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The idea is to give the voters a choice - between red Tweedledee and blue Tweedledum.

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Labour will unfortunately win the next General Election, and will face the same problem that the Conservatives had when they took over from Labour twelve long years ago - a Treasury empty of funds. They will then seek to redress the balance via tax increases, regardless of the fact that the higher the tax percentage, the less that is raised, however, that is two years off and Truss may just pull the “rabbit out off the hat” and stifle Starmer’s victory March.

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Perhaps the ‘least worst option’ argument or justification warrants in depth scrutiny to help people like me/us reconcile the conflicts we feel in the lead in to the next election and to help decide what the best voting option might look like locally

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The historic inability of the liberal-capitalist model in both the UK and the U.S. to credibly accommodate programs to move toward social justice and greater economic equality is a failure that truly threatens the viability of both countries.

As has been noted, the current sanctions being placed on Russia are boomeranging back in the EU and North America in a big way. Russia is no longer a communist State, and China is keeping the State above the economic strata that is using capitalist transactions to generate revenues.

Meanwhile the liberal-capitalist model has morphed into a vacuous ethos, friendly to oligarchs and fascists, and full of contempt for the working populace. Two-thirds of the global population want nothing to do with this system, and that same portion of the world appear to be closer in perspective and dealings with both Russia and China.

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Looks like we are paying twice for high energy, first in high prices then as taxpayers repaying the cost of the cap.

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Sep 22, 2022Liked by Jonathan Cook

Another incisive piece Jonathan, thanks.

I take a slightly firmer line on ‘left wing’ than you allude to at end of your article:

“(Starmer) has legitimised the right’s discourse that left-wing politics is inherently subversive, unpatriotic and treasonous.”

To be left wing is to openly subvert capitalism. Patriotism in this age is unequivocally integral to rising fascism and anti-worker politics. It remains the last resort of Samuel Johnson’s scoundrel. Better the call of Marx that workers know no country. British working class fighters need to be constantly reminded of the strength of international solidarity. As for treason, one need only look at the long history of working class battlers tortured and murdered for ‘ treason’ to encourage its embrace: Tolpuddle martyrs, Joe Hill, Karl Liebkneckt, Rosa Luxembourg, Salvador Allende, Patrice Lumumba and perhaps closer to today’s crisis, Jeremy Corbyn and Julian Assange, both variously accused of treason. To reject Starmer is to embrace the destruction of capitalist thinking and promote the socialist alternative without apology or fear.

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Resist Movement are joining The Socialist Labour Party to provide an alternative to our hopeless Zionist-leaning Labour Party

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