That Starmer fella...

what did I miss exactly?

For starters...

Who brought the bill?

What was the bill?

[Edit] Why did they bring the bill?

What was the benefit of passing the bill?

What are the future negative implications with Starmer's relationship with the next US President (and Israeli PM)?

Who brought the bill?

fair, he's not a fan of left of centre politics

What was the bill?

and?

What was the benefit of passing the bill?

fuck all really, but the lad is a fan of empty gestures

Your last point is fair admittedly, but not the only thing to consider given you know, the ethnic cleansing and genocide and that.

anyway, I need to do what I said I would. ahm oot.

Ha, and I was so easily drawn into a po faced response 😀

“would like to know what this meant though: "I’ll leave the less kind interpretation to others"”

Given you called Starmer a cunt and lied that he approved of war crimes, what do you think it means?

I don't know, that's why I asked. Just say what you mean.

"lied". Nah, interpreted his response to mean. an interpretation that plenty of other people share.

Sigh... the bane of the left and liberal, that they divide rather than unite, that they split over interpretation and pedantic detail, and that no matter what the differences (and there are many) the right unite first to get power secured and will have their arguments behind closed doors once they're in office.

The greatest risk to a future Labour or left leaning govt is precisely the BS of the last few days.

I couldn't give a hoot what Starmer or any of them say, the tactics should be simple... get power first, then argue about all this shit in private. But it's all worth nothing if you have no power, and the hysterics and mouth-frothing recently only works against Labour and not for.

It's incredible that the side of politics (the left) that understands collective power doesn't understand how to unite to win power... and yet the side (the right) that believes in individualism consistently manages to unite and wins power.

The people of this country, and the press, have learned so little, and shouldn't assume that the Tories won't win the next time if everyone left of the Tories cannot get their shit together and unite.

Amen brother

My issue with the article (beyond the Thatcher soundbite and the irony of telling ex Cons that Labour is the party for them whilst abandoning core Labour values) is that he's trying to use the same talking points as the Conservatives which are fundamentally unreconcilable.

The Conservatives have constantly been hamstrung by their hard-line on immigration, since all stats show that it is a net positive for the economy and there are various core services that would just fall apart if immigration stopped.

Maybe I'm idealistic but it would be nice to try and stand on his own ideals and try and educate, rather than just sidling up to the Cons and saying "Hey, hey, we're not so different you and I"

Sigh...

Sorry my autism puts you out, man. Don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to say what they mean tbh.

But genuinely, thank you. agree on some points tbh, not on others obvs but trying not to get drawn in again. thanks.

Maybe I'm idealistic but it would be nice to try and stand on his own ideals and try and educate

That's what Corbyn tried. There's a lesson there.

If an issue is salient, telling people they’re wrong to think it’s an issue will make them think you’re out of touch. So you accept the issue’s salience and then try to reframe it in a way that fits your politics and come up with a solution your base can get behind. Seems reasonable to me, really, but a lot of the left can’t get past the concept of accepting the salience of the issue.

It's incredible that the side of politics that understands collective power doesn't understand how to unite to win power... and yet the side that believes in individualism consistently manages to unite and wins power.

Kinda makes sense if you say the first lot are people who think about others and the second are only out for themselves, so it's easy to ignore the bad bits about the cunts you're in league with. But there definitely needs to be some nose holding from the left over smaller differences to make the big difference of winning happen.

Which was, remind me, something about being undermined by your own side and labeled unelectable from the start being a self fulfilling prophecy?

It's funny how the holding your nose and all pulling together only becomes valid for certain people ¯\(ツ)/¯

Fair comment. Elements off the left get bent out of shape over some of Starmer's rferences and lose sight of the bigger picture. I'm sure he says somethings to try to appeal to a broader electorate as there is no point in him going into the election as Corbyn 2.0

I think it's more a personality type.

This is very much anecdotal, but overwhelmingly the tories I know are crack-on, don't get bogged down in details, it'll be fine if you believe hard enough types. Conversely thise on the left are more critical. Doers vs Thinkers, I guess. I think it's much easier to work together if you're the former personality type - see how Pro-immigration Singapore-on-Thames Tories can sit in the same party as protectionist racists.

In any event you've got to a bit careful about how you draw your conclusions. I know someone who wrote their masters dissertation on Party cabinet styles from WW2 to Brown and their conclusion was that Labour were more dictatorial and less collaborative.

