Grace Lavery versus three gender critical writers.

This is my reaction to Grace Lavery's review of books by Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce and Julie Bindel found here

Grace Lavery begins with a quote from Frances Power Cobbe "we must not fall into the absurdity of supposing that all women can be adapted to one single type, or that we can talk about ‘Woman,’ (always to be written with a capital W) as if the same characteristics were to be found in every individual species,”. Lavery claims this to be arguing "that the category “women” was a legal fiction that empowered men to deprive a class of their fellow human beings of legal and civil rights". If you read the essay you will find that Cobbe is simply saying there are many ways to be female. While Cobbe's feminist views are a thread that runs through the entire text, promoting the legal and civil rights of women is not the purpose of the essay. The "Final Cause of Woman" of the tittle is service to God and in her essay her purpose in considering the many ways to be a woman is reject all beyond that one. It's possible to infer that she envisaged the ways to serve God open to women should be as diverse as those available to men but she was not writing feminist theory.

That Lavery's interpretation of Cobbe's essay has so little relation to that essay is a warning to treat the rest of what she writes with caution.

Lavery follows up with a quote from Simone de Beauvoir. That is a more promising source for Lavery as Simone de Beauvoir was an existentialist and as such influenced by the ideas of Martin Heidegger who also influenced postmodernism and Queer Theory.

"The existence of heterogenetic gametes alone does not necessarily mean there are two distinct sexes; the differentiation of reproductive cells often does not bring about a division of the species into two types: both can belong to the same individual. This is true of hermaphroditic species, so common in plants, and also in many invertebrates, among which are the annulates and mollusks. Reproduction takes place either by self-fertilization or by cross-fertilization. Some biologists use this fact to claim the justification of the established order. They consider gonochorism—that is, the system in which the different gonads belong to distinct individuals—as an improvement on hermaphroditism, realized by evolution; others, by contrast, consider gonochorism primitive: for those biologists, hermaphroditism would thus be its degeneration. In any case, these notions of superiority of one system over another involve highly contestable theories concerning evolution. All that can be affirmed with certainty is that these two means of reproduction coexist in nature, that they both perpetuate species, and that the heterogeneity of both gametes and gonad-producing organisms seems to be accidental. The differentiation of individuals into males and females thus occurs as an irreducible and contingent fact."

Grace Lavery is not entirely wrong in interpreting this as an attempt to downplay biological sex. And it is true that it doesn't follow that a species where the gametes differ in size having small and large gametes will always have two sexes ( gonochorism) - that is individuals who bodies develop to support small gametes and others large. However that is true of all mammals so, sorry Lavery, we can use the fact of sexual dimorphism as a basis for the sexual classification of individuals or groups at least as far as mammals are concerned. That doesn't mean we shouldn't resist some of the conclusions that may be drawn from that reality. de Beauvoir doesn't say who were the biologists claiming from that justification of the established order nor what aspect of that established order might have been their focus. When de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, women had only had the vote for four years and if those biologists were advocating the right to vote should be allotted on the basis of biological sex then the relevance of sex needed to be opposed. If the issue is, as now, whether there should be female only categories of sport or female only prisons the relevance of sex is much much greater.

It is striking how completely Lavery fails to give the reader of her review (at least that is what it self identifies to be) any real impression of the contents of those books. She doesn't provide counter arguments to the arguments put forward in the three books, I suspect because to do so she would have to tell her readers what those arguments were. Lavery states "Strange, given the ubiquity and ferocity of “gender identity theory,” that Stock cannot find a single philosophical source for this “philosophical theory.”" What Lavery seems to be demanding of Stock is to produce a philosophical tome filled with as much jargon as Judith Butler as a contribution to a philosophical debate on reality that has been going on for some three centuries. Instead Stock is dealing with the arguments that are being advanced to justify changing the law so that legal sex is defined solely on the basis of someone's self identification. That involves her taking the whole chapter "What is sex" to refute the arguments that claim that the idea of what a woman/man is not related to biology. That does involve her mentioning such philosophers as Monique Wittig but she covers them in no more detail than needed for current debates.

