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

[Jareth]

"With Starmer’s first in-person conference speech looming later this month, Labour in Communications urge the Labour leader not to be tempted into setting out a long list of detailed policies or a sweeping political vision"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/01/keir-starmer-urged-to-create-political-cabinet-with-other-uk-labour-leaders

Kier, whatever you do, don't let anyone know what your political vision is - say the PR expert group 'Labour in Communications'. I keep asking, but does anybody know what the actual plan is here?

[Davkaus]

I think the plan is to take no firm position on anything other than "isn't the government bad?" until shortly before the next election when they can see which way the wind is blowing before deciding that's exactly what they stand for.

[chrisp65]

‘We wouldn’t change anything all that much, we’d just do that thing the focus group highlighted a bit differently, but not in any sort of radical way.’

 

Sorted.

 

[Jareth]

I know Change UK is held up as what happens when MPs splinter off, but it looks like Labour are doing a Change UK whilst not splintering off. The PR execs and management talkers are in charge and appear not to have learnt a thing from when the mighty Chuka led his troops into comedic obscurity.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

I know Change UK is held up as what happens when MPs splinter off, but it looks like Labour are doing a Change UK whilst not splintering off. The PR execs and management talkers are in charge and appear not to have learnt a thing from when the mighty Chuka led his troops into comedic obscurity.

You appear to not understand that this is about the brand and the machinery behind that brand, always has been. There are massive amounts of brand loyalists in this country often voting against their own interests

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

You appear to not understand that this is about the brand and the machinery behind that brand, always has been. There are massive amounts of brand loyalists in this country often voting against their own interests

Indeed, it's a battle between those that want to use the power of the brand for their own ends and those that want to retain the ethos of the party. A corporate takeover of sorts.

[HanoiVillan]

14 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Indeed, it's a battle between those that want to use the power of the brand for their own ends and those that want to retain the ethos of the party. A corporate takeover of sorts.

I think we can get too much into the 'who is the real party' stuff. In practice Labour has always been the highly contested union between widely disparate groups. While I agree with some parts of the party more than others, it wouldn't be right to insist that the parts I favour are the real thing and those I don't are not (and the same consideration should be received in return; it frequently isn't, of course, though there are occasional exceptions).

The point I always make about this, though, is that when you have very different visions present within the party, the solution to resolving differences needs to be *more democracy within the party*. Instead, it tends to be thwarted (see, for instance, the conference motion this year that aims to raise the already almost impossible threshold for trigger ballots).

[Jareth]

4 hours ago, bickster said:

You appear to not understand that this is about the brand and the machinery behind that brand, always has been. There are massive amounts of brand loyalists in this country often voting against their own interests

No I understand the brand situation - the comparison to Change UK is not that Labour are rebranding (they are not, clearly) but that they're following the same insipid path - presenting no vision for the country instead allowing media comms folks to choose a path of least resistance, but vaguely saying they're offering an alternative. I mean if Chukka and co were in charge of Labour at the moment, would it be so different in tone to Change UK? Whatever forces created ChangeUK sure don't seem much different to those forces behind today's Labour. Brand loyalty may be tested beyond its limit at the next election. 

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, Jareth said:

No I understand the brand situation - the comparison to Change UK is not that Labour are rebranding (they are not, clearly) but that they're following the same insipid path - presenting no vision for the country instead allowing media comms folks to choose a path of least resistance, but vaguely saying they're offering an alternative. I mean if Chukka and co were in charge of Labour at the moment, would it be so different in tone to Change UK? Whatever forces created ChangeUK sure don't seem much different to those forces behind today's Labour. Brand loyalty may be tested beyond its limit at the next election. 

Change UK was a single issue party in reality, a bunch of splitters from various parties united in being Pro-EU and thats it. That really isn't the Labour Party at the minute. The Labour Party is in the middle of a civil war, it never gets elected when it's like that

Brand Loyalty will not be tested any more than normal at the next election, there will be new brands

[Jareth]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

Change UK was a single issue party in reality, a bunch of splitters from various parties united in being Pro-EU and thats it. That really isn't the Labour Party at the minute. The Labour Party is in the middle of a civil war, it never gets elected when it's like that

Brand Loyalty will not be tested any more than normal at the next election, there will be new brands

ChangeUK a firmly centrist party was founded by 7 Labour MPs, all opposed to the leadership of Corbyn, and obvs all pro EU. Then you have Starmer, dismantling all Corbyn era remnants, and pro EU. They're the same flavour, backed by the same forces, and IMHO will suffer a similar fate - despite this branding thing which sees people auto-vote without considering what the party is offering. 

