The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[Seat68]

I apologise to all Lincolnshire dwellers, but I used to live there and still have a few "friends" on Facebook that are from there, and the racist right wing nut job was very strong then and continues to be now.

[chrisp65]

BBC News

Quote

Baroness Chakrabarti could be heard advising the Labour leader "just let them do this".

Mr Corbyn then consulted Ms Thornberry, asking: "When did we condemn the bombing?".

in what might be the very definition of 'comfort zone' a left wing anti war speech was disrupted by a more left wing more anti war protest

 

keep the faith

 

 

 

[Xela]

23 hours ago, Seat68 said:

I apologise to all Lincolnshire dwellers, but I used to live there and still have a few "friends" on Facebook that are from there, and the racist right wing nut job was very strong then and continues to be now.

Boston is also the fattest town in the UK apparently. It took the title from Tamworth 

[chrisp65]

A good test for the parties coming up. The Labour MP for Copeland (northern england) has stood down to take a different job. 

This will cause a by election in an area UKIP would see as a prime target and the tories will have seen themselves getting a little closer to winning the seat over the last few elections. This looks like an opportunity for Labour to get out there, tell people what they stand for and get some momentum going.

It'll be interesting. (in a politics geek kind of way) 

[TrentVilla]

What Labour stand for? Momentum? 

Good one.

[dAVe80]

18 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

A good test for the parties coming up. The Labour MP for Copeland (northern england) has stood down to take a different job. 

This will cause a by election in an area UKIP would see as a prime target and the tories will have seen themselves getting a little closer to winning the seat over the last few elections. This looks like an opportunity for Labour to get out there, tell people what they stand for and get some momentum going.

It'll be interesting. (in a politics geek kind of way) 

My local CLP are already talking about travelling over to help campaign for the Labour candidate. This is a Labour stronghold (I went to uni with a lad from Whitehaven, who once told me not voting Labour is pretty much punishable by death), so it's interesting that plans are already in place to help them out. UKIP are certainly going to be the major threat, and it's good at least that Labour seem to recognise this, and planning to use party members to take the fight out there. 

[Awol]

It's also an area that voted Leave in the referendum, be interesting to see if that affects the Labour vote when the candidate argues for continuing free movement from the EU.

[blandy]

9 hours ago, dAVe80 said:

My local CLP are already talking about travelling over to help campaign for the Labour candidate. This is a Labour stronghold.... 

Maybe once, but not recently. The bloke who just quit had something like a 2000 majority over the tories and there was a fair chunk of ukip voters too. Given labour has gone completely awol, you'd expect the tories to win it.

[dAVe80]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

Maybe once, but not recently. The bloke who just quit had something like a 2000 majority over the tories and there was a fair chunk of ukip voters too. Given labour has gone completely awol, you'd expect the tories to win it.

Hmm, hadn't realised it was that close. I'm not sure of a Tory win, but could be very interesting. 

[TrentVilla]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

Maybe once, but not recently. The bloke who just quit had something like a 2000 majority over the tories and there was a fair chunk of ukip voters too. Given labour has gone completely awol, you'd expect the tories to win it.

He moved to Oman?

[darrenm]

Not sure this is deserving of its own thread, but as it's a bit of a progressive idea, what do people think of the recent spotlight on universal basic income?

I'm seeing first hand just how automation is making us all less busy and people are wondering why they have to be at work for the standard 9-5 when they really don't need to be. The employers will be asking that question next. The thinking behind UBI is that with IT systems, automation, driverless everything, humans increasingly don't need to work. There's more of us here and less to do.

Which of course will mean that unemployment will keep on increasing, leading to there being less available for the bottom end while the rich get even richer.

This was in the independent as a type of UBI. Thoughts?

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

6 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Not sure this is deserving of its own thread, but as it's a bit of a progressive idea, what do people think of the recent spotlight on universal basic income?

I'm not sure if the forum has recovered from the argument blandy and I had over it about a month ago. 

I'm pretty sure I've still got browser tabs open from data-finding in that argument. 

[blandy]

7 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

He moved to Oman?

For Real

[snowychap]

Labour could slump to below 150 MPs, Fabian Society warns

Quote

Labour may get as little as 20% of the vote at the next general election and win fewer than 150 seats, according to an analysis of the challenges the party faces.

Buffeted by difficulties including plotting a course on Brexit and a continued lack of support in Scotland, as well as Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity, Labour has virtually no chance of winning outright in the next election, the Fabian Society report concludes. 

The thinktank argues Labour should seek ways to win power with the support of parties such as the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National party, arguing this is the only feasible route into government for now.