Lavery is of course entitled to claim that Stock has reduced the arguments to strawman versions and provide instead the steelman versions. But that would entail Lavery revealing her own point of view which she avoids doing. She accuses Stock of misunderstandingg Butler (or misrepresenting?) quoting not from Stocks text but the subtittle: "Judith Butler, gender-critical enemy number one, shows up only to “tel[l] us gender is a performance”—a laughable misreading of Butler’s sense of the “performative” that snags many a first-year undergraduate, but should surely be within the grasp of the first philosopher since J. L. Austin to be entered into the Order of the British Empire." Lavery doesn't tell us what she thinks the correct interpretation is but her suggestion that first-year undergraduates are barely up to the task of understanding these ideas demonstrates the elitism of this movement. If you are confused as to why males should be allowed to compete in women's sport or why teenagers should be given opposite sex hormones without regard for their long term quality of life it is because you are not a professor in Gender Studies, Philosophy or English Literature.

Laws and public policy are made on the basis of ideas that are crafted to be beyond democratic debate and Lavery's review illustrates this.

It’s not democratic to drag Britain out of the EU without a final say

Broken promises

Let’s face in, politicians tell lies and when the don’t they spin. Even when they tell the truth a rival may deem it to be a lie. But in a normal election we can punish them for their lies at the next election. Brexiteers said Britain held all the cards and that the remaining EU countries would be falling over themselves to give us a good deal. Instead they have stood solidly behind remaing Ireland over Britain and chose to protect the integrity of the single market over trade with Britain. It’s time now to put those Brexiteer promises to the democratic test of a second referendum.

Not the same question

In 2016 the Brexiteers weren’t asked to present their plan. They used that to offer different kinds of Brexit to different groups of us. Now we know the reality. There’s Theresa May’s deal and there’s crashing out with nodeal. No one in 2016 knew what kind of deal would be negotiated in 2016. We know now. No Brexiteers were talking about nodeal in 2016. We now know is their preferred option. We have not had a say on those two options which is why to drag us out without us having say on the reality of Brexit would be a betrayal of democracy. All three options should be on the ballot paper and we’d be a second choice so we could choose between the two with the most votes if our first choice came last.

Neverendum?

A confirmatory referendum means that the legislation will already have been voted through by parliament. That legislation would include a clause that it would only come into effect if it was approved by a vote of the people. The result would be mandatory and implemented without further legislation.

What has been done by a referendum must be undone by a referendum

I’ve joined nearly six million signing the petition for revoking article 50 but that for me is very much on the understanding that it would be endorsed with a referendum. There is a strong feeling that it would be best to just end this madness and just forget the last few years ever happened. The Brexitometers organized by Remainers show roughly as much support for just cancel as for a second referendum. But to do so would in my opinion be a mistake.
What has been done by a referendum can only be undone by a referendum. That the first was marred by illegality with Putin putting his thumb on the scales for leave strengthens the case for another referendum but doesn’t change that to simply pretend it never happened would be undemocratic.
On top of that, just canceling would open the way for a future Bexit PM simply pulling us out to the EU without a referendum. The ERG have one third of the Tory parliamentary party - that is all they need to get their candidate into the final round of a leadership contest. The majority of the Tory membership are already backing a no deal Brexit. So the next leader of the Tory party is going to be a hardline NoDeal Brexiteer. As Britain has a First Past the Post there is every chance that eventually they will get their person into Number 10. However extreme the Tories become, the tendency of supporters to stick with their traditional party along with the way in a two party system that people will vote for one of the two parties to punish one of the parties despite misgivings about the other - Trump’s election should be proof of that.
And if that happens, by canceling Article 50 without a referendum we will have made their aim of dragging us out of the EU so much easier.

