What is the point of Labour ?

[NotThePars]

13 hours ago, GordonS said:

Leftists would rather that the poor people of Britain live (or die) under Tory rule for 20 years than that a centre-left (by UK standards) party gets elected?

Leftists would rather sit back and be bitter than sit up and do better 

Edited November 3, 2020 by NotThePars

[Detournement]

15 hours ago, NotThePars said:

What are those losers going to do within the party lol apart from pay their dues and get seen off repeatedly? Every leftist in Labour should be leaving, leave them without an activist base, and hoping they get fucking rinsed in 2024.

Socialism isn't about electoral cycles. Corbyn was one of those losers for 30 years then he was leader.

A new party would just be a navel gazing exercise and given that the tiny amount of discipline many left wing members have currently is inspired by combatting the Labour Right a new party would be a shitshow of roasters trying to signal boost themselves and their favourite issue. Look at the idiots who brought the entirely futile Free Movement vote to the conference last summer.

[Detournement]

13 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

The tragic thing about the Corbynist willingness to throw the Labour Party and then themselves against the rocks on the issue of Israel is that it’s rooted in the idea that anybody in the Israeli government would give a toss what a Labour government thought of them, never mind a Labour opposition.

It’s part of a larger British post colonial delusion of significance

If that was true there wouldn't be videos of Israeli intelligence agents offering Labour MPs cash to sabotage the party (or for that matter a video of them trying to bring down a Tory minister who supported Palestinian rights. 

[Gordon EF]

8 hours ago, GordonS said:

Leftists would rather that the poor people of Britain live (or die) under Tory rule for 20 years than that a centre-left (by UK standards) party gets elected?

It's not really that simple though is it? If every person left of Tony Blair in the UK just accepted this Blairite idea that Labour can never be elected unless they straddle the centre line, you're essentially giving up on the idea that any genuinely left of centre policies will ever be implemented and the Overton window in the UK has a permanent blockade so our perpetual choice is between centre-right and centre.

Of course centrists view of this is "why won't these people just accept defeat?".

[NotThePars]

25 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Socialism isn't about electoral cycles. Corbyn was one of those losers for 30 years then he was leader.

A new party would just be a navel gazing exercise and given that the tiny amount of discipline many left wing members have currently is inspired by combatting the Labour Right a new party would be a shitshow of roasters trying to signal boost themselves and their favourite issue. Look at the idiots who brought the entirely futile Free Movement vote to the conference last summer.

How you gonna build a mass movement for this weak sauce? Any self-respecting movement would have taken to the countryside in December and dug up all the munitions.

10 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

It's not really that simple though is it? If every person left of Tony Blair in the UK just accepted this Blairite idea that Labour can never be elected unless they straddle the centre line, you're essentially giving up on the idea that any genuinely left of centre policies will ever be implemented and the Overton window in the UK has a permanent blockade so our perpetual choice is between centre-right and centre.

Of course centrists view of this is "why won't these people just accept defeat?".

Grown up politics is being stabbed in the back for 5 years and then lying down and making a road for your betters when they reassert control. 

[Detournement]

20 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

How you gonna build a mass movement for this weak sauce? 

There's not going to be any mass movement of any kind in the UK. We are an extremely atomised society.

All the left can do is be in position to offer an alternative at a moment of extreme crisis or opportunity. That's what happened in 2015 and crisises will coming on a regular basis from now on. 

 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Of course centrists view of this is "why won't these people just accept defeat?".

[Gordon EF]

1 hour ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

 

 

Well clearly there's a large part of that. The big problem for Labour over the last few years is that the left and the centre have viewed it as a fight against each other where really the only way they both win is by moderating each other. But then, if we had a proper electoral system, Labour wouldn't be one party and the way they do that would be getting enough votes between them to form a governing coalition rather than trying to decide every 4/5 years whether they're going to be a genuine alternative to the Tories or Tory-lite.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

37 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

If we had a proper electoral system, Labour wouldn't be one party and the way they do that would be getting enough votes between them to form a governing coalition

That's the real nub of it.

It's also seen on the right where the Tory party was embroiled in a long civil war over Europe that would otherwise have led to them splitting into a pro-business and an anti-foreigner party

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by topcat(The most tip top)

[GordonS]

9 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Leftists realise that a centre-right party usually leads to the electorate abandoning it and eventually voting in a Thatcher or Johnson type alternative.

You're calling them centre-right because that's where they appear compared to you. But compared to the UK electorate, they are centre-left.

8 hours ago, JagsCG said:

Not all leftists would agree with that, and you could say the exact same about some people from the centre. 

 

6 hours ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

Change leftists to the right wing of the Labour party and you've cracked it.

 

4 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

It's not really that simple though is it? If every person left of Tony Blair in the UK just accepted this Blairite idea that Labour can never be elected unless they straddle the centre line, you're essentially giving up on the idea that any genuinely left of centre policies will ever be implemented and the Overton window in the UK has a permanent blockade so our perpetual choice is between centre-right and centre.

Of course centrists view of this is "why won't these people just accept defeat?".

The idea that it's worth making the poor suffer like f**k to maybe, theoretically shift the electorate to the left, ignores the realities of what actually happened under Blair. I was in as low an income family as you could get then, and that election was transformative for us. Minimum wage, new deal for lone parents, new deal for young people, working families tax credit, childcare vouchers, massive extension in employment protection, massive spending programme on schools and hospitals, huge increase in health spending, Sure Start, Human Rights Act, devolution, wiping out housing debt... I could go on all day. Are they not "genuinely left of centre" policies? 

