Luciana Berger is being reminded of her past insincerities and current hypocrisy by her Liverpool Wavertree constituents following her controversial and undemocratic move to join the neolib dems.
She was elected as a Labour Co-op MP. Despite saying she had no intention of joining the Neoliberal Democrats back in June, and strongly denying the media reports of her intentions, Berger has joined the party.
Her dizzying inconsistency is very worrying.
On 21 March, 2015, she said:
“You can’t trust the Lib Dems, no matter what they say.”
And: “Lib Dem attempts to differentiate themselves from the Tories aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Even the Lib Dem’s man in the Treasury Danny Alexander admits the Tories’ record is their own.
“The Lib Dems broke their central election promises and cannot be trusted. Rather than delivering fair taxes they hiked VAT, and rather than abolishing tuition fees they trebled them. The Lib Dems have been part of a government which imposed the bedroom tax while cutting taxes for millionaires.
The election remains a choice between a Tory plan which is failing working families and Labour’s better plan which will put working families first and save our NHS.”
Just 6.5% of Wavertree constituents voted for the Liberal Democrats. Around 12% voted Conservative. Almost 80% voted Labour. The vast majority voted for a Labour MP and Labour policies.
Furthermore, there is already a neolib dem candidate for Wavertree – Richard Kemp.
Yet Berger has the cheek to call the Tories “undemocratic”. They are.
But so are the Neolib Dems. And so is Berger. She was elected as a Labour MP. Now she’s not. But she believes she’s entitled to remain the MP for Wavertree, elected on a manifesto she no longer endorses and supports. A mere 6.5% of her constituents would possibly support her policy approach now. Whatever that is, Berger seems to bend like a blade of grass in the wind.
She seems to have conveniently forgotten her previous blogs and social media posts. She has also seemingly forgotten that the Neolib Dems propped up the Tory austerity programme, endorsed the referendum (agreed in the Coalition’s document of governance), tripled university fees, endorsed the health and social care bill, endorsed the welfare ‘reforms’ and violated the human rights of ill and disabled people, among the many draconian measures drawn up in the coalition.
It’s thought that this referendum pledge poster is from 2008.
I remember when people commonly called Tony Blair’s New Labour “two cheeks of the same Tory a*se”
The remnants of that ideological school demonstrate the basic truth of that so well.
Neoliberalism has failed the majority of people. It’s hurt those citizens who have the very least and hugely profited those who already had the most. Austerity is a central plank of neoliberal economic policy, along with privatisation of public services. It is clear that policies that are prompted by neoliberal ideology are incompatible with democracy and human rights. General Pinochet demonstrated that only too well.
The public would not choose neoliberal policies if those wealthy and powerful groups promoting and imposing them were frank about what they entail.
Administering neoliberal policies requires an authoritarian government.
Berger has demonstrated that she already knows this.
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Politics and Insights 
Ms Berger might be described as a ‘pinball’ politician, boucning from one party to another, perhaps?
The Liberal Democrats seem hardly democratic when their leader wants to seemingly ignore the democratic result of the 2016 Brexit poll.
Surely the clue is in their title ‘democratic.’ Or is this the new order of things, that we vote for things and politicians just do whatever they want and ignore the result? Answers on a postcard.
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To be fair in 1930’s Germany people saw the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party – for sure there was not much socialism to be found there, so the Lib Dems are in good company when it comes to misleading the public..
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They adopted the “socialist” tag to entice working class votes. Once in power, the Nazis murdered socialists, trade unionists, communists, anarchists and the rest of their political opposition. The Nazis were far right fascists and totalitarian.
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Perhaps this new trend in politics where people support things that their own chosen parties and break away to support their position may change the dynamics of the political parties. Chuka Umunna another Labour politician has also changed sides recently.
Clearly Ms Berger and others of her faith have had directed at them some vile abuse of late which is not excusable in any way. Perhaps she now sees the Lib Dems as having an environment that is less caustic and perhaps less ‘nasty’ than what she has left?
I don’t blame her for leaving, the vile hate directed towards her has no place in our so-called civilised society these days, she has to be admired for saying enough is enough and having the courage to leave. It is like working for abusive people, eventually you just have to leave.
Sadly social media is anything but, it seems to me.
We have seen with the SDP and other examples, that breakaway parties rarely work unless they can go beyond 1 issue stances and attract voters from other parties.
Nigel Farage achieved this with UKIP and then with his Brexit party, he attracted the disaffected voters from both sides of the centre and that should be a warning to the main political parties, they may not be able to rely on people voting because they have always voted for that party.
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The hate directed at her didn’t come from within the party. The 4 prosecutions to date have not been party members, they are on the far right of the political spectrum. I don’t endorse abuse of any MP, regardless of their party allegiance. But I also can’t endorse allegations against one group of people that are not founded on empirical evidence. Antisemitism must be addressed, but it must be addressed honestly.We’ve seen a small group of MPs making false allegations – one submitted 200 allegations of antisemitism, some dated back to 2012. She claimed they were “Corbyns supporters”. Investigations, which took up a lot of time, uncovered that of the 200, 180 of those allegations were not related in any way to Labour party members. Of the remaining 20, further investigation into the allegations was needed. Another so-called moderate MP was caught out on film after she made a false claim of a party member’s ‘antisemitism’. Luckily for the member, the alleged incident was captured on film, and the MP had lied about. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. Without evidence, these are ALLEGATIONS, not factual statements.