The Prisoners Dilemma facing the sane members of Parliament over Brexit

It is clear that Theresa May can’t get her deal through parliament. It’s clear that Jeremy Corbyn can’t get his General Election nor can he get his Customs Union Brexit. That should leave a Peoples Vote with a Remain option as the only alternative.
Yet both the deals of Corbyn and May stagger on in a zombie like existence allowing both Labour and Tory MPs to pretend they are avoiding the catastrophe of nodeal. Surely the Tory MPs especially have to be blind not to see that, after May backed the Brady amendment, May has thrown her lot in with the nodeal Brexiteers.
Sane Tory MPs do have a real problem. The Tory party membership now has a nodeal majority and the successor to Theresa May will almost certainly come from the ERG wing of the party. Any Tory MPs can forget about holding a ministerial post and will likely face deselection. We can tell them that they should country before career but their calculation will be quite different if their stand could actually bring about a peoples vote or merely be a symbolic vote that will only serve to open them up to revenge from the Brexiteer Tory membership. For them to do the right thing they need to be sure that enough other MPs who might be contemplating the same step are willing to break cover. So far only eight have had the nerve to do so.
For Labour the calculations are quite different. The membership is overwhelmingly remain and Labour is far better placed to attract remain voters. Given that there has been a significant swing to remain among the electorate, only those in especially strongly leave voting areas have anything to fear. Not surprisingly many more Labour MPs have come out in favor of a Peoples Vote. However, really a Peoples vote is going to need an overwhelming majority of Labour MPs and its hard to see that happening unless Corbyn swings behind a Peoples Vote. For Corbyn the problem is slightly different from that of moderate Tory MPs. It’s difficult to be sure but his inclinations are most likely for leave and possibly for a nodeal Brexit but given the membership of his party it is imperative for him to avoid having his fingerprints on the outcome. If all Labour Party MPs voted for a Peoples vote then with the current Tory supporters it would scrape hope - barely. So it is possible to argue that if no deal happens it will because Labour let it happen. However there will inevitably be some Labour MPs who will vote against a Peoples Vote even if Corbyn backs it so that seems to let Corbyn off the hook.

There are about twenty perhaps thirty Tory MPs who plausibly could come out in favor of a Peoples Vote. If just fifteen of them joined those who already publicly back a Peoples Vote, Corbyn would be exposed as enabling Brexit if he didn’t then come off the fence. But will they have the nerve to take the risk when Corbyn may stay firmly on the fence no matter what? The situation lacks the symmetry of the Prisoners Dilemma but it has the same catch-22 feel. The sane Tory MPs risk burning their boats for nothing unless enough of their fellows plus Corbyn do so. And unless those MPs take the risk, Corbyn can escape the blame for all that ensues.
But Corbyn really doesn’t risk a great deal in backing a Peoples Vote so by not acting first he shares the greater guilt.
What we can do to change things is to keep on doing what we are doing, campaigning for a Peoples Vote and the advantages of staying in the European Union. The clearer it becomes that Britain has changed its mind, the easier it becomes for the Tory MPs to back a Peoples Vote and the greater the pressure on Corbyn to get off the fence. And while time is running out that also helps us in that the closer we get to March the 29th the greater the fear of the catastrophe that will be nodeal will concentrate the minds of the sane Tories.

Proportional Representation and how the rise of Trump highlights the Achilles heel of First Past the Post democracies

An old argument against Proportional Representation was that PR would allow extremists and Nazis to get elected. With Trump’s election that should be dead. One of the USA’s two main political parties now has denying voters that they suspect of being likely to vote for the other party as its main electoral strategy. It has relied on gerrymandering up till now to keep control of the House of Representatives. While the size of the popular vote for Democrats was large enough, this time, to overcome gerrymandering, Republicans, solely through gerrymandering, continue to control the assemblies of many states, despite losing the popular vote. On issues such as gun control and health care the Republican hold positions that in a normal democracy would place them in the lunatic fringe of the hard right. If you want to find an equivalent to the British Conservative Party don’t look for it in the Republican Party - look for it on the right of the Democratic Party.
First Past the Post does make it almost impossible for extremists to get elected but the two party monopoly that it produces makes political systems that rely on it uniquely vulnerable should one party of the duopoly be captured by an extremist movement. That the Democratic Party draws support from everyone from socialists like newly elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to conservatives like David Frum is not a strength - no party can meaningfully bridge such a wide divide. Sadly, simply being the party of sane people is not a platform and hence it is the more focused Republicans that control two and half of the USA’s three branches of government.
In Britain, Theresa May with her deep hostility to immigrants represents a huge step from the traditional conservatism of David Cameron towards that of today’s Republicans but the real danger is that Brexit will open up to extremist capture in the form Rees-Mogg. In normal times Rees-Mogg would fail to survive the vote of Conservative MPs to be one of the two candidates put to the party membership. But these are not normal times and he would be a strong favorite in any contest among the membership. As leader of the Conservatives Rees-Mogg would have the majority of British voters against him. But with the electorate divided between Labour, Lib-Dems, Greens and nationalists he wouldn’t need a majority - thanks to First Past the Post.
Proportional Representation does reduce the initial barrier to extremist parties but allows the sane parties to better oppose the extremists because they are not forced in an unnatural unity.
The Achilles heel of First Past the Post is extremist capture of one of the two main parties and that danger should put Proportional Representation on the agenda of both Britain and the US.

Britain alone like before the EU? When was that?