If an issue is salient

There's a strong argument to say that's the problem though. Polling suggests immigration is no longer a priority for voters. And to the extent that it is a salient issue it's waaaay down there.

So why go there? Why not let the Tories hit themselves in the face and stand well back?

I assume one part is they've done the analysis on which groups it is still a factor for.
The other I would guess is that when your opposition hands you a massive fucking club, you beat them with it - not critique the choice of weapon, or whether you'd actually prefer something lighter with a bit more accuracy that better suits your playing style.

I know someone who wrote their masters dissertation on Party cabinet styles from WW2 to Brown and their conclusion was that Labour were more dictatorial and less collaborative.

Maybe so, but this is about voters, party members and back benchers as much as cabinets.

it will often feel impossible to rationalise why the tories seem to unify and labour seems to self immolate if the conversation continues to be free of material interests and class interests.

much with this example of the innocuous line about maggie, the line itself, to many is nothing, a throw away comment to help in the courting of more voters come next GE. it might even be a positive thing which makes them think of their own families prosperity in the time. to others it's a painful reminder of a woman who installed section 28, punished numerous working class families up and down the country in union busting and saw the grewatest destruction of social housing stock in our lifetime. it's why news papers like the tory rags select them out of what is otherwise a boring, nothing of a speech which does not rock the boat (country bad, stop small boats, migration bad, i will stop migration, handwaving about fixing this all, tone designed to appeal to your da').

people who respond this way occupy the same party thanks to our 2 party system, the measures needed to satisfy their material and class interests requeire different solutions and can often compete with each other. often the party feels like it has to choose between them to become electable. the tories do not have this issue, for they are organising around a base which is tighter in beliefs, one of "make my number get bigger, preserve the value of my current number". this will outweight any identiarian or morale concern one might have.

of course however, to many people labour is a 3rd option almost, it's a "stop the tories option", they feel neither incentivised by their offering or disparaged by it, especially in the face of the destructive tory premiership of the last decade. and it's commendable, this is their material hardline. if they wish to understand why some people might find not even this enough, maybe introspection into some of the hardlines the labour party have crossed which leaves them able to vote for them even in the face of this:

their actions around palestine in the shadow of the chilcott report
their actions around trans rights, thus lgbt rights, as their health minister and leader continues to say, quite frankly alarming statements
their attachment to 3rd way economics without criticism
their seeming inability to speak to people under 35, renters, and non asset owners
their close relationship with privatisation in key social areas
their inability to build a morale message for migration and seeming comfort to lean into tory set attack lines on refugess and migration from war torn areas of the globe

the immidiate response is to say "but the tories will be worse!" that they will, but people who are put off voting for labour know this, what they struggle with is knowing their only voice in this democracy is their vote, much like those felt with brexit or jeremy corbyns stances on antisemitism, the only thing they can do is withhold it. if they use it, without getting their voice heard then they simply validate their silencing, they disenfranchise themselves.

the question we should ask is why can the labour party not address these demands meaningfully, what assurances are there for these voters if they do vote trusting he will, in some cases, 180 on his public statements? the lesser evil chastise will only get people so far, but if we're truly interested in anyone but tories, these are conversations going to be had on the doorstep. especially in some cases, these are conversations if not had now, will manifest as interest groups not providing the organisational support they rely on in a GE, or even organise against them. an issue the tories will not be happening.

the inability to ask "why should people vote for us other than all other options are worse" has tripped up many a center left democratic party, many a time

I mean, sure, but you can say the same about Starmer - there's plenty on the left of the party who have been calling for him to step down since day one. Whisper it, but you might even see a few in this thread! Heavens.

And that's par for the course; factional enemies within the party are something that every leader has to deal with. Leaders get elected, then they get attacked from within (not for anything they've done, but for who they are), so they sideline their ideological enemies, and strengthen their allies. Corbyn played that game. So does Starmer. It's not unique.

Because the uncomfortable reality is, the electorate made up its own mind about Corbyn. You can apportion a little blame to Labour factionalism, and a little more to the right wing media, but the things that most damaged Corbyn in the eyes of the mainstream electorate were his own actions - his reaction to Skripal did more to harm his reputation than anything Wes Streeting did.

Is it fair? No. The game is stacked against the left. But that's no reason to withdraw altogether. And you may dislike Starmer's politics but he's been an effective leader for managing message, the media, his factional enemies, and his own party - despite also being "undermined by his own side and labeled unelectable from the start".

