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Alernatives to Labour

First Past The Post kills small parties, and people tend to vote in local elections much the same as they do in national ones. The Greens got <180 votes in our ward, at the last local elections :(
 
Surprised the Greens, no matter where they reside, haven't made bigger inroads in the UK.

The FPTP electoral system is designed to marginalise smaller parties, especially those such as the Greens who appeal across all age, class and wealth demographics. The political establishment have created a myth of democracy by carving the country into what in the main are immovable Labour and Tory safe seats. Things are skewed right now due to 13 years of simply horrific Tory mismanagement and grift so the next election will likely swing hard to the Labour default position, but over the long term the system does what it is designed to do and returns a minority Tory elite to absolute power.

One can obviously use the same argument for UKIP or whatever is the overtly fascist party of the day. In one of the pre-Brexit elections the UKIP vote-share was quite large though widely distributed, certainly enough for a fair few seats under a PR system. FPTP is designed to remove anything to the right or left of the Tory party of the day. Now the Tory Party is openly Trump Republican/fascist this whole field has shifted rightwards. We will likely get a very right-wing Labour party with a huge majority next election.
 
The FPTP electoral system is designed to marginalise smaller parties, especially those such as the Greens who appeal across all age, class and wealth demographics. The political establishment have created a myth of democracy by carving the country into what in the main are immovable Labour and Tory safe seats. Things are skewed right now due to 13 years of simply horrific Tory mismanagement and grift so the next election will likely swing hard to the Labour default position, but over the long term the system does what it is designed to do and returns a minority Tory elite to absolute power.

One can obviously use the same argument for UKIP or whatever is the overtly fascist party of the day. In one of the pre-Brexit elections the UKIP vote-share was quite large though widely distributed, certainly enough for a fair few seats under a PR system. FPTP is designed to remove anything to the right or left of the Tory party of the day. Now the Tory Party is openly Trump Republican/fascist this whole field has shifted rightwards. We will likely get a very right-wing Labour party with a huge majority next election.

A colleague linked me to an article which pointed out this definition in Wikipedia. The last sentence in particular rang true:

Guided democracy, also called managed democracy,[1] is a formally democratic governmentthat functions as a de facto authoritarian governmentor in some cases, as an autocratic government. Such hybrid regimes are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the state's policies, motives, and goals.[2]
 
FPTP certainly does not help any party that gets few votes. But this does not only apply to the Greens. The key problem is that they only get a few votes, and therefore are a small party. Perhaps the reason they get few votes is that to most voters, who will have an awareness of environmental issues but will also be worried about the economy, health services, pensions, etc., the "Green" label does not give the impression that it is a "broad spectrum" party ready to tackle all the problems facing the nation. So inevitably it will get few votes. I don't live in the UK, but I wonder if the Greens have a clearly stated platform on a whole range of issues other than green ones.
 
FPTP certainly does not help any party that gets few votes. But this does not only apply to the Greens. The key problem is that they only get a few votes, and therefore are a small party. Perhaps the reason they get few votes is that to most voters, who will have an awareness of environmental issues but will also be worried about the economy, health services, pensions, etc., the "Green" label does not give the impression that it is a "broad spectrum" party ready to tackle all the problems facing the nation. So inevitably it will get few votes. I don't live in the UK, but I wonder if the Greens have a clearly stated platform on a whole range of issues other than green ones.
https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/home/we-stand-for2/record-of-policy-statements.html
 
FPTP certainly does not help any party that gets few votes. But this does not only apply to the Greens. The key problem is that they only get a few votes, and therefore are a small party. Perhaps the reason they get few votes is that to most voters, who will have an awareness of environmental issues but will also be worried about the economy, health services, pensions, etc., the "Green" label does not give the impression that it is a "broad spectrum" party ready to tackle all the problems facing the nation. So inevitably it will get few votes. I don't live in the UK, but I wonder if the Greens have a clearly stated platform on a whole range of issues other than green ones.
I think there's some truth in this. It feeds in to the broad line that the Tories are generally 'good' for the economy and Labour are profligate, and therefore 'bad' for the economy. Therefore any party has to test its economic mettle against the prevailing Tory narrative. The Greens don't say much about economic matters and tend to confine themselves to the things they want to talk about, namely the environment, energy policy, etc.

I suspect this is because they are, for now at least, content to be a minority party. They can't step up to the plate because they don't really want to. They'd rather influence and pressurise from the sidelines, using what little leverage they have. Unfortunately, they're not as adept at it as UKIP was.
 
A colleague linked me to an article which pointed out this definition in Wikipedia. The last sentence in particular rang true:

Guided democracy, also called managed democracy,[1] is a formally democratic governmentthat functions as a de facto authoritarian governmentor in some cases, as an autocratic government. Such hybrid regimes are legitimized by elections that are free and fair, but do not change the state's policies, motives, and goals.[2]
Nails it. See also British Political Tradition (BPT) for the UK variant:

"This is the idea, in existence – at least since the time of Disraeli – that Britain has a limited conception of democracy based on a conservative notion of responsibility, accountability to parliament, and an emphasis on consistency, prudence and leadership (Birch 1964), non-ideological pragmatism (Oakeshott 1962), and strong, seamless government (Beer 1965). Its prescribed mode of governance, that of the Westminster Model, highlighted the unitary character of the British Parliamentary State, organised round the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. In so doing, it delivered an elitist form of top-down government, based on a high concentration of power at the centre, what Brian Barry caustically referred to as a ‘power-hoarding’ approach to governing."

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsand...urrection-of-the-british-political-tradition/

Falling apart of course. Corbynism can be thought of as a benign response, but it didn't suit media/politics class, so we get the malign version: Brexit, rise of the far right, endless moral panics, institutional collapse etc.
 
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Corbyn did not believe in representative democracy. He would have been just as happy with a FPTP majority as the previous/next Labour goon.
 
It feels as though so many bubbles are coming to bursting point. Geopolitical; environmental; energy; political. And the last of these has played a pivotal role in all the others. If they all burst at once, as feels quite likely, I think we're genuinely screwed.
 
Thanks ks.234, probably fairer to say that the Greens' other policies are not widely publicised.

Also, while I'm all in favour of the UBI, and a sustainable economy, there's not much detail on how this would be brought about - admittedly on a quick skim.
 
No, they’re not. This fallacy has been corrected upthread
It may have been, but as long as this perception remains the Greens will go nowhere. PFM is a reasonably well informed group, and if a few people here believe the Greens to be a bunch of sandal wearing tree huggers who like to cycle to yogurt knitting classes in a yurt then you can bet that this is reflected elsewhere.
 


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