muslims who they think are involved in terrorism-related activities. I only wonder why they didn't have Mohammed Emwazi under heavier surveillance earlier.
Secondly, CAGE did incalculable harm to the cause of people (like me) who think the security services do sometimes overstep the mark and harass people wrongly. If CAGE is their spokesperson then those people are fucked because they won't elicit any sympathy whatsoever.
The media is inconsistent in how it covers murders by Muslims and non-Muslims - I agree with this. But Muslims can't complain of bias in the national media and then fail to criticise a group like CAGE who want to "contextualise" how a man like him is driven to extremism (there were exceptions of course)
@sunny_hundal not all Muslims deny it. Some try to stand against the leftists-Islamists camp!
— Nervana Mahmoud (@Nervana_1) February 27, 2015In fact I asked several times yesterday of the "context" that makes a man want to kill innocent aid workers (who were helping Syrians), and I got no reply. Funny that.
We badly screwed up in Libya, and it's time to admit that
2015-02-17 08:47:54
There are usually two kinds of people who like to commentate on foreign policy matters: those who oppose any military 'intervention' in the affairs of other countries; and those who have no problems advocating military intervention and will always defend such action.
I happen to be in a third, less media-friendly category of people who thinks military intervention in the affairs of other countries is a possible last resort providing:
- it is carefully judged and isn't rushed into
- has a clear purpose and exit plan
- the public is adequately explained why such action is necessary and support it in significant numbers
- the plan isn't to leave the country in a worse state than it was
I accept that this is too nuanced for many people, especially on Twitter... but ¯\_(?)_/¯
Anyway. I also believe it really helps foreign policy debates if politicians admitted when they fucked up. I'm actually still astounded that Tony Blair - and Nick Cohen, by the way - aren't embarrassed to continue opining on foreign policy affairs and defending the invasion of Iraq. Living in a bubble makes you oblivious, clearly.
Like Iraq, we fucked up in Libya. We should say this so we can learn from it.
I mean, here we have Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff who was then appointed by Cameron as the UK envoy, saying: "Libya could, if it goes down this spiral, end up as a failed state."
WTAF? There is no mention whatsoever of the UK's hand in deposing Gaddafi (which I supported at the time), and yet doing nothing whatsoever to ensure a transition to democracy. We have screwed up and yet we're pretending it's the Libyan people's fault their country has collapsed into violence. It beggars belief.
This has now become a pattern: we get involved in foreign conflicts and then we absolve ourselves of responsibility if the country collapses without proper institutions being put in place. Libya is in trouble because of us. We should have helped put institutions in place but we were too busy leaving to declare victory.
Aside from the lives lost in Libya, these kind of screw-ups also dampen public enthusiasm for genuinely necessary interventions in places like Syria*. Our own short-sightedness in foreign affairs is costing lives - of others and eventually ours, through blowback.
----
* PS - I don't accept Cameron passed the above tests when rushing into Syria over chemical weapons, which is I supported Miliband's brakes on the process.
No, watching ISIS videos does NOT make you complicit in its terrorism
2015-02-05 14:59:58
If you watch ISIS's videos you are complicit in its terrorism, says Nesrine Malik at the Guardian.
Sorry, but this is ludicrous for various reasons. I have watched a fair amount of ISIS videos, unapologetically, and here are several reasons to do so.
1) To study what ISIS are doing and understand symbolism of what they're saying. ISIS videos are carefully constructed pieces of propaganda. If you want to defeat your enemy then you have to know them. This isn't just a military war but one of ideology, which makes it even more important to understand that ideology and its weaknesses. It also helps when you're debating with 'at risk' people to counter ISIS propaganda.
2) For work. Someone has to accurately report this shit, no? Someone has to study the video to see what else it reveals, and whether its actually a fake or not. The fact that ISIS have burnt alive a Jordanian pilot is news, whether people like it or not. So someone has to accurately report it, and others will use to build a better picture of ISIS capabilities and people.
3) Most importantly, I don't want sanitised and tightly controlled images from national news, I want to see gory details and make up my own mind. I want others to have that opportunity to do so too. War is awful and people need to know this.
For too long we've had coverage of news events and war from the perspective of news organisations that are are OK with showing sanitised videos released by governments, but don't want to show pics or videos of atrocities from their own side. YouTube has changed all that and I welcome it. I don't want to be told by others what I should or should not be watching re: war or conflict. And I certainly do not want the government stepping in and criminalising people for watching videos of external conflicts.
How the Paris attacks are likely to change the approach of western counter-terrorism
2015-01-19 08:02:33
The New York Times has published an extraordinary account of how the two terrorists who burst into Charlie Hebdo's office became radicalised.
Here are a few thoughts from the article, and more generally, that I think have the potential to change how western security services deal with al-Qaeda inspired terrorism.
1) Al-Qaeda's methods have changed to Mumbai style attacks.
If more such attacks take place across Western Europe, which seems likely, then I suspect they will be more in the style of Paris and Mumbai than the 7/7 bombings. Smuggling, building and learning about detonating explosives takes time and effort. It can also be a hit and miss. But a terrorist attack using an assault rifle is easier for al-Qaeda inspired jihadists to put together. The weapons are easier to get hold off and the practice required is minimal. Seems obvious to say, but I suspect the security services are worrying less about guys carrying backpacks and more about guys looking at acquiring AK-47s.
2) The security services are over-whelmed
The French secret service have a pretty good reputation but even they didn't see this coming, though the two perpetrators had previously been under surveillance.
After at least one of the Kouachis traveled to Yemen in 2011, the United States alerted French authorities. But three years of tailing the brothers yielded nothing, and an oversight commission ruled that the surveillance was no longer productive, said Louis Caprioli, the deputy head of France’s domestic antiterrorism unit from 1998 to 2004.
The brothers appeared so nonthreatening that surveillance was dropped in the middle of last year, he said, as hundreds of young Muslims cycled back and forth to Syria for jihad and French authorities shifted priorities.
In other words, the job of tracking Muslims thinking about joining ISIS, or those who already have, or have already returned from Syria (estimated at 250 by ICSR), is over-whelming western security services. That means they're likely to demand more funding and more spying powers. It also means the rise of ISIS has created a lot more targets and problems.
3) Jailing jihadists doesn't help
One of the Paris attackers was earlier jailed in 2005 to 20 months in prison for attempting an attack. He was just an inexperienced and scared boy then. But, like numerous other cases, it was in prison that he met his future mentor and one of al-Qaeda's top operatives.
This presents a dilemma. We can't lock people up in prison forever, and yet that may be the place they become even more radicalised. We can't track them easily forever either, since it costs a lot of money and the rise of ISIS has made that much harder. So what do we do?
We need good de-radicalisation programmes, but there hasn't been a serious push across Europe or the USA to embrace them either. That, I think, is short-sighted. Prisons aren't helping.
Worse...
Prison authorities quickly recruited a handful of Muslim chaplains, but jihadist hecklers disrupted their prayers.
“They would ask a religious question, and whatever answer he gave, they would contest it,” the Muslim activist said. They would mockingly toss out questions: What did the imam think about jihad? What about the situation in Palestine? Why wasn’t halal meat served in the prison?
These guys need aggressive de-radicalisation, not some half-hearted attempts.
4) More Muslims will be arrested merely for reading 'extremist' material
Also striking in the NYT report is that the French police had been tracking the terrorists, even to the point that they broke up another plot in 2010 involving one of the brothers. But it was thought there wasn't enough evidence to convict him despite this:
Among the texts recovered on the laptop — which were included in the court documents — was one titled “Operation Sacrifice.” It described a plan of attack that eerily augured the actions he would later take.
“A mujahideen forces his way into the enemy’s base or else a zone where there is a group and fires at point-blank range without having prepared an escape plan,” it said. “The goal is to kill as many of the enemy as possible. The author will very likely die himself.”
And here is the security service chief's nightmare - the guy they had been tracking and caught would later commit a major attack like the one he had read about. Fingers will be pointed at the French services, and I suspect MI5 here and the FBI will think its better to be safe than sorry from now on.
#JeSuisCharlie and blasphemy: things are getting better not worse
0000-00-00 00:00:00Kenan Malik says: "Had journalists and artists and political activists taken a more robust view on free speech over the past 20 years then we may never have come to this."
It's a fashionable view in Britain, even in liberal circles, to say that the atmosphere around free speech and our capacity for blasphemy is getting more restrictive. This is especially said when controversies involving Muslims come up.
I don't entirely agree with this proposition, and I'll explain why. I care passionately about protecting free speech, but the biggest assault on that right comes not from Muslims but our political and media establishment.
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/cameron-whatsapp-imessage-encryption-promise/?tw=pl
What really happened when Douglas Murray sued me
0000-00-00 00:00:00On 10th September 2009, I got an email from lawyers representing professional windbag Douglas Murray, claiming that a blog-post I had published (on my now closed blog Pickled Politics) the day before had libeled him. I eventually settled the claim out of court for a much smaller sum than they were asking for, as I couldn't be bothered to go through the legal hassle and seeking advice alone would have been more expensive.
I wrote about Douglas Murray meeting the American blogger Robert Spencer (who was banned from entering the UK last year on account of his hate-blogging) and some other people on a night out in London. Mostly, I quoted what others had written and asked some questions. You can read about the meeting, blogged by Richard Bartholomew.
So why am I bringing this up now?
https://twitter.com/DouglasKMurray/status/553340628357353472
Why do liberals find it so hard to persuade Muslims about free speech?
