Keir Starmer and the Labour Party

[MikeWM]

That was the main thing it had going for it. Better than Cameron's, in retrospect, monumentally stupid decision to hold a Brexit referendum which could pass on 50.0000000001% of votes cast.

I think it is very likely Cameron was expecting to have to form another coalition and try to ignore that he'd made that commitment. Though, while this very much isn't a thread to discuss Brexit, I'm not convinced the referendum itself was a poor idea, the issue wasn't going away and needed to be addressed somehow or other.

"Strong and stable government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband" !

Well, yes. History hasn't viewed that tweet kindly!

Cynically, those of us on the left are not going to be put off voting Labour if he's a bit too right wing. We're hoping that once in power, he'll move a bit leftwards.

A single data-point, and I'm not at all sure if I remotely qualify as being on 'the left' anymore, but while I enthusiastically voted Labour in 2017 and 2019 I won't be voting for them in the next election. (I won't be voting Tory either, however).

(As a second data point, my mother is a life-long Labour voter and she's very clear that she won't vote for Labour while Starmer is leader either).

It's not good, but I suppose it's the cynical game he has to play to deal with the UK's ridiculous FPTP electoral system.

I'm not sure that's entirely the case though. Corbyn's almost-election-win in 2017 shows there is a lot of potential vote to be tapped into on the left, who didn't bother voting in 2015 (eg. I voted Green in 2015) and probably won't bother voting for Starmer. The question is whether the floating voters you can gain by tacking rightwards outweigh the potential gains by tacking leftwards, and 2017 appears to show that that's not as a clear-cut a question as conventional wisdom assumes.

 

[nw1]

I'm not sure that's entirely the case though. Corbyn's almost-election-win in 2017 shows there is a lot of potential vote to be tapped into on the left, who didn't bother voting in 2015 (eg. I voted Green in 2015) and probably won't bother voting for Starmer. The question is whether the floating voters you can gain by tacking rightwards outweigh the potential gains by tacking leftwards, and 2017 appears to show that that's not as a clear-cut a question as conventional wisdom assumes.

Perhaps, and I appreciate you have two data points suggesting otherwise - but I rather suspect many on the left are appalled by the attitude of people like Braverman and Anderson, and Sunak's complicity in promoting them to power, and just want to see the back of this particular version of the Tory party even if it means a sub-optimal Labour government. I certainly consider the post-2019 Tory government the most right-wing government of my lifetime, even more so than Thatcher.

At the end of the day, in FPTP in the UK, in which only 2 parties have a realistic chance of gaining power, you have to vote tactically to obtain the government you hate the least. Again it's sad and I do hope it will change - but it'll never change while the Tories, the main beneficiaries of FPTP, are in power. So basically, to attempt to change the system, you have to vote tactically against the Tories - and in this coming election, that really means a tactical vote for Labour (which might be a Lib Dem vote, of course).

 

[MikeWM]

Perhaps, and I appreciate you have two data points suggesting otherwise - but I rather suspect many on the left are appalled by the attitude of people like Braverman and Anderson, and Sunak's complicity in promoting them to power, and just want to see the back of this particular version of the Tory party even if it means a sub-optimal Labour government. I certainly consider the post-2019 Tory government the most right-wing government of my lifetime, even more so than Thatcher.

I think it depends which 'left' you're talking about, as currently it is an uneasy coalition of upper-middle class metropolitan/university types who read the Guardian and watch the BBC, and working class communities largely in the 'red wall'. The former are largely socially liberal, but the latter are largely socially conservative. Again a single data point of my mother, but she is very much on the working class side of that coalition - and as I say a lifelong Labour voter, never even considered voting Tory - and she likes Braverman a lot more than most of the other Tory ministers. (And she hated Thatcher).

 

[nw1]

I think it depends which 'left' you're talking about, as currently it is an uneasy coalition of upper-middle class metropolitan/university types who read the Guardian and watch the BBC, and working class communities largely in the 'red wall'. The former are largely socially liberal, but the latter are largely socially conservative. Again a single data point of my mother, but she is very much on the working class side of that coalition - and as I say a lifelong Labour voter, never even considered voting Tory - and she likes Braverman a lot more than most of the other Tory ministers. (And she hated Thatcher).

