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Labour Leader: Keir Starmer II

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Repeating your discontent about a Party you don't/would not vote for is pointless.

As is your tribally/institutionally/mindlessly voting for a party that is unlikely to gain power again any time soon, and has a lengthy track record of being hopelessly ineffectual on the few occasions it has got to form a government.

Here’s a neat history of UK governments on Wikipedia. Labour have racked up just 31 years in power out of the last 120 (since the party inception), most of that being the beloved Blair/Brown! Are you seriously telling me this is the best opposition to the rule of right-wing elites we can ever hope for? They are too feckless even to fight against the FPTP system that keeps the Tories in power! Come on, aspire to something better!
 
As is your tribally/institutionally/mindlessly voting for a party that is unlikely to gain power again any time soon, and has a lengthy track record of being hopelessly ineffectual on the few occasions it has got to form a government.

Here’s a neat history of UK governments on Wikipedia. Labour have racked up just 31 years in power out of the last 120 (since the party inception), most of that being the beloved Blair/Brown! Are you seriously telling me this is the best opposition to the rule of right-wing elites we can ever hope for? They are too feckless even to fight against the FPTP system that keeps the Tories in power! Come on, aspire to something better!
Leaving aside the insults I expect from you whenever your political opinions are challenged, what are you going to do to bring about the revolution you seek? How is this massive change going to come about?
 
How is this massive change going to come about?

It will either grow gradually from street pressure and discontent with the status quo, or it will never happen. I see things like Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Stop Funding Hate, Led By Donkeys etc as leading the way forward towards a new politics, but it can only ever be achieved if there is enough public pressure to actually implement a proper functioning democracy. As long as we stick with FPTP we’ll get Tories, as that is exactly what that system is designed to do. No truly democratic system would ever award a party with 39-43% of the voteshare a dictatorship for four years. We need to break that cycle, and as long as Labour are Tory lapdogs it can’t happen.
 
It will either grow gradually from street pressure and discontent with the status quo, or it will never happen. I see things like Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Stop Funding Hate, Led By Donkeys etc as leading the way forward towards a new politics, but it can only ever be achieved if there is enough public pressure to actually implement a proper functioning democracy. As long as we stick with FPTP we’ll get Tories, as that is exactly what that system is designed to do. No truly democratic system would ever award a party with 39-43% of the voteshare a dictatorship for four years. We need to break that cycle, and as long as Labour are Tory lapdogs it can’t happen.

As much as I like the idea of a coalition of Green and left of centre politics, such a coalition would come under the same attack used against Corbyn. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know how shit Corbyn was, but I think it somewhat likely that any potential coalition of environmental and social concerns would be confronted head on by the already very united coalition of big money, politics and press.

There would be no end of propaganda casting doubt on scientific understanding of the issues and the personalities would come under such a torrent of endless exposure that there’ll soon come a point where no one will even care if any of its true anymore

PR would do little to balance that, and we ain’t got it anyway.
 
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know how shit Corbyn was, but I think it somewhat likely that any potential coalition of environmental and social concerns would be confronted head on by the already very united coalition of big money, politics and press.

I agree, but the essential hurdle is to remove FPTP. That needs to be priority #1 for any party or coalition of parties that want to break centuries of Tory rule. FPTP only exists to remove views from representation. It has no other purpose. It is just a tool to provide absolute power to Tories with a minority voteshare, history tells us this. They never get anything even remotely approaching a legitimate mandate (>50%) yet if my maths is correct out of the last 120 years they have had absolute parliamentary control for best part of 90. This is simply not the statistical record of a functional a democracy!

Labour really do need to wise up to this and carry it as a core shared manifesto pledge with all other progressive parties IMHO. You can’t fight against systemic failure, you need to fix it.
 
...Labour really do need to wise up to this and carry it as a core shared manifesto pledge with all other progressive parties IMHO. You can’t fight against systemic failure, you need to fix it.

According to Bridget Phillipson (@droodzilla post above) Labour will be turning away from it’s core manifesto pledges. She even says that Labour needs to get out of the “habit” of public spending. Not much hope of Labour offering anything new from now on I’m afraid.
 
According to Bridget Phillipson (@droodzilla post above) Labour will be turning away from it’s core manifesto pledges. She even says that Labour needs to get out of the “habit” of public spending. Not much hope of Labour offering anything new from now on I’m afraid.