2015-01-09 08:55:53Yesterday evening I was invited by the Guardian to debate the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and where we go from here. I wanted to make a series of coherent points in a mini-speech but it never happened, so I'm writing them out here... Each point is in a separate mini blog-post.
Let's start from the proposition that the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and secularism are inherently a good thing. I always do. I think our stance on them should be unquestionable, like against racism or homophobia.
When I explain or justify any of these principles in front of sceptical Muslims, I generally get a good response. I've done it a few times so I'm confident of this. The other day I posted my speech to a group of Muslim students on why they should want to live in a society where people have the right to insult their prophet, and they got it.
There's a minority who don't agree but I would say that generally it is not that hard to convince British Muslims about the importance of free speech and having a secular government. Once you sit down and have a debate with them at least.
But there are two problems, I find.
Firstly, it's not that they dislike the argument, it's sometimes more that they don't believe others are interested in free speech in the first place.
And they have a point, there are loads of inconsistencies in the government and media industry's behaviour when it comes to free speech. The Sun's editorial post-Hebdo was a classic case of demanding more freedom while attacking people who stand up for civil liberties.
Many Muslims say - hold on, if you don't always believe in free speech, why should I? How to answer that? I always say that at least we are agreed that there should be more free speech but it always sounds a bit hollow to me.
Secondly, the problem is that many liberals aren't interested in convincing others who are sceptical, but merely interested in stating that they are right and Muslims should lump it.
This isn't good enough.
We have to make the case for free speech in a way that says Muslims also benefit from free speech. In fact they benefit more than you white folks because they are far more likely to be spied on or locked up for saying inflammatory things than you.
So lets make that case without playing into a them v us narrative.
And let's also stand up for free speech when Muslims are being threatened. Some of the voices I hear piping up about free speech only do so when Muslims are the perpetrators not victims.
That isn't just inconsistent, it also makes me think you don't really care for the principles at stake. And that also makes it much harder for all of us to convince Muslims about why they should embrace more free speech and the right to insult their religion.
Why Muslims should embrace free speech, even if it includes insults to their Prophet
2015-01-07 14:24:41Late last year I was invited to speak at the LSE Islamic Society on Islamophobia and the media. Rather than preach to the converted, I decide to challenge my audience by making the case for more free speech, even if included insults to their Prophet.
In light of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo today that has killed over 10 people, I think posting this would be relevant.
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Thanks for inviting me. I want to start with this picture. What I find funny is that Muslims and Sikhs are conflated so easily. They all look brown!
The other interesting point to note is how much things have changed. This was acceptable then [in the 1970s] in a way it isn’t now. At least, not about Asians so broadly...maybe Roma.
I found many more such drawings, and to me they do illustrate that Britain has changed a lot since the 70s when the National Front marched unafraid on the streets, and cartoons like these were printed without an eyebrow being raised.
The challenges now are different than the ones our parents faced.
One of those is around free speech - the issue I want to raise today. After all, it was LSE where the recent controversy around the cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed was sparked off.
In 2005 I was invited to a debate on Channel 4 after a theatre in Birmingham had to abandon a play because a large mob of angry Sikhs had gathered in protest outside, and some had broken the windows. All this because they said it insulted their religion.
The play – Behzti (‘shame’) – didn’t insult Sikhism, it had a scene where a woman was rapes in a Gurdwara (temple) on stage. Community leaders said the writer, a Sikh woman, was an attention seeker. They said she wrote it deliberately to inflame tensions. They wanted it stopped. I wrote and argued that it should stay open, not only because she was trying to raise an important topic, but because they had no right to close it down. But it was shut down because they were worried about threats and broken property.
I believe we should cherish the right to free speech. We should even understand the importance of the right to criticise, and even insult, religion.
Do I believe in insulting religious people just because they’re religious? No. Do I go around insulting or denigrating religions. No. My mother goes to the temple every day!
What I want is for us to be tolerant of people who insult religion.
Why, you ask. After all, many see the Prophet Mohammed as their family. Why should you tolerate someone who insults your family? Good question.
The problem is we cannot live in a relatively free society without the freedom of speech and freedom to insult each other's beliefs. In fact, WE - people who are in the minority when it comes to our race or religion - should appreciate and cherish this freedom even more.
Freedom to criticise religion is the same as freedom to practice religion. One cannot exist without the other.
Think about the people who are on the streets spreading Dawah. Think about your right to say that you choose your faith over others because they are false. I want YOU to have the right the right to reject other religions. What if there was no freedom to criticise religion? Well, you couldn’t reject other religions. You couldn’t have people on the streets practicising Dawah.
If the mainstream clamp down on free speech or freedom to criticise religion - its always the minorities who lose out first. If Britain had a law against blasphemy - the first people in jail would be half the imams in the country.
If you appreciate the fact that Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims broadly have the same right as Christians, then you should embrace freedom of speech. If you think people shouldn’t be locked up for expressing fringe and perhaps unpopular opinions, then you should embrace free speech.
And let’s be clear about what I’m referring to here. What about anti-semitism? What about anti-zionism? Be as anti-zionist as you want - you should cherish that right.
Freedom to incite violence against a group of people because of their background - no. Not against Jews, Muslims or Sikhs. But demonising a group of people because of their backgrounds? Well, if we allow that for Jews, it will happen to Muslims too.
Freedom to reject or criticise Islam, Judaism or Sikhism? Yes.
The right to be offended? Yes. You have that right. The right to protest or boycott someone if they insult your religion? Yes. That’s democracy. But the right to censorship? No. Threats of violence against people who do? No. A law against insulting religion. DEFINITELY NOT.
People don’t automatically have the right to shut down a play, close down an exhibition, stop a book being sold, or stop someone from speaking peacefully just because they don’t like it.
Why should you defend this freedom? Because you want... in fact you NEED the right to protest against the government... to speak out and say things the mainstream might find unpopular. The right to expose wrong-doing, even if others don’t like it. When freedom of speech is curtailed, it is always used against minorities first.
I leave you with this. I was talking to a friend yesterday and she said the Prophet Mohammed was the first leader to introduce a pluralist constitution where Jews had the right to their own religion and did not have to believe in Islam. She added, by extension, they were rejecting Islam and rejecting the teachings of the Prophet. It was blasphemy. Yet the Prophet understood the importance of that right.
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To my relief the audience clapped after, and many students came up to me after to say they agreed with me.
The Peshawar massacre: Pakistan's problems with the Taliban didn't start with 9/11
2014-12-18 16:19:59
Tuesday was a hard day to absorb the news. All year I've seen some really horrible videos, mostly by ISIS, showing men being shot in the back of their heads, throats slit or being buried in mass graves. But that day... maybe it was the pictures that came out of Peshawar, the Facebook updates from friends or just the nature of the massacre... I was nearly in tears. You can try but you can't always remain emotionless in the face of such news.
I wanted to wait at least a couple of days to collect my thoughts and write something about the politics surrounding this issue.
I can't even imagine the horrors that Pakistanis are going through. The Taliban have attacked over 1000 schools in the last five years and they become more vicious every year. How can you even live a normal life when you're not sure if your kids will come back alive from school?
I suspect this is a tipping point. The Taliban's desperation is being driven by infighting, defections and losing more support from the public. In June the Pakistani army launched a military operation against the Taliban and other jihadi groups - Operation Zarb-e-Azb - which also seriously degraded their capabilities. Most Pakistanis will always support their army against others. From here on, the Taliban in Pakistan (also called the TTP) is headed for a downward spiral: less people will join them, help them, donate to them and defend them in public. They may successfully mutate into something else, but its certainly likely that the TTP is now headed for doom.
And then there is the international politics. I've seen several people since yesterday blame American drone attacks for the Taliban's actions, or claim that this was all America's fault anyway since Pakistan was relatively peaceful before 9/11. I want to knock these two fallacies on their heads.
First, the drones. Yes there have been drones strikes in Pakistan but the vast majority have actually been in Afghanistan. The two countries are not the same. Afghanistan has its own Taliban that is different to the TTP and the former does not attack civilian or government targets in Pakistan (unlike the TTP). There are complicated reasons for this, but the point is that drones strikes in Pakistan are rare. It is not unusual for the TTP to kill more Pakistanis in a month than the US government has killed in 10 years of drone strikes. And most of those strikes have been with Pakistani government approval. See more on that here.
Why does the TTP kill innocent Pakistanis when it opposes the killing of civilians via US drones? Because their stated aim is to take over the country, rip up the constitution and install a system of sharia of their hardline interpretation. I'm not making this up - this was in their list of demands. They are waging a war against the Pakistani government and won't give up until their demands are met. The drones are a sideshow.
Then, the War on Terror. There's no denying that it has created instability in Pakistan (although Afghanistan was going through a quiet civil war before as the Taliban forcibly took over territory like ISIS have done).
But the seeds of Pakistan’s instability were sown long before 9/11, when Pakistan was funding hardline groups in a proxy war against India. What frustrates me about the 'war on terror' argument is how western-centric and ignorant of South Asian history it is. The jihadi groups aren’t new to Pakistan - what’s new is their focus on creating chaos in Pakistan rather than India. (You may argue that the TTP is different to the likes of LeT and others that were focused on India, but the same infrastructure of hardline madrassahs, preachers and support in the Urdu media created the monsters).
I want Pakistan to be a safe, secure and prosperous country. I was also pleased, as someone of Indian origin, that India was the only country yesterday to mark the Peshawar massacre with silence, while not a single Middle Eastern country did the same.
