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Labour Leader: Keir Starmer V

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Tony L said:
Again I’d cite the SNP as proof of concept that a clearly focused and coherent progressive-left party can really do well in the UK. A such I blame Labour alone, and absolutely not the electorate, for Labour’s failure. Corbyn was clearly part of that failure, as was Milliband before him, and it appears Starmer after. The reality remains the Tories never get much over 40% of the vote even when they are at their strongest and Labour have placed themselves on the ropes. A clear majority of voters vote against Tory rule and that vote is split almost entirely across progressive parties.
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We have a Green-SNP progressive govt in Edinburgh now and I put much of the influence to keep oil in the ground in the Cambo Fieild down to them.
 
Tony L said:
Again I’d cite the SNP as proof of concept that a clearly focused and coherent progressive-left party can really do well in the UK. A such I blame Labour alone, and absolutely not the electorate, for Labour’s failure. Corbyn was clearly part of that failure, as was Milliband before him, and it appears Starmer after. The reality remains the Tories never get much over 40% of the vote even when they are at their strongest and Labour have placed themselves on the ropes. A clear majority of voters vote against Tory rule and that vote is split almost entirely across progressive parties.
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I did consider saying English electorate before changing it to British electorate, perhaps I should’ve stuck with my first thought. Scotland does have a much better history when it comes to militancy against Tory hegemony
 
Tony L said:
Again I’d cite the SNP as proof of concept that a clearly focused and coherent progressive-left party can really do well in the UK. A such I blame Labour alone, and absolutely not the electorate, for Labour’s failure. Corbyn was clearly part of that failure, as was Milliband before him, and it appears Starmer after. The reality remains the Tories never get much over 40% of the vote even when they are at their strongest and Labour have placed themselves on the ropes. A clear majority of voters vote against Tory rule and that vote is split almost entirely across progressive parties.
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Considering you keep saying you’re not interested in Labour I’d be rolling in it if I was given a quid for every negative post you’ve made about Labour and about Corbyn. Now you’ve added Miliband to the mix. Even more if I had a quid for each time you’ve made a reference to ‘progressive parties’ taking anti-Tory votes, as though that is the fault of Labour.

Which parties are these progressives and what is progressive about them in your opinion?
You surely cannot still be referring to the LibDems as ‘progressive’ given their actions rather than their words? There was a chance to break free of the 2 party, FPTP system you claim to dislike but your favoured party sold out on that in 2010. They also torpedoed any chance of a soft brexit in 2019. Progressive? They are tories in a crap disguise.

The SNP exists only in Scotland and as a single issue party is not ‘progressive’ regardless of how much you agree with them and like them.

The Green party is a protest group, perhaps progressive but so what? It’s a minor party.

Aside from the faction undermining the party from within, Labour is on the ropes due mainly to people buying into right wing media propaganda. The SNP could be great but they could equally get up to all manner of idiocy and get away with it. The core support of the party is based on emotion, they will forgive them anything but the party also gets an easy ride from the media because while they are taking seats from Labour those people running the propaganda show know the UK tory govt is reasonably secure. People who buy into this crap are the tories friends.
 
TheDecameron said:
We have a Green-SNP progressive govt in Edinburgh now and I put much of the influence to keep oil in the ground in the Cambo Fieild down to them.
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I would like to see a broad movement of left-leaning Labour MPs to the Greens. I think the green movement is in the ascendant, due to the climate thing. Cop26 and the others have largely shown us mainstream politicians are ineffectual so if the groundswell of public concern and public opinion is that we need to do stuff, not talk about doing stuff, then the green message must surely resonate? But the greens lack political expertise, which is where an influx of seasoned, left wing politicians could be helpful.
 
Brian said:
Now you’ve added Miliband to the mix.
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FWIW I like Ed Milliband, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke, but my point stands. He is part of the ideologically broken ‘post-Gillian Duffy’ Labour. He led the party to a truly humiliating defeat, just as Corbyn did, and just as Starmer will next time. It is over and all your red team tribalism and ad hominem will never change that.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I would like to see a broad movement of left-leaning Labour MPs to the Greens. I think the green movement is in the ascendant, due to the climate thing. Cop26 and the others have largely shown us mainstream politicians are ineffectual so if the groundswell of public concern and public opinion is that we need to do stuff, not talk about doing stuff, then the green message must surely resonate? But the greens lack political expertise, which is where an influx of seasoned, left wing politicians could be helpful.
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Won’t happen. Sunlit uplands, etc.
 
Tony L said:
FWIW I like Ed Milliband, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke, but my point stands. He is part of the ideologically broken ‘post-Gillian Duffy’ Labour. He led the party to a truly humiliating defeat, just as Corbyn did, and just as Starmer will next time. It is over and all your red team tribalism and ad hominem will never change that.
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Red team tribalism? I vote tactically against the tories. Which tribe is that?

Ad-hom? Where? There is a lot of insult fired off around here but not much from me.
 
Tony L said:
Your post is all about me, next to nothing about the points I raised.
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On the contrary, I believe paragraphs 2,3,4 and 5 are valid responses to your points.

I will admit para 1 is out of frustration, but it’s not insulting you personally, you surely see you make a lot of anti-Labour posts? I get much more ad-hom from you, Tony. All these references to ‘alt-right’, comment that I support the tories when I certainly do not, insinuations that I am right wing and now this regular one of being red team tribal. Yes, I would prefer a Labour govt over the tories but having lived in different parts of the country I do not automatically vote Labour, I vote tactically and have done for a long time. Overall, I prefer Labour, I assume you too have an ideal in mind but I would take a Green party in govt over the tories, I just don’t believe in fairytales. Until I saw what the LibDems actually did 2010-2015 I would have taken them over a tory govt.

