Labour leadership contest 2020

I'm a member of another party. Also I'm not sure any of the candidates currently could get the party on the right foot. One of the big problem is union influence. Union influence appeals to labour party diehards. To the rest of us they are a throwback. I was once a NUT member but stopped paying my subs when they asked me to go on strike for a second time that was 2010. I was quite well paid. I left teaching after that work more hours now for half the pay. The pension was also stellar. Now I can barely afford a pension but I will never go back to teaching. No amount of money is worth the stress. I object to working in a pressure cooker. The influence the unions have in the labour party is of the main reasons why I cant join the labour party. I am not opposed to unions I am opposed to the power the try and wield. It's often counter productive. Union politics and the control the unions have had over candidate selection and policy has to be one of the reasons for labour's defeat. When candidates stand up and say I am a proud trade unionist then people like me are turned off and vote for someone else. Everyone who voted for the conservatives was turned off by that. That's how a big a change of direction is required. The nation is not that left wing. What the nation wants is a bit of statism. That why nationisaltion of rail is popular but a bit of statism is popular not alot of it.

Free broadband had a big issue. Giving it away. Having the state own a telecoms service is not that radical. It probably is not the best way to run it as it not likely to run like a business. Giving its income stream away is exactly the problem that everyone saw except labour diehards. Giving it away means it's not run like a business. It a bit like the government paying me to fix bikes for free. I am not likely to run the shop well as some one else is picking up the tab. Sane goes with broadband. If the nationalised industry is required by law to stand on it's own and its revenues support it then fine it's a business. The moment that's not true then voters know it not going to work hense the nationisaltion policy overall was not popular.

Free buses therefore are not needed (I suggested it would be more useful than free broadband not more desirable because free is not desirable) services should never be given away. I'd chop all bus passes as all they mean is buses are more expensive for working age people. Appropriate compensation could made through disability allowances or pension payments. Cheaper busses are desirable. To get to my shop is cost £3.50 each way for 7 mile journey or I can ride for a lot less. No wonder so many drive.

The problems with the labour run deeper than corbyn and the leadership. The whole thinking is flawed. I was a diehard remainer once but once the 2017 election result came in remain died yet the party and its membership kept flogging that dead horse and kept failing to back compromise options (the lib dems also failed here). instead the labour party insisted on trying to have brexit done it's way. Labour lost then. The lib dems had the same problem and have been punished for it ( I'm a lib dem member and actually left over ther parties pointless opposition to brexit and re joined to get a vote on the leader on to be disappointed again by the new leaders even more extreme brexit stance( I have only stayed a member to have a say in leadership bid and maintain a say in the party as I knew defeat was coming). Principled opposition to have it our way is never the way to win. There a time and place for principles but if they make a party rigid... Compromise and the ability to adapt is the life blood of poltics, without that a party looks rigid and will loose. That's what done labour in and why the tories won. The tories compromise was with the right of the party and understanding the public as a whole is not that left wing.

Demographics are also against the labour parties strategy. Take south suffolk. I was at the count as a party agent. Sudbury and cornard are labour areas where labour and the tories are close. Everywhere in the constituency which is rural is tory. Labour could not even turn towns like ipswich and colchester. The lib dem vote going all to labour would still not have changed the result. If towns like this cant turn labour then the party has got it really wrong.

Brexit has to be embraced but the reason for brexit have to be addressed. The labour party needs to embrace devolution and look less urban and middle class leftist. It need to look like a poltical party rather than a protest group.

If all that happened I might join but the membership have to go with that change.

I actually wanted to vote labour this time but could not find a single reason to do so. I voted for labour 2017 because even as a lib dem member I was that opposed to the parties brexit policy and Tim Farron is not a leader that inspired. I could find reasons in 2017 to vote for labour although j held my nose at yhd union thing.