MolteniArcore
Well-known member
No I wasn't. I clarified the quote.
Keir Starmer - FoM now a red-line
- Thread starter Scrote
- Start date
No I wasn't. I clarified the quote.
MolteniArcore
Well-known member
Some don't believe Starmer, some do. We've had the arguments about it a million times.
You don't have to believe him. Starmer announced a consultation on it - after the consultation it might be taken forward, it might not. As it's just a consultation I don't think he'll do it 100%, but it shows the direction of thinking within the party.
Unravel_Morrison
Well-known member
I don't get the furore over the tags thing. It's been Labour policy for nearly 20 years, way before Starmer even became an MP.
viv_andersons_nana
Well-known member
I understand I don’t t have to believe him, but I’m interested to find out why others do. And what makes them think he won’t continue to abandon or break pledges and promises. Where does the faith come from.
Labour's Brexit stance was very clear. They wanted to remain. They were going to negotiate a deal and then campaign against it so remain won. But they were still pretending that Brexit had any chance to succeed when it couldn't possibly. Clearly the EU wouldn't have bothered negotiating a deal that they knew the opposition didn't even want so it would be at best Brexit in Name Only. The problem for people knocking on doors is that there was no way to sell the message as a good thing to leave voters but it was very clear what it was.
Corbyn's Brexit stance was less clear. He's old school left, like Mick Lynch, and probably favoured Brexit but he knew the membership wanted Remain so he went with the membership. Never seemed like his heart was in it though.
Corbyn's Brexit stance was less clear. He's old school left, like Mick Lynch, and probably favoured Brexit but he knew the membership wanted Remain so he went with the membership. Never seemed like his heart was in it though.
Andy_W
Well-known member
You miss the point that this is purely a numbers game, where those in the middle carry far more weight.But then I’ve realised most of you have no idea what Labour stand for and just make it up most the time
It doesn't matter what you or I think Labour stand for, if they don't win. Equally, it doesn't matter what makes up the Labour members, when they're getting beat in the polls. It's 100% irrelevant, as the result of this is you get 100% Tory rule, which is the last thing (which is possible) that socialists/ labour left (who think they own the party) want.
When was the last time your version of Labour took power from the Tories? I've been supporting that version from centre left, like many others and it still lost, your way doesn't work, we're asking you to support our way. We can try your way again in the future, I promise.
The only thing that matters is the collective make-up of the Labour members and voters when they do win, and they've not taken power back from the Tories since 1997 (Blair). There are various reasons for this, and people can think what they like, but every Labour leader since then (and the 18 years before) has lost/ had far less seats, that's a fact. The ultimate fault of that is the leader, those who voted for the leader in a leadership election and the MP's who watched on whilst getting beat in the polls/ elections.
Labour won't win without the socialists, the unions, the working class and the centre (or voters), it has to be a balance, but it likely won't be an equal balance, it's an unfair game. To attract the voters back you have to offer them something, and not scare them off. You're not going to change centre/ centre-right voters into socialists/ labour-left views, it's not going to happen. If you don't offer them enough to their way of thinking, they jump back to the other side and start batting for the other team (like they do 75% of the time). The centre are like being worth two votes, so to get them you're going to have to offer them more than you would like.
We've not had a socialist or labour-left leader in power since I've been alive, nor has one come close to winning (or had a viable coalition possibility), there simply is not enough people in the UK who think this way alone, to get one elected, it's just not going to happen. The additional problem with pushing for this is that the fear of this (socialist/ labour-left leader) stirs up the far right wing into a frenzy. It's like Newton's third law, everything has an equal and opposite reaction etc, and is partially why the press went wild at Corbyn and this probably didn't help the referendum voting. Ultimately the left of Labour become their own worst enemy, it is sad that this is the case, but ultimately it is true.
It's mad that I'm writing this, which I am aware of, but ludicrously, the closest thing we have had to socialism in the last 45 years was Blair, of course, he wasn't a socialist but at least he got to enact some more moderate policies or those closer to socialism/ labour left than the Tory offerings 18 years before and 12 years after. Corbyn being a socialist was irrelevant, and all he did is prove that having a socialist in power is not a winnable position, and all it does is stir up the far right.
The only people making things up are those assuming all policies will be equal to the Tories, which they obviously won't as they never have been, for any manifestos of any election. Of course, there may be some similar ground on infrastructure, defence etc, but on many aspects, they will be very different.