Explain how that is red team tribalism.
 
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Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I would like to see a broad movement of left-leaning Labour MPs to the Greens. I think the green movement is in the ascendant, due to the climate thing. Cop26 and the others have largely shown us mainstream politicians are ineffectual so if the groundswell of public concern and public opinion is that we need to do stuff, not talk about doing stuff, then the green message must surely resonate? But the greens lack political expertise, which is where an influx of seasoned, left wing politicians could be helpful.
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Getting the Green vote up to meaningful levels of seats and influence is nigh on impossible in a Westminster-style FPT.P contest. A second vote system like the one up here allowed many like me to vote for SNP in my constituency and vote Green in the regional list vote and it worked beautifully.
One concern I’d have about adopting the same voting system in England is that it would allow the mutated UKIP and other far right parties to take seats. The thought of a Tory/ far right coalition government is terrifying. The latest vehicle for Tice and Co is on the rise in voting intention polls an towns like Hartlepool have elected far right councillors.

https://inews.co.uk/news/local-elec...ats-hartlepool-epping-forest-far-right-287226
 
TheDecameron said:
Getting the Green vote up to meaningful levels of seats and influence is nigh on impossible in a Westminster-style FPT.P contest. A second vote system like the one up here allowed many like me to vote for SNP in my constituency and vote Green in the regional list vote and it worked beautifully.
One concern I’d have about adopting the same voting system in England is that it would allow the mutated UKIP and other far right parties to take seats. The thought of a Tory/ far right coalition government is terrifying. The latest vehicle for Tice and Co is on the rise in voting intention polls an towns like Hartlepool have elected far right councillors.

https://inews.co.uk/news/local-elec...ats-hartlepool-epping-forest-far-right-287226
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That’s scary. Something embarrassingly wrong with this England where racism gets votes in such numbers
 
ks.234 said:
That’s scary. Something embarrassingly wrong with this England where racism gets votes in such numbers
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PR is a double edged sword. You have to be able to tolerate political strains you find philosophically and morally repellent, gaining real power.
 
TheDecameron said:
One concern I’d have about adopting the same voting system in England is that it would allow the mutated UKIP and other far right parties to take seats. The thought of a Tory/ far right coalition government is terrifying. The latest vehicle for Tice and Co is on the rise in voting intention polls an towns like Hartlepool have elected far right councillors.
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In reality it is a trace element and I’m sure would be countered by a vastly more significant uptake for Greens, Librals and all the progressives who currently tactically vote etc. I do view England as a bit of a dump compared to much of the so called developed world, it has not yet outgrown its brutal bloody past of monarchy, colonialism, slavery etc, but even so the vast majority of people are pretty decent and I’m sure we’d settle somewhere around the centre to centre-left given a run or two. I’d certainly risk it rather than be stuck with an increasingly corrupt and destructive Bullingdon elite rule forever.

There are many lessons to be learned from America as to just how far the political right will go to deny representation from sections of the population they do not like (be that based on racism or ideology). Blatant vote-rigging is not beyond these people. We should be in zero doubt that the UK Conservative Party will play the same game, arguably it has been doing so for centuries hence the hopelessly stacked and undemocratic system we currently endure. I’d take one or two Tice/Farage type shitheads, even a full tilt Yaxley Lennon racist thug in the mix if it means genuine representation as it means many millions more like me will actually be able to vote for what we actually believe in. We will more than balance those racist thugmorons out. We need to implement a true democracy and abide by the results.

PS It is clear the political right are fundamentally opposed to a proper representative democracy. They actively try to remove votes. That is really the only evidence one needs. They will have modelled PR in depth and know damn well it would be the end of their rule.
 
TheDecameron said:
PR is a double edged sword. You have to be able to tolerate political strains you find philosophically and morally repellent, gaining real power.
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Yes, that is my concern with PR. Fascism is already too popular in this country, the thought of it gaining more momentum is problematic
 
PR without some weighting or threshold type measures is likely to produce a minority with oversized influence, which in my book makes it worse than FPTP and I hate that. It's all in the implementation.
 
A quick "SNP" Google gives me…

SNP spend £25m on private consultancy firms (sounds a bit Tory to me)
Double child benefit (hardly progressive)
Inherent nationalism of sterlingisation (borderline fascist)
SNP president Michael Russel advocated private health care in book written with party donor (see above)

And that’s on the first page.

The SNP has monumentally failed the Scottish working class every bit as much as the Tories have mugged the British working class.
 
I’m up for learning more about how the SNP are less progressive than many people in England think they are but that’s pretty slim pickings. Also idea that child benefits are actually *bad* is not going to make much sense to anyone outside of the Labour “soft left”.
 
Who said child benefits are actually *bad*? Fourteen years serving the middle classes and then a promise of a few quid for low income families some time in the next five years isn’t progressive.
 
Seanm said:
I’m up for learning more about how the SNP are less progressive than many people in England think they are but that’s pretty slim pickings. Also idea that child benefits are actually *bad* is not going to make much sense to anyone outside of the Labour “soft left”.
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A group of mainly nationalist members of pfm is not ‘many people in England’. I rarely see much reported about the SNP. As I said earlier, I think the general media takes little notice of the SNP while they are doing the job of helping the tories to a majority over Labour by reducing Labour seats. They certainly wouldn’t want to be intensely critical of the party, that’s for sure.
 
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