UKUncut support starts to crumble
Posted on March 3, 2011I said earlier in the week that UKUncut should decry and condemn violence for the good of British politics – now there are signs that their failure to do so is harming their own campaign, too.
Early Day Motion 1146 was tabled back in December by John McDonell to praise UKUncut’s campaigns. So far this week, the EDM has lost 5 of its 27 MP signatories, apparently in reaction to UKUncut’s barefaced refusal to condemn violence on Newsnight the other day. Well done to Gregory Campbell MP, Nigel Dodds MP, Mike Hancock MP, Mark Williams MP and Stephen Williams MP for withdrawing their support.
This is a concrete example of why the trend towards violence and apologism for the violence of others is utterly counter-productive for the Left. UKUncut should ask themselves this: When even Mike Hancock thinks it’s embarassing to be associated with you, are you doing something wrong?
Tags: Coalition, EDM, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Parliament, Politics, public spending, UKuncut
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Public spending
it’s a direct action group Mark, firstly I’m sure that they wouldn’t see declining support amongst MPs as anything to be concerned about. Secondly, you shouldn’t mistake what happens in medialand and mainstream politics for what’s happening among the general public. Obviously the pressure for public figures is to immediately distance yourselves from anything too controversial (hence the way that Conservative frontbenchers always try to distance themselves from say, Daniel Hannan).
I think it’s unlikely that the general public is foaming at the mouth because UKUncut haven’t joined in with the condemnathon. The need to condemn things you aren’t responsible for is a peculiar pecadillo of the political class and the political media, it’s got very little basis in the real world.
Finally, other polls I saw suggested the public opposition to the cuts rose as a result of March 26th. So, most people on the demonstration, including UKUncut, would say job done.
01.04.2011 10:32
They had an opportunity to make a difference but they lacked the intelligence to exploit it.
I was following them on twitter but ceased after quite a short time because they were using violence instead of argument.
04.04.2011 18:36