But that safety and security will only come after enough Pakistanis realise that the Taliban itself is the problem, because they want to destroy the country as it exists and remodel it to their own twisted, hardline version of Islam. The United States isn’t helping but blaming them is like focusing on a gash while your body is being destroyed by cancer. The Taliban is the cancer and its about time it was rooted out before it destroys the body of the Pakistani state.
The main aim of Miliband's speech today: expose the extent of Osborne's planned spending cuts
2014-12-11 07:00:37If the general election in May 2015 is fought on who is best placed to deal with the deficit, then the Labour party will lose. Both Labour and the Tories know this. Miliband will focus on living standards, the NHS and inequality. So why a major speech on the deficit today, six months before an election? And why a pledge to cut spending and the debt?
Both the politics of what's going on, and the numbers that underline it, are important.
The Labour leadership feel, quite rightly, that George Osborne wants to push public services off a cliff with unprecedented cuts. They lost the first fight on austerity, for reasons I outline here. But they recognise that if they don't fight Osborne back this time, he will once away get away with having the media debate on his own terms.
Which is why Miliband's speech is important today. He wants to hammer that the extent of Osborne's cuts will "return Britain to the 1930s" if he is allowed to hoodwink people into accepting them.
A few things to remember.
1) Labour has not signed up to the extent or the way Tories plan to cut the deficit. Ignore the hype, read this piece.
2) Miliband will say quite emphatically, as one of his key principles: Britain will only be able to deal with the deficit by tackling the cost-of-living crisis. That means a focus on raising wages, and cutting spending like housing benefit by building more housing.
3) Labour will "ensure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden" - will be another key principle. That means a much bigger emphasis on tax rises than the Conservatives, to close the deficit.
And this is the key paragraph:
This is now a fight for the soul of our country. It is a fight about who we want to be and how we want to live together. The Tory vision is clear: the wealthiest being looked after, everybody else on their own, public services not there when you need them. Our vision is different: a country that works for everyday people, with public services your family can rely on, a government that prioritises working people so that we can earn our way out of the cost of living crisis, a Britain built on strong economic foundations.
I'm pleased that Miliband is seeking to expose Osborne's horrendous plans and set up a clear dividing line.
Rather than complain that this is another speech about the deficit than something important like the NHS, we need to see it for what it is: an attempt to expose Osborne's ideological agenda to permanently slash Britain's public services.
I oppose positive discrimination because white men have run the most successful positive discrimination scheme of all time
2014-11-29 10:29:46I was invited this week to speak at Cambridge University, with the topic title: "Does Britain need more positive discrimination?". We could interpret this however we liked.
Below is roughly what I said.
In the 1940s, When Vera Rubin told her school physics professor that she’d been accepted into Vassar, an arts college near New York City, he said, “That’s great. As long as you stay away from science, it should be okay.”
Predictably, she didn’t. Rubin went on prove there was vastly more dark matter in the universe than previously thought, and overturned some basic laws of Newtonian physics.
And yet, she was turned down from the astronomy program at Princeton because they didn’t allow women. For years the scientific community ignored her work, only accepting it later after her male colleagues validated it. She didn’t get a Nobel prize for her work.
* * * * * * * * * * *
a) Before you came to this talk, I suspect some of you thought to yourself: I bet someone from the talk is going to open with a sob story of a gifted black-disabled-lesbian woman, to illustrate why we need positive discrimination.
But you’re wrong - I oppose positive discrimination. I oppose positive discrimination with every breath because, like many of you, I believe it to be unfair. Why should someone get promoted just because they belong to a minority group, instead of their ability? It’s wrong!
b) Between 1 and 3% of the British population are white men who graduated from Oxford or Cambridge. Yet, they completely dominate the worlds of higher academia, politics and business. Just 0.5% of all university professors in Britain are black. Just two FTSE 100 companies have a female chair.
THAT, my friends, is the most successful positive discrimination scheme of all time. A group of white, middle-aged men have successfully discriminated against anyone who didn’t look like them for centuries. THIS is why I’m utterly opposed to positive discrimination!
c) Diversity isn't about gender or skin colour - it's about background, experience and mindset. But all of those are usually the by-product of having a different gender or skin colour. And studies consistently show that companies or groups with more diversity do better than those more homogenous. Why? Because people with different mindsets look to solve problems in different ways. If we want more innovation, we don’t need more positive discrimination, but we do need more diversity.
d) Look around you: there is rampant positive discrimination everywhere - albeit in favour of white middled-aged men. But worse, because of this positive discrimination, we all lose out. Yes, even you, the white Cambridge man at the back - you lose out too!
I bet you’re thinking: that doesn’t make sense, I’ve hit the jackpot. how do I lose out? But you do.
If our companies and government had been more diverse to begin with, hiring talent from any gender, race or sexual orientation they could find, we would have far more progress than we do now. We could be chilling on hoverboards and flying around the world at twice the speeds for half the environmental cost. We could have solved our energy or poverty crisis .
Put it another way. It's a bit like me raising you all in prison and then saying, wouldn't it be great if the prisoners could also enjoy as much freedom as the wardens?
. We aren't fulfilling our potential as a civilisation because the vast majority of intelligent people out there don't get the opportunity to use their talents. They are shunned in favour of a narrow minority.
A woman Mexican engineer may have thought of a brilliant way to extend battery life. But since Apple hired its first high-ranking female executive in 24 years only recently, you are still cursing them for the shit battery life on your phone. You lose out too!
This is why I oppose positive discrimination, because so far it has been used to help white men. I want to see an end to this regime of positive discrimination.
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Postscript: I was asked in the debate afterwards, so I'll make this clear: in order to redress the balance I think it's fine to have quotas for women, but not racial minorities.
UKIP hypocrisy in exploiting child abuse for their PR stunts
2014-10-26 19:27:41UKIP have unveiled this poster as a PR stunt for a by-election
UKIP stooping so low they're using the sex abuse of children as a PR stunt. Wow (via @dandoj) pic.twitter.com/Z1i9yLi19N
— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) October 25, 2014.
The response by the usual UKIP-faithful has been that I should be more outraged about child sexual abuse than the poster.
1) I have been writing about on of this kind of child sexual abuse (by gangs, usually of predominantly Pakistani-heritage men) for over ten years. Sometimes even at the risk of helping the BNP. I wrote two angry articles about the Rotherham scandal too. So don't preach to me on what I should get angry about.
2) You can be very angry about child sex abuse without using it as a PR stunt to score political points. This is what UKIP are doing.
What's more striking is UKIP hypocrisy.
UKIP MEPs have abstained on the issue of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children at the EU when it came up for a vote (thanks Gail)
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And don't say UKIP never turn up to vote at EU affairs, because they do.
They couldn't bother to vote on legislation on child abuse at EU, but they're now trying to score political points from it.
The problem I have with Russell Brand
2014-10-24 14:28:07The comedian Russell Brand was interviewed on Newsnight last night about his book, which you can watch above.
One headline is that Brand casually implies 9/11 was an inside job because George Bush had links to the Saudis, before half-heartedly back-tracking.
But I was more depressed by the first 10 minutes of conversation, and I want to explain why because I think this matters in a wider context.
In the debate Evan Davis wants to ask Brand a simple question: what is the alternative you propose? The comedian, who has apparently written an entire book calling for a revolution, doesn't have a straight answer. Brand says the current system isn't working (partly true) and points to activism by others challenging the consensus.
Brand says he is merely a high-profile voice and his job is to amplify the work of others. I think that's fair enough.
But Davis has a more profound question that Brand clearly doesn't want to answer. My version of that question goes like this: If you want to replace the current system of capitalism with something else, who is going to make your jeans, iPhones and run Twitter?
I.e. capitalism clearly has downsides, but it also leads to products that people really want to use. The desire for profit has led companies like Apple, Levi's and Twitter to create popular products that - especially in the case of social media - we can sometimes even use for free (in return for being forced to watch advertising, of course).
In the debate, Evan Davis asks Brand about the fact that wages have historically gone up: making billions of people richer and allowing them to afford products like fridge freezers, TVs and iPhones. Brand's response is: "Mate, I ain't got time for a bloody graph".
And then there are other responses that suggest he is blindly oblivious to his own privilege.
Russell Brand says stop paying your mortgage or going to work. Let me know how that works out for you pic.twitter.com/OoMnD2d5c7
— Anita Singh (@anitathetweeter) October 21, 2014The problem I have with Russell Brand is that his style of politics is anti-intellectualism on an epic scale. He isn't just leaving the heavy lifting to others, he casually dismisses facts like they are irrelevant.
Yes, our capitalist system is breaking down and our democracy has many flaws with it. But any discussion that starts with the premise that we need a revolution to over-throw the system must at least have a response to the inevitable: "and replace it with what?"
This isn't to say I'm in favour of unadulterated capitalism or that I think cooperatives, mutuals, non-profit groups or social enterprises have no place. In fact we need far more of them. But, in effect, the Russell Brand critique is mild because all it really wants is a bit less of what is currently on offer a bit more of... some nice things that other people are asking for. To dress that up as a 'revolution' is plainly fatuous.
The establishment humours Russell Brand because he poses little threat to the system. Newsnight has him on because he's good for their ratings, not because they want to bring down the system too. The lack of an effective critique means that people will listen to him, glaringly see the obvious contradictions and unanswered questions, and dismiss the Left as over-privileged white guys who don't want to work but want their iPhones anyway.
A few years ago, I was going past the occupation of Parliament Square. I was quite defensive of the activists in the media and wanted to spend a bit of time just getting to know them. Bad idea. I came in being quite sympathetic, but soon realised that some of the people there only spoke in cliches and hadn't actually looked into the nuances of what they were saying. The woman I was talking to seemed to think everything was a conspiracy. Soon she was joined by some people who firmly believed 9/11 was an inside job. I made an hasty exit. Of course, every group has its share of cranks but it was a very sobering experience.
