Counterfire, Indeed

Both from Martin Hall and from Reuben Bard-Rosenberg.

I do not agree with Counterfire about everything, although I disagree with them no more than George Galloway ever did, and arguably rather less so. Likewise, I do not agree with spiked half the time, although I do the other half. But there could be a General Election this year, and whenever there is one, then it is going to result either in a hung Parliament or in a tiny overall majority.

If Counterfire, spiked, or anyone else really does want to elect someone who is committed to leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union on left-wing grounds, and for that matter if they really want to elect someone who is committed to the cause of the County Durham Teaching Assistants that spiked and Counterfire have both championed, then they need to be backing my parliamentary candidacy here at North West Durham.

You know what you have to do, brothers and sisters. You know what you have to do.

Vote Against The Customs Union

The Customs Union locks out food and other produce from the developing world. It would prevent us, as it does now, from enacting anti-dumping laws in order to protect the British steel and other industries. It would forbid, as it does now, individual trade deals with the BRICS and other countries, including the desperately necessary integration of every part of this country into the Belt and Road Initiative.

Yet by the end of this week, however dressed up or dressed down, membership of the Customs Union will be the policy of both parties. The Labour MP here at North West Durham, a solidly Leave-voting area, is not merely a broad supporter of Jeremy Corbyn's. As we have already seen in relation to his words without actions on the issue of the Teaching Assistants, she is an uncritical supporter of Jeremy Corbyn's.

You know what you have to do, brothers and sisters. You know what you have to do.

Silk Road Customs

Following the Chinese Communist Party's "proposal", known to the rest of us as an announcement, that Xi Jinping is to be allowed to remain President for as long as he pleases, we need to be working to integrate into the Belt and Road Initiative all four parts of the United Kingdom, all nine English regions, and every British Overseas Territory and Crown Dependency. For this, we do of course need to be out of the Single Market, out of the Customs Union, and out of "a customs union" such as is advocated by both main political parties.

As part of my pursuit of a Brexit that served the needs of the areas, such as this one, that cast the decisive votes in favour of it, and as part of my work to integrate all parts of this country into the Belt and Road Initiative, I am already working to bring to County Durham the Volkswagen Group's production for the British market.

A company would be wholly owned by Volkswagen. One Director would be nominated by each of the Groups on Durham County Council other than the Labour Group, which is clearly unsympathetic to this project, and one Director would be nominated by those Councillors who had no formal political affiliation. A number of Directors equal to the number of non-Labour Groups would be nominated by Unite the Union, including one by Durham Unite Community. One Director would be nominated by the Durham Miners' Association. A Chairman appointed by Volkswagen would exercise the parent company’s veto over all decisions.

This new company would undertake to match (by such means as to avoid any conflict of interest) the Members' Initiative Fund of £2000 per annum at the disposal of each of the Councillors who were represented on its Board of Directors. It would underwrite the cost of the activities of Durham Unite Community. It would underwrite the Durham Miners' Gala. And it would underwrite the cost of maintaining the Durham Miners' Hall.

Similar things could, and must, be done around the country. Like this, they depend on being out of the Single Market, out of the Customs Union, and out of "a customs union" such as is advocated by both main political parties. All that, and we need the extra £350 million per week for the NHS to be written on the face of the legislation withdrawing the United Kingdom from the EU.

You know what you have to do, brothers and sisters. You know what you have to do.

20 Reasons To Want David Lindsay In Parliament

1. I want the promised £350 million extra for the National Health Service to appear on the face of the legislation withdrawing the United Kingdom from the European Union.

2. I warmly welcome the additional billion pound investment in jobs and services in Northern Ireland, and I call for Scotland, Wales, and each of the nine English regions to receive the same per capita as part of the application of Modern Monetary Theory, including the Land Value Tax.

3. I call for the Universal Basic Income, while continuing to campaign, through Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee, for full employment with the Living Wage, and thus for the bargaining power of the trade unions.

4. I call for the reassertion of democratic political control over the Bank of England, including that the approval of the House of Commons be required for changes to interest rates.

5. I call for the assertion of democratic political control over the City of London, with a Glass-Steagall division between investment banking and retail banking, and with the closure of all tax havens under British jurisdiction.

