In the run-up to the EU referendum, the ‘leave’ campaign hammered home the message ‘Take back control’, with particular reference to immigration.

Within hours of the announcement of the result, leading leave campaigners were frantically rowing back on the promise that exit would mean ‘control of our borders’, watering it down to meaningless levels or saying outright that free movement would be required for free trade.

Trust in Establishment politicians is at an all-time low – and with good reason.

This week, the Times – now a ‘Murdoch rag’ but still claiming the gravitas and credibility of a ‘broadsheet’ paper – published an appalling, blatantly racist and xenophobic cartoon. The cartoon shows Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the helm of the Mersey Ferry (Labour’s conference this week was held in Liverpool) crammed with ‘generic foreign types’, titled ‘Migrant Ferry Across the Mersey’:

The cartoon is supposed to be an attack…

Paddy Lillis, the NEC chair who has been chairing Labour’s first conference session this morning, has already been demonstrating contempt for democracy.

The vote this morning to accept/reject the ‘Conference Arrangement Committee’ report, in which the CAC attempts to justify its decision to ignore some of the most key issues raised by Labour constituency parties and members, was voted on by a show of hands that had a huge number of ‘reject’ hands raised – at the very least, it was tight and probably more than those voting to accept, so a proper ballot was required. People at various heights and angles around the hall have confirmed this.

Lillis declared the ‘accept’ vote ‘overwhelmingly carried’.

Subsequently, various people stood to ‘reference back’ (i.e. object to and put to a delegate vote’) the fact that the NEC’s (National Executive Committee) proposed rule changes are offered as a ‘take it or leave it’…