Brexit spurs breakaway from Britain's opposition Labour Party
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
LONDON — With just 39 days until Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union , Brexit has prompted a split in the U.K.'s main opposition party.
Seven British lawmakers on Monday resigned from the Labour Party over its Brexit policies as well as other issues, including its approach to anti-Semitism .
"The Labour Party that we joined, that we campaigned for and believed in, is no longer today's Labour Party. We did everything we could to save it, but it has now been hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left," lawmaker Chris Leslie told a news conference.
The leavers, who are known as The Independent Group , presented themselves as a new centrist option.
However, they stopped short of forming a new political party.
The quitters represent a small fraction of Labour's 256 lawmakers, or of the 650 total members of Parliament. But this is the biggest split in the party since four senior members quit in 1981 to form the Social Democratic Party.
The question of Britain’s place in — or out — of Europe has long split the country’s two main political parties .
In January, more than one-third of lawmakers from Prime Minister Theresa May's ruling Conservative Party rejected the Brexit divorce deal she negotiated with the E.U.
Some lawmakers feel that May's Brexit proposal doesn’t go far enough in severing the links between the U.K. and E.U., others want a closer relationship than May's deal offers, while still others want no Brexit at all.
The Labour Party officially supports Britain’s exit and is pressing for a close relationship with the 28-member bloc. However, many of the party's lawmakers don't want to leave the E.U. and some are demanding a new referendum.
British lawmakers Luciana Berger (left) and Chaka Umunna (right) during Monday's press conference in London. Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP At the Monday morning press conference, the leaving Labour lawmakers slammed their former party’s leadership and appealed to colleagues in other parties to join them.
“We are clear where we stand on Brexit. This is a national catastrophe and we want no part facilitating the disaster if it happens,” said Chuka Umunna, one of the lawmakers who resigned from Labour and who had once been seen as a future leader of the party.
The question now is if lawmakers in other parties will align themselves with the new group. The number of lawmakers breaking away is too few at the moment to influence any major decisions in parliament.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that he was "disappointed that these MPs have felt unable to continue to work together for the Labour policies that inspired millions at the last election and saw us increase our vote by the largest share since 1945.
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Wonder if anything like that could happen here?
I could see it happening with respect to both the Democratic and Republican Parties. I think there's reason for dissent in both cases.
I could see it, too. Both parties have moderate and extreme factions that is tearing them apart.
Buzz and Perrie,
Bothsidesist garbage.
The "extreme left" would be moderately liberal in Canada... or any other advanced country. Calling universal healthcare "radical" does not make it so - it is ordinary, not even a political topic, in all advanced nations except the US.
Meanwhile, the "extreme right"... kills people!
Pretending they are symmetrical is wrong. It is a neofascist Big Lie.
And you know what Bob? that is the EXACT same finger that gets pointed at you....
So in essence your doing exactly what your decrying......
So much for complaining about "bothsiderism" can't be garbage if your applying it's principles yourself....
NWM,
You have just supplied a perfect example of absurdly misplaced bothsidesism.
I disagree with you Bob. Your reply is so very typical of a leftist Democratic supporter - not able to see the forest for the trees.'
You have denied that there is a movement to the far left including Socialists like Bernie Sanders, as opposed to the liberal establishment (that in fact ended Sanders' attempt to be the Democratic candidate), and those who support as against those who decry the new young Lions of the party, Tlieb, AOC and Omar.
Calling Bernie "far left" is precisely the problem. His ideas are rather like Trudeau's. Do you describe your PM as "far left"? Of course not.
Oh, he's pretty far left, but I don't think either of them are as super-progressive as some liberals are. I'm concerned about what's been happening in Canada recently because of Trudeau's open-door immigration policies, but at least he did a good thing in voicing his opposition to BDS and publicly apologizing for Canada's turning away the SS St.Louis. He's an apple who didn't fall far from the tree. Don't forget that his father was a friend of Fidel Castro.
So?
Apples don't fall far from the tree.