6. I advocate a reorientation towards the BRICS countries, leading to a new role across Eurasia and Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

7. I advocate the integration into the Belt and Road Initiative of all four parts of the United Kingdom, of all nine English regions, and of all of the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.

8. I call for supporters of economic equality to be elected to the City of London Corporation, to the States of Jersey, to the States of Guernsey, to Tynwald, and to the legislatures of the British Overseas Territories. 

9. Having been born in 1977, I have correctly opposed every British military intervention of my adult lifetime.

10. Having been born in 1977, I have correctly opposed every attempt to erode civil liberties during my adult lifetime.

11. I am absolutely opposed to the United Kingdom’s poisonous relationship with Saudi Arabia and with the other Gulf monarchies.

12. I have offered to travel to Iran to demand the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

13. I demand a Coroner’s Inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly.

14. I demand the diversion of British funds from the “Free Syrian Police” and the White Helmets to the United Kingdom’s own emergency services.

15. I would bring an action before the International Criminal Court against those who had brought slavery back to Libya.

16. I would bring an action before the High Court of Justiciary of Scotland, inviting it to exercise its declaratory power against Tony Blair and his accomplices in the aggression against Iraq in 2003.

17. I oppose Donald Trump while understanding why people voted for him, and I do so on the grounds that led me to oppose Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. On those same grounds, I would have opposed Hillary Clinton. 

18. I call for British withdrawal from NATO. NATO now commits Britain to the defence both of Turkish Islamists and of Eastern European neo-Nazis, and to the defence both of Trump’s America and of Erdogan’s Turkey as they edge closer and closer to war with each other. 

19. I would cancel Trident in favour of conventional defence, care for veterans, flood defences, and an “all of the above” energy policy. 

20. I have long fought for the Rohingya, the Chagossians, the Dalits, the Dorje Shugden practitioners, the Russian and other ethnic minorities oppressed in the Baltic States, the ancient indigenous Christians of the Middle East and North Africa, and the Jews and Zoroastrians of Iran.

The next General Election will result, either in another hung Parliament, or in a tiny overall majority. You know what you have to do.

A New Campaign Patron

I am honoured and delighted, almost beyond words, to announce a new Patron of this Campaign. He is Davey Ayre of Stanley Crook, the Joint Secretary of Durham Trades Council (although he takes on this new role in a personal capacity) and a legend of the trade union movement, most recently in his stalwart and ongoing support for Durham County Council's Teaching Assistants.

Davey served for over 50 years as Secretary of the Crook Branch of UCATT, the construction workers' union, and he was blacklisted for life from the construction industry. He has attended my court hearings, and he has promised to do so again, if at all possible, on 11th April, should the forces of evil be so wicked and so stupid as to proceed with their action against me.

As a Campaign Patron, Davey joins Councillor Alex Watson OBE of Consett North, who served for many years as the Executive Leader of Derwentside District Council. Meanwhile, George Galloway has never formally resigned the position. He needs to come to terms with the fact that he is never going to be let back into the Labour Party. But let us not be distracted. Welcome, Davey Ayre. I am honoured and delighted, almost beyond words.

The Circle of Life

Seen from the peak of Tow Law this coming July, and with the unmistakable voice of Sir Elton John in the background, the shaman Ben Sellers, watched by the proud parents, presents to the Pride Lands of North West Durham the newborn heir of Laura Pidcock and Daniel Kebede. Hakuna matata.

In all seriousness, I am one of very few people in this constituency to have known Laura and Daniel since before Laura became the Labour candidate here. I wish both of them and their unborn child all the happiness in the world. My differences with Laura are political.

And here's another one. In point of fact, however pro-EU the Labour Party membership may be, it is above all pro-Corbyn. Were a ballot of the kind suggested here to be held, then the members would give the Leader whatever he had said that he needed, and that certainly would not be opposition to Brexit, or even to withdrawal from the Single Market and the Customs Union.

But Laura says that, despite her own pretty thoroughgoing left-wing Euroscepticism (Daniel, meanwhile, campaigned vigorously for Leave), she would oppose Brexit if the members of the Labour Party voted against it. I would not, and not only because I am not a member of the Labour Party.

I would have been in favour of withdrawal from the EU regardless of the outcome of the referendum, and regardless of whether or not there had ever been one. My reasons for that are the same as the reasons why I am opposed to the Government's legislation on the subject, which constitutes an Executive power grab such as Tony Benn would have fought tooth and nail.