If Brand gets more apolitical people to question the world they're in, then great. But I worry about something else: that there's a broader slide towards anti-intellectualism among lefties where facts don't matter and smart critiques are junked in favour of cliches. The world is a messy place and our politicians are very flawed people. But we have to work (sometimes within the system) to continually reform it and improve it, not wait around for some vague revolution that will never come. If the end result is the UKIP-isation of the Left then I don't want any part of that revolution.
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Also worth reading: Why Owen Jones is wrong to suggest that criticism of Russell Brand is merely ‘snottiness’ -- by Abi Wilks
Labour: how NOT to respond to the threat from UKIP
2014-10-12 15:24:23We are back to the news cycle whereby Westminster freaks out over how to deal with the threat from UKIP. The political parties will respond with the same promises, soundbites and narratives. Then they'll go back to existing plans until the next 'crisis'.
Thrown in this debate are two academics - Rob Ford and Matthew Goodwin - who have written about UKIP in a book and therefore invited regularly to offer their opinions. I'm reading it now and it contains some great research. But I have a problem with their political analysis, which I find increasingly simplistic. Here is why:
Rob Ford and Matthew Goodwin (RF+MG) have a narrative that goes like this:
Working class voters are natural Labour territory. But the party is complacent about the danger they face from UKIP and that's why UKIP is doing so well in the north. Why, for example, didn't Labour increase their share of the vote in Middleton last night? Why are poorer voters struggling with austerity not going to Labour?
For example:
"Its a by-election". Yes, in a core seat, where Lab won 58% in 2001 and is running as oppo to unpopular austerity govt. Shld be 60% not 40%
— Rob Ford (Britain) (@robfordmancs) October 10, 2014And other tweets where I'm accused of having my head "in the sand".
To be fair it isn't just RF+MG saying this - I've seen similar questions by others on Twitter too. But there are vast assumptions in each of those sentences that don't stack up.
1. Working class people are not natural Labour voters. Poorer voters are not always motivated by money or economic concerns; many working class people have always been culturally conservative. As Labour has become more socially liberal (rightly, in my view), they have flocked to the Tories. In the US and UK this happened during the Reagan & Thatcher era on the issue of race / immigration, and (more recently) on issues like homosexuality and gender equality. This is why Cameron wanted to challenge his own party on gay-marriage (to 'modernise' it) and faced a bigger backlash than Labour did. This is also why Farage doesn't back gay marriage despite his supposedly libertarian outlook.
More working class people have voted Labour traditionally, for economic reasons, but that doesn't mean working class people are "naturally" Labour. Nor should Labour go for every last working class vote, unless it wants to alienate its middle class voters.
2. The Labour leadership is not complacent about the threat from UKIP. I've heard directly from Ed Miliband in a private meeting that he thought UKIP were a "significant" threat to the party. There is no sign whatsoever that the Labour party is complacent about UKIP, though their main focus has always remained the Tories. Quite rightly too. This oft-repeated claim that Labour is "complacent" is outright rubbish.
3. Why didn't Labour do massively better last week in Middleton? Various reasons. Many were ex-Tory or ex-LibDem voters who disliked Labour and found a vibrant, new vehicle to register their support. Secondly, in most metropolitan areas in the Midlands or further north, Labour isn't the opposition - they are the incumbent. All politics is local, remember? Third, it takes a while for voters to forgive Labour for their mistakes of the past (Iraq, financial crash, immigration), and they won't just flock back quickly like some commentators think they should. It takes long, grinding contact with voters and mobiling around their issues to win back trust. Even four years is not enough.
4. Why aren't angry voters flocking to Labour on austerity? The fact that Rob Ford seriously asks me this question reinforces my broader point about the simplistic analysis. First, a lot of voters think they haven't been affected by austerity, or aren't motivated against it.
Second, Labour isn't vehemently anti-austerity anyway, the leadership has partly accepted the need for it! Those people have gone to the Greens
Third, many voters blame Labour for the austerity they've had to face, because they were in charge when the economy crashed.
For all these reasons, and more, Labour didn't see a big rise in support in Heywood. Labour is not on the verge of a landslide next year, and we knew this all along.
I have no doubt I'm going to be called "complacent" for writing this, which has become the standard non-response these days.
There is a final example of how this narrative is too simplistic. In almost interview given by RF+MG, they will get a nudge from the presenter to talk about how immigration is the biggest issue for Britons right now. So they will dutifully repeat the polling in interviews.
But again this is too simplistic. Douglas Carswell was vehemently pro-immigration and open about it, and yet won with a stonking majority. Locals gave all sorts of reasons for voting for him, including street lights, not having seen their Tory MP and much more. Plus, in places like Manchester or London, Labour cannot run with an anti-immigration or anti-multiculturalism message as it will repel more of their voters than it will attract.
I will only say this. A lot of Labour seem to be under the impression that their party should be doing much better now, without recognising it takes much longer to turn around people's indifference to Labour. This is why no party in British history has turned around a stunning defeat by the next election.
Its unfashionable to say this, but a Labour panic over UKIP (in the way Gordon Brown panicked over immigration after the Gillian Duffy incident) could hurt its own prospects far more than responding more calmly and carefully.
The Green Party has abandoned its key principle in support of Scotland's YES campaign
2014-09-16 20:50:43I've not waded that much into the debate on Scotland's future, partly because I've been focusing on ISIS and partly because its not my fight. I support the Union but its up to the people of Scotland to decide and they're unlikely to be persuaded by this random guy from London.
But I'm perplexed by the pro-independence position that some lefties have taken, particularly the Green party.
The Yes Scotland campaign say their economy is strong and can survive independence thanks to natural resources such as oil and gas. Its a key claim on their website and its true; oil and gas would be key to an independent Scotland's finances.
Revenue from oil and gas is also how an independent Scotland will pay its bill and stave off deep spending cuts. I'm not saying they're the only source of revenue but they're very key to Scotland's future. Without them there would be deep cuts. Independence would make Scotland even more dependent on that revenue.
As you can see from the chart above, revenue from fossil fuels easily dwarfs everything else combined.
Scotland wants to invest in renewable energy, but the money for investment will inevitably have to come from further investment and money raised through oil and gas.
AND YET - one of three key principles of the Green Party is to reduce "dependence on fossil fuels". Scottish Greens too say they want to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
So why are the Green Party supporting an outcome that makes a nation even more dependent on exploiting its oil and gas resources?
Can someone explain this to me?
If the Greens are arguing that Independence will make Scotland less dependent on fossil fuels, I'd like to see the evidence and sums, since the YES campaign in Scotland isn't saying that at all.
No, Obama is not taking the US to war in Iraq again (over ISIS)
2014-09-11 14:36:00
Last night President Obama delivered a speech on how the United States would tackle the threat of ISIS. It rightly deserves a lot of parsing and discussion.
There have broadly been two types of responses:
"Oh no, the USA is back to fighting a war in Iraq again! This won't end well!" ... or...
"Oh god, this won't do anything to destroy ISIS. The President isn't doing enough!"
Both are wrong and exaggerated. Here are a few thoughts.
1) The aim of Obama's speech was primarily to reassure the American public that he was doing something about ISIS. It's more right to say he isn't doing enough, but that's probably a good thing as I explain below. In fact his strategy now isn't any different to a few weeks ago when he said he had no strategy. And there are good reasons why there is no clear strategy.
2) The President didn't announce anything new other than the prospect of some air-strikes in Syria against ISIS (and possibly Assad). There was a mention of training moderate Syrian rebels in Saudi Arabia, but there are some reports this is already happening in Jordan. That's about it. He ruled out U.S. troops going back into Iraq or Syria, until he is President anyway.
3) There is some merit to the complaint that Obama isn't doing enough. Air-strikes will dent ISIS but not destroy them, which will take ground troops in both countries. But the USA hasn't been able to persuade any outside partners (Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Jordan) to commit to troops to destroy ISIS yet. This is why Obama's announcements amounted to little; there is little the US can do by itself that won't make the situation worse.
4) In the short and medium term I suspect the Islamic State will expand in size and strength. The Arab countries and Turkey are too scared to confront ISIS (militarily and ideologically) and are still hoping the US will do their dirty work for them. Obama, wisely, isn't buying it. He has avoided falling for the ISIS trap.
5) I asked others what they would have wanted to see instead.
https://twitter.com/LibyaLiberty/status/509918421631258625
Well, I'm with Hend on that. Part of the blame for not intervening in Syria lies with those lefties and Muslims (across the US and UK) who opposed such action...but there's little we can do about that now.
6) If a terrorist attack is committed in the name of ISIS in mainland Europe (most likely France) or the United States, then this will all change.
The West is NOT working with Assad against ISIS, and it would be really idiotic to do so
2014-08-24 13:43:59The Independent's Partrick Cockburn writes: "West poised to join forces with President Assad in face of Islamic State".
This is absolute rubbish. Not one British official is quoted saying they would work with Assad against ISIS. Not even anonymously.
When the British Foreign Secretary was asked on Friday by the BBC if the UK was planning to work with Assad against ISIS, he said "No" outright. He added that working with Assad would "poison what we are trying to achieve". And said it was not "practical or sensible".
The UK's sole role in the Iraqi crisis so far has been to provide humanitarian aid. Military involvement would lead to demands for a vote in Parliament, and that's not happened yet (and unlikely it will happen soon). So far, we are even refraining from air-strikes, let alone working with Assad.
