" new labour " party line cannot be questioned ?

4 words of dissent got mr wolfgang forcably removed from the UK labour party conference yesterday

link

is this the image of the democratic system in action we should be sending to the world ?

This was going to happen one time or another…

The Labour Party, just like every major British Political Party is highly un-democratic. They have a system where members of it are given the right, after they apply to join and due to this they only fund those who hold their party line with exceptions [Tony Benn being one of these.]

In this modern day and age, these lines are becoming tighter, it now seems as though anyone who goes against the ‘Labour’ manifesto is suddenly a ‘Non-Labour’ MP and treated as though they are filth [for lack of a better word.]

It is clear by this that even those members who have been involved in politics, since Tony Blair was a baby are not as important to him as those who follow his every word. It is a sad day that right before us we see the death of democracy within our Nation. You might not see it yet, but how long before every Party has one leader and hundreds of ‘Yes’ men?

What is democratic about that?

Oh do wind the melodramatics in a tad guys, huh?

A party conference is a private meeting to which delegates are invited and being a private meeting under those terms means they can chose to ask people to leave if they like.

A bunch of 'stewards' (I've yet to hear if they were contractors - I'd have thought that pretty likely) over-reacted and threw out a heckler in a heavy-handed manner.
It wasn't 'nice' but neither was it ABH/GBH.
It was hardly under Blair or Straw's direct instruction either.
From the reactions of some anyone would think that this type of thing had never happened before at any other party conference ever.

It's got nothing to do with 'party lines' or quelling dissent it is simply because with gov ministers involved security people get very very jumpy due to worries about the 'terrorist threat'.
It's a sad fact of life (and it has been in the UK for decades due to Ireland etc).

As for your worry about our political parties 'professionally projecting' their leaders surrounded by yes men, Odium?
Where have you been for the last 25yrs?

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
A bunch of 'stewards' (I've yet to hear if they were contractors - I'd have thought that pretty likely) over-reacted and threw out a heckler in a heavy-handed manner.

They were volunteers...

It wasn't 'nice' but neither was it ABH/GBH.

I think part of it was the fact of his age, the fact that he was removed for heckeling...and the fact he was detained under the new anti-terrorism act because he tried to get back into the conference.

sminkeypinkey, the problem is they used the 'Anti Terrorism Law' to stop someone from having an opinion...which they said [just before the event] they would never do. This is such a major issue and it is being swept right out of the headlines and under the carpet.

As for worries about a terrorist threat...you can't buy that? The tags actually say if they are an MP, member of the press and so on and so fourth so I find it highly unlikely they would have thought he was any form of extermist likely to kill innocent people...

Originally posted by Odium
sminkeypinkey, the problem is they used the 'Anti Terrorism Law' to stop someone from having an opinion...which they said [just before the event] they would never do.

- This is simply not true.

They did not "stop someone from having an opinion".

Whether you like it or not a political party meeting is a private 'function'; it is not a public meeting.
They had every right to eject this guy if they so chose.....even on a whim.

(particularly as the Labour party have - over the last couple of decades - simply had enough of 'hard-left' and single issue groups acting like idiots during conference and attempting to disrupt them)

The only thing unusual in this was when the Police (not the Labour party) attempted to use a provision under part of the new anti-terrorism laws to stop the guy returning to conference (but not attempting to arrest him).
They were wrong to do this and seen to be wrong, very publicly.
No-one in Britain is going to buy into the 'hecklers/protesters can be terrorists too' nonsense.

It just doesn't 'hold water' considering what happened to the guy afterwards.

In any event the guy did return to conference the next day complete with apologies from the Labour party chairman and the PM.

.....as for the guy being 'silenced'?
He did every UK TV station's political chat show the following weekend, he did extended radio interviews and wrote a lengthy column in almost every one of the UK 'broadsheet' newspapers as well as being featured in each of the tabloids.
Hardly the hallmark of a man denied his right to have (never mind widely express) his opinion.

This is such a major issue and it is being swept right out of the headlines and under the carpet.

- The cops got it wrong - very publicly - and that was seen by all; no doubt they'll get it wrong again some time but this kind of thing sets a precedent; no-one can say this hasn't happened before and a view taken on whether they would be right to act that way.
In some respects it is, perversely, a 'good thing'.

.....as for the rest of it? Once the apologies were issued and the guy readmitted the story just died it's natural death.

As for worries about a terrorist threat...you can't buy that? The tags actually say if they are an MP, member of the press and so on and so fourth so I find it highly unlikely they would have thought he was any form of extermist likely to kill innocent people...

- Have you ever been to a major party conference?
The only people who would have known who this guy was, from the thousands attending (the main event and the fringe meetings, would have been his own friends there and the delegates from his constituency (or attending union/invited organisation).

I don't blame anyone for not accepting the delegates' 'tags' at face value.

[edit on 9-10-2005 by sminkeypinkey]