The British nation state is a myth. Before Britain joined the EU there was not a British nation state but the British Empire.
First off, it was a large trading bloc. Though the British Empire was not a customs Union, still less a true single market, the imperial preference became important as Britain abandoned free trade as a result of the First World War. In the trade wars of the thirties trade within the Empire and Commonwealth became even more important with imports from within the bloc rising to over 40%. When that bloc collapsed the safe harbor that Britain immediately set sail for sail for was the then Common Market. And 1940 Britain did not “stand alone” - the war against Nazi Germany depended on Canadian, Indian and African troops. It is a dangerous illusion that Britain can ignore what happens on mainland Europe. If Putin succeeds in his aim to prize apart NATO and the European Union, in the future Britain and faces a hostile power across the channel , Britain will be truly alone in a way that it never was in 1940. Even the USA, in 1940, will be in grip of Putin’s ally Trump.
It is a dangerous illusion to think that after Brexit, Britain can go it alone, because we never really have.

Rees-Mogg's amendment to the Checkers deal Britains makes crashing out of the EU, with no deal, inevitable.

A key part of the Checkers deal was that the UK would collect tariffs and VAT on goods on behalf of the EU. The EU 27 has made it clear that under no circumstances would the EU do the same for a Britain outside the EU. By accepting the Rees-Mogg amendment that UK should only do this if the EU reciprocates means Britain will go into the negotiations committed to something which it is clear will be rejected. Rees-Mogg has pretended that he would prefer that Britain should leave with a deal but this amendment makes it clear that his aim all along is to crash out of the EU with no deal. This opens the way to a trade deal with the US which, while Trump is president, will inevitably lead to a bonfire of environmental protections and safety regulations. That Theresa May has agreed to that amendment even though she must know that any further negotiations with the EU will be a pointless farce heading for an inevitable breakdown indicates that for her retaining the office of Prime Minister has become an end in itself. Theresa May caves in to hardline Brexiters' demands

What happens when Stalinists get their wish

During Stalin’s rule a district party conference was being held in Moscow Province with the new secretory of the district presiding. New, that is because the former secretary had been arrested. At the end of the conference the new secretary proposed a round of applause for Comrade Stalin. Everyone of course leaped to their feet and began clapping. The applause was thunderous and long lasting. When it had lasted ten minutes people were becoming exhausted especially those standing on the platform. Unlike those at the back they could not ease up or take a surreptitious breather being watched by everyone including the agents of the NKVD. Finally one of those on the platform, a director of a paper factory came to decision and sat down and at that instant everyone else followed him. The factory director was arrested that night. The pretext had nothing to do with the meeting but when he signed the final interrogation document his interrogator told him “Never be the first to stop applauding”.

Recently there has been a growth on the number for whom the shock value of being a supporter has appeal. As this story is told by Solzhenitsyn they will dismiss it as right wing propaganda but this is the kind of thing that rule by terror inevitably leads to. If anyone opposing a regime is going to be imprisoned or executed, opponents of that regime will begin to use more subtle ways of signaling their dissent. They will use ambiguous Aesopian language. They may even choose to be first to stop clapping as their way of making a protest.
The numbers who now carry portraits of Stalin are too few for there to be a serious danger of them taking power but I assume that they are not just trolls - that they really want to live under the rule of some future Stalin. I ask them are they really ready for the dull conformity that life under such rule requires - assuming that is that you wish to survive.

To defeat Brexit we need pro-Corbyn pro-EU people

The #pcpeu (pro-Corbyn pro-EU) hashtag is currently swamped with tweets hostile to Corbyn and Corbyn remainers.

Reality check:
There is no evidence that Corbyn’s base among the membership of the Labour Party as wavered one iota. Those members who criticize Corbyn are those who have always been critical.
Labour remain voters are solidly sticking with Labour. If you look at the map of London wards won in pre-coalition 2010 and compare it with the results last week it is striking how the Lib-Dem revival is confined to outer London. There has been a miniscule recovery of the Liberal Democrats in the heavily remain inner London Labour boroughs. The only encouraging signs were Lib-Dem gains in Haringey and the success of the Greens in gaining 5 seats in super-remain Lambeth. Perhaps in the long run the Greens could cut into Labour support in inner London but we don’t have the long run if we want to defeat Brexit.

