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Ulster Voice Says … Defend Public Services!

• CHECK OUT these previous Ulster Voice e-posters:

Ulster Voice Says Save Our Jobs! http://nationalliberal.org/ulster-voice-says-save-our-jobs

Ulster Voice Says Vote NOTA! http://nationalliberal.org/ulster-voice-says-%e2%80%a6-vote-nota

Date: May 15, 2017

Categories: Party News

National Liberal Party – The National Liberal Party & The General Election

Theresa May announces snap general election

ON 18^th APRIL, Prime Minister Theresa May declared that she would be holding a snap general election. The date of the election was set for the 8^th June. This news seemed to stun the whole of the political establishment. Indeed, the first many in the Tory Party had any inkling that an election was in the offering was when she announced it live in front of 10 Downing Street!

Since then, Theresa May has relentlessly built and promoted her campaign around the general theme of needing strong and stable leadership during the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. She has repeatedly said that every vote cast for her and the Tories would strengthen her hand whilst dealing with the EU.

Many folks question if May really believes what she says concerning Brexit – or is all the talk of ‘strong and stable leadership’ simply the best propaganda line to take?

Whilst the jury is still out on that question, we feel that one of her goals may be to severely weaken the Labour Party. She knows that that Labour is still deeply divided over Brexit and will stop at nothing to reinforce the idea that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is weak. She also knows that the vultures of the Blairite wing of the Labour Party are circling. If Labour don’t do well at the election, Corbyn can expect a swift motion of ‘no confidence.’ Some believe that this might lead to a split within the Labour Party – with a possible ‘social democratic’ party emerging.

We are also aware of the view that in calling the election, Theresa May could stop the ongoing Tory expenses scandal in its tracks. Again, the jury is out on that one.

So where does all this leave the National Liberal Party?

The ruling National Council of the National Liberal Party has spent some time carefully discussing the situation and have come to the conclusion that – as a party – we shall not participate in the forthcoming general election.

The main reason is that we believe that all small parties will be ignored and defeated. Indeed, it’s been a long-held National Liberal belief that it’s nearly impossible for small parties to get anywhere under the First Past The Post (‘FPTP’) electoral system that will be in operation in early June.

However, all is not lost! The National Liberal Party is in the advance stages of helping to form the Centre Alliance – CA – which will feature a number of centre ‘left’, centre ‘right’ parties and ourselves.

(For the record, we class ourselves – the National Liberal Party – as neither a party of the ‘left’ nor the ‘right.’ We feel that our views go way beyond ‘left’ and ‘right’, but in the spirit of co-operation and solidarity are willing to link up with parties, groups and individuals who share our general political outlook on life).

Therefore, as the old saying goes, we will be keeping our ‘powder dry’ as a party for the campaign itself. However, we would encourage NLP members and supporters to gain experience in elections by getting involved in the campaigns of independent candidates who will probably be campaigning on single ‘bread and butter’ issues such as education, the NHS and so on.

The ‘Centrist Alliance’ will be launched after the general election itself and will try to position itself as a serious alternative to (likely) Conservative rule. Watch this space!

Date: May 3, 2017

Categories: Articles

From The Liberty Wall – Nations without States – Syria’s ‘Hierarchy Of Suffering’ (Part One)

WHATEVER the reasons behind the armed conflict in Syria, there’s no doubt that the war between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and his many ememies – in particular those associated with Islamic State – has become increasingly bloody. Indeed, hardly a week goes by without some form of atrocity being reported.

But is every atrocity being evenly investigated and reported to the same degree? And are all the innocent victims – in particular defenceless children – receiving the same attention? Or is there some perverse ‘hierarchy of suffering’ at work in Syria?

Robert Fisk is one man who appears to think that there is some form of ‘hierarchy of suffering’. Fisk is the multi-award winning Middle East correspondent of The Independent, based in Beirut. A veteran and highly eperienced reporter, Fisk has lived in the Arab world for more than 40 years, ‘covering Lebanon, five Israeli invasions, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Algerian civil war, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the 2011 Arab revolutions’

.

The article reproduced below first appeared in The Independent of 17^th April http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-suicide-attack-refugee-buses-trump-only-cares-sunni-children-a7687066.html However, Nations without States has taken the decision to to reproduce it in two sections – as it’s felt that this is the best way to stimulate debate concerning the situation in Syria.

It goes without saying that there are no official links between Robert Fisk, The Independent or Nations without States.

If Trump cares so much about Syrian babies, why is he not condemning the rebels who slaughtered children?

US President Trump doesn’t seem to care when some Syrian children are killed. Nearly 100 children were recently killed but they don’t count as their parents supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Robert Fisk (right) seems to believe that there’s some form of a ‘Hierarchy Of Suffering’ in Syria. Is he correct?

Dozens of children were killed in Syria this weekend but where is the US president’s lament on how ‘beautiful’ they are, let alone action? Where are the denunciations by the EU and the UK? The West must react with equal outrage when it is Shias that are the victims of terrorism. Or do we just not care?

It was the Mother of all Hypocrisy. Some dead Syrian babies matter, I guess. Other dead Syrian babies don’t matter. One mass murder in Syria two weeks ago killed children and babies and stirred our leaders to righteous indignation. But the slaughter in Syria this weekend (1) killed even more children and babies – yet brought forth nothing but silence from those who claim to guard our moral values. Now why should this be?

When a gas attack in Syria killed more than 70 civilians on 4 April, including babies and children, Donald Trump ordered a missile attack on Syria. America applauded. So did its media. So did much of the world. Trump called Bashar al-Assad “evil” and “an animal”. The EU condemned the Syrian regime. Downing Street called the gas attack “barbaric”. Almost every western leader demanded that Assad should be overthrown.

