AN ongoing genocide in Gaza that has by now wiped out at least 200,000 civilians and wounded hundreds of thousands of others.
A terror campaign against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank carried out by illegal settlers, aided by one of the world’s most advanced armies. The planting of explosives in pagers that have maimed and killed thousands of innocent people in Beirut. More than a thousand air strikes in southern Lebanon that have murdered hundreds. Assassinations of foreign leaders on their sovereign territory.
READ MORE: Rachel Reeves blasted for ‘appalling’ meeting with Israeli official
These are a few of the recent atrocities committed by the rogue state of Israel that the UK Government is arming and politically supporting.
At the Labour Party conference, a young man interrupted a preening Chancellor Reeves to protest the UK selling weapons to Israel.
After he was tackled by security personnel, dragged from the hall and put into cuffs, Rachel Reeves, with a rictus smile, said: “This is a changed Labour Party. A Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protests.”
No truer words were spoken. English Labour is a party that allows no protests, no dissent from the Starmerite party line, that shuts down voices demanding justice for the poor, the old, children, the disabled and the persecuted. No doubt influenced by Labour Friends of Israel, it has banned the words “genocide” and “apartheid” from its party conference.
READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: The speech that brought uninspiring Labour conference to life
It is embracing the draconian 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, the 1986 Public Order Act and the 2023 Serious Disruption Regulations passed by Tory governments that suppress and silence dissent.
If Scotland is to have any chance of escape from this fascist dystopia and regain its international voice, it knows what it has to do.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
IT’S well past time for Labour members to make the hard decisions so often mentioned by their current leadership. While Starmer and his cronies believe the hard decisions are penalising children and families by continuing the Tory two-child benefit cap, freezing pensioners to death by removing their Winter Fuel Payments or getting banks to grass on any account holders who are on benefits, all the while the tax dodgers, PFI companies and those funding the private lifestyles of Starmer and co go about their business unhindered.
READ MORE: Richard Murphy: A terrible Labour Conference and its implications for Scotland
Maybe it’s time for Labour members to make that hard decision and realise that they’ve turned their party into the Tories and their leader is simply a Thatcherite tribute act. Labour members stood up against Starmer and his disgraceful attack on pensioners but it was a vote that didn’t commit the party or government to overturn this decision.
It’s time for actual Labour members who believe in socialism (who knows there might be some out there) to kick our Starmer and build a Labour Party that looks after and protects the working class rather than prosecuting them.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley
AS the Labour Party conference closes, let’s pause and reflect on what voters have learned about the new Labour government at their first conference since taking power in 15 years.
Well, conference did not get off to a very good start with all the headlines focusing on sleaze, the sleaze of “freebies”. But moving on, it was over to new Chancellor Rachel Reeves MP, who was conspicuous by her silence on going after bankers’ bonuses. Ms Reeves told conference there will be tough decisions to be made, but they will be fair! Ms Reeves’s idea of “fair” got a clear message on the last day of the conference when unions voted against the actions of the Chancellor by opposing the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Payment from a million pensioners.
READ MORE: Patrick Harvie urges Labour to ditch Trident to fund Winter Fuel Payment
Incidentally, while Ms Reeves was on her feet at conference the nursing unions turned down the Labour government’s 5.5% pay offer, so watch this space on public spending to follow.
Throughout this conference “freebies” remained in the headlines and were evident, as experienced by Scotland’s Labour leader Anas Sarwar and the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray MP, so there were no lessons learned.
The Labour Party’s election message to the country was vote for “change”, yet “change” was not what voters heard from this conference. Unfortunately, the message echoed that of the Conservatives – 14 years of austerity, and for so many who were taken in by the message of “change”, reality is dawning.
Catriona C Clark
Falkirk
I WONDER what would happen if people started recall petitions for the Labour MPs who voted for the cut in the Winter Fuel Payments? That ought to put the wind up them (and yes, I do know that makes me sound like Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army).
Andrew Haddow
Glasgow
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