And every hope of it repeating the painful lessons of the 70s and 80s I'm afraid.
 
I agree, but the essential hurdle is to remove FPTP. That needs to be priority #1 for any party or coalition of parties that want to break centuries of Tory rule. FPTP only exists to remove views from representation. It has no other purpose. It is just a tool to provide absolute power to Tories with a minority voteshare, history tells us this. They never get anything even remotely approaching a legitimate mandate (>50%) yet if my maths is correct out of the last 120 years they have had absolute parliamentary control for best part of 90. This is simply not the statistical record of a functional a democracy!

Labour really do need to wise up to this and carry it as a core shared manifesto pledge with all other progressive parties IMHO. You can’t fight against systemic failure, you need to fix it.
What the last few years have shown us is that there are significant numbers of people high up in the Labour Party who are basically OK with the Conservatives being in power indefinitely if the alternative is that their career has to take a hit. When it comes to whether or not Labour will take up the PR cause, what’s going to be key is how the likes of, say, Ian Murray, or his equivalent in the bureaucracy and in local councils, calculate its likely impact on their individual prospects. I don’t see them going for it, no matter how strong the case is for the party as a whole.

Labour won’t embrace democratic reform until the party itself is democratised, and that’s not on the cards.
 
According to Bridget Phillipson (@droodzilla post above) Labour will be turning away from it’s core manifesto pledges. She even says that Labour needs to get out of the “habit” of public spending. Not much hope of Labour offering anything new from now on I’m afraid.

What she actually said was: “We cannot be thought of as a party whose reaction to every problem is that the answer is more spending. It’s a habit we got into, and it’s a habit we need to break.” Of course, you may believe that increased public spending is the answer to every problem, but with the Tories chucking around money like a sailor on shore leave, maybe Labour does need to come up with a more nuanced approach.
 
Labour won’t embrace democratic reform until the party itself is democratised, and that’s not on the cards.

Agreed. Way too many mundane and self-serving MPs in safe seats for life for anything to happen from within. This is one reason I view the Labour party as a lost cause. Basically we get two options on the polling card that say ‘no change’ and are expected to pick one. I’m done with it now. It is a waste of time and an insult to intelligence. Just a charade.
 
What she actually said was: “We cannot be thought of as a party whose reaction to every problem is that the answer is more spending. It’s a habit we got into, and it’s a habit we need to break.” Of course, you may believe that increased public spending is the answer to every problem, but with the Tories chucking around money like a sailor on shore leave, maybe Labour does need to come up with a more nuanced approach.
The accusation ‘public spending is the answer to every problem’ is a very lazy caricature, but it’s clear from Phillipson’s article that a turn away from properly funded public services and towards austerity spending is very much on the cards. She uses much the same language that Osborne used to justify his austerity funding cuts, reinforcing the fear that Labour is set to return to aping traditional Tory apathy to public services. Which if you don’t see value in public services might be a good thing

PS. This government is not chucking money about like a sailor on shore leave, it is very soberly and very deliberately using the Covid crisis to divert public money into private hands. But if you see using public funds to cosy up to such business interests as essential to electoral success, perhaps it’s a price worth paying.
 
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Vote Green. It's the only thing to do. Labour is a lost cause. There is no chance they will support PR. Without that the Tories will be in power forever.

Jack
 
Vote Green. It's the only thing to do. Labour is a lost cause. There is no chance they will support PR. Without that the Tories will be in power forever.

Jack

It would be just a different type of banana republic :D
Over here they did very well in the last election. A strange bunch. One walked the minute they went into government. I wouldn't like to be relying on them to back you up. Caroline lucas is excellent but is their depth there(The party)?
 
They just need a new logo of either a bloke sitting on a fence or a focus group and its job done.
 
“He won't be as much waving the Red Flag as the Union Jack.

He will try to convince those who have abandoned the party that their values and his have much in common.

So there will be an emphasis on patriotism.”

Oh god. These ——holes never learn. They’ve got one idea and they’re going to keep using it, however often it blows up in their faces. 20 years they’ve been pressing this button, watching their own vote share shrink and UKIP grow. “Press it harder Keith!”
 
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