But then are the working class side, on average, happy with the current Tory cuts to public services and quarrels with the unions?

(I recognise this is a slightly different issue, but even still, this is why I can't see the Tories retaining many red wall seats).

Are many people so enamoured by Braverman's authoritarian, reactionary and militant agenda on such things as immigration and law and order (which she herself pays scant regard to, of course) that it compensates for the Tories' other failings?

 

[MikeWM]

But then are the working class side, on average, happy with the current Tory cuts to public services and quarrels with the unions?

Almost certainly not, but that brings the conversation full circle, because are Labour offering anything radically different? They don't appear to be. Whereas Corbyn's manifestos did.

Are many people so enamoured by Braverman's authoritarian, reactionary and militant anti-immigrant agenda that it compensates for the Tories' other failings? Do many people still think that the UK's problems would go away if only less foreigners were here?

I don't think it is just about immigration - it's not as if the Tories actually ever do anything constructive on the subject. But it is part of the 'socially conservative' thing that also encompasses other current controversial topics such as 'woke' and the endless culture war debates we seem to be stuck with.


--

Edit : I note Craig Murray has published an excellent article today on his blog that brings together a number of points I've been making over the past year or so. That change - from any side - is not to be allowed, whether from Corbyn or Sanders, Truss or Trump.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/07/has-western-democracy-now-failed/

Has Western Democracy Now Failed?​

Keir Starmer’s determination to use his refusal to alleviate child poverty as the issue with which to demonstrate his macho Thatcherite credentials, has provided one of those moments when blurred perceptions crystallise.

A Labour government in the UK under Starmer will bring no significant changes in economic or foreign policy and will make no difference whatsoever to the lives of working class people.
...
What precisely therefore is the purpose of the Labour Party? An extension to which question is, what then is the purpose of the next UK general election?

To register disgust at the rule of the Tories by voting in an alternative set of Tories?
...
Western democracy appears to have failed in the sense that elections can achieve nothing that makes any difference to the lives of ordinary people. They only make a difference to lives of members of the political class, who jump on or off the gravy train according to the result.

This is not an accident. Those who have threatened the neoliberal order have been destroyed by lies like Corbyn – lies which the billionaire- and state-controlled media were delighted to amplify – or cheated out of election like Bernie Sanders.
...
Neither Trump nor Farage are close to my own views, though I differ from them in different ways from, but no more than I differ from, Starmer and Biden. But what is happening to both of them should be put together with what happened to Corbyn and with the gutting of Labour by Starmer, and even (God help us) with what happened to Truss, as part of the same process of ensuring the political agenda does not offer any real choice.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

At the end of the day, in FPTP in the UK, in which only 2 parties have a realistic chance of gaining power, you have to vote tactically to obtain the government you hate the least. Again it's sad and I do hope it will change - but it'll never change while the Tories, the main beneficiaries of FPTP, are in power. So basically, to attempt to change the system, you have to vote tactically against the Tories - and in this coming election, that really means a tactical vote for Labour (which might be a Lib Dem vote, of course).

Spot on but pretty poor for the country that sells itself as the birth of democracy. Labour will stick with FPTP unless/until they become too marginalised then and only then will possibly consider PR.

 

[MotCO]

I certainly consider the post-2019 Tory government the most right-wing government of my lifetime, even more so than Thatcher.

Really? With higher taxes, bigger public sector, 'nationalisation' of the railways - that seems very left wing to me.

 

[edwin_m]

Spot on but pretty poor for the country that sells itself as the birth of democracy. Labour will stick with FPTP unless/until they become too marginalised then and only then will possibly consider PR.

I'm hoping for a coalition or some formal arrangement, where the LibDems insist on a referendum on PR as a condition of support - and hopefully get their act together better than last time. But given the choice between a Starmer-led Labour government and a Tory government anything like any we've had since 2015, I'll go with Starmer every time.

 

[Butts]

I'm hoping for a coalition or some formal arrangement, where the LibDems insist on a referendum on PR as a condition of support - and hopefully get their act together better than last time. But given the choice between a Starmer-led Labour government and a Tory government anything like any we've had since 2015, I'll go with Starmer every time.

