John McDonnell

In 2014, the Scottish Labour right wing virtually destroyed Labour in Scotland by allying with the Tories in “Better Together”. Now, in 2019, they’re back for a repeat performance. The 2014 class collaboration with the Tories resulted in: the loss of 40 out of 41 Westminster seats in 2015; the loss of 13 Holyrood seats in 2016, leaving Labour a poor third behind the Tories; and the loss of a raft of council seats and control of Glasgow City Council in 2017. The fact that it now turns out that a majority of Tory Party members are happy to see the break-up of Britain in order to achieve Brexit...

Harland and Wolff A hundred and thirty workers at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast face the loss of their jobs, after the employer went into administration. Workers have occupied the shipyard, demanding it be taken into public ownership. Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell visited workers there on Monday 5 August. The Unite union has argued the yard’s productive capacity could be used to manufacture renewable energy infrastructure. EMT out again on 17 August Guards on East Midlands Trains, soon to be East Midlands Railway, struck for a third successive Saturday on 3 August. The...

“No matter what deal is on the table, and which party has negotiated it, our position must be to remain in the EU and oppose any form of Brexit”, declared shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry at a “Love Socialism Hate Brexit” meeting in Parliament on Monday 15 July. Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler, Jon Ashworth and Keir Starmer also spoke. John McDonnell and Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard sent messages of support. “Love Socialism Hate Brexit” (now renamed “Love Socialism Rebuild Britain Transform Europe”) was at first, when launched in February, a small group of nine left Labour MPs...

In the 23 May Euro-election, Labour, by not putting their lot in with the Remain parties, muddied the waters and stopped a clear Remain vote emerging. The Labour leaders also allowed the Lib Dems to detox. For the first time since the 2010-15 coalition government, lots of people are willing to vote for them. That is damaging for Labour (though also for the Conservatives). The good news is that the group formed by Chuka Umunna’s split from Labour, Change UK, with 3.4% of the vote, are for now a spent force. There are things that could revive Change UK, like a sizeable group of anti-Brexit...

According to the 16 May issue of the satirical magazine Private Eye , “former Labour staffers have… collected 100,000 emails, including tens of thousands showing how the party ignored complaints that supporters were promoting antisemitism”. They plan to submit the material to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, and probably also to make it public. The story has been boosted by the pro-Tory Daily Mail . The main movers evidently have axes to grind. But that doesn’t mean that their grindstones are invented, and surely not that all of them are invented. As shadow chancellor John McDonnell...

On Wednesday 13 February, Lambeth Council voted through another cuts budget. The document included a line in a table cutting £500,000 from Children’s Services. Five children’s centres are to be closed, seven more will have their service provision cut, and staff across the borough will lose their jobs. Outside the Town Hall, Labour members, trade unionists and families sung and chanted in protest. A deputation of mums addressed the Council meeting to explain how much the Centres mean and to propose an alternative. They distributed a counter-proposal, A Better Plan, written by the Lambeth branch...

The controversy surrounding John McDonnell’s alleged support for Jackie Walker is not a clear as the press coverage suggests. After his speech at the LRC conference, McDonnell took some questions from the floor. Jackie Walker, who after many months of suspension is facing a disciplinary hearing in March over comments connected to Jews and antisemitism, asked one. Not about her case and status in the party as such, but about the abuse she has received online and on the attempts of right-wing Labour MPs to conduct a trial-by-media. Both indisputably real and bad. It seemed she went out of her...

“I want to make it absolutely explicit that capital controls would not happen under a Labour government”, said Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell to the Financial Times on 23 January. That, he said, is the answer he gives to reassure City plutocrats in a series of meetings now underway. In the faster-moving global financial markets which have developed since the early 80s, even mildly reformist governments can suffer capital flights like the one which in 1983 switched the Mitterrand administration in France from its initial policies (nationalisations, shorter working week by law, increased...

Solidarity goes to press soon after Tory prime minister Theresa May decided to delay the parliamentary vote on her EU withdrawal deal, maybe until January, and to seek “reassurances” from the EU to sweeten the deal. The deal would have been heavily defeated if put to the House of Commons as scheduled on 11 December. This impasse makes great openings for the labour movement. We can bring down the Tory government, force an early general election, stop Brexit, and save free movement within Europe. That requires Labour shifting to a clearer, sharper version of the “Remain and Reform” policy it...

The following statement has been endorsed by a number of labour movement activists including Andrew Coates, Sacha Ismail, Kelly Rogers, Julie Ward MEP, Catherine West MP, and Zoe Williams, and includes a proposal to be put to the conference of Another Europe Is Possible on 8 December. With Theresa May’s deal likely to be defeated in parliament [on 11 December], and a number of key parliamentary blocs losing confidence in the Tory government, we are facing a period of political crisis and upheaval, and a general election looks increasingly possible. As Labour members and supporters, we want our...