Yet after this weekend’s suicide bombing of a convoy of civilian refugees outside Aleppo killed 126 Syrians, more than 80 of them children, the White House said nothing. Even though the death toll was far greater, Trump didn’t even Tweet his grief. The US navy launched not even a symbolic bullet towards Syria. The EU went all coy and refused to say a single word. All talk of “barbarism” from Downing Street was smothered.

Do they feel no sense of shame? What callousness. What disgrace. How outrageous that our compassion should dry up the moment we realised that this latest massacre of the innocents wasn’t quite worth the same amount of tears and fury that the early massacre had produced. It fact it wasn’t worth a single tear. For the 126 Syrians – almost all of them civilians – who have just been killed outside Aleppo, were Shia Muslims being evacuated from two government-held (ie Bashar-held) villages in the north of Syria. And their killer was obviously from al-Nusra (al-Qaeda) or one of the Sunni “rebel” groups we in the West have armed – or quite possibly from Isis itself – and thus didn’t qualify for our sorrow.

The UN, clip-clopping on to the stage-boards as usual, did speak out. The latest attack was “a new horror”. And Pope Francis called it “ignoble” and prayed for “beloved and martyred Syria”. And having been brought up by a pretty anti-Catholic dad, I said what I often say when I think the Pontiff has got it right, especially Francis: Good old Pope! Why, even the virtually non-existent anti-Assad “Free Syrian Army” condemned the attack as “terrorist”.

But that was it. And I recalled all those maudlin stories about how Ivanka Trump, as a mother, had been especially moved (2) by the videotape from Khan Shaykoun, the site of the chemical attack on 4 April, and had urged her father to do something about it. And then it was Federica Mogherini, the EU’s ‘High Representative” for foreign affairs and security policy, who described the attack as “awful” – but insisted that she spoke “first of all as a mother”. Quite right, too. But what happened to all her maternal feelings – and those of Ivanka – when the pictures came in from northern Syria this weekend of exploded babies and children packaged up in black plastic bags? Silence.

(1) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-civil-war-bomb-attack-children-dead-civilians-swap-bashar-al-assad-a7686241.html

(2) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ivanka-trump-donald-bomb-air-strikes-sir-kim-darroch-syria-chemical-attack-sarin-idlib-province-a7674951.html

Date: April 27, 2017

Categories: Liberty Wall

From The Liberty Wall – The St. George’s Committee – The St. George’s Committee Says Happy St. George’s Day!

Date: April 21, 2017

Categories: Liberty Wall

Devon Voice Issue 1 Out Now!

Date: April 20, 2017

Categories: Party News

Liberal Future: Guernsey, Manx and Jersey Youth Say BreXit Now!

Liberal Future: Guernsey, Manx and Jersey Youth Say BreXit Now!

ON 23^rd JUNE 2016 the electorate of the United Kingdom went to the polls. But this wasn’t any election – it was the EU referendum – and it saw 51.9% of voters voting in favour of leaving the EU. This was on a national turnout of 72%, the highest ever for a UK-wide referendum and the highest for any national vote since the General Election of 1992.

To put it bluntly, it was a bad day at the office for the establishment.

From an establishment point of view, things have now gone from bad to worse as 29^th March this year saw Prime Minister Theresa May trigger Article 50. This is the process by which member states may withdraw from the EU.

Both dates will now go down in history – despite numerous attempts to derail the verdict of the people.

Although the establishment was distraught about this unexpected turn of events, ordinary working folks were overjoyed. Brendan O’Neill – editor of Spiked on-line http://spiked-online.com/ – summed it up when talking about Article 50:

‘I’m so excited for the triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday. It will be one of the greatest moments in the history of British democracy. Britain’s largest ever democratic mandate, the most democratic cry ever made by this nation, will finally be acted upon. The political class will cut Britain off from the EU not because it wants to — it desperately doesn’t want to — but because the people have told it that it must. Both the British elite and the Euro-elite will bow before the British masses on Wednesday and accept that we understand politics and democracy better than they do. It’s going to be glorious.’

Liberal Future believes that ordinary working folks in Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey would also feel this way. However, as our artwork notes, the peculiar position of these islands meant that they couldn’t vote in the EU referendum itself. But, as we state, given the independence of spirit of the make up of the , LF feels that they would have voted for freedom.

How can we be so confident in saying this? In short, we feel that the EU referendum result effectively saw ordinary voters sticking two fingers up to the establishment and elites who run the EU. The electorate had had enough of being dictated to and delivered their verdict accordingly.

We’ll examine this idea in a little more detail in a forthcoming article in this Liberal Future BreXit Now! series. We also understand that this idea of the electorate revolting against the establishment will feature as the lead article in issue 1 of Devon Voice – the voice of the National Liberal Party in Devon – which will be out in the very near future.

• THIS ARTICLE should be read in conjunction with the following:

Liberal Future Says BreXit Now! http://nationalliberal.org/liberal-future-says-%e2%80%a6-brexit-now

Liberal Future: English Youth Say BreXit Now! http://nationalliberal.org/english-youth-says-brexit-now

Liberal Future: Scottish Youth Say BreXit Now! http://nationalliberal.org/scottish-youth-say-brexit-now

Liberal Future: Ulster Youth Say BreXit Now! http://nationalliberal.org/ulster-youth-say-brexit-now

Liberal Future: Welsh Youth Say BreXit Now! http://nationalliberal.org/welsh-youth-say-brexit-now

Liberal Future: Cornish Youth Say BreXit Now! http://nationalliberal.org/cornish-youth-say-brexit-now

Date: April 18, 2017

Categories: Party News

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