Speaking as a Scottish Conservative I am hoping for a Labour Victory at the next General Election - we have been at the helm for to long and the ship is sinking fast. If only the same longevity maxim applied up here.

One of the most important reforms to help poorer people that Starmer could introduce would be raise the level of SSP to at least the minimum wage. There was talk of this from the TUC during the pandemic but it seems to have died a death - as did many of those who couldn't afford to take time when contracting covid.

 

[nw1]

Really? With higher taxes, bigger public sector, 'nationalisation' of the railways - that seems very left wing to me.

Intolerance of people not "like them" is what I was thinking of, which seems to be significantly worse than under any other previous Tory government. Cf. Braverman's "tofu-eating wokes" and the like. Not to mention the B-word and the stridently anti-immigrationist line, of course.

Then there's such things as the Policing Bill and its crackdown on protests.

And as for the public sector: well for the first time in my adult life I no longer have access to an NHS dentist, and it's very difficult to get a GP appointment. Railways, 'nationalised' or not, are the poorest I have ever seen them in a memory stretching back to 1982. The government are demanding cuts from the TOCs left, right and centre.

Much of the public sector has been on strike at one time or another in the past 12 months, and the government seems not that keen to offer a resolution, instead resorting to name-calling (Barclay's rants at striking NHS workers, for example).

A left-wing government this is not, under any stretch of the imagination.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jul 2023 ==

Spot on but pretty poor for the country that sells itself as the birth of democracy. Labour will stick with FPTP unless/until they become too marginalised then and only then will possibly consider PR.

Labour need to realise though that FPTP will do them no favours.

Some kind of PR or second-preference system would see them with a role in (coalition) government considerably more often than under FPTP, in which they were shut out from 1979-1997 and 2010-2024 (?), in other words 32 years of a 45-year period, despite obtaining reasonable percentages in many of those elections.

They need to realise that.

 

[yorksrob]

Any opposition party wishing to change the overall consensus of the country has to realise that this can only be done over several parliaments. This was true in 1945 and 1979. Because of this, that party should start with one or two key policies for that parliament to start the change in direction.

I think it depends which 'left' you're talking about, as currently it is an uneasy coalition of upper-middle class metropolitan/university types who read the Guardian and watch the BBC, and working class communities largely in the 'red wall'. The former are largely socially liberal, but the latter are largely socially conservative. Again a single data point of my mother, but she is very much on the working class side of that coalition - and as I say a lifelong Labour voter, never even considered voting Tory - and she likes Braverman a lot more than most of the other Tory ministers. (And she hated Thatcher).

The way to square that circle is to review the market consensus. There will be many people in both the traditional left and the metropolitan left who disagree with the current over-commercialised, overly vulnerable to external factors nature of the market economy. There will even be some on the traditional right who look askance at the "selling off of the family silver".

This is where the new consensus can be built over time.

 

[nw1]

Almost certainly not, but that brings the conversation full circle, because are Labour offering anything radically different? They don't appear to be. Whereas Corbyn's manifestos did.



I don't think it is just about immigration - it's not as if the Tories actually ever do anything constructive on the subject. But it is part of the 'socially conservative' thing that also encompasses other current controversial topics such as 'woke' and the endless culture war debates we seem to be stuck with.


--

Edit : I note Craig Murray has published an excellent article today on his blog that brings together a number of points I've been making over the past year or so. That change - from any side - is not to be allowed, whether from Corbyn or Sanders, Truss or Trump.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/07/has-western-democracy-now-failed/

I think there are some good points in this article though I am still optimistic that Labour will be better because they lack the inherently reactionary qualities of many of the current Tories.

As a counter point, I though the theory was that the business establishment did not want Brexit, because (like many of the rest of us) it made their lives more difficult? Therefore, if the business establishment are behind Starmer's policies, would they not be pushing for a closer relationship with the EU?

If Starmer is not making strong pro-EU noises, that suggests to me that instead, the motivation behind Starmer's more right-wing line on many issues, including this one, is to try and woo social conservatives and right-wingers - not because other forces are pushing him on his policies. And that brings hope that once in power, he will move somewhat leftwards (not radically so, but start moving in the right direction) on many issues.

 

[Falcon1200]

At the end of the day, in FPTP in the UK, in which only 2 parties have a realistic chance of gaining power, you have to vote tactically to obtain the government you hate the least.