We have a year to defeat Brexit. Any scenario that sees us staying in the EU must involve Labour. If the swing against Brexit grows especially if we see formerly Labour Leave areas switching it will be more clearly in the interests of the Labour Party, say, to swing behind a Peoples Vote on the final deal. Corbyn opposed Brexit during the referendum and most probably he is simply agnostic on the whole issue. He can be pushed into taking an anti-Brexit line again. That would be greatly helped if a large section of his supporters are calling for him to make that stand. That’s why pro-Corbyn pro-EU are an essential part of our defeating Brexit.

That doesn't mean that Remainers should not criticize Corbyn. We certainly should be directing fire on Corbyn’s advisors such as Seamus Milne who there is good reason to believe has a hard line anti-EU position. But hostility to pro-Corbyn remainers is simply suicidal. If we ask them to choose they will choose Corbyn over the EU.

Those attacking pro-Corbyn remainers seem to me to be falling into the same trap that Corbyn supporters have so often been accused of. That is they care more about being numbered amongst the “virtuous few” than actually changing reality.

So please explain to me a realistic scenario in which Brexit is defeated without the Labour Party?

Karl Popper, Marx, and the Assad regime's war on its people

At the moment I am reading Karl Popper. I wasn’t expecting much relevance to our current situation but Popper’s description of Marx’s view of the state seems to explain the dogmatic rejection of any possibility of Western intervention to end the killing of civilians in Syria.

Lets concede that any intervention by outsiders is fraught with danger. Not knowing the situation, outside interventionists may produce all manner of unintended consequences. But that is simply a reason for insisting a humanitarian intervention should have strictly limited aims. It should aim to end political violence but should be entirely neutral in its dealing with local actors and be content to accept whatever politics emerges in the space that the freedom from violence creates. The interventions that we have seen over the last few years have often diverged from that ideal and I would argue that the success of such interventions falls markedly the more such interventions have tried to go beyond limited aims.

When someone criticizes an intervention it can be from two points of view. First it can be argued that the intervention was implemented in a bad way. Looking at it in that way leads to an examination of what went wrong and how interventions in future could avoid such mistakes. The alternative is to oppose intervention on principle. This is to argue that all interventions will make the situation worse no matter what the circumstances. One result of the second view is that it makes any criticism of the way an intervention is implemented pointless. For example, every thing that went wrong with the Iraq invasion arose directly from the decision of George Bush to invade. Criticism of the competence of how Bush and his administration acted becomes irrelevant because according to this view a competent implementation could not have improved the situation. By framing it that way it has the effect deflecting all criticism of Bush’s policy in Iraq beyond the invasion decision itself.
So what has this got to do with Marx? Marx’s view of the state (Chapter 17 of Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies) was that it was determined by the underlying economic conditions. The state in a capitalist society is a superstructure, an expression of the underlying capitalist nature, and hence is a bourgeois state. For a revolutionary movement this is a convenient position. It is pointless to attempt to implement reforms by means of the existing state. Nothing can be achieved until capitalism is overthrown in a socialist revolution and only then when the underlying economic structure of society has become socialist will the state cease to be a bourgeois state.

The view, that the state on the international stage is inevitably an imperialist state pursuing the naked interests of its capitalist class, is a special case of the idea of a bourgeois state. At the core of Stop the war Coalition are members of Marxist organizations and it makes sense that they should hold this view. However, the view of the state as essentially bourgeois, that is imperialist, as soon as it starts to act beyond its borders extends to many who do not in any way consider themselves Marxist. Most who use the slogan No War For Oil take it for granted that, on the domestic front, democratic governments are subject to control of their citizens but slogan essentially implies that democratic accountability fails once the same state becomes an international actor.

Why do are many progressive people seem content to let the Assad regime continue to kill its own people? Why are those same progressives only spurred into action when Western States begin to consider halfhearted action to prevent this? The continuing influence of Marx’s ideas seems to me to be at least part of the explanation.

We won't win Leave voters over by calling them fools for believing the 350million-a-week for the NHS pledge.

Telling people that they are fools and have been lied to is never going to win them over. That’s why complaining about the 350million-a-week for the NHS lie may make us Remainers feel good but it won’t help us stop Brexit. Rather we should use that promise against the Brexit clique to win over Leave voters. Lets make our campaign for a second referendum include the demand that that referendum include an option for staying in the EU along side a binding commitment for 350 million extra for the NHS paid for with a tax on those sectors of the economy that are going to suffer as the result of Brexit.