There are three possible directions for Labour:
1) Socialism/ labour left taking control = stirring up the far right, and ending up with Tory rule with far right elements
2) Centre left/ centre taking control = winning, and ending up with some watered-down left policies, but much better than the Tory offerings. Tory's will have to water down to try and get the centre back (which is what I expect Sunak to try to do, compared to BJ and Truss etc).
3) Centre left control = probable election loss, and Tory right rule, and the Tories carry on as normal.
Unravel_Morrison
Well-known member
Why does it have to be a black and male? Why not black females or male Asian?
We've had a number of black and Asian women and men win seats for Labour since 2011, who were all presumably shortlisted.
MolteniArcore
Well-known member
I'll ask again... Any evidence? I've tried to look myself but can't find anything. Most stuff refers to MP's elected in 2019.
The reason I keep asking for evidence is Crick is being wheeled out and his words taken verbatim. Always best to try and see for ourselves what the situation is. Maybe this is not possible - the figures might not be there. But if that is the case, and we are only going on someones opinion, we should not be using it as fact?
HolgateCorner
Well-known member
Yes agreed he will have to stand by his pledges when under the national spotlight.Half agree!
It's definitely not a bad thing. I do think it'll probably take an extremely long time for HoL reform to make much of a difference to anything. As in decades. But sure, why not?
As I said yesterday, the bigger problem is when the party has a leader with such form for dropping pledges. Everything they say afterwards suffers for it. Starmer's a bit like Clegg after he folded on tuition fees as quickly as he did.
MolteniArcore
Well-known member
Why are you changing the goalposts? You said "According to Crick Labour have a poor representation of Black and minority candidates for MPs" - I was wondering if there was stats for that before we take it as fact? And I am happy to accept it if there are some figures, but there appears to be none.
It was clear to the likes of us, who will argue endlessly about politics on a footie forum. It was also clear that they didn't dare to commit to it in public. To leave voters (and remainers like myself), Labour looked both antidemocratic and untrustworthy. They made a complete pig's ear of it.
Scrote
Well-known member
Firstly, Labour is a socialist party (democratic socialist to be more precise but it also covers other similar stylings). It's not even hidden away in the small print. It's front and centre on the membership card.
Secondly, if you have a political position which is derived from a set of principles then it DOES matter what the party stands for. If it no longer represents those principles then it isn't the same party - even if it has the same name.
The Labour Leaks and subsequent Forde Report both show that it wasn't being supported by people being paid expressley to support it. We don't know if it could have worked because it was undemined from within - whether you, personally, supported or not. No matter what else is said on the matter, the idea that the 'left' were given a fair crack of the whip is absurd.
And this leads to the crux of the problem. Labour isn't supposed to be the party of the centre (in historical terms and where you only look at politics along a single axis). The Lib Dems should be attracting those votes but due to the system being broken by human behaviour, this doesn't happen. If the country was permanently run by a coalition of Tory/Lib Dem for demographic reasons then so be it. The fact that a huge swathe of people who 'should' represent the Lib Dems have swamped the Labour party leaves us with just this two-party system and the centre clamouring for movement in their direction.
This is just untrue. Corbyn was ~3500 votes away from being able to form a government (as a coalition). That is a trivial number when held against the voting population. There was a breakdown of where those votes could/should have come from (Alex Nunn possibly?) and we know (from LL/Forde) that money was actively diverted away from important swing seats.
You've mentioned this a couple of times so I'll tackle it here. Who do you think creates the "stir"? It doesn't come from nothing. It's driven by the self-interested media owners and pushed as far as they think they can go. Just listen to the coverage of the strikes at the moment. Even the BBC are unbalanced in how they present it across news, current affairs and 'entertainment'.
So if the left are in control Labour can't win but those that want a leftist government will have to vote for the centrist control despite the same centrists not voting for the left?
Isn't that exactly what we've been saying - and keep being told isn't the reality?
If the centre can win without the left then why does anyone care where my vote goes? If the centre can't win without the left then why is there no room for compromise on policy to throw a few bones leftwards?
Scrote
Well-known member
But doesn't this just highlight why the centrists should have stopped playing anti-Corbyn politics and just got behind the soft-brexit versions available in the indicative votes?