None of it excuses the war crimes and I totally agree that New Labour conceding the public argument on economics and immigration did nothing to prevent a of bad stuff to develop. But the idea that it would be better to have the Tories strikes me as one that surely comes from privilege. Under Blair the proportion of children living in absolute poverty fell by a third - not nearly enough, but better than fucking foodbanks and a government actively opposed to feeding hungry children.

Bottom line is, in actual policy terms that's as far left as the English electorate are going.

[Granny Danger]

10 minutes ago, GordonS said:

You're calling them centre-right because that's where they appear compared to you. But compared to the UK electorate, they are centre-left.

 

I’m glad you used U.K. and not Scotland.  I think the Scottish perspective is different, that’s why we need out.

[Gordon EF]

3 minutes ago, GordonS said:

The idea that it's worth making the poor suffer like f**k to maybe, theoretically shift the electorate to the left, ignores the realities of what actually happened under Blair. I was in as low an income family as you could get then, and that election was transformative for us. Minimum wage, new deal for lone parents, new deal for young people, working families tax credit, childcare vouchers, massive extension in employment protection, massive spending programme on schools and hospitals, huge increase in health spending, Sure Start, Human Rights Act, devolution, wiping out housing debt... I could go on all day. Are they not "genuinely left of centre" policies? 

None of it excuses the war crimes and I totally agree that New Labour conceding the public argument on economics and immigration did nothing to prevent a of bad stuff to develop. But the idea that it would be better to have the Tories strikes me as one that surely comes from privilege. Under Blair the proportion of children living in absolute poverty fell by a third - not nearly enough, but better than fucking foodbanks and a government actively opposed to feeding hungry children.

Bottom line is, in actual policy terms that's as far left as the English electorate are going.

It's a fair point. I don't think many people on the left think it's better to have Tory governments than Labour governments right of their own positions. I just don't like or agree with the sort of characterisation that the more centrist wing of the Labour Party are correct when they effectively attempt to hold a gun to the head of the left of the party and say "It's us or the Tories so sit down and shut up". Or at least don't agree that's what those on the left should actually do.

[G51]

13 minutes ago, GordonS said:

You're calling them centre-right because that's where they appear compared to you. But compared to the UK electorate, they are centre-left.

Uh buddy

https://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, G51 said:

Uh buddy

https://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010

That's got the Greens as the most Libertarian party in the UK, some mistake shirley?

[G51]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

That's got the Greens as the most Libertarian party in the UK, some mistake shirley?

It's based on 2010.

But in any case, if you wanted proof that New Labour was a centre-right to right-wing party, you need only look at this website cataloguing what New Labour actually said and did.

http://www.whydopeoplehatenewlabour.com

Some absolutely disgusting stuff on there, and it's why leftists cannot support a Keir Starmer led Government, or we're in for more of the same.

[GiGi]

45 minutes ago, G51 said:

Uh buddy

https://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010

Just did their wee test there, pleasing result.

[GordonS]

13 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I’m glad you used U.K. and not Scotland.  I think the Scottish perspective is different, that’s why we need out.

Labour's inability to be further left is what slowly killed them in Scotland, and probably the Union too.

13 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

It's a fair point. I don't think many people on the left think it's better to have Tory governments than Labour governments right of their own positions. I just don't like or agree with the sort of characterisation that the more centrist wing of the Labour Party are correct when they effectively attempt to hold a gun to the head of the left of the party and say "It's us or the Tories so sit down and shut up". Or at least don't agree that's what those on the left should actually do.

It's the same in every party, there are those who believe you can persuade the electorate into your way of thinking and those who believe you have to take the electorate as it is. When they can't find common ground their opponents win.

11 minutes ago, G51 said:

Uh buddy

https://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010

That's shite tbf, and pretty arbitrary.

[G51]

Just now, GordonS said:

Labour's inability to be further left is what slowly killed them in Scotland, and probably the Union too.

It's the same in every party, there are those who believe you can persuade the electorate into your way of thinking and those who believe you have to take the electorate as it is. When they can't find common ground their opponents win.

That's shite tbf, and pretty arbitrary.

Aye I noticed you swerved the website detailing New Labours statements and actions during their spell in charge though eh.

Centrists are always willing to defend New Labour until it actually gets down to the detail, when they realise that they'd have to defend positions like "Actually, Mr Blunkett was right to introduce a bill that would ban asylum seeker's children from attending state schools"

[Gordon EF]

6 minutes ago, GordonS said:

It's the same in every party, there are those who believe you can persuade the electorate into your way of thinking and those who believe you have to take the electorate as it is. When they can't find common ground their opponents win.

To some extent, yes. I don't think it's been as prominent or damaging to any political party in the UK as it has been for Labour at a UK level over the past 20 years.

[GordonS]

2 minutes ago, G51 said:

Aye I noticed you swerved the website detailing New Labours statements and actions during their spell in charge though eh.

Centrists are always willing to defend New Labour until it actually gets down to the detail, when they realise that they'd have to defend positions like "Actually, Mr Blunkett was right to introduce a bill that would ban asylum seeker's children from attending state schools"

That's bollocks, tbf. I'm not going to defend any bad stuff New Labour did and they are the reason I support independence. But I'm still going to say they're as far left as the UK electorate is going to go, and I hate it when people say they were as bad as the Tories. Actually that's fair enough on foreign policy and civil liberties, but on socio-economics they bloody well weren't.

FWIW, here's me, apparently. There's no way I'm that far left economically, many of the questions are daft, or polarised, or ambiguous. Many place issues on the left-right spectrum things that are coincidental. That thing is just a bit of fun, like the quiz in my big sister's Bounty magazine about which of the Osmond's should you marry.