Let's get electoral reform first, yeah?
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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The optimist in me would point to how much impact UKIP had on British politics without ever winning a seat....
However I'm not deluded enough to think these guys have anything as emotive as Brexit to push policy or even pressure the governing parties.
Still, if we ever get that sweet electoral reform I'd be happy to take another look.
UKIP had impact way beyond their support because the Conservative Party will always prioritise retaining power over doing the right thing.
I mean, there was absolutely a fracture inside the Tory party with regards to Europe. UKIP managed to widen that fracture and then Cameron gambled it all and, well here we are.
Yeah, I don't think that really works unless you've got a strong wedge issue that can be used to threaten the main party.
I think you're absolutely right, we need electoral reform precisely so that more diverse views can be represented in government.
For now, though, the priority has to be ejecting the Tories.
No left leaning party can do what UKIP did because UKIP threatened Labour as well as Tory seats. They were a single issue party and could run as MEPs which gave them another soapbox to shout from. There just isn't an issue that has the same kind of cross-partisan reach yet.
I think abolition of the monarchy will be that issue in 10-15 years time. Once the older Christian conservative voters die off there will be a stronger push to move to a republic. It's something that a single issue party could run on and steal votes from the dominant parties.
I'm not sure what the path to electoral reform looks like. Starmer is hostile to the idea. Labour have had electoral reform in their manifesto before and happily ignored it when in power.
Perhaps a hung parliament will get us there. I don't know what the realistic vote for Electoral reform is. Maybe a Lab-Lib government does it but Libs have been steamrolled in a coalition before.
I'm almost a single issue voter for Electoral reform at this point.
Starmer is hostile to anything that could be used to drive a wedge between him and winning, which doesn't seem a terrible strategy for the country. Would rather have 5 years of centre left government than another term of Tory leadership. Let the Overington window move slowly, but it's easier to advocate for left wing policies if the right of labour is in charge (through party conferences) than from the outside.
I wonder at what point this becomes the wedge that will get between him and winning. I don't think is margins are as secure as the polls lead us to believe. Too many don't knows and won't says lurking around.
So I think he's being foolish to take his base for granted. They're not going to vote Tory, but they might struggle to turn up on the day. That could be the difference between a commanding majority and a thin/non-existant one.
Would rather have 5 years of centre left government than another term of Tory leadership.
We won't, though. Starmer has rejected centre left policy and allowed Labour to be pulled right, he won't even commit to public spending reform.
Let the Overington window move slowly, but it’s easier to advocate for left wing policies if the right of labour is in charge
Who is left in the party, with any power or influence at all, to advocate for left wing policy? Who in the party leadership will actually listen to left wing voices at party conferences? Why will the incredibly mercenary Labour right take left wing policy on board after spending the last 6+ years actively working against the Labour left?
Angela Rayner, the deputy leader? Anneliese Dodds, the chair? Ed Miliband, business secretary
Sure there are more...
And they all fell into line when Starmer's leadership forbade Labour MPs from visiting strikers on the picket lines... something Labour MPs have done since the party's formation. No longer the party of working people.
Again:
Starmer is hostile to anything that could be used to drive a wedge between him and winning
Let them win and (at the very least) be better for a bit, and then more progressive.
More likely they narrowly win, nothing changes and they alienate voters.
That's quite a pessimistic view! The biggest problem is the budget is tanked. Can labour invest in the future and deal with the shitshow of the last few years? QE is the easy way out but can they do that without having various things go tits up? Else they need to be good economic managers for a few years then translate that into a base that you can invest from. It's going to be super tricky. But they can do lots of small things, in all sorts of directions that are not funding based. Local neighborhood policy was in the news today as a wedge issue. But there are lots of others. The environment. Schooling policy. Zero hours contracts, taxation of web giants, migration. All of these would be dramatically different under labour and even if only one or two were, it's still a reason to vote them over the Tories.
Agreed. The comment I replied to said "let's get electoral reform first". Them splitting can't hurt efforts for electoral reform, though it's not likely to help either.
The strongest centre left candidates at the moment are the Greens. As far as electoralism goes, it would be better to stand behind a party that actually has a membership than split further into parties which frankly look the same as countless other "like the left flank of Labour but better" parties.
At least something like the Northern Independence Party could raise the priority of the North. I'm not sure what this offers that, say, the Breakthrough Party doesn't apart from further vote splitting.
Feels like it will offer a similar level of political success and distinction as when you are trying to look up CPB vs CPB-ML vs CPGB-ML vs NCP vs RCPB-ML vs... except with everyone having platitudinal tech marketing guru's branding like Transform, Change, Breakthrough etc.
Yep, the MPs on the left of Labour have so much in common with the Greens. The Greens are the only party that seem to have logical solutions to the problems we face as a country.
Apart from nuclear power.
"a flurry of interest on social media".
You don't win votes or elections on social media. Otherwise Ed Milliband would have won in 2015, Remain would have won a landslide in the referendum, Hillary Clinton would have been US President and Corbyn would have been PM in 2017.
What an alternative time line that would have been.
How did ChangeUK get on?
Lol, I'd already forgotten about the CUKS.
Splitters!
Yeah, is there anything the left does better than factionalism!
The opening sentence:
This is an era of crisis
🤣 Are we not able to say anything positive to inspire people to vote for your party? Doom and gloom sells I suppose?
Can you think of anything positive about the UK right now?
I like my life, my friends, and my work and that is all in the UK. That's super positive 😊.
Why not build on that rather than doom and gloom?
In a two party FPTP system, they're nothing but a bunch of Tory stooges.
This mindset is why a lot of Blairite Labour policy is "be slightly less right wing than the Tories; the policies might suck but as long as everyone left of Thatcher and Farage feels we're the lesser evil we don't need to actually try and be good." Not having anyone representing the left on the national stage is just going to result in more rightwards drift. I've commented elsewhere in this thread on not wanting to split the vote too much between dozens of tiny splinter parties, but also voting for Labour in their current state builds complacency about the voters they think they've banked because they used to stand for something, and just leads them to chase more of the Tory vote.
If our voting system was fair, I'd agree with you 100%.
But it isn't. So I'll settle for Tories out, followed by trying to drag Labour back left a bit.
The unfortunate truth is that the country is, on average, right of centre. At least on voting day. Most of us are left on some things and right on others. It's depressingly easy to rile up right wing issues and throw votes, like the recent London ULEZ by-election. My belief is that Starmer panders to the right a bit on a lot of this so as not to lose votes. It's not ideal, but it's his job to win an election.
Two hotels in my town have been commandeered by the government to house asylum seekers. The locals hate this. The local Facebook page (which I like to check on for the same reason that I like going to the zoo) will blame everything on "the Novotel lot". Despite the fact that this is Tory policy, I can but guarantee that the Tory propaganda come election time will point this out, and that Tories are the only ones who can fix the problem, despite having 13 years and counting to do so and only made things worse.
Sounds like the UK version of "No Labels". Probably funded by the same people.
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