But PR does not necessarily change that! Here in Scotland, in both FPTP (Westminster) and PR (Holyrood) elections I vote tactically, for the same reason, to try to prevent a party with whose overriding policy I utterly disagree from gaining power. To which end I have voted both Labour and Conservative, and may well do again, depending on who seems best placed to challenge the SNP.

For those in favour of PR, please note that here in Scotland it has led to two Ministerial positions being held by members of a party which won around 8% of the vote, and not a single constituency seat! And the performance of those Ministers (they give abject a bad name) is not exactly a recommendation for having allowed them into Government.

 

[nw1]

Any opposition party wishing to change the overall consensus of the country has to realise that this can only be done over several parliaments. This was true in 1945 and 1979. Because of this, that party should start with one or two key policies for that parliament to start the change in direction.



The way to square that circle is to review the market consensus. There will be many people in both the traditional left and the metropolitan left who disagree with the current over-commercialised, overly vulnerable to external factors nature of the market economy. There will even be some on the traditional right who look askance at the "selling off of the family silver".

This is where the new consensus can be built over time.

I do think that one thing that might trigger a significant leftwards move in the population, and consequently perhaps force the parties to move leftwards, is the effect of generative AI. I do suspect that if generative AI triggers too many job losses, including professions hitherto considered "safe", there will be a decisive leftwards move in people's views as large sectors of the population will be seriously worried about their livelihoods.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jul 2023 ==

But PR does not necessarily change that! Here in Scotland, in both FPTP (Westminster) and PR (Holyrood) elections I vote tactically, for the same reason, to try to prevent a party with whose overriding policy I utterly disagree from gaining power. To which end I have voted both Labour and Conservative, and may well do again, depending on who seems best placed to challenge the SNP.

For those in favour of PR, please note that here in Scotland it has led to two Ministerial positions being held by members of a party which won around 8% of the vote, and not a single constituency seat! And the performance of those Ministers (they give abject a bad name) is not exactly a recommendation for having allowed them into Government.

Perhaps, but in the UK as a whole, under PR you would not get majority governments running the country on their own agenda after receiving 43% of the vote. You'd instead get no one party achieving more than 43% of the seats, which would not allow a majority government and force a coalition of some kind. If the second and third parties agree with each other on many issues and receive more votes than the first, it opens up the possibility of a completely different government formed of a coalition of the second and third parties.

It might also encourage more people to vote for say the Lib Dems or the Greens knowing that they would be more likely to be part of any coalition, and thus potentially influence policy.

 

[yorksrob]

I do think that one thing that might trigger a significant leftwards move in the population, and consequently perhaps force the parties to move leftwards, is the effect of generative AI. I do suspect that if generative AI triggers too many job losses, including professions hitherto considered "safe", there will be a decisive leftwards move in people's views as large sectors of the population will be seriously worried about their livelihoods.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jul 2023 ==



Perhaps, but in the UK as a whole, under PR you would not get majority governments running the country on their own agenda after receiving 43% of the vote. You'd instead get no one party achieving more than 43% of the seats, which would not allow a majority government and force a coalition of some kind. If the second and third parties agree with each other on many issues and receive more votes than the first, it opens up the possibility of a completely different government formed of a coalition of the second and third parties.

It might also encourage more people to vote for say the Lib Dems or the Greens knowing that they would be more likely to be part of any coalition, and thus potentially influence policy.

Yes, AI will throw everything up in the air. Who knows what the result will be.

 

[edwin_m]

For those in favour of PR, please note that here in Scotland it has led to two Ministerial positions being held by members of a party which won around 8% of the vote, and not a single constituency seat! And the performance of those Ministers (they give abject a bad name) is not exactly a recommendation for having allowed them into Government.

And under FPTP we had the 2017 government bunging £10bn to Northern Ireland to obtain Unionist support, and the Farage faction pushed the Cameron government into the Brexit referendum purely on the threat of splitting their vote which is particularly damaging under that system.

Back-door deals and small factions having undue influence aren't just features of governments in countries with PR.

 

[yorksrob]

And under FPTP we had the 2017 government bunging £10bn to Northern Ireland to obtain Unionist support,

Northern Ireland has traditionally had more ingrained economic problems than the rest of the UK. I wouldn't describe using its limited political leverage to obtain more funds as "undue influence".