Laura speaks of "the sovereignty of the membership". But, while extraparliamentary action is essential in bringing issues to Parliament's attention and then in keeping them there, and while MPs who failed to address those needs must be removed either by their wider electorates or by their local parties, that is precisely because the only ultimate means to the economic and political ends that Laura and I share is the sovereignty of Parliament.

You know what you have to do, brothers and sisters. You know what you have to do.

10 Reasons To Support David Lindsay For Parliament

First, I have lived here in North West Durham for most of my life, I never went to school anywhere else, I am one of Derwentside’s elected public governors of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, I served for very many years on Lanchester Parish Council, I served for many years as a governor of a local primary school, I served for many years as a governor of a local comprehensive school, I chaired Lanchester Branch Labour Party for many years, and I served for several years as Secretary of Derwentside District Labour Party.

Secondly, I would seek to work with a Labour, a Conservative, a Liberal Democrat and an Independent representative in each of the County Wards, ideally including someone in each of the former District Wards, to communicate the concerns of local people to me, and then to work with them and with me in order to address those concerns. My Campaign Patron is Councillor Alex Watson OBE, who previously served for many years as the Executive Leader of Derwentside District Council.

Thirdly, in the hung Parliament that is by far the most likely outcome of the next General Election, the price of my support for any Government would be the necessary support for a number of projects in each of the former District Wards equal to the former number of District Councillors, together with justice for the 472 Teaching Assistants whom Durham County Council has deprived of 23 per cent of their incomes.

Fourthly, although I am generally supportive of Jeremy Corbyn, I am profoundly disappointed at his failure to exercise in relation to Labour’s Durham County Council and its Teaching Assistants the influence that he has exercised in relation to Labour’s Haringey Borough Council and its scheme for mass social and ethnic cleansing. Had he done as much in this case as I am very glad that he has done in that one, then the Teaching Assistants would already have won. The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors. Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament. If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me.

Fifthly, as part of my pursuit of a Brexit that served the needs of the areas, such as this one, that cast the decisive votes in favour of it, and as part of my work to integrate all parts of the United Kingdom into the Belt and Road Initiative, I am already working to bring to County Durham the Volkswagen Group’s production for the British market. A company would be wholly owned by Volkswagen. One Director would be nominated by each of the Groups on Durham County Council other than the Labour Group, which is clearly unsympathetic to this project, and one Director would be nominated by those Councillors who had no formal political affiliation. A number of Directors equal to the number of non-Labour Groups would be nominated by Unite the Union, including one by Durham Unite Community. One Director would be nominated by the Durham Miners’ Association. A Chairman appointed by Volkswagen would exercise the parent company’s veto over all decisions. 

This new company would undertake to match (by such means as to avoid any conflict of interest) the Members’ Initiative Fund of £2000 per annum at the disposal of each of the Councillors who were represented on its Board of Directors. It would underwrite the cost of the activities of Durham Unite Community. It would underwrite the Durham Miners’ Gala. And it would underwrite the cost of maintaining the Durham Miners’ Hall. This is only one of my many proposals to secure the representation of the working class in general and of the rural working class in particular, bypassing both liberal media and academic elites, and right-wing Labour municipal machines. Integral to this is securing for apprentices and trainees the same rights as are enjoyed by their peers in further and higher education, and vice versa.

The Leader of Durham County Council, Simon Henig, in whose person the liberal media and academic elite meets the right-wing Labour municipal machine, was so afraid that I was going to be elected to that authority, that he faked a death threat against himself and dozens of other Councillors. Despite the complete lack of evidence, that matter is still being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of the attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to secure a Labour seat in one or other House of Parliament. If I am wrong, then let Henig and Saunders sue me. 

Sixthly, drawing on a very wide range of political traditions, my Westminster office would be a national and international centre for the formulation, articulation and implementation of the alternative to the neoliberal economic policy that had already given us the Carillion crisis, and to the neoconservative foreign policy that had already given us the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. This would include the active pursuit of justice against those responsible, including the criminal trial of Tony Blair for the invasion of Iraq.