Could it be happening behind the scenes? Also unlikely. The UK has been helping the (moderate) rebels against Assad for years. We have also continuously called for Assad to go. There is absolutely no trust between the UK and Assad. So the chances that we would suddenly start cooperating and trusting each other is remote.
Is the United States working with him? The sole evidence is the Independent's claim that the US army passed on intelligence about the exact location of "jihadi leaders" through the the German intelligence service to Assad. But Assad has always known where ISIS are because he has been tracking their movements carefully.
One U.S. General has called for Obama to work with Assad against ISIS, but its not yet official US government policy.
We would be foolish to work with Assad against ISIS anyway
Doing so would be a monumental disaster for two reasons.
First, it would mean we neatly fell into Assad's gameplan. We had always known from the start that Assad wanted to play on the west's fears by portraying his opposition as Islamic radicals. When he failed in convincing people, he actively worked to build up ISIS.
As recently as 2012, Isil was a marginalised movement confined to a small area of Iraq. Then Mr Assad emptied Sednaya jail near Damascus of some of its most dangerous jihadist prisoners. If he hoped that these men would join Isil and strengthen its leadership, then that aspiration was certainly fulfilled. A number of figures in the movement's hierarchy are believed to be former inmates of Syrian prisons, carefully released by the regime.
By 2013, Isil had managed to capture oilfields in eastern Syria. But to profit from these assets, they needed to find a customer for the oil. Mr Assad's regime stepped in and began buying oil from Isil, thereby helping to fund the movement, according to Western and Middle Eastern governments.
Assad always knew that the west is more scared of Islamic militants than dictators. So he helped build ISIL / ISIS as his exit strategy, so we would reach a point where we'd work with him to defeat them, thereby ensuring Assad stays in power.
Working with Assad against ISIS would make us absolute suckers who fell for his grand plan. There are even cartoons across the Middle East that say it explicitly.
Secondly, working with Assad would be the best recruiting agent for jihadis across the world. Assad is reviled across the Muslim world, having destroyed Syria and killed nearly 200,000 people. He has made millions homeless and forced them into refugee camps.
I can't imagine a better recruiting line for ISIS than: "hey look Muslims, USA and UK are working with the guy who killed 200k of you" #wato
— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) August 22, 2014This sort of short-termist, idiotic thinking from the West helps the jihadis. By working with Assad the West would end up creating more Jihadis and threaten our security for generations.
The demand that more Muslims 'must condemn ISIS' is racist and ridiculous
2014-08-21 17:16:38
Let's get two caveats out of the way first: I'm neither a Muslim and nor am I religious in any sense (I come from a Sikh family). Secondly, anyone who's read my work knows I have zero sympathy for religiously motivated terrorists. In fact I even supported the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to take out the Taliban.
Yesterday the Evening Standard said in its Editorial Comment: "Muslim communities must be far more outspoken about this: we look to them, for instance, to organise protests against the Islamic State."
I've also seen various tweets by people asking why more Muslims aren't speaking out against ISIS, or condemning it. In response there's this.
If you think Muslims aren't condemning ISIS, it's not because Muslims aren't condemning ISIS. It's because you're not listening to Muslims.
— Hend (@LibyaLiberty) August 20, 2014But even asking for condemnations is ridiculous. Muslims globally are no more responsible for the actions of ISIS than British Jews are for Israeli war-crimes. During the Gaza offensive no one asked British Jews to apologise for the Israeli bombs that killed hundreds of children. This is despite the fact that British Jews do go and fight in the IDF.
Demanding that Muslims condemn ISIS is xenophobic because it implies that they are sympathetic to the terrorist group unless they state otherwise. It implies all Muslims are responsible for the actions of terrorists. And there's a double-standard because other minorities aren't held to the same standard.
Yes, I'm aware that British Muslims have gone to fight with ISIS. But we live in a free country and British Mosques can't stop people from travelling to Syria any more than the police can stop crimes before they happen.
Furthemore, the condemnations are useless, however reassuring they may sound. This is all a charade, like how politicians feel obliged to make a public statement of grief when someone famous dies.
The jihadis at ISIS and their sympathisers already see 99% British Muslim organisations and commentators as apostates. They're executing religious Shias in Iraq daily - you think they care what the Muslim Council of Britain has to say? They don't even care for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Lastly, it's worth noting that most of the victims, and most of those fighting ISIS daily, are Muslims. The image above is of Kurdish soldiers fighting ISIS.
In other words, Muslims are being criticised for not condemning a group that is mostly killing Muslims. It's ridiculous.
Britain needs a serious discussion about how to counter those people with extreme views here. We also need a discussion of British foreign policy in the Middle East. But asking all Muslims to condemn ISIS does not advance either of those much needed debates, it just illustrates idiocy.
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ALSO READ: The ISIS leader was NOT trained by the CIA or Mossad, and Snowden didn’t say it
The ISIS leader was NOT trained by the CIA or Mossad, and Snowden didn't say it
2014-08-14 09:06:02
There are three common rules when people discuss politics:
1) they are willing to believe anything on the internet if it confirms their prejudices
2) they don’t want to accept people of their tribe do awful things
3) they find a way to blame America or the UK for most of the world’s problems
A recent example: the claim that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - the self proclaimed leader of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq - was funded or trained by the CIA or Israel's Mossad, and that this was apparently revealed by Edward Snowden.
Stories claiming this hoax have gone viral all over the web (example 1, example 2, example 3). This is simply not true. In fact I asked the reporter Glenn Greenwald, who has had more contact with Snowden than most people - this question directly.
@sunny_hundal I've never heard him say any such thing, nor have I ever heard any credible source quoting him saying anything like that.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 6, 2014Furthermore, Edward Snowden’s lawyer called this claim a hoax too.
So where did ISIS money and the guns come from?
I explain this briefly in my New Statesman article:
"After initially funding its efforts with extortion, smuggling and private donations, it literally struck gold in June when it made off with $400m in cash and gold from the central bank in Mosul.
"Since then it has also captured oil fields and earns up to £3m a day by selling the resource on the black market.
"The group also has a modernised arsenal from the weapons and vehicles it has captured from the Iraqi army. Even the well-trained and feared Kurdish forces are being pushed back in places."
But America is still to blame, right?
In some ways, yes. The New York Times recently reported:
"The Pentagon says that Mr. Baghdadi, after being arrested in Falluja in early 2004, was released that December with a large group of other prisoners deemed low level. But Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi scholar who has researched Mr. Baghdadi’s life, sometimes on behalf of Iraqi intelligence, said that Mr. Baghdadi had spent five years in an American detention facility where, like many ISIS fighters now on the battlefield, he became more radicalized."
From there he joined al-Qaeda, and later split off into his own group which later became ISIS and Islamic State.
But what about all the pictures?
If you see any pictures, supposedly of al-Baghdadi meeting someone (like John McCain!), they're also fake. McCain met some Syrian opposition leaders but he didn't meet Baghdadi. These pics never reveal their source, time, date or location. Unless a pic does that, so it can be verified, its a fake.
So where did ISIS come from?
ISIS were initially an al-Qaeda offshoot:
"The Islamic State is the current incarnation of al-Qaeda in Iraq(AQI), which was created when Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden in October 2004. The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) was declared in October 2006, four months after a U.S. airstrike killed Zarqawi (by tf support everette). This was not just a naming convention: according to its organizers, AQI ceased to exist at that point, as the ISI was intended to be a governing institution independent from al-Qaeda and a practical step toward ultimately declaring a Caliphate."
But ISIS split from Al-Qaeda and went its on way to establish a Caliphate. Its only over the last year they have made serious inroads towards their aims and have therefore become much more prominent.
Now, stop spreading conspiracy theories please.
Update: A longer debunking of this hoax is here.
Two more responses to Nick Cohen over Tricycle theatre
2014-08-10 14:25:21In the Observer today, I debate Nick Cohen on whether the Tricycle Theatre in London was right to ask the UK Jewish film festival to 'reconsider' its funding from the Israeli government.
There are two additional points I want to make that I didn't have the space for.
The slippery slope
Nick Cohen ends by writing:
From George Galloway declaring Bradford an "Israel-free zone" to Islamists in the East End of London raising jihadist flags, a dangerous antisemitic mood is growing. By defending worthless bureaucrats who intimidate a Jewish – not an Israeli but a Jewish – festival because it won't accept their double standards, you are adding to it – thoughtlessly, I am sure.
My response to him is this:
I think the slippery slope argument is worth keeping in mind, but I don't think we are there yet. You have been criticised plenty of times for demonising Muslims and contributing towards an Islamophobic atmosphere too, and I'm sure you'll appreciate the irony.
We can all stand up against racism while rejecting tainted money. I fully condemn Galloway and his ilk, and I believe my voice carries more weight because I also condemn the attacks in Gaza. If the slippery slope argument was carried towards its full logical conclusion every time, then you (Nick Cohen) and others (including myself), would not be allowed to criticise Islamists for fear it would further inflame Islamophobia.
Nick Cohen applies this standard to Jews but not Muslims
'Asking Jews to take a stance on Israel'
The other key point made by critics of Tricycle is that by asking the UKJFF to reject Israeli funding, Jews as a whole are being take a stance on Israel.
But let's flip this around. That stance implies we can't ask Muslim groups to reject Saudi money because that's asking them all to state their allegiance regarding the Saudis.
It would also mean no Hindu or Indian group could be criticised for taking Indian government money, even though there may be several good reasons in certain circumstances for doing so. Persian groups wouldn't have to account for Iranian money... and so on.