 

[Falcon1200]

Perhaps, but in the UK as a whole, under PR you would not get majority governments running the country on their own agenda after receiving 43% of the vote.

However PR does not automatically guarantee a majority Government either, in terms of votes cast at least; The SNP and Greens combined won less than 50% of the votes in the last Scottish Government election!

 

[duncanp]

However PR does not automatically guarantee a majority Government either, in terms of votes cast at least; The SNP and Greens combined won less than 50% of the votes in the last Scottish Government election!

Which might give them food for thought if the try and use a future election, whether at Westminster or Holyrood, as a de facto referendum on indpendence.

 

[nw1]

Which might give them food for thought if the try and use a future election, whether at Westminster or Holyrood, as a de facto referendum on indpendence.

I certainly agree that election results should not be seen as "de facto referenda" on single issues. Those in power who are in favour of that single issue, of course, will always push this point but it isn't true. There were, for example, a whole range of reasons people voted for Boris in 2019, and that result should not be seen as a de facto referendum on anything.

 

[Typhoon]

Any opposition party wishing to change the overall consensus of the country has to realise that this can only be done over several parliaments. This was true in 1945 and 1979. Because of this, that party should start with one or two key policies for that parliament to start the change in direction.

True. Although Attlee second administration did not achieve that much, foundations for some of the positive achievements of the first were laid from '42 onward after Attlee had been made responsible for domestic legislation, enabling Churchill to concentrate on the war effort. Having prominent Labour politicians such as Bevin, Greenwood, Morrison and Dalton in charge of ministries meant that they were not new to government in '45 (as most of those in the next Labour or other government would be), and were responsible for largely 'home' focused legislation and implementation. They were aided by the publication of the Beveridge Report, which was widely accepted and welcomed by people as a whole. Other reforms were implemented by (true) 'One Nation' Conservatives such as Butler and the Education Act. There was less opposition to the nationalisation of the mines and rail than there could have been because both were in a bad way. Any incoming (non-Conservative) government will not have this foundation which is largely down not so much to the present occupant of No 10, but his two predecessors (one down to indolence, the other incompetence) and, quite possibly, the previous two as well.

 

[edwin_m]

Northern Ireland has traditionally had more ingrained economic problems than the rest of the UK. I wouldn't describe using its limited political leverage to obtain more funds as "undue influence".

That may well be true, but it doesn't alter the likelihood that NI would not have received the extra funding if the Tories hadn't needed the support of the DUP.

 

[yorksrob]

True. Although Attlee second administration did not achieve that much, foundations for some of the positive achievements of the first were laid from '42 onward after Attlee had been made responsible for domestic legislation, enabling Churchill to concentrate on the war effort. Having prominent Labour politicians such as Bevin, Greenwood, Morrison and Dalton in charge of ministries meant that they were not new to government in '45 (as most of those in the next Labour or other government would be), and were responsible for largely 'home' focused legislation and implementation. They were aided by the publication of the Beveridge Report, which was widely accepted and welcomed by people as a whole. Other reforms were implemented by (true) 'One Nation' Conservatives such as Butler and the Education Act. There was less opposition to the nationalisation of the mines and rail than there could have been because both were in a bad way. Any incoming (non-Conservative) government will not have this foundation which is largely down not so much to the present occupant of No 10, but his two predecessors (one down to indolence, the other incompetence) and, quite possibly, the previous two as well.

Indeed. There was certainly more of an element of consensus already in place in 1945.

That may well be true, but it doesn't alter the likelihood that NI would not have received the extra funding if the Tories hadn't needed the support of the DUP.

True, but these are the swings and roundabouts of parliamentary democracy. Were the lib dems in a position to be kingmaker, policies more favourable to the south west might be forthcoming.

 

[edwin_m]

True, but these are the swings and roundabouts of parliamentary democracy. Were the lib dems in a position to be kingmaker, policies more favourable to the south west might be forthcoming.

Agreed, but my point was that small factions can have influence out of proportion to their size under FPTP too.

 

[yorksrob]

Agreed, but my point was that small factions can have influence out of proportion to their size under FPTP too.