Throughout the present century, I have been subjected to a merciless campaign of criminal harassment by Oliver Kamm of The Times, who is now honour bound to submit his neoliberal and neoconservative zealotry against me to the judgement of the voters of North West Durham, either by contesting this seat himself, or by endorsing another specific candidate. The same is true of Tony Blair.

Seventhly, I am unique in having pursued for over 20 years the story of Harriet Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange. Therefore, I should be uniquely well-placed to frustrate her ambition to become the Speaker of the House of Commons. But only if I myself were a member of the House of Commons.

Eighthly, a recent poster campaign in parts of this constituency has announced that Jayda Fransen of Britain First would contest this seat against me because I was mixed-race, and that she would do so with the support of all of this country’s neo-Fascist and neo-Nazi parties, of the Loyalist paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland, of several racist and Holocaust-denying publications and publishing houses, and of neo-Fascist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist leaders from Continental Europe and the United States. The associated Twitter account describes defeating me as “the number one priority for White Nationalists at the next General Election”.

Ninthly, a recent poster campaign in this constituency’s principal town of Consett has endorsed the sitting MP, specifically against me by name, on behalf of every Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyist, Shachtmanite and anarchist organisation in Great Britain and Ireland, and on behalf of every dissident Irish Republican organisation opposed to the peace process. The associated Twitter account predicts that the entire Left will descend on this constituency in order to defeat me, a veteran of the anti-austerity and anti-war movements, and a strong advocate of economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends.

And tenthly, in very marked contrast to the fake death threats confected by my opponents, I am subject to a repeated and active threat to my life, sent from the United States on behalf of the most extreme Zionists and Hindu nationalists, while I am also an outspoken critic of the regime in Saudi Arabia and of this country’s craven relationship with it, and while I am also a campaigner for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from imprisonment in Iran. My candidacy will therefore be opposed as much by Sunni Islamists and by Shia Islamists as by the most extreme Zionists and Hindu nationalists.

Against me, and alongside each other, are Simon Henig and Alison Saunders, Harriet Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange, Oliver Kamm and Tony Blair, neo-Fascists and Stalinists, neo-Nazis and Maoists, racial theorists and Trotskyists, white supremacists and Shachtmanites, Holocaust deniers and anarchists, Loyalist paramilitaries and dissident Irish Republicans, “the heirs of Moshe Sneh” and “the heirs of Nathuram Godse”, the regime in Saudi Arabia and the regime in Iran, Britain’s own Sunni Islamists and Britain’s own Shia Islamists.

Stand against them. Stand with me.

Speak Up

I have spent more than 20 years, since I was (just) still in my teens and had never seen the Internet, trying to get the story out about Harriet Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange. I have paid a terrible journalistic and political price for it, but I have no regrets.

Media that always knew about it simply ignored the whole thing, banning me from their websites and what have you, until a period of no more than two weeks when they needed to distract attention from Patrick Rock. Normal service was rapidly resumed, and it has continued ever since.

And now, the plan is advancing to make Harman the next Speaker of the House of Commons. The only outside chance of stopping that is to put the only person who would dare to mention her past, me, into the House of Commons. Please give generously. Very many thanks.

Decisive Action

Although I am not a member of any political party, I share Jeremy Corbyn’s commitment to economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends. On that basis, I would welcome him as Prime Minister, I welcome the fact that he has already given this country the economic and foreign policy debate that it had lacked entirely for 20 years until his emergence, and I welcome his successful intervention to end the scheme for the social and ethnic cleansing of the London Borough of Haringey.

But if Mr Corbyn was capable of such welcome and decisive action against a Labour council in Haringey, then why has there been none against a Labour council in Durham, which has deprived 472 of its Teaching Assistants of 23 per cent of their pay? At the 2016 Durham Miners’ Gala, Mr Corbyn used his speech to express support for the Teaching Assistants. By 2017, however, the Leader of the Council was seated with him on the platform, despite the previous support of the Durham Miners’ Association for the Teaching Assistants’ cause.

I will contest this seat of North West Durham against Mr Corbyn’s uncritical supporter, Laura Pidcock, who has appointed as her Political Advisor the man whose political advice had already led the Teaching Assistants to humiliation. Justice for the 472 will be a non-negotiable condition of my support for any Government in the hung Parliament that is the most likely outcome of the next General Election.