Based on analysis of existing poll data and historical trends, the study predicts that the next election, whether held imminently or in 2020, is very likely to see Labour win fewer than 200 seats for the first time since 1935, possibly falling to about 140.

However, it cautions against the idea that Labour could be imminently replaced as the main opposition, saying the electoral system will act as a “firebreak” against a calamitous collapse in the number of seats.

The report says Labour’s general election vote over the past 40 years has tended to be almost eight percentage points lower than its poll rating in the second year of the preceding parliament. If this happens in 2020, the Labour vote could fall to 20% or less.

But using projections based on recent polls, it says that even if either Ukip or the Lib Dems could tie with Labour on 20%, the electoral system would mean neither would win more than 20 seats, with Labour remaining at 140 to 150.

Such a scenario would see the Conservatives win more than 400 seats, giving Theresa May a vast Commons majority.

The study – titled Stuck: how Labour is too weak to win and too strong to die – is particularly pertinent for the party as it comes from an officially affiliated organisation, which was one of Labour’s co-founders in 1900 but is now associated with the centre-right of Labour.

The report stresses that its gloomy conclusions are based less on the immediate issue of Corbyn’s leadership than on long-term issues such as the impact of Brexit, the collapse of support in Scotland and electoral mathematics.

...more on link

 

[HanoiVillan]

I have recently become intensely pessimistic about Labour's chances of forming a government again, as in, for a very long time or possibly ever. 

On a purely domestic level, the party has been placed in an impossible position by Brexit. We know that the further down the income scale you go, the more likely the person is to have voted for Brexit, especially in the north. So Labour can either oppose Brexit, and lose its northern seats, or run along with Brexit, and lose its London seats. There appears to be no way out between these possibiliites. I have been extremely scathing about Jeremy Corbyn before, but just to be clear, any Labour leader from any wing of the party would be crushed by this dynamic. So that takes care of the short-term politics, and a vote of 20% in the next election is certainly plausible IMO. 

But if you take an international perspective, the situation is much more bleak. The social democratic centre left is in total disarray nearly everywhere across the western world. In France, the Socialists will lose to what is essentially a Nazi party in this year's presidential election. In Germany, the Blairish SPD are polling at 22%. In Italy, the PD are collapsing and threatened by the populist right. In the Netherlands, the centre left are nowhere near government. In Iceland, the centre left recently finished behind three political parties that didn't even exist before the financial crisis. In Greece, the centre left have declined from 44% of the vote in 2009 to 6% now. In the US, the centre left were routed yet again by conservatives. In Poland, leftwing politics has effectively ceased to exist at all, and all political debate is between Cameronesque neoliberals and rightwing populists with a theocratic tinge. 

We shouldn't lazily assume that this is just another swing of the pendulum, and that one day it will swing back. The labour movement is not much more than 100 years old as an electoral force, which is the blink of an eye really. The conditions that created it - mass unionised labour in factories - is rapidly ceasing to exist, and the US is quickly becoming the first 'post-union' society. 

It may simply be that at this stage in human history, we just don't have any need for a mass membership social democratic party. 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

We shouldn't lazily assume that this is just another swing of the pendulum, and that one day it will swing back.

Isn't it that we are seeing the end of the 'blip' that it is (western) liberal democracy?

It is largely falling back upon itself in to various forms of nationalism and authoritarianism - it's what people want to keep them safe and it's possibly more the norm than our recent history would allow us to think.

People then have to wait for a new pendulum to be made.

[Awol]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

It may simply be that at this stage in human history, we just don't have any need for a mass membership social democratic party. 

It's worth noting that Labour is the largest political party by membership in Western Europe, so the question is who and what does it represent? 

The total failure of the Soviet Union in 89/90 ideologically debunked the sort of collectivization that was the lodestar of Labour parties in the industrialized west.

The left wing academics who traditionally did the thinking for Labour (Fabians etc) were then in a bit of a bind and started to adopt concepts like radical Social Liberalism, Multi-Culturalism, mass immigration (a neo-liberal concept that actually worked against the lowest paid) and collectivism via the EU, what we now call metropolitan values.

This allowed the left wing intelligentsia to retain their theoretical attachment to the Internationale (workers of the world unite) within the framework of capitalism.

The problem is the western working classes have traditionally been patriotic and socially small 'c' conservative.

Over time this has created the space for your SNP's, UKIP's, Front Nationale's and AfD's who broadly pursue a socially conservative, patriotic (trending nationalist) and economically left wing agenda. Unsurprisingly this appeals to large sections of the core vote of the former socialist parties.

These various new parties don't fit neatly into a box but most have at least two of those themes at their core, and the gradual shift towards them is an ongoing process rather than an event - but it's happening.