That would make it near impossible to debate the influence of foreign money because this charge could be raised by almost any ethnic group at any time.
I don't think Tricycle raised the issue because they wanted all Jews to take a side. It was a legitimate response to the pressure they had given the ongoing conflict.
Reality check: cutting off American aid to Israel won't make much difference
2014-07-24 16:47:41If I had a penny for every time someone said this to me on Twitter, I'd have bought myself a min-island in the Bermuda by now.
Yes, the United States supports Israel with military aid every year. It also licenses American companies to sell Israel military equipment every year.
But Israel won't collapse tomorrow if the US cut off their aid. Let's just go over the numbers to explain.
The United States gave approximately $3.2 Billion to Israel last year. Here's the breakdown
That includes a sum of $3.1 billion as military aid.
It provides another $504 million in funding: for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system ($235 million) and the joint US-Israel missile defense systems David’s Sling ($149.7 million)
And there are a few other systems that amount to around $100m. There's a breakdown here (PDF)
As a proportion of Israeli spending that used to mean a lot - sometimes as much as a quarter of Israel's defense budget.
It doesn't any more, primarily because Israel has had a healthy and growing economy. In 2000, Israel GDP was $124.9 Billion. Last year it was more than double that - $291.3 Billion. In comparison, Egypt has a smaller GDP ($271 BN) even though it has 10x the population (more comparison: India's GDP: $1.8 Trillion; UK $2.5 TR; USA $16.8 TR).
In other words, US military aid to Israel is now worth merely 1% of its GDP. It's a bonus, not essential money.
The country is doing so well it has more cash than needs, thanks to the recent discovery of gas reserves. It is discussing setting up a sovereign fund and discussing where to invest that surplus.
In fact, this situation has even led some pro-Israelis to call for the military aid to be cut to Israel, on the basis that Israel would then have to rely even less on its ally. They don't want Israel to be seen as subservient to US interests and clearly think Israel will do just fine without American money.
The point is, US military aid to Israel has largely become an irrelevant factor in this war or the future. Cutting it off won't hobble Israel. If America abruptly withdraws it over illegal Israeli action, then it may force a change in behaviour but that is a highly unlikely scenario.
Thinking of abandoning your wife in Pakistan or India? Think again
2014-07-23 14:20:36
A court judgement out this week sheds light on a very under-reported and rarely-discussed problem within South Asian communities in the UK.
In 2007 I reported for BBC Asian Network on women who come to the UK as brides from South Asia, and the potential problems they face. Since many don't speak English (and are sometimes discouraged from learning it!) - they are more vulnerable to being abused, exploited, beaten or abandoned. One way to help, I argued, was to make it compulsory for them to learn English, so they could more easier seek help when needed and play an active role in British society.
Here are the facts of the case, as laid out in the court judgement. What's extraordinary about this case is that a British law-firm (Dawson Cornwell) fought on behalf of this woman and won a judgement against the man. I hope it sets a precedent and serves as a warning to other men thinking of abandoning their wives.
* * * * * *
A very young wife was lawfully brought to the United Kingdom, where she was dependent upon her husband and his family, and where she gave birth to a child who has major disabilities. Her husband made little effort to secure for her the immigration status to which she was entitled and when the marriage got into difficulties, she was then sent out of the country with no right to re-enter. The result is that she and her child have been separated for the past three years, a situation that is a wholesale breach of their right to respect for their family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The child, S, was born in 2005 and is nearly 9 years old. He has very severe learning and communication disabilities. His parents are both of Pakistani origin. The father was born in England while the mother came here in June 2002 after an arranged marriage that was celebrated in Pakistan in 2000 when she was around 15 years old.
In December 2012, the father pronounced a talaq. In August 2013, the mother remarried in Pakistan. She says that this marriage was a marriage of convenience. Her father was planning to arrange for her remarriage to a person of his choice and she went through a ceremony of marriage with someone else to prevent this. Her evidence is that she has never lived with this "husband" and has no intention of doing so in future or of bringing him to the United Kingdom.
The mother described several occasions on which the father and his mother would slap and kick her and pull her hair. These did not cause major injury and she did not seek medical treatment or, in general, complain to the authorities. However, on 7 February 2011, she did make a police report and went overnight to a refuge. She explains this as being because the father struck S on that occasion. The father denies any violence whatever.
The judge also writes:
The father's failure to secure the mother's immigration status was a gross dereliction of his responsibility towards her and towards S. In his evidence, he claims that he was unaware of her precarious position, having left matters of that kind to his own father. He says that when she left the country in July 2011 he did not know what the position was. I found the father's evidence incredible and I reject it. He knew perfectly well that if the mother left, she could not return. The reason why the father and his family were so careless of the mother's position was because it suited them.
Having considered all the evidence on this issue, the judge found that the mother was tricked into going to Pakistan. He also made it easier for her to travel back to the UK and see her son, and forced the father to give her some visitation rights.
Well done on the judge on handling this so well.
It may be that this case also sets a precedent for other 'stranded' spouses. As the judge said right at the beginning:
Where one party to a failing marriage has secure immigration status and the other does not, the opportunity arises for the former to exploit the latter's weakness by taking advantage of immigration controls. This case is a bad, but by no means unique, example of what has come to be known as the stranded spouse.
Indeed.
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If you are being affected by this (or other issues like a forced marriage) and need some support, get in touch with Sharan Project
It doesn't matter if Hamas 'started it', they've back Israel into a losing corner
2014-07-22 02:59:44
The other day, in a discussion among friends on Israel's attack on Gaza (I generally avoid them, even on Twitter), one said Hamas started the latest round of shelling by bombarding Israeli towns and inviting a response.
I have no way of verifying this, so I shrugged. Its irrelevant who started it.
On social media I've seen Israelis blame Hamas and say they're merely defending themselves, so they're justified in attacking Gaza. Israelis ask "what would you do if someone attacked you with rockets?". Its a really counter-productive question to ask, and it misses the wood for the trees.
Palestinians are a desperate people who live in an open-air prison camp controlled by Israel. Their lives are lived in squalor and poverty. This is beyond dispute; even Israelis know it. Israel blocks drinking water and proper sanitation even when its not attacking Gaza. It keeps building illegal settlements when there isn't a war going on.
Palestinians aren't stupid - they can see Israel wants to slowly annex their land until its too late for independence. In fact, its PM Benjamin Netanyahu stated quite explicitly in a (very under-reported) speech just last week that Palestinian weren't going to get independence.
That makes it even more likely that Hamas will provoke Israel into an angry response. They see it as the only real option available to them.
Every time Israel responds it is goaded into spending money, becoming more extreme, killing more Palestinians children and becoming more isolated from international opinion.
Sooner or later something has to give. The Palestinians have little to lose by carrying on by goading Israel. They already live their lives in squalor and under occupation.
Israel on the other hand has over-stepped the mark already to the point it has alienated most of European public opinion. A few more missteps, coupled with the rise of social media, and American opinion could rapidly turn against them too.
Once that happens Israel really will face an existential crisis.
The question for Israelis shouldn't be "what would you do?", but "how do we break out of this cycle?". But they're not asking that. Benjamin Netanyahu has stoked up his country enough that the majority want immediate respite and instant revenge. They've lost sight of the broader picture.
Israel may be winning the battle on the strength of its military now, but Hamas is winning the longer strategic war.
Why Israel - Palestine (deservedly) gets more attention than other conflicts
0000-00-00 00:00:00Its not unusual for people to ask why the Israel - Palestine conflict becomes so heated and dominates the discussion, especially when bombs are raining down on either side.
Drawing equivalence in this conflict is disingenuous in my view for two reasons. Firstly, Israel has a huge military and diplomatic advantage, so pretending both sides are as bad doesn't make sense. The British legal system recognises 'proportionate response' as a concept, so there's no reason why we should ignore it in foreign conflicts. Israel's response is not proportionate.
Secondly, Israel deliberately flouts international law and agreements (especially by building illegal settlements and destroying Palestinian homes) even when not in active conflict, so Israel's claim it is committed to peace are now farcical.
On to the main point: why does this conflict get far more attention than others, and is that justified? Here are some thoughts
1) Israel is a closer ally of Britain than many other countries where such atrocities take place (Sri Lanka, Syria etc), and we sell arms to them. Israel also receives far more military aid from the USA (our biggest ally) and
2) While conflicts like that in Sri Lanka are largely localised, the Israel / Palestine conflict involves far more countries and make the entire Middle East unstable. It also affects oil prices – another big news angle.
3) Given there are several countries involved in the I/P conflict, of which Israel has nuclear weapons and its enemies are trying to develop them, the issue could rapidly spiral out of control into something much bigger.
4) Palestinians are effectively held in a massive open-air prison, which is not the case in most other conflicts across the world.
5) There are plenty more supporters of the Israeli or Palestinian positions in the mainstream media who keep the issue alive in the national conversation (as is the case in the United States) than on Sri Lanka or Syria.
“rained fire” with White Phosphorus over Gaza. The usage of white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas such as Gaza is not legally allowed under Geneva Conventions because it burns people’s skins.
The Times covered the White Phosphorus attacks extensively, and its cartoonist Peter Brookes made it the subject of a hard-hitting illustration. It’s hardly a paper criticised for being pro-Palestinian.
al-Qaeda has lost: it will eventually be absorbed by ISIS in Iraq
2014-07-03 12:49:56The Washington Institute recently published a note titled 'The War Between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement' - on tensions between the two movements.
Its worth emphasising briefly that there are differences between the two, mostly that ISIS are even more brutal than AQ and freely break many rules that Osama Bin Laden set for his own people.
