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

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

Ok, how about "A large enough percentage to make a difference overall"? Because, that's all it takes to screw up the party as a whole in terms of squabbling rather than pulling in the same direction.

No. it really is a small percentage of people, they are just very vocal. Your average Labour voter on the street couldn't give a shit what happened to Corbyn, he was a massive turn off for them at the election

[Chindie]

*whack!*

[Mister_a]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

No. it really is a small percentage of people, they are just very vocal. Your average Labour voter on the street couldn't give a shit what happened to Corbyn, he was a massive turn off for them at the election

I'm not convinced by this, but it's difficult to quantify the numbers I guess. I was an average labour voter, and many of my labour voting friends and I were deeply disappointed by the way he was treated, as it meant that it dragged the all of the arguments away from the left and into the centre, where the Tories usually win.

You also have the complete collapse of labour in Scotland that has to be taken into consideration. 

I can't see Labour getting anywhere near downing street for at very long time.

[bickster]

Just now, Mister_a said:

You also have the complete collapse of labour in Scotland that has to be taken into consideration.

That really isn't having any bearing on current polls given that it happened prior to 2017

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

I'm not convinced by this, but it's difficult to quantify the numbers I guess. I was an average labour voter, and many of my labour voting friends and I were deeply disappointed by the way he was treated, as it meant that it dragged the all of the arguments away from the left and into the centre, where the Tories usually win.

Also not true. Labour moved to the left and lost every election since 2010. Prior to that it moved to the centre under Blair and were in power for over ten years and three election cycles

[Mister_a]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

Also not true. Labour moved to the left and lost every election since 2010. Prior to that it moved to the centre under Blair and were in power for over ten years and three election cycles

Fair comments, thanks for the education. 

I guess the reality is different to my idealism of how things could have been. Disillusioned by it all for sure though.

[Jareth]

35 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

I'm not convinced by this, but it's difficult to quantify the numbers I guess. I was an average labour voter, and many of my labour voting friends and I were deeply disappointed by the way he was treated,

Same here - no pre-existing ideology, no strong political opinions other than f*ck the tories - and won over by a refreshing way forwards that was a challenge to the established way of doing things which clearly is not working. It's very easy to brand disappointed Labour voters who backed Corbyn as some loony left - but IMHO it's a huge mistake to do so - it absolutely misunderstands the dissatisfaction at the heart of Labour's rift and it cannot just be forgotten by pretending it doesn't exist or is the preserve of some 'trots'. Just ask any Labour BAME voter how they feel currently - they are not self identifying 'trots' either. 

[HanoiVillan]

34 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

Fair comments, thanks for the education. 

I guess the reality is different to my idealism of how things could have been. Disillusioned by it all for sure though.

Don't let him push you around so easily

[Mister_a]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Don't let him push you around so easily

Hehe, I have no problem learning, and hearing viewpoints other than mine. It's all an edumacation.

[blandy]

34 minutes ago, Jareth said:

it absolutely misunderstands the dissatisfaction at the heart of Labour's rift and it cannot just be forgotten by pretending it doesn't exist

I think one of the things that has changed, not just in the UK, but in the West in particular is the impact of social media - as follows:

In the before times, people tended to vote on economic grounds - like is portrayed simplistically by "Tories were for the rich and Labour was for the working man" and so on.  And then there were smaller parties that kind of sucked up the niche voters - Liberals, Green party, Nationalists - but mainly it was about financial interests and about who got to benefit from workers outputs.

Since social media, though, it doesn't seem like that - because everyone suddenly was given a "platform" to say what they thought and felt and broadcast it to the world (even if "the world" was their 15 followers) so many people have become tribal about stuff - be it Veganism, Free speech, Identity, Racism, sexism, Environment...etc  - and they identify with those causes or ethics or views and everyone else who doesn't is blocked or cancelled or muted and is "the enemy". Brexit was an example of this, obviously.

And I think that has led to Labour's problems in particular. The left (of the centre) in politics is quite diverse, more so than the right. So trying to unite those tribes of social media led  divisions of people and voters is really tricky. There's not one (or a few) identifiable thing(s) that they all want - they seem to fight like cats about, I dunno Trans rights v Women's rights and actively hate those that hold any view slightly different to their own, to the extent that the Right of centre gets a free ride.