[bickster]

Brand wars... A hypothetical

If the Labour Party did split down left and right lines, this is what I imagine will happen

The Right (Starmer side if you like) will aim their fire at the Tories. The Left (Corbyn side if you like) will aim their fire at the Labour Party (or whatever the right side is called in this scenario)

The Left Party will also attract a disproportionate amount of the fire from the Right Wing Media

It'll just be the same as now but with a clear line of separation. Then when the Left Party do start attacking the Right Party, it will benefit the Right Party as they won't then be associated with the Left Party. The RIght Party will then start to pull back votes from the centre ground

And that is why I believe Starmer is trying to force the other sides hand into actually starting another Party

 

[HanoiVillan]

huh

Of course Collins is a consultant, a hired outsider, not a party member, so it's not exactly hypocritical. But it is a] pretty indicative of the likely content of the speech and tone the leadership intend to adopt, and b] further evidence that Starmer prefers to look outside the party for hires and doesn't trust the party.

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Brand wars... A hypothetical

If the Labour Party did split down left and right lines, this is what I imagine will happen

The Right (Starmer side if you like) will aim their fire at the Tories. The Left (Corbyn side if you like) will aim their fire at the Labour Party (or whatever the right side is called in this scenario)

The Left Party will also attract a disproportionate amount of the fire from the Right Wing Media

It'll just be the same as now but with a clear line of separation. Then when the Left Party do start attacking the Right Party, it will benefit the Right Party as they won't then be associated with the Left Party. The RIght Party will then start to pull back votes from the centre ground

And that is why I believe Starmer is trying to force the other sides hand into actually starting another Party

 

There is no possible advantage, especially in our electoral system, to splitting your party. It simply does not exist.

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Jareth said:

ChangeUK a firmly centrist party was founded by 7 Labour MPs,

Incorrect, that was The Independent Group, Change UK was formed by 11 MPs three of which were former Tories

[bickster]

Just now, HanoiVillan said:

There is no possible advantage, especially in our electoral system, to splitting your party. It simply does not exist.

As I see that scenario, there are still only two major parties (brands), the Peoples Front of Judea will quickly become a party of similar stature to the Liberal Party. Smattering of MPs maybe but not a force, just enough of party to draw the fire away from the major brand

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, bickster said:

As I see that scenario, there are still only two major parties (brands), the Peoples Front of Judea will quickly become a party of similar stature to the Liberal Party. Smattering of MPs maybe but not a force, just enough of party to draw the fire away from the major brand

The clear pattern - which is also exactly how you would expect winner-take-all elections to work - is that parties win by consolidating voters on their side, not by repelling them. When UKIP were a force, it harmed the Conservative vote. When the Lib Dems were winning disillusioned Labour voters, it hurt the Labour vote. In 2017, both parties reached something close to peak consolidation, and the result was that they both got more than 40% of the vote. Labour choosing to force a split in its vote would be the biggest gift to the Conservatives imaginable, sitting happily on 40^% of the vote while Labour decide to split their 32% between two parties. There's no advantage in this.

A separate but related question is what Starmer and Evans want. And I'm certainly happy to accept that they have no problem with members becoming disillusioned or disengaged, or even with them leaving the party (though its financial difficulties might make them slightly less keen on that). But come election time, what they want is for left-wing voters to vote Labour because they don't want a Tory government. They're trying to repel *left-wing activism*, not *left-wing voters*.

[Jareth]

Just now, bickster said:

Incorrect, that was The Independent Group, Change UK was formed by 11 MPs three of which were former Tories

Come on, they are the same thing entirely, they didn't get less centrist or less vague. If Starmer could run Labour like a football manager he'd have put the likes of Burgon and Long-Bailey in the bomb squad and drafted in Berger and Umuna quicker than you can say 'agile ceremonies'

 

[OutByEaster?]

46 minutes ago, bickster said:

Brand Loyalty will not be tested any more than normal at the next election, there will be new brands

I think there will be a huge test for the brand loyalty at an election - we'll see if people will vote Labour because its called Labour, even if it's not being lead on the values that the party is built on. I don't think there's any bigger test the brand will ever face.

To an extent, for the left of the party, the right contesting and failing horribly in an election could be the only thing that saves the Labour party in the longer term.

I think it's fair to say that there's absolutely no chance on earth that Kier Starmer will ever be Prime Minister and the challenge for the Labour Party is how to secure the value of the brand and align that with a wider range of values within the party to help it best recover from the damage he will have caused it when he eventually leaves.

 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

even if it's not being lead on the values that the party is built on.

Sorry Scot, you keep saying this, apart from a small number of years under Corbyn the Labour Party in modern times has been a Centre Left party for over half a century. This notion that the party has undergone some kind of corporate take-over really isn't true

[LondonLax]

Didn’t Labour have their most successful period in modern times when they ‘changed the values they were built on’?