But I think al-Qaeda has effectively lost the battle for terrorism supremacy to ISIS / Islamic State already.
All the world's focus, the momentum and the expansion is on side of ISIS, not al-Qaeda, which matters to the impressionable men who want to be on the side of winners not losers (like most people, really).
Plus ISIS is based in the Levant, which has much bigger symbolic value for Muslims than the mountains of Afghanistan (by tf support everette) . In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al Qaeda militants have to hide from US drones or the Pakistani army. In Iraq and Syria, they have near free rein and their opposition is melting away (for now).
Most importantly, ISIS claim to have established an Islamic State - which has even more symbolic and religious value for the kind of impressionable men who want to get involved in jihad. I suspect more fighters will abandon Al Qaeda and join ISIS over coming months, effectively finishing off Osama Bin Laden's brainchild.
But what prompted me to write this short note was news of heightened security warnings across US airports. I suspect that US Homeland Security officials have come to the same conclusion and know this infighting has grave consequences.
Al-Qaeda leaders will be making the same calculations about ISIS and will likely re-double their efforts to regain momentum and attention. And in the terrorist world there's only one way to do that: by launching terrorist attacks in the West.
The 'Mega Mosque' and how right wingers ignore liberal Muslim women
2014-06-22 20:57:47Orthodox British Muslims are frequently accused of ignoring the voices of women, especially liberal Muslim women, for good reasons. But they aren't the only ones doing it: liberal Muslim women are also frequently ignored and used by right-wingers with their own agenda.
It turns out that right-wingers are also happy to ally with liberal Muslim women to criticise orthodox Muslims, but will ignore these voices when it doesn't suit their agenda. Yep, I'm as shocked as you are!
This particular case involves the long-running dispute over the proposed 'Mega Mosque' in East London.
Tehmina Kazi, director for British Muslims for Secular Democracy, was the 'star witness' against the proposed mosque in a newly opened public inquiry, because she earlier objected to the anti-woman bias of Tablighi Jamaat, the group behind it.
But a few weeks ago she withdrew from the public inquiry.
Alan Craig, director of the 'Mega Mosque No Thanks' campaign, also described as a Christian fundamentalist, sent out a press release saying she was "intimidated by misogynist mosque supporters".
He repeated the claim in a video for by the homophobic and xenophobic group Christian Concern, which earlier objected to Aaqil Ahmed being appointed head of religion at the BBC just because he was Muslim.
But here's the thing - they're ignoring what Tehmina Kazi herself said.
The veteran religion journalist Ruth Gledhill wrote:
Alan Craig, director of the MegaMosqueNoThanks campaign, said she was ‘intimidated by misogynist mosque supporters'. But Ms Kazi said: ‘Withdrawing was a decision I did not undertake lightly. I did it after consultation with several trusted people and a number of assurances on women’s increased participation and involvement in the new facility.’
...
However, Ms Kazi told Lapido Media that she had been neither harried nor pressured but had accepted the reassurances she had been given about the place of women in the mega-mosque community.
The claim she was intimidated was also repeated by Douglas Murray from the Henry Jackson Society a few weeks ago, who pretty much swept aside Tehmina's point and heavily implied she was intimidated into dropping her opposition to the mosque.
All this reflects the ugly tactics being deployed in the desperate desire to win public opinion.
The pros and cons of the proposed East London centre and mosque should be judged on its own merit by the inquiry. I'm not bothered either way.
But what shouldn’t happen, inquiry or not, is the misrepresentation and spinning of a leading liberal Muslim woman's opinion, just because it doesn't fit the narrative of some right-wingers.
To me, this is a reflection of the same misogyny that Douglas Murray and his compatriots rail against.
British foreign policy is dead
2014-06-19 21:01:41A few observations on the ongoing crisis in Iraq and Syria.
1) British foreign policy is dead
Ed Miliband's fairly gentle questioning of Cameron yesterday in PMQs illustrated the obvious: there is consensus among the three main parties that there will be no military intervention in Iraq again. The same goes for President Obama, who has been proceeding far more carefully than he is given credit by the left and right. In one sense Syria has sealed the fate of military intervention: when a humanitarian and strategic disaster on that scale cannot elicit a US-UK response, its highly unlikely Iraq will. For better or for worse, we have given up major on military interventions in other countries. The American and British public are firmly against them, despite what commentators in the press say.
2) China is more worried about Iraqi oil than the USA
Less than a quarter of American oil imports are from the Middle East. The US isn't just a net energy exporter now, some say it may become the world's largest producer of oil by next year. Meanwhile, a majority of oil exports from the Middle East now go to Asia, and China is particularly exposed. If oil prices shoot up because of ISIS, I suspect China will throw money towards Iran to send more troops into Iraq and wipe them out. The geo-political plates have shifted significantly over the last ten years.
3) We'll look back at 'stable' ME dictatorships
The US supported dictatorships across the Middle East because they provided stability. I suspect we are about to see commentators on the left and right, who earlier wanted to see democracy across the Middle East, going back to supporting dictatorships for the same reason. To take one example, Mehdi Hasan would like the US government to prop up Bashar al-Assad in Syria. I've debated other lefties too who would prefer to see Assad propped up in Syria. The same may soon apply to Iraq, and will be an argument against popular uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere.
4) Kurdistan may arise
The strength of ISIS has strengthened the hand of Iraqi Kurds who, in the face of a disintegrating national Iraqi government, may demand an independent Kurdistan. This is on balance a good thing because the Kurds are a persecuted minority and don't have a homeland. But it may also increase sectarian tensions and there will be questions of how an independent Kurdistan would protect itself.
In my view there is little doubt the invasion of Iraq in 2003 lit the tinderbox across Iraq, but the conflict has taken a life of its own because its driven by deep-rooted sectarian differences. There is no appetite for military intervention in the foreseeable future, among politicians or the public, unless we are under provable, imminent threat. Whether that means we see a more peaceful world, or one where other countries (Russia, China) try and take advantage, remains to be seen.
ISIS has grown because we sat around doing nothing to stabilise Syria
2014-06-13 12:38:42A group called ISIS, which even some in the al-Qaeda leadership have disassociated themselves from, are now rapidly taking over large parts of Iraq. There is a sense of panic in the air because it obviously means more conflict in the Middle East, and more refugees trying to escape their brutal control.
But it has also sparked an odd debate here in the UK.
In the Guardian, Owen Jones writes: 'We anti-war protesters were right: the Iraq invasion has led to bloody chaos'.
But this has been obvious for a few years now. I opposed the invasion from the start and was at most of the demonstrations against it (including the big one in Feb. 2003). Only a few deluded idiots now believe the invasion of Iraq has gone well. In fact the invasion was a disaster from day one, despite attempts by Americans to stage a few stunts to pretend it was going OK.
So that's an old debate, while the one about ISIS is a new one.
Firstly, ISIS has grown out of the chaos in Syria, which we sat by and watched instead of working with Arab countries to end. We should have joined a military coalition with other Arab countries to bomb Assad's military installations and weaken him - thereby driving him out into asylum in Iran or elsewhere.
I wrote about ISIS in January this year, saying: "as these groups become prominent, the fallout is being felt in surrounding countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and even Pakistan".
Sitting by and watching has made things worse. We've gone from 20,000 dead in Syria ("if we intervene now, we'll make it worse") to nearly 200,000 dead (*silence*). The ongoing chaos has helped ISIS grow and destabilised surrounding countries. And all that is about to get worse.
As I said:
Intervention in Syria is not a matter of ‘If’, but a matter of ‘When’. Do we wait until the situation spirals further out of control, and Al-Qaeda re-establish a powerful base, or go for damage limitation earlier?
Secondly, are we meant to be against countries militarily intervening in other countries? I ask because Iran is now sending troops into Iraq (without official invitation) to fight ISIS. What if those troops are used to suppress Kurds? Will people on the left raise their voice then?
Basically, we are sitting around watching the situation get worse, as many predicted. ISIS hasn't grown because we invaded Iraq (though we definitely wrecked the country and Saddam Hussain would have been better placed to quell them)... they've grown because Syria was allowed to spiral out of control.
Since we have now committed to sitting around and doing nothing, the situation in the Middle East is about to get much worse.
Addendum: in case it isn't clear, I've given up on the prospect of any military action now. We're now committed to sitting around on our hands and pretending it could be worse.
Reality check: Labour is not going to win the next election by a landslide
2014-05-27 09:30:20A bizarre notion has taken hold of some of my fellow Labour commentators. Some of them believe that the Labour party is going to get around 40% at the next election and win by a landslide. They believe this is not only possible but within reach.
This is a fantasy. The results of the 2015 general election are going to be close. Too close for comfort, in fact.
There are simple reasons for this.
1) In 2010 Labour got only 29% of the vote - its second worst defeat ever. The party had become intellectually exhausted, hollowed out and tired. To change minds and add 11% to your vote within 5 years isn't just a Herculean task - it is unprecedented in British politics. It has never happened because people do not change minds so quickly.
2) The financial crash of 2008 happened under New Labour's watch. They were "intensely relaxed" about people getting super rich and let the bankers run wild by cutting regulation. Sure, the Tories urged them to be even more reckless but the electorate won't remember that; the fault always lies with the party in power. And people take a long time to forget that. It took the Conservatives 15 after the ERM crash of 1992 to match Labour on economic credibility.
3) It takes time to change people's minds and get them to trust you again. This is so obvious a point that it feels silly just to say it. This is especially true when New Labour leaders also lied about invading Iraq and started a war that cost tens of billions of pounds. Labour lost a lot of trust during those 13 years and it will take more than the image of David Cameron's face to bring them back.