We'd still be up to our ears in Brexit as it wouldn't be even vaguely settled but it would have been more honest (and would have shown just how impossible Brexit (as promised) was).
Labour tried to offer something that would break the deadlock. The whole point behind it was that they logically HAD to negotiate the best deal possible in case the country voted for it. Negotiating a bad deal out of spite would have just bitten them in the behind.
BRINO is where we are now and the country is on it's knees. What's going to happen when when the continuation regulations are ripped up?
BlindBoyGrunt
Well-known member
Nobody said it was happening in every seat, but it is happening in some. And after Starmer's statement that the selection process would become more democratic.
Andy_W
Well-known member
Nah, I probably don't, but we'll see when the manifesto comes out, and see how that compares to the Tory one.
But crucially, I'm willing to vote for one which can win (even if it means giving up some ground), just like I've been voting for those which haven't won, even when I knew they wouldn't. I didn't kick up a stink about the leader either, and put my energy into slagging off the Tories.
If the working class aren't polling for Labour then who is?
Who are the working class polling for?
Currently they're projected about 425 seats, which will cover all red wall areas.
Corbyn was the leader when we voted out, then he lost to May who even their own party didn't want (she wasn't right enough), and then he got hammered by BJ who was the worst PM to get elected in my lifetime. There's blame there, whether you like it or not.
Which of Corbyn's policies did Labour get to enact? They policies don't exist unless to win to put them into place. How hard is this to understand?
I wouldn't support striking workers (as in stand next to them on the picket line), it doesn't mean I'm against them either, far from it. All of those subject to strike action should have had their pay increased over the last 12 years in line with inflation, but they've not as Labour kept getting beat by the Tories, and the UK voted to leave. If you stop the Tories from getting in, or don't vote for economic carnage, then you're ultimately going to end up with a better result over the long term.
The problem with MP's supporting striking public sector workers is that anyone who is not in the public sector and has no union etc and who is not getting a rise will feel hard done by. With the current economic situation, I don't see how it is possible to increase the public sector pay and private sector pay, to catch up with 12 years of inflation and real-term wage cuts. It might be possible over 5-10 years, but we need inflation down first, otherwise, there's zero chance.
There are going to be repercussions of 12 years of tory rule, the UK voting leave, the pandemic, the war, the energy crisis, massive inflation etc . This is not possible to fix immediately by someone who could win an election. This will affect the public and private sector, especially the working class, there is no way of getting away from this scot-free.
I don't know the detail on tagging of Asylum Seekers (like most don't), so won't bother commenting on that.
I want the best candidates for the job, no matter what their race or background. Ability should be prioritised over ethnicity/ background, but I agree that Labour do have a low number of minority MP's. This is gradually being corrected, by all parties to be fair.
Unravel_Morrison
Well-known member
I don't understand what you want then. In my mind, there hasn't been a huge number of 'selections' or shortlists since Starmer took power, compared between 2010 and 2019. The latest one shows a BAME locally based person being selected for the seat, replacing a white Chav.
I can't believe we are still having this conversation and you aren't getting it. Corbyn lost because of 2 reasons, Corbyn and Brexit. The rest of the manifesto was really positively received. The policies weren't rejected so to use it as an excuse to abandon any left wing policies and run back to the centre is just that, an excuse or justification for being a centrist party unnecessarily because that is the ideology of that side of the party.
Stop insisting that Labour have to pander to the right because they don't. Ordinarily they would just need a leader that the right don't mind like Starmer with policies that everyone wants like large parts of Corbyn's manifesto. In current circumstances they don't have to pander to them at all. Tories have dug themselves into such a deep hole that an ultra left wing manifesto could beat them and because of that Labour should be taking the opportunity to move everyone to the left instead of moving themselves to the right.
Laughing
Well-known member
I don't necessarily disagree with your post Nano, but what I would say, is in 2017 when corbyn came close, he was up against Theresa May. She was pretty bad and it could be argued that just about anyone could and should have won that election.
I am not sure that the left leaning manifesto was the reason he came close. I suspect swathes of folks abandoning May helped a great deal.
BlindBoyGrunt
Well-known member
Nah it was the manifesto. Even traditional Tories liked it, until they found out it belonged to Labour.
Laughing
Well-known member
BBG you are referring, I would guess to the poll of manifesto promises? I saw that at the time, I have no idea how that was set up and the size of the sample used.