Unlike Americans, Canadians have never been forbidden by their government to travel to Cuba. Have you been there? How did you like it? What conclusions did you draw?
Another way to put it: other than America's unceasing propaganda... do you have any reason to condemn the Castro regime? (Keep in mind the Batista regime Castro overthrew.)
I have never been to Cuba.
The revolution against the dictator Batista was carried out by Castro with the help of Che Gueverra.
When Castro attended Pierre Trudeau's funeral in Canada there were warm hugs between Castro and Justin. (just a bit of history)
You seemed to have a problem with Castro. Americans are fed anti-castrism from birth, but you're Canadian. What's your problem will Castro?
No problem. He was pretty far left wing, but it never affected me at all.
He ran a police state, but no nastier than Battista. The people suffered more, I think, from the American blockade, than from the inefficiencies of central planning.
We visited a dozen years ago. Several items stood out: the music... everywhere, the empty stores (except the repair shops), the spare-parts penury, and the SMILES. Cubans ate well and had universal health care... and music. So they smiled, all the time.
It is an absolute mess over here Perrie.
This is what happens when nationalism rears it's ugly head. Travel Visas, work visas, import/export duties contracts..... smart people that knew what Brexit would do, weren't motivated enough to go to the polls, so they end up getting less than their country deserves. Sound familiar?
All of my German acquaintances say it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
This issue has my own family over there torn apart. No one can agree on anything there. This whole thing started up north where the BNP had a stronghold 10 years ago. The ideas evolved into this.
It might have been OK if they had an actual plan from the get go, but they didn't and they still don't.
Now only time will tell how things shake out.
Hi Fly,
While I agree with you that this is a result of nationalism, for the Brits a big part of this was getting out from under Germany's thumb. Then add the north country's nationalist movements like the remnants of the BNP.. put in a pot, add absolutely no plan and you have what is going on now.
How this will end is anyone's guess.
Honestly Perrie..... the rest of the EU just watching the stupidity that the UK voted themselves into. It's a common lunch time topic at work these days.
I bet it is. Just talked to my cousin and her dad (my uncle) she was against it, he's for it. Talk about strong feelings in both directions.
The French are mystified.
Everybody's playing "chicken".
They're all gonna go over the cliff........
It’s fun to watch the chicken littles that think the sky will fall without an extra level of government stealing their earnings and stifling their economic opportunities.
As usual, Dean... the depth of your understanding of a complex topic is... flabbergasting...
The length of it being all blown out of proportion is also.....
The sun will rise tomorrow, people will get up go to work, go shopping, continue getting about their lives......
Most of this is fear mongering, which is what politics does best...... (and is usually very very wrong about)
Sometimes I think their politics are just as bad as ours.
They are.
Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I guess.
Actually boss...... This one is pretty involved. Think about between country trade agreements, VAT calculations, work visa approval, travel visa approval, worker or outside of country residency permits, goods inspections, Etc. The list is long, and the legal documents needed to be generated and agreed to will keep negotiators busy for quite some time.
We regularly get together with our German neighbors, and from what I gather, it looks like the UK is going to see prices go up to export products at the same time the EU are going to see a drop in the cost to export theirs to the UK. As explained, the EU is finding that the UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK.
Regards
Yes my friend, from a government standpoint it is very complex.
From an everyday British subject point of view not so much..... (except for those subjects that base their life around their ideologies)
I was never a fan of Brexit but it seems to me that it is going to happen whether some want it or not.
With it fast approaching, I think some sort of plan would be helpful, instead of just stating the obvious.
I guess I don't understand doing nothing, or splitting from a party. It read like the people that split from the party just want to stand on the tracks complaining about the train headed their way, with no plan to remove themselves from getting hit head on.
From this side of the pond, we are seeing quite a bit of buyers remorse on the part of the Brits we know.
Still is not going to change what will happen.
It is going to happen.
In an odd way, I think it will end up being good for the UK.
They will have their sovereignty. The US would never abandon them.