I'm not super happy with Starmer. I think he's ceded too much ground to the right, when he doesn't have to. But 2019 was a wakeup call to me. And I understand why he is tacking in the complete opposite direction. And it is working.

And within that, leaving aside the recent huge by-election swings recently which if replicated at a general election will be an absolute sea change, there are millions of voters in very safe seats who don’t have a meaningful vote - in my small constituency it’s been a huge Tory majority as far as I can remember, currently north of 24k.

I’d absolutely rail against the sham democracy game that we have and wish it would change even if I can’t see how that will happen but equally have to accept that the players have no option but to play within that game currently. So hate the players but despise the game, kind of thing.

but equally [I] have to accept that the players have no option but to play within that game currently

This is the really crucial thing here, I think, and I (hopefully, respectfully) disagree. Hate the players and hate the game even more, 100%, but I think we'd all agree that ultimately the game needs to change, so the question is how.

From further upthread:

get power first, then argue about all this shit in private

The shadow front bench are capitulating on a number of arguments: on migration, on the nature of finance, workers rights, tenants rights, among others. These aren't private issues — they're inherently public — and our major left representatives don't seem to be concerned with them much at all. That's partially down to a democratic deficit, and otherwise an anti-confrontational streak in the shadow front bench for all the reasons @Maj stated earlier.

To give them some credit, they're trying to navigate what they see as a difficult political situation with new ways to get around the old problems of political economy. It seems to me that they've read a bit of Mariana Mazzucato and listened to her ideas on the entrepreneurial state (I'm a fan too!), but have landed on the idea that it's all they need to do, rather than something in addition to correcting any of the many failures of the last 40-50 years.

The resurgence of the youth vote for far-right parties in places like The Netherlands is particularly worrying in this context. Their protest votes centre on old problems of distribution, equality and housing. The only figures they can turn to are the likes of Geert Wilders, who are publicly willing and able to warp these forces into changing the status quo.

So back in the UK, we're really just hoping that Labour's agenda is much more progressive than it appears, simply willing meaningful change into existence without really talking about it.

Narrator: it was not that simple

Really good points, it’s a really complex, embedded context with no simple answers (well, apart from the bone headedly simple solutions that populists have sold to the gullible and look how that’s worked out for the vast majority of the country).

But because it’s hard is absolutely no excuse not to try to do anything to address it - if we hope that things can get better then there’s a chance, if we have no hope then we’re lost before we start. And I can’t see any hope if the current bastards get to continue for a further term.

@Big_Ted

no simple answers

because it’s hard is absolutely no excuse not to try to do anything to address it - if we hope that things can get better then there’s a chance, if we have no hope then we’re lost before we start. And I can’t see any hope if the current bastards get to continue for a further term.

Totally agree!

the bone headedly simple solutions that populists have sold to the gullible and look how that’s worked out for the vast majority of the country

Populism is an interesting one for me. I don't really like the term as a pejorative, since it could well just be a core part of the correctional nature of democracies. If we've got a democratic deficit (which I think we do, both locally, nationally, at work, etc.), then it's the biggest signal you can get as a politician for widespread economic hardship.

There are obviously the total loons you're referring to who are willing to blame immigration for everything, but they're abusing a position handed to them on a plate from the centre ground going back decades. All parties need popular support regardless of their programme, so they can either play whack-a-mole with Farage and friends, pretending their arguments are invalid or too stupid, creating a vacuum, or engage with the problems underlying the division and deal with them earnestly.

This Guardian article on the Netherlands election is pretty telling: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/younger-voters-far-right-europe

“I voted for Wilders, and many of my friends did too,” he said. “I don’t want to live with my parents for ever. I want my own home, and to be able to provide for my family later on. Wilders wants to figure out the housing crisis, and make our healthcare better. Those are the most important topics for me.”

“I still live with my parents – I can’t afford a room in Amsterdam,” he said. “I have to commute every day. Wilders wants to give housing to people who are from here – I don’t think that’s strange.”

These are really scary messages from people we'd expect to be voting for progressive parties. Showing either outright anti-immigration sentiments or the ability to ignore it because their world is fucked.

So Labour might be keeping quiet for now, and that's a totally valid argument for the next election given the polling data. But if they don't meaningfully change after the election, continuing to abandon these people's basic needs, it's going to be one hell of a ride in the next decade.

(Even looking at some of the polls there are more 'Don't knows' than Conservative votes, although I don't know if that's a normal figure)

Edit: And to clarify, I'm still (somewhat reluctantly) pro-Starmer. Lesser of two evils and all that.