Labour also made (in hindsight) huge errors in taking left voters for granted - whether that be in Scotland (rise of the SNP) or in the North and Midlands - Labour under Blair became popular because they offered a credible alternative to the (then) tired and divided Tories and because they appealed not just to traditional Labour voters, but also to LDs and Centre Tories and Scots and Welsh. They'd then squandered that 10 years or so  later because of Iraq and then the World Financial crash allowed the Tories to re-state their "revitalisation".

Since the Tories got in 11? or however many it is, years ago, Labour has not (yet) remotely looked like it's revitalised, and in that time the Social Media tribe thing has broken out. It's not about economic competence any more, for voters - it was Brexit, and now it's Corollafungus Pandemical diseases and Vaccines and planting flags in silos of whatever view. While the Tories have basically reversed their previous stance of "austerity" pretty completely yet no-one's there going "hold on - you effing did all this damage" and we've suffered massively as a consequence". Instead we've got the Labour Left saying "put up taxes in a downturn" and attacking the labour soft left for saying "don't put up taxes in an economic catastrophe". It's about emotion, and tribalism to particular ideologies, not about what will work, or what is necessary to improve people's lot.

I guess the hope is that the Tory mistakes and nastiness becomes stark for people generally to see, and at that point, instead of directing anger at each other, it gets directed by the Country to the deserving recipients, and that by then Starmer will have made Labour a credible opposition ready to take over.

[Demitri_C]

38 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Don't let him push you around so easily

They dont call him bickery for nothing

[OutByEaster?]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

This quite frankly is utter nonsense. A small cabal of noisy left wIng Labour members would be more accurate. The general public and ergo "Labour Voters" opinions will largely sway between, couldn't give a shit and didn't like him anyway.

I think this is a little bit of wishful thinking. It'd be really interesting to see a Labour party census (and perhaps helpful) I'd reckon a good 40% of the party, its members and its voters were absolutely behind Corbyn - for those people he represented a triumphant return to traditional Labour values, a Labour renaissance - now for another 40% of the party, its members and its voters, he represented a return to the dark ages of rampant wooly unfocused socialism delivered by people who couldn't run a library and needed to be removed - that in a nutshell is the big problem the Labour party has.

I think to imagine it's a handful of noisy left wing members is to ignore that problem, and I think that's particularly dangerous for the Labour party as it's a problem that still exists for Starmer. He's now welcomed by a big chunk of the party as a capable politician that can win an election on a platform of moderate progressive politics and vilified by another big chunk of the party as a Tory cuckoo without principle. 

Until Labour addresses those two elements of the party and finds a way to bring them into line behind a leader that can carry both, they're dead in the water - burying heads in the sand and blaming a small cabal of noisy left wingers will ultimately only lead to a failure and long term Tory rule.

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

In the before times, people tended to vote on economic grounds - like is portrayed simplistically by "Tories were for the rich and Labour was for the working man" and so on.  And then there were smaller parties that kind of sucked up the niche voters - Liberals, Green party, Nationalists - but mainly it was about financial interests and about who got to benefit from workers outputs.

Since social media, though, it doesn't seem like that - because everyone suddenly was given a "platform" to say what they thought and felt and broadcast it to the world (even if "the world" was their 15 followers) so many people have become tribal about stuff - be it Veganism, Free speech, Identity, Racism, sexism, Environment...etc  - and they identify with those causes or ethics or views and everyone else who doesn't is blocked or cancelled or muted and is "the enemy". Brexit was an example of this, obviously.

I think that's almost right, but that the reasoning is different - through the 80's and 90's real power in managing the economy moved away from Politics and into banks and the markets - the influence on the economy that politicians had was hugely reduced and the concept of political idealism changing economic reality was largely removed. It's a closed shop.

I think then in the vacuum below that, there needs to be something that can occupy the voters and help differentiate the politicians, personal politics, identity and 'causes' have filled that gap and helped people feel that they still have some power in defining the societies they live in. The people who have real power are very happy to let us argue about those things and it creates a public realm that's occupied and busy and suggests change. Social media is brilliant at that, and politicians love it because it allows them to ride waves of public opinion to power.

I think you're right on how social media affects public debate, but that debate is already completely restricted before it starts - people don't vote on economic change anymore because we've all been persuaded that economic change isn't possible and that we should instead concentrate on social change.

 

[HanoiVillan]

@villakram I know you love a good candidate video, make sure you watch this one all the way to the end:

 

[darrenm]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

This quite frankly is utter nonsense. A small cabal of noisy left wIng Labour members would be more accurate. The general public and ergo "Labour Voters" opinions will largely sway between, couldn't give a shit and didn't like him anyway.

