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Labour Leader: Keir Starmer VII

paulfromcamden said:
I quite like the idea of policy being results focused, working towards what can actually be achieved.

My fear is that the current Labour front bench have spent the past year setting our expectation that in fact nothing can be achieved because "there's no money".
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A fair take. I suspect the low bar Ming vase thing is designed to get them into power. This is a function of 2019, a deliberate strategy and restricting culture war attacks (and attacks in general) by the Tories, who are now reduced to going after Rayner (from the same bloke, mind, who went after Starmer having a curry). Some here don't like the Labour 'play' but it seems to be working for them.
 
Kirk said:
A fair take. I suspect the low bar Ming vase thing is designed to get them into power. This is a function of 2019, a deliberate strategy and restricting culture war attacks (and attacks in general) by the Tories, who are now reduced to going after Rayner (from the same bloke, mind, who went after Starmer having a curry). Some here don't like the Labour 'play' but it seems to be working for them.
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The Labour play is the same as the Tories. The idea that Labour will be any different to The Tories is a triumph of blind faith over reason
 
paulfromcamden said:
Yes I agree with you 100% Jim.

My point was exactly that. You can only really support Labour's 'gently gently' approach to the climate crisis if you genuinely think we've got all the time in the world.
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Yes. And if you genuinely think that private sector led climate change is some sort of answer.

Sooner or later we will have to invest in our long term future in order to have a long term future.
 
notaclue said:
Tory weirdness and corruption + a further SNP arrest https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68850088

If When Rayner is cleared, the Labour boost will be big.

Labour will be seen as the (relatively more) honest party.
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The point is that an unacceptably left wing figure within Labour, a potential rival to Wes, has been nobbled. Enough mud will stick, and this is only the start. Labour, Conservative, SNP, who cares: it’s made things a little easier for the next iteration of Thatcherism, and the press, the Labour right and many Tories will consider it a job well done.
 
“The road to liberal hell will be paved with well-intentioned compromises.”

The dead end of green politics.

bellacaledonia.org.uk

Growth and Decay: the Green/SNP Deal

James Thornbury reflects on the SNP/SGP deal – a bad idea that cannot be stopped, and shouldn’t be. What is the point of the Scottish Green Party? That isn’t a rhetorical question. To underst…
bellacaledonia.org.uk bellacaledonia.org.uk
 
Finnegan said:
“The road to liberal hell will be paved with well-intentioned compromises.”

The dead end of green politics.

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/08/26/growth-and-decay-the-green-snp-deal/
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Yes, Green parties aren't perfect. Nor can they be when having to enter a coalition with any other bigger one that simply isn't treating ACC as THE fundamental issue for our future. However they enable an increasing pull in the correct direction. Which is better than all sitting up nicely as we get fed into the fire. The end aim isn't "net zero". That is just a stage on the way to getting a fall in the levels of CO2/Methane in the atmosphere and reversing the ACC they cause.

And in general the stark reality is quite clear to anyone who genuinely understands that 'green' isn't about being nice to dumb animals or hugging trees. It is about changes to the current economic and social processes that exploit what generates ACC to shift wealth from most us into the ownership of a wealthy and powerful few. Thus some form of social/economic change is inherent in dealing with ACC. But to have a 'better' world in social and economic terms means also having one we can live in without being roasted, drowned, poisoned by a foul atmosphere, etc.

The aim isn't perfection. It is avoiding distaster and making things better for most of us rather than excusing whilst exploiting it getting worse.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
It is about changes to the current economic and social processes that exploit what generates ACC to shift wealth from most us into the ownership of a wealthy and powerful few.
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I couldn’t agree more. Upthread you made an eloquent and informed post regarding the scale of environmental breakdown we are facing, with the conclusion that we have run out of time and must act now.

My point however remains that the Green Party and green politics in general are incapable of achieving the sort of economic, social (and political) transformation both me and you want to see. Green politics emerged from the counter culture of the 1960’s, in that time there has been several examples of the political failure of green administrations when confronted with the reality of how far capitalism will go to preserve its system and attendant wealth and privilege for the few. The point of the article is that the Greens in Scotland did not exert an environmental pull on the SNP. Neither did the German Green Party, or the Green led council in Brighton come to that. Rather, the compromises necessary when entering government with reformist parties exercises a rightward pull on the Greens.