Sure, you say, but wasn't Labour polling in the low 40s not long ago? Why isn't this possible?
Again, simple. Labour polled high at a time when discontent against the government was at its peak and the economy was in dire straits (2011 - 2012). The 'omnishambles' budget was fresh in people's minds and anger at the Lib Dems had driven most of their base to Labour.
But the economy has improved; UKIP and Greens have taken some Labour voters away. Some ex-Lib Dems have returned or decided Labour wasn't particularly liberal either. Momentum within the UKuncut, student and Occupy movements has petered out. Fatigue has set in.
As the economy improves more people will go back to the Tories regardless of what Labour does or say. That is how people respond in any country, including ours.
I think there are strong factors that help Labour. But the shift in public opinion needed to win a big majority is far too much for just five years. That's why it has never happened on this scale before.
This doesn't mean Labour should aim low. But getting 36% or so next year is a massive task in itself, and the idea that we are failing because we're not heading towards 40% is just fantasy.
I met a Labour voter who was going for UKIP . Here's what happened next
0000-00-00 00:00:00Sadiq Khan has written a letter for UKIP supporters to lure some of them back to the Labour.
Here's the thing, I haven't yet seen any substantive criticism of what is actually said in the letter, though there are lots of folks angry that Labour is even reaching out to such people. This is odd since even Owen Jones penned a letter to UKIP sympathisers earlier.
I worry that liberal-left criticism here is so removed from the experiences of Labour canvassers that their worries (which are real in some cases) get dismissed entirely out of hand. I believe criticism of Labour policy should be nuanced - applauding it where applicable and criticising where necessary. And I say this as someone who didn't even vote for Labour in 2010 because of their policies & rhetoric on immigration.
A few weekends ago I went to Southampton to canvas for my friend Rowenna Davis. In Southampton, Labour party people see UKIP as a significant threat: former voters were deserting in numbers that could deny them victory.
I knocked on a door and this man in his late 50s answered. He said he had previously voted Labour (we had him down as a supporter) but he was most likely going to vote for UKIP in the local elections. Here is roughly how our conversation went (I'm partly paraphrasing):
Me: "Why do you think you'll go for UKIP instead of Labour, if you don't mind me asking?"
Him: "Well... I'm frustrated to be honest. There's a lot of change going on around here... my boys can't find jobs because of people coming here from other countries. Its hard on us you know? And it looks like UKIP are the only ones saying it."
Me: "I see. You're worried about immigration? Do you think UKIP are the answer though?"
Him: "Yeah... immigration. We're all worried about it. [It felt to me he was uncomfortable about using the i-word before I mentioned it]. I don't think UKIP have all the answers but it feels like no one else is saying it."
Me: "Fair enough. I think you're right that Labour did
What exactly do the likes of Graham Stringer and John Mann MP want?
2014-05-23 14:07:29Political journalists love reporting on infighting: it adds drama and excitement to a beat that is usually about boring policy announcements. This isn't a criticism - as a blogger I loved reporting on infighting too (even within Labour) because it meant clicks, eyeballs and excitement. Its the stuff we worked for.
The local / EU elections have brought Labour MPs John Mann and Graham Stringer to the forefront for precisely this reason: they're willing to fuel the infighting narrative.
But listen to what they actually say and you soon realise they're just spouting empty platitudes. There's not a single policy demand in what they say, other than Stringer's demand for a referendum on the EU. I've long called for Labour to promise a referendum on the EU too, but you have to be really obtuse to think Miliband is going to u-turn on his sensible and cautious policy now just to satisfy us. And even then, it would make very little difference to the UKIP vote.
But all this is lost on John Mann and Graham Stringer, who repeatedly call on the Labour leadership "to listen to the people" as if this were a new and radical idea.
Listen to John Mann on WATO
They have zero policy advice on what needs to be done. They have zero practical advice for the leadership.
What this does highlight however is a broader issue: the Labour leadership are aware of all the above but there is no simple answer because voters themselves are contradictory.
"Labour should be Labour, but they're more like Conservative," a voter from Rotherham told BBC World at One earlier, who had opted for UKIP - a party even more right-wing than the Tories.
A lot of Labour people voted for UKIP because they feel alienated by the party and by Westminster in general. On that front, the party needs broader cultural change and more extensive outreach to voters. But Miliband isn't idle here either: he's been fully behind rolling out the community organising model across the country. The leadership have been making heavy demands on candidates to knock on doors and speak to voters too.
On policy, should Labour go harder on immigration? It can do, but it will alienate more liberal voters in London (without which it can't win in 2015 or 2016). And how exactly do you out-UKIP on immigration? None of these questions are answered.
The Labour leader has chosen instead to focus on the economy, and reach out to people who feel alienated because of growing inequality and are voting UKIP out of frustration. Do the likes of Mann and Stringer have any policy suggestions here? Nope. I haven't heard a single policy suggestion yet. Which begs the question: how do these people think they're helping?
'But why are Jeremy Clarkson and Nigel Farage still so popular?'
2014-05-08 16:49:28Suzanne Moore has written a column in the Guardian today that I whole-heartedly agree with.
Here's her key argument:
Clarkson is not stupid. Nor is he a maverick or outlier. He is a central part of the establishment. He parties with Cameron. Just as Ukip is not a maverick party, but made up of disgruntled Tories; just as Boris Johnson is not a maverick but a born-to-rule chancer; just as bloggers such as Guido Fawkes pretend to be anti-politics mavericks but are hard-rightwingers – this section of the right deludes itself that it is somehow "outside" the establishment rather than its pumping heart.
Saying the unsayable is actually dully conformist. Pick on anyone different and mock them. Endeavour to take away not just their rights but the concept that they ever had rights in the first place. All this is done preeningly, while a white middle-aged man pretends he is downtrodden and now some kind of freedom fighter.
[I hate to point this out but its the Guardian that has twice published fawning profiles on Guido Fawkes emphasising his anti-establishment schtick.]
I broadly agree with what Suzanne says. But there's a point here that follows on but isn't quite addressed: so why are Clarkson and Farage still popular? Saying this is because their followers are just racist doesn't quite hit the mark, despite the obviously racist remarks made by both.
There's something else going on here.
Supporters of Farage and Clarkson do think its right that people speak truth to power. They do want someone who is anti-establishment. But don't see themselves as the establishment.
Imagine a world that is rapidly becoming more sexist and homophobic. Attacks on women and LGBTs are on the rise and the younger generation have even worse attitudes. You can see your world crumbling in front of you and you want out. You'll support anyone who stands up to this rising tide of hatred. Even if they're rich, white and well-connected.
This is the world that Nigel Farage and Jeremy Clarkson fans are in. They hate progressive politics and they hate the march of political correctness. Their entire world is falling apart and they hate the future. They hate 'political correctness' and they see it going from the Left all the way to the Tory leadership.
Whether we on the Left think this is silly or not is irrelevant, this is the world they are in. For them, the likes of Clarkson and Farage are speaking truth to power. If your world looks full of political correctness and green politics gone mad, then you'll support Clarkson and Farage for railing against it.
We are in the middle of a culture war.
Globalisation and immigration have made this generation (mostly older and less well-off) feel like the world is slipping beyond their control. This is why there's no puzzle as to why Farage and Clarkson are popular despite being rich, powerful and part of the establishment: their supporters see them as on side in this cultural war.
I know where I stand as an unapologetic social liberal, and I'm comfortable with that. My side is winning, after all.
But the socially conservative classes know they're losing badly, so the culture war is intensifying. They want their world back and they think Clarkson and Farage are the last holdouts.
In other words, there's little point in asking why supporters of Farage and Clarkson don't want to speak truth to power. They do. But they have a point - times have changed. They are no longer the establishment... we are.
On the idea of "calling out racism when you see it" and why it doesn't always work
2014-04-29 16:43:12The rallying cry that "we should call out racism when we see it" is an easy one to make on the Left.
It is up there with "Tories are heartless, evil bastards" and "we should set up a political party that really represents the working class" - in making us feel all fuzzy and perhaps even mobilised to take on the world. Especially when these days you can call out racism with just an ill-tempered and carefully worded tweet. Doing it when Nigel Farage is on BBC Question Time gets you bonus retweets.
But there are several problems with this cry, especially defining what exactly constitutes racism. Furthermore, such accusations don't always help those its intended to.
You may think this is semantics and tactics, but its not. It has real impact.
A few years ago I was invited to a round-table on the imminent launch of British Future, and a group of American campaigners on immigration had come over. They issued a stark warning: "Most of what we’ve been saying about immigration for the last 40 years has backfired, and not worked for us."
They explained that the pro-immigration lobby had spent millions of dollars and years of campaigning to defend immigration, but had failed until recently. I wrote earlier about what they said.
For many on the Left this sounds like 'playing politics' than taking a 'principled position'. This sort of knee-jerk thinking has infected our thinking, with little regard for outcomes or whether the rhetoric helps the very people it is meant to.
I've already explained why calling all of UKIP racist isn't just futile but also counter-productive. That doesn't mean we ignore specific incidents.
I have two simple rules on race-related controversies:
1) Does being outraged over it help the cause? If not, its just empty posturing.
2) Criticise the action itself as 'racist' (if and when it happens) rather than offering up blanket accusations of racism.
This is the definitive word on talking about racism. HEED IT
In summary: if someone is saying "we should call out racism when we see it and anyone who disagrees with is an apologist" - we should ask them if they're doing it to actually help victims of racism, or just make themselves feel better.