The Conservative Party's circumventing of electoral law is a step in a dark direction

Notwithstanding Theresa May’s hand in had walk with Trump and her hostility towards immigration she is clearly not a Trump. But Trump did come out of the blue. Packing of the supreme court has ensured that the normal election expenses rules that is essential to the functioning of normal democracies have been outlawed. This has ensured that elected representatives are so beholden to their donors that they have little legitimacy. The gutting of the voting rights act, the great achievement of the civil rights movement of the sixties, has opened the way to a myriad of voting suppression tactics. All it needs is to look at maps of many states with grotesque voting districts to see that crude gerrymandering of the kind that in a real democracy would result in prison terms to realize that American democracy was flawed well before Trump.

The election fraud revealed by channel four is not on the scale that is normal in the USA. But the threat to democracies today is not from crude military coups but a gradual process of democratic backsliding in which the path to authoritarian rule is taken in baby steps.

British government hard line on Brexit talks = failure of the Brexit negotiations.

We have been hearing for years that what’s wrong with the EU is that it is a political project. If only, they have been saying, it stuck to just being a free trade agreement. Of course, European Unity has never been simply about free trade- its main aim is to ensure that there is never again a war in Europe – an essentially political aim. In that it has succeeded – wars have occurred withing the geographical region of Europe (Bosnia, Ukraine) but only beyond the borders of the EU. Now, however, everything has changed. The Brexiters now tell us that the EU needs Britain as a trading partner and for this reason will be forced to accept a deal favorable to Britain so long as Theresa May stands firm.
The truth is the reverse. The remaining EU leaders see no reason to give Britain the economic benefits of membership if she is no longer wants to be part of the political project. They would like to keep good relations with Britain. They are aware that many voters still wish to be part of the EU and even after exit there is the hope that a future government may again seek membership. But the truth is that they aren’t that bothered. If Theresa thinks that being a bloody difficult woman is a good negotiating strategy she will discover that the EU leaders will decide they have better things to do than trying to get an agreement with a British government lacking any wish to compromise. The result will be Britain crashing out to the EU with no deal. But perhaps the extreme Brexiters with their ultra free-market dogma want just such an outcome with the possibility of a zero regulation bargain basement Britain?

Theresa May's post-fact call for an election

It is breathtaking how many untruths May packed into her statement calling a snap election. To take one example:

At this moment of enormous national significance there should be unity here in Westminster, but instead there is division. The country is coming together, but Westminster is not.

This is only a few weeks after 100,000 marched for Europe in London on the 25th of March along with many others in other parts of Britain. This is the largest show of support for the EU that there has ever been in Britain. The opposition to Brexit, on the other hand in parliament has been spineless.

Yet listening to Theresa May saying such things with such conviction it is very hard to credit that what she says is not the absolute truth. All politicians spin, they bend the truth to be more favorable to themselves and, let's be honest, so do we all. However to say things that are so divorced from reality so shamelessly is a feature of populist authoritarianism. It works because the human mid is simply overwhelmed by the size of the whopper being told. It takes a supreme effort to realize that it isn't true.

Grammar Schools and the unequal future Britain faces in Brexit

Among the many things that shows Theresa May's promise that Brexit will be fairer to be a lie is the government's to re-establish grammar schools across England. The evidence is that selective education largely benefits the better-off. Justine Greening, however, thinks that will change by moving the focus of education policy away from targeting the most disadvantaged households. Seriously? To move the focus away from the most disadvantaged who also have the least chance now is going to transform grammar schools into conveyor belts of social mobility?

But lets for a moment imagine that grammar schools could become engines of social mobility enabling the brightest and best from working class communities to reach university - what would be the result? It would mean that those communities would be deprived of of their most able members so leaving those communities less able to organize for their rights. In short greater social mobility would be at the cost of greater inequality for those who would be left behind.

But of course, grammar schools are not some Tory party to undermine working class communities by siphoning of those with the most enterprise so co-opting potential trouble makers. Instead it is a way of ensure government spending on education preferentially goes to the children of the Tory base - those already privileged.

Nonetheless it is worth keeping in mind that more grammar schools would make Britain more unfair even were they to work in the way the government claims.

Welcome to brave new Brexit-Britain.