Luciana Berger will still face abuse on social media. Female MPs are targeted particularly, Diane Abbot especially -partly due to widespread racism in the UK.
The lib dems track record of policies when in coalition and historically shows they are as prejudiced as the Tories. They’re anti-welfare because they believe that poor people should be left unsupported – social Darwinism and a Laissez faire approach to public safety net provision. They think the poor should simply be left to die out. They always have. They endorsed the welfare ‘reforms’ and bedroom tax, for example. Those punitive policies affected disabled people more than any other social group. And ill and disabled people have died prematurely as a direct consequence of those policies. As the UN said, the coalition gravely and systematically violated the basic human rights of ill and disabled people.
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I recently pointed out on Twitter that some MPs have a financial motivation: their lucrative Parliamentary salaries, spurring them to seek becoming career politicians. And they trouser even more money if they’re appointed a minister in the ruling government.
The Lib Dems are quislings, collaborators with the Tories. Their leader approves of austerity, which has killed thousands of vulnerable people. How many sick and disabled people died prematurely, or suffered immensely, because of their support for the bedroom tax?
There’s no mention in your excellent blog piece that Luciana Berger had spoken out against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party as well as Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of Brexit.
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I can’t find evidence of antisemitism in the Labour party, Samuel. The 4 cases that were prosecuted for being extremely abusive to Berger were nothing to do with the Labour party. They were on the far right of the political spectrum. I’ve tackled the topic of alleged antisemitism in the LP elsewhere, which was also published by Jewish Voice for Labour earlier this year. A cross party parliamentary committee found no evidence that there is any more antisemitism in the Labour party than there is in any other party, or within wider society. One MP submitted 200 cases of alleged antisemitism, some dating back to 2012. She claimed the abusers were “Corbyn’s supporters”. However, upon the very time consuming investigation of these 200 cases, 180 were nothing whatsoever to do with party members. Another Labour MP who has since left the party made an allegation of antisemitism, but luckily for the party member accused, the entire incident was captured on film. It was a false allegation.
I don’t condone antisemitism every bit as much as I don’t condone any prejudice. However, I’m sure you can forgive me for being skeptical when those on the right of the party accuse only the left of antisemitism, while at the same time, right leaning Jewish communities and our own journalists have marginalised and tried to discredit those Jewish communities on the left. The subject required an in depth piece, whereas here I wanted to discuss the apparent incompatibility between what Berger has said historically, and what she does and says now. Like all so-called moderates, their common ground is neoliberalism. One central plank of neoliberalism is austerity and the dismantling of social security, the NHS and other social safety nets, as well as privatisation, profit over human need, and elitism.
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The LibDem’s success is inevitable. Bollocks to Brexit works for me. And millions more. Leavers were played in the 2016 referendum in the same way that the “rebel alliance” have now successfully played the Leavers. The difference is that the 2016 campaign was based on lies from top to bottom.
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I voted Remain and don’t want to leave the EU. Yes, the Leave campaign was based on lies and strategic messaging.
However, having a pro-austerity neoliberal government like the so-called lib dems isn’t going to mitigate remaining in the EU, just as it didn’t in 2010-2015. I could NEVER trust the lib dems, and can’t believe people are so foolish to do so.
The lib dems are finished, and will be extinct after the Brexit finale is concluded.
I trust Jeremy Corbyn. That’s it.
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Let’s see. You probably acknowledge that the Labour party have changed since Blair – is it just possible that the LibDems have changed too? They will certainly not be extinct – and the only sensible conclusion to brexshit is to kill it off. It’s dying now, anyway.
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My point throughout the piece is that the neoliberals have not changed at all, hence neoliberal Blairites and Tories feeling at home in the party. I want to see an end to Brexit at least as much as you. I’m a seriously ill person who cannot access my essential medications because of “Brexit related issues”. I posted about it and was called a “scaremonger”. But because I have missed some of my treatment, I’m ill. My blood platelet count has plummeted, leaving me at risk of haemorrhage or bleeding to death. I’m rankly scared, not just for myself, but for all the other people whose life-preserving medications may not be available to them because of this madness.
Regardless of partisan politics, I hope we both get our wish regarding the EU, Chris.
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Reblogged this on Declaration Of Opinion.
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She’s just a carpetbagger.
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Lmao this sucks dude
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Just heard that she is going to be contesting the Finchley & Golders Green seat at the next election – where ‘she who shall not be named’ was MP.. She will be up against a very good Labour candidate, so it will not be as easy as she thinks it’ll be.. My CLP is ‘next door’ & we will be pitching in to support the Labour candidate’s campaign.. We need no further motivation!
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