I think you may be underestimating the aggrieved about Corbyn element because:

• ~400,000 people joined the party immediately when Corbyn became leader
• Those 400k went through the party trying to disenfranchise them from voting using the registered supporters scheme which radicalised them a bit
• Then the 'chicken coup' radicalised them a bit more. Then the attempted NEC rigging of the leadership voting rules
• Those people tend to be excitable and vocal and will have a decent influencer ability. Even if it's not to convince others of their views, it'll at least serve an alternative narrative to the political non-engaged that actually, Starmer isn't universally well-liked in Labour

So while I think you're right that these people are small in number, I think there's a larger generally more silent contingent equally disappointed and that the total influence from those almost half a million people adds up to a lot. In 2017 everyone knew a Corbynite who was constantly in their ear. In 2019 they had the same but had a good excuse to ignore them. Now those Corbynites are anti-Starmerites purely because Starmer chose to make an enemy out of them despite them mostly supporting him. 

[darrenm]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think this is a little bit of wishful thinking. It'd be really interesting to see a Labour party census (and perhaps helpful) I'd reckon a good 40% of the party, its members and its voters were absolutely behind Corbyn - for those people he represented a triumphant return to traditional Labour values, a Labour renaissance - now for another 40% of the party, its members and its voters, he represented a return to the dark ages of rampant wooly unfocused socialism delivered by people who couldn't run a library and needed to be removed - that in a nutshell is the big problem the Labour party has.

I think to imagine it's a handful of noisy left wing members is to ignore that problem, and I think that's particularly dangerous for the Labour party as it's a problem that still exists for Starmer. He's now welcomed by a big chunk of the party as a capable politician that can win an election on a platform of moderate progressive politics and vilified by another big chunk of the party as a Tory cuckoo without principle. 

Until Labour addresses those two elements of the party and finds a way to bring them into line behind a leader that can carry both, they're dead in the water - burying heads in the sand and blaming a small cabal of noisy left wingers will ultimately only lead to a failure and long term Tory rule.

PR. The only possible way of allowing the 2 parties in 1 to co-exist without this perennial civil war forever gifting the Tories elections.

[bickster]

(400,000/47,000,000)*100=0.85%

[OutByEaster?]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

(400,000/47,000,000)*100=0.85%

I'm not sure what you're wanting this to tell us. 0.85% of the voting population of the UK joined Labour in the immediate period after Corbyn had won a leadership vote, yes?

That brought the membership to around 800,000 for a period - of which half joined when Corbyn took over and they joined the 60% of members that were already part of the party and had just voted him to be leader - at that point (his honeymoon period) I think it's realistic to claim that he had the support of 75-80% of the Labour party membership.

 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm not sure what you're wanting this to tell us. 0.85% of the voting population of the UK joined Labour in the immediate period after Corbyn had won a leadership vote, yes?

That brought the membership to around 800,000 for a period - of which half joined when Corbyn took over and they joined the 60% of members that were already part of the party and had just voted him to be leader - at that point (his honeymoon period) I think it's realistic to claim that he had the support of 75-80% of the Labour party membership.

 

Yes, but doesn't now. And the point is that is not what is driving the current minor dip in the polls

[OutByEaster?]

Just now, bickster said:

Yes, but doesn't now. And the point is that is not what is driving the current minor dip in the polls

No, he doesn't now - but he hasn't dwindled down to a tiny noisy cabal - there's still a huge chunk of the Labour party, I'd suggest a majority, that wants to back policies which are broadly along Corbyn's lines - better presented, more open to compromise in order to bring them into being, but still those same beliefs and desires.

The minor dip in the polls is down to a few things I think, the vaccine boost, a general feeling that the country is recovering which helps the sitting government and a massively Tory friendly press.

I think there is both a positive and a negative in a way for Starmer on the poll that's a few posts up from here; the positive  is that the voters that he's lost have gone to the Tories - that suggests that we might have come to the end of any 'red flight' and the people that have moved from Labour to the Greens or to other minor parties, that's good news for him on stability. The bad news is that if he is losing voters to the Tories, then they are from the centrist edge and those are exactly the people he's courting - the most moderate Conservatives, the swing voters, he won't want to be losing the only voters he seems to be chasing. 

It's early doors of course and there's a long way to go before he needs to be prioritising the polls over other things he's doing, but there's a serious danger to him now that the public aren't clicking with him and can't see what he believes in - I think he needs to get a hold of the whole of the party (or at least a much more inclusive chunk of it) if he's ever going to be able to present a clear view of what Starmerism is.