The new Supreme Court judge exposes the brutal reality behind the authoritarian populism of Trump

If you didn't follow the nomination of Niel Gorsuch the newly sworn in justice of the US supreme court check out the case of Alphonse Maddin, the truck driver, who was sacked because he detached the trailer from the cab and then drove the cab to somewhere he could warm up. When Maddin made that choice the temperature in the cab had fallen to 14 degrees below zero, and not that was not Centigrade but Fahrenheit. The law in the US protects a worker who refuses to operate a vehicle but Gorsuch chose to define vehicle as the cab alone (the trailer had frozen brakes) hence he came up with the idea that Maddin had been sacked for refusing to not operate the vehicle. Essentially he twisted the law to say that a worker has to be ready to lay down his life to protect the cargo he is delivering in order to avoid being sacked.
That such an extreme pro-corporation stance should be a selling point for Trump puts into sharp relief the extent that Trump will push the interests of those of his class rather than the downtrodden he claims to represent. It also shows the Republic Party as a whole who voted for Gorsuch unanimously to be the party not of conservatism but reaction.
But the fairer Brexit of Theresa May is just as much a lie. That Brexit will mean an assault on the rights of employees can be seen by the determination with which the government is defending the hike in fees for Employment tribunals. It is a pretty clear signal that a government which undermines the enforcement of employment rights will trash them once the Brexit Henry the 8th clause gives them carte blanche to trash those rights.

EU-friendly local authorities - a way of breaking thought the media blackout.

Anyone who was at there on March the 25th, the biggest pro-EU march there has ever been in Britain, knows we can stop Brexit. But with the media taking on a herd mentality of the inevitability of Brexit which means excluding voices resistance and remain voters are chosen to be those who are depressed and acquiescent.
CND faced a similar problem 35 years ago and came with a number of inventive ways to their issue on the agenda. One of these was getting local authorities to declare themselves as nuclear free zones. That idea is easily adaptable to the struggle for Europe. Getting local authorities to declare themselves as EU-friendly districts (or whatever) provides a local focus for local activist groups and success would send a clear message to both the media and the local MPs. As important it would encourage fellow remainers that it is still worth fighting Brexit. Most valuable of all would be for us to win over local authorities in areas that at the time of the referendum voted leave.

Gibraltar and Brexit

Anyone paying attention would have known that Brexit was going to be bad for Gibraltar. Hence the sudden outrage of the Brexiters on behalf of Gibraltar is extremely hypocritical. It is true that for the 27 to raise the issue shows that a friendly breakup is not an overarching priority - why would anyone think it would be (though note -it is the Brexiters not Spain who are raising the issue of sovereignty)? However, the bellicose reaction of the Brexiters (literally bellicose in the case of Howard) shows them to using Gibraltar as a pawn to ensure their aim of a car-crash Brexit - that is to crash out of the EU with no deal. A car-crash deal will leave them free to strip away "red tape". Red tape is of course workers rights, safety rules and the protection of the environment. Thus they hope to achieve their dream of a bargain-basement Britain in which a narrowly defined liberty benefits rogue-corporations at the expense of everyone else including more responsible business leaders.

Learning the things that a EU activist needs to know about employment rights (Institute of Employment Rights meeting)

When looking at how people voted the 64% voting leave of C2 AND DE voters makes them a key group whose concerns we need to take on board if we are to build sufficiently large majority against Brexit to stop it. That’s why I went to the Institute of Employment Rights meeting last night on Brexit and Employment Rights.
It is a pity that they don’t record their meetings as so many good points were made many of which I no longer recall.
Martin Smith began outlining the casualization of many peoples jobs. He drew attention to how the problem is far greater than normally recognized. I of course had heard of zero hours contracts but not of how many have contracts that guarantee so few hours that they might as well be on a zero hours contract. This was a key problem for us during the referendum. Not because Europe itself is to blame - as someone said later in zero-hours contracts are very much a British problem. The trouble is that telling people that Brexit risks Trades Union Rights doesn’t cut much ice with people whose jobs are so precarious that any kind of employment rights is a dead letter.
Sandy Fredman then outlined how unions uniting across borders at the Europe level had been key in gaining many rights. From on I find it difficult to recall who said what. A whole host of examples of employment rights under threat were given. This is the list of the rights (wholly or partially sent to me after the meeting proof of employment terms, protection for fixed term workers, protection for part time workers, protection for agency workers, maternity rights,parental leave, discrimination law, equal pay, health and safety, tupe (that’s basically the transfer of the rights of workers when they are transferred to a new employer), information and consultation, collective redundancy consultation, european works councils, protection of wages in event of employer insolvency. Even if they don’t all lapse immediately on Brexit many will survive only as statutory instruments (which can be removed on the whim of the government) and many rest on rulings of the European Court of Justice which Theresa May has made it her priority to remove us from.
The next speaker did bring up some things that were less comfortable for a Europhile like myself such as the  Viking and Laval cases. No, I hadn’t heard of those two either before yesterday. He did concede that Trades Unions in Britain were not the most seriously harmed by them (if I remember correctly because things were already so bad that the cases didn’t make things much worse). However, my quick reading on the Laval case does make me think that the kind of solutions we need to protect both local workers and the right of free movement of people (eg insisting that wages given to migrants match locally negotiated rates) might be harder.
Then there were questions. I had a question but most of the questions were speeches so I time was quickly running out. I can’t complain - normally my questions are really speeches - this is the part of the meeting when those who are not on the platform get their say. Of course, we had a Socialist Party guy tell us what wonderful thing Brexit was and how it was a great defeat for the establishment - frankly delusional.
More typical was the guy who said he didn’t love the EU but had voted remain because of all the threats to workers rights that had been outlined by the speakers. The two who did put a for-Europe point of view (rather than simply seeing Brexit as a bad thing) were Nicola Countouris and Sandy Fredman. Nicola Countouris emphasized the positive aspects original aim of building a Federal and that this had been pressure from British governments that undermined that and the social rights that went with that. Sandy Fredman was eloquent in denouncing how “the people have decided” was both authoritarian and undemocratic.