Very true.

 

[MikeWM]

The way to square that circle is to review the market consensus. There will be many people in both the traditional left and the metropolitan left who disagree with the current over-commercialised, overly vulnerable to external factors nature of the market economy. There will even be some on the traditional right who look askance at the "selling off of the family silver".

I agree, but I'm not sure how you can extract yourself from the market anymore because the consequences of doing so would be very severe for a large proportion of the population in the short-term. The 'market' appears to rule and indeed doesn't even appear to allow moves rightwards anymore, never mind leftward - cf. Truss.

Short-term pain for long-term gain is good in the abstract, but when it leads to people losing their homes and businesses it is very hard to stick with.


--

As a counter point, I though the theory was that the business establishment did not want Brexit, because (like many of the rest of us) it made their lives more difficult? Therefore, if the business establishment are behind Starmer's policies, would they not be pushing for a closer relationship with the EU?

I suspect they are, and I suspect Starmer privately is too. But I think it would be electoral suicide to propose bringing all that up again at this point. I believe a large part of the success of the Tories in 2019 with the simplistic message 'Get Brexit done' - and the failure of Labour, with the second referendum policy that was effectively down to Starmer, which would have dragged things out even longer - was due to total fatigue on the part of the population on the whole issue after the endless debates and Parliamentary antics of the previous few years. I don't think most people want to go down that route again any time soon.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

But PR does not necessarily change that! Here in Scotland, in both FPTP (Westminster) and PR (Holyrood) elections I vote tactically, for the same reason, to try to prevent a party with whose overriding policy I utterly disagree from gaining power. To which end I have voted both Labour and Conservative, and may well do again, depending on who seems best placed to challenge the SNP.

I rather think that, in Scotland, if you'd had FPTP instead of PR, then the SNP would have had an overwhelming majority in the Scottish Parliament (despite getting fewer than half the votes) and there would be absolutely nothing you could do about it! I take your point though that, even with PR, there are scenarios where you may prefer to vote tactically.

For those in favour of PR, please note that here in Scotland it has led to two Ministerial positions being held by members of a party which won around 8% of the vote, and not a single constituency seat! And the performance of those Ministers (they give abject a bad name) is not exactly a recommendation for having allowed them into Government.

There is however a reasonable argument that 8% of the vote is a sizeable number of voters and, whether or not you agree with that party, it's fair that that 8% gets some representation. If that includes some actual ministerial representation in the Government, that doesn't seem in principle problematic to me. I don't think anyone is claiming that PR will stop incompetent people getting elected, just that it'll lead to Parliaments and Governments that are likely to be more representative of how people voted.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Jul 2023 ==

It might also encourage more people to vote for say the Lib Dems or the Greens knowing that they would be more likely to be part of any coalition, and thus potentially influence policy.

Oh I would say it's all but certain that if we had PR, then the LibDems and the Greens would get many more votes. There are going to be a lot of people who don't vote for them only because it would amount to a wasted vote under our current system. On the other side, I would imagine that if we had PR, something like ReformUK might grow into a significant party.

 

[Falcon1200]

There is however a reasonable argument that 8% of the vote is a sizeable number of voters and, whether or not you agree with that party, it's fair that that 8% gets some representation.

Not so sure about that, 8% means of course that 92% did not vote for them, and therefore did not want, or expect to have them, anywhere near Government! But whatever voting system is adopted, there are pros and cons.

But getting back in topic, I will find myself very much in a quandary when the next elections come round; There are many reasons for not voting Tory, yet I find it, still, very hard to trust Keir Starmer, given that he believed Jeremy Corbyn was a suitable person to be Prime Minister, despite his actions since then. But if Labour are best placed to beat the SNP, they will probably get my vote.

 

[MotCO]

Oh I would say it's all but certain that if we had PR, then the LibDems and the Greens would get many more votes. There are going to be a lot of people who don't vote for them only because it would amount to a wasted vote under our current system. On the other side, I would imagine that if we had PR, something like ReformUK might grow into a significant party.

I quickly read that as RailforumsUK

 

[Gloster]

I quickly read that as RailforumsUK

Manifesto:

Reopen Woodhead
Bring back the Great Central
Reintroduce the Class 442

Er, that’s it…