So back to UK Labour... imo the current leadership aren't that interested in governance through the current system and are regressing the political party back towards a social movement. The anti Ramsay McDonald's, if you like.

Momentum is a prime example of this, a Praetorian Guard of the new religion being built to operate primarily away from the Parliamentary system and embracing street based politics. 

Corbyn and McDonald are insurgent true believers in the old failed socialism who have captured the party. The PLP was unable to resist them because when asked what they stand for, they had no answer. 

Corbyn has gathered a coalition of the old far left and idealistic youth into the membership, but that's a fairly narrow band of national opinion and won't win elections - as you say.

Until Labour can provide a broadly appealing answer to the question of what Labour is for, they'll continue to decline. If they carry on as they are now my guess is a Scottish type result for them in northern England in 2020.

 

[Awol]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Isn't it that we are seeing the end of the 'blip' that it is (western) liberal democracy?

It is largely falling back upon itself in to various forms of nationalism and authoritarianism - it's what people want to keep them safe and it's possibly more the norm than our recent history would allow us to think.

People then have to wait for a new pendulum to be made.

I think that's right, but not inevitable.

Despite having slated Labour in the post above, the Tories are similarly headed away from their core vote at pace.

It's not that people are rejecting liberal democracy, but more the centreist parties rejecting the values of their core voters. 

If a party stops representing you then eventually you'll stop voting for it. Once that habit is broken it may be hard to re-establish and that's what mainstream politics should be focusing on.

In a crude and ham-fisted way I think that's what some of the Tories more ridiculous pronouncements have been about recently, but if anything that goes to show how disconnected they've become - imo.

[StefanAVFC]

7 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I have recently become intensely pessimistic about Labour's chances of forming a government again, as in, for a very long time or possibly ever. 

On a purely domestic level, the party has been placed in an impossible position by Brexit. We know that the further down the income scale you go, the more likely the person is to have voted for Brexit, especially in the north. So Labour can either oppose Brexit, and lose its northern seats, or run along with Brexit, and lose its London seats. There appears to be no way out between these possibiliites. I have been extremely scathing about Jeremy Corbyn before, but just to be clear, any Labour leader from any wing of the party would be crushed by this dynamic. So that takes care of the short-term politics, and a vote of 20% in the next election is certainly plausible IMO. 

But if you take an international perspective, the situation is much more bleak. The social democratic centre left is in total disarray nearly everywhere across the western world. In France, the Socialists will lose to what is essentially a Nazi party in this year's presidential election. In Germany, the Blairish SPD are polling at 22%. In Italy, the PD are collapsing and threatened by the populist right. In the Netherlands, the centre left are nowhere near government. In Iceland, the centre left recently finished behind three political parties that didn't even exist before the financial crisis. In Greece, the centre left have declined from 44% of the vote in 2009 to 6% now. In the US, the centre left were routed yet again by conservatives. In Poland, leftwing politics has effectively ceased to exist at all, and all political debate is between Cameronesque neoliberals and rightwing populists with a theocratic tinge. 

We shouldn't lazily assume that this is just another swing of the pendulum, and that one day it will swing back. The labour movement is not much more than 100 years old as an electoral force, which is the blink of an eye really. The conditions that created it - mass unionised labour in factories - is rapidly ceasing to exist, and the US is quickly becoming the first 'post-union' society. 

It may simply be that at this stage in human history, we just don't have any need for a mass membership social democratic party. 

Blimey. What a depressingly accurate post.

[MakemineVanilla]

Corbynesque socialism seems like a bit of an anachronism these days.

Right up to the 1960s expectations were very limited and it seemed quite reasonable to believe that a basic standard of living was possible for all. After all, there was a working example in existence in the form of East Germany, which by the 1970s had a GDP about the same size as the UK, where employment, cheap housing and basic needs were guaranteed by the state.

The consumer boom of the late sixties and early seventies just before the 'oil shock', raised expectations and it was the response to the 'oil shock' which triggered the ensuing 'class war' as workers battled to retain their share of the spoils and lost. The result was Thatcher and Blair, and once the greed had been let loose and Capital had taken rigid control of the workforce, that toxic combination meant the end of old fashioned Labour values as their traditional supporters went off to join the Greens and the other multiplying idealistic single-issue groups, while society got atomised into isolated individual workers and consumers.

The precariat were created and the middle-classes who hold the sway have a vested interest in the present system and privileges they wish to preserve - there seems no way back.

Just like so many of the religious movements of the middle ages which were destroyed by the corrupting influence of simony, so the Labour movement has gone the same way.

The thin rat slipped into the trap, ate the bait, and is now too fat to get out again.