But the meeting was then over and I never got chosen to pose my question - so I went up to the platform and asked anyway. “What do the pro-Europe groups need to take on board in relation to workers rights”. The person I asked came back with “Your group is trying to stop Brexit or just a soft Brexit?” “Stop Brexit altogether if we can - soft Brexit is plan B.”
“You should go for soft Brexit.” Having just marched with 100,000 people in largest pro-EU march there has ever been in Britain I wasn’t going to be convinced to give up on staying in Europe just yet. I knew his point of view. During the meeting he had explained that while he had voted remain he saw now prospect of the Labour party winning a general election on the basis of staying in. I don’t see any prospect of Labour winning on a pro Brexit platform which will see them losing shed loads of votes to the Lib-Dems. But what will change his mind is if he sees the pro-Europe groups showing staying power and us winning over more people to remain - not anything I might have said so I moved things back on what I knew better than I workers rights. And I get the list of key workers rights dependent on the EU that I quoted above.

But the most useful think I took away from the meeting was what someone had said earlier. The key to undercutting hostility towards migrants is sector wide negotiation of wages and conditions binding on all firms in that sector. Or to frame in our terms in which Brexit is not a done deal. It’s the key to winning people over to the value of the EUs free movement of people .

Opposing Trump - Opposing Brexit

Why Theresa May is pandering to Trump

Theresa May’s negotiating position means that it will next to impossible for a Brexit deal with the EU that allows Britain to remain part of the single market. Along with tha will be exclusion from the deals that the EU has made with 55 other countries. Even membership of the WTO is not guaranteed. Britain has the benefits of the WTO regime due to its membership of the EU and its immediate admission as a member in its own right is not automatic.
However the US has a GDP only slightly less than that of the EU so a trade deal with the US would be a big consultation prize.

Deals with Trump do not end well

The treatment of the students of the former Trump “university” and his refusal to ensure that he is free from conflicts of interest do not bode well for the honesty of the Trump Presidency. Trump words are hostile to trade deals and with the the killing off of the Trans Pacific Partnership so are his actions. Trump doesn’t grasp the idea of win-win. May may well find that any deal that suits Trump will be a scam.

Endorsing Trump is a Gamble

Trump has little tolerance for dissent and shows no respect for the law courts. The 2016 election was marked with major voter suppression. Trump’s choice for Attorney General Jeff Sessions is signal that he intends to make it even harder for Americans to exercise their right to vote.
On the other hand, Trump is already breaking records for unpopularity. Demonstrations and small scale protests are intensifying.
The future of America is unpredictable – a Putin style suppression of democracy or a lurch in favor of a reform government that will undo everything that Trump has done are both possibilities. Tying Britain’s future to the fate of a regime that may be short lived and equally may move in a direction that violates our values – both British and American is reckless. But Brexit narrows Britain’s options especially if we follow May in excluding ourselves from the single market. To take the side of those Americans opposing Trump we need to take a stand against the anti-EU path Theresa May has chosen.