The people who really own and control the wealth care not a fig for elections and the democratic process. They will use them as convenient cover as long as they do not begin to really become any sort of threat. Shell, BO, Exxon et al, if faced with a green government who seriously try to curb the use of fossil fuels, will face the same consequences as Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, the entire left in Indonesia in 1965, Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, and many, many more who threatened the established economic and political system up to and including Jeremy Corbyn and the Palestinian cause.

I‘ve worked extensively with Green Party members in numerous campaigns. Most of them are decent, well intentioned and left-leaning. Some are merely Tories with a compost bin. And there’s the rub; lacking any substantive class analysis, they are wholly incapable of mounting any serious opposition to the status quo. As you imply upthread, piecemeal reform is a completely inadequate response to the scale and severity of the crises we are facing.
 
Finnegan said:
I couldn’t agree more. Upthread you made an eloquent and informed post regarding the scale of environmental breakdown we are facing, with the conclusion that we have run out of time and must act now.

My point however remains that the Green Party and green politics in general are incapable of achieving the sort of economic, social (and political) transformation both me and you want to see. Green politics emerged from the counter culture of the 1960’s, in that time there has been several examples of the political failure of green administrations when confronted with the reality of how far capitalism will go to preserve its system and attendant wealth and privilege for the few. The point of the article is that the Greens in Scotland did not exert an environmental pull on the SNP. Neither did the German Green Party, or the Green led council in Brighton come to that. Rather, the compromises necessary when entering government with reformist parties exercises a rightward pull on the Greens.

The people who really own and control the wealth care not a fig for elections and the democratic process. They will use them as convenient cover as long as they do not begin to really become any sort of threat. Shell, BO, Exxon et al, if faced with a green government who seriously try to curb the use of fossil fuels, will face the same consequences as Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, the entire left in Indonesia in 1965, Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, and many, many more who threatened the established economic and political system up to and including Jeremy Corbyn and the Palestinian cause.

I‘ve worked extensively with Green Party members in numerous campaigns. Most of them are decent, well intentioned and left-leaning. Some are merely Tories with a compost bin. And there’s the rub; lacking any substantive class analysis, they are wholly incapable of mounting any serious opposition to the status quo. As you imply upthread, piecemeal reform is a completely inadequate response to the scale and severity of the crises we are facing.
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Who do you recommend voting for?
 
paulfromcamden said:
Who do you recommend voting for?
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At present you have no choice but to vote for the least worst option- hardly satisfactory. The Labour Party under the first two years of Corbyn‘s leadership was the sort of broad-based, left populist movement that would have been capable of something significant, especially if he had made serious overtures to the extra-parliamentary movement that was developing. Likewise the SNP in the run up to the 2014 indyref reflected the widespread desire and ambition for significant change.

But in reality, Parliament is not, and never has been, the locus of political transformation we all wish to see. Movements like Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, Black Lives Matter, Gilet Jaunes, Palestine Solidarity Campaign etc were/ are exponentially more important and effective that a passive x on a ballot paper once every five years.
 
Finnegan said:
At present you have no choice but to vote for the least worst option- hardly satisfactory. The Labour Party under the first two years of Corbyn‘s leadership was the sort of broad-based, left populist movement that would have been capable of something significant, especially if he had made serious overtures to the extra-parliamentary movement that was developing. Likewise the SNP in the run up to the 2014 indyref reflected the widespread desire and ambition for significant change.

But in reality, Parliament is not, and never has been, the locus of political transformation we all wish to see. Movements like Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, Black Lives Matter, Gilet Jaunes, Palestine Solidarity Campaign etc were/ are exponentially more important and effective that a passive x on a ballot paper once every five years.
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Nope. I can't vote for a party that facilitates the genocide of the Palestinian people. That should be a red line for any decent human being.
 
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