Current Affairs The Labour Party

[Tubey]

The irony of that was it was a long held idea of Tony Blair and put in by his disciple Harriet Harman. Oh how they regretted that move.

It's one of those "sounds good on paper" things. Like VAR.

 

[catcherintherye]

It's one of those "sounds good on paper" things. Like VAR.

I actually think it was a very sensible move. They just played the situation terribly, and for the most part haven't stopped playing it badly. A few sensible voices see the potential that exists.

 

[Rob17896]

You have to examine the careerist members of the PLP and see the agenda surrounding the anti semitism accusations

No mate. The agenda of the hard left is to stamp on anyone they do not consider wirkin class. Seen it all before and never thought I would see it again. Hate the PM by the way and am disgusted by the lack of realism from Labour. After Cameron it should have been shooting fish in a barrel. Corbyn shot himself...genius. Now we will have ten years of horror after the initial bung to the North.

 

[Tubey]

I actually think it was a very sensible move. They just played the situation terribly, and for the most part haven't stopped playing it badly. A few sensible voices see the potential that exists.

The problem mate is activist voices join the party en masse - 'normal' people don't.

Whilst the PLP represents every constituency and is by nature a much more broader church.

So what you get by having activists having such a heavy role in electing a leader is that you will consistently get Labour leaders that keep the base happy but don't appeal to the country. It's inevitable. So they'll never get elected unless they rein in their nonsense and think about pragmatism over ideology (which they're incapable of).

 

[peteblue]

Labour are screwed.....

 

[dannyboy]

The problem mate is activist voices join the party en masse - 'normal' people don't.

Whilst the PLP represents every constituency and is by nature a much more broader church.

So what you get by having activists having such a heavy role in electing a leader is that you will consistently get Labour leaders that keep the base happy but don't appeal to the country. It's inevitable. So they'll never get elected unless they rein in their nonsense and think about pragmatism over ideology (which they're incapable of).

How is it a broad church when almost all of them share the same views and ideals?

 

[Catfish Blues]

Going to be a long road back mate,
New leader only part of it.
need to sharpen up all around in the quest for power,
Long hard look at why ,northern , scots and Welsh people all jumped ship.
Saying that how far out were people saying Corbyn , Abbott , ect were a liability, even before that Miliband same story same outcome.
Nobody took a blind bit of notice
The anti semitism thing needs dealing with very quickly.
They had ample time to get to grips with that well before the election
The amount of spending announcements was mind blowing, I agreed with quite a bit of it but how many did we really need.
Every other day it was something else , should have just went on about 3 or 4 core issues and gone for it every chance they got.
Who ever thought up the brexit stance needs throwing in the bin, they alienated a huge number of people in the run up and that was a vote/seat loser in the GE.
Should spend a few years getting to grips with why vast amounts of people dont feel engaged by the party, even myself I was just voting against the tories nothing
Much else I didn't have much faith in the front bench. Who in the main were as alien to me as most of the Tories,
I know others I have spoken to have said the same .
They need to get people to believe they are not an open door party , a lot within the party might not like what they hear on the doorstep, but it's there people dont want it when it comes to the ballot box.
I listened to Abbott on tv going on about it the other week I couldn't believe what I was hearing two weeks out .
it's at the very heart of the party which needs looking at.
People should feel they are getting a party that will give them stability in the modern world, jobs housing ect and less grand standing on Brexit ect.
Its seen as a London /Uni centric party now rightly or wrongly.,
London isnt the rest of the UK
It's as different as say Munich to most people in the likes of Burnley ect, thinks different acts different has different values as well , they need to feel included and to feel valued not just a safe vote and put back in the box.till the next election.
This GE has ended that for ever.
To be honest mate I dont think in its present form it's in any way shape or form electable for the foreseeable future sadly.
I dont see any easy fix to get the soul of the party in line with the voters who have turned there back on labour.
That's the last three GE that any even half decent opposition should have walked.
They have let the county and the working class down by sticking with the Corbyn project and weakened the party while doing it, havnt heard anything to say they have learned anything to say it will change.
Johnson just said get Brexit done like a parrot, in fact I think a parrot could have won this election for the tories , he hid phones and hid in freezers bonked yanks , and won without breaking sweat that's how easy it was for him.
They have good people labour on the ground enthusiastic, engaged and putting in the efford , they deserve better, lions led by donkeys. Springs to mind.
Hopefully there are the people within that group with the talent to sort it all out, they deserve a lot better.

*stands and applauds*

This should be printed out and pinned on the wall of every constituency office, every MPs office and anywhere else where party decisions are being made.

When they've had their strategy meetings and all but come to a decision, they then need to go over to the wall, have a quick read, and only continue with their plans if they pass the @edge test.

 

[catcherintherye]

The problem mate is activist voices join the party en masse - 'normal' people don't.

Whilst the PLP represents every constituency and is by nature a much more broader church.

So what you get by having activists having such a heavy role in electing a leader is that you will consistently get Labour leaders that keep the base happy but don't appeal to the country. It's inevitable. So they'll never get elected unless they rein in their nonsense and think about pragmatism over ideology (which they're incapable of).

I think this is part of the problem of the analysis though. Lets be quite real about it, as frankly being polite or sugarcoating hasn't worked for Labour, there were never hundreds of thousands of left wing activists in the country, never mind with an interest in affected Labour. The total was a few hundred or a couple of thousand at most.

Thats a story Labour centrists have told themselves to make themselves feel better about the debacle. It's easy to blame the bogeyman of Trotskyists. Whats much harder is to face the truth, that hundreds of thousands of ordinary people were in open opposition to their moves to the right and were willing to try and get involved in trying to organise something different.

They made enormous mistakes in the time past. They are still making the same mistakes. As astute politician would have said, most of those people were politically illiterate. Why do they like Corbyn? What is he offering that we are not? It wasn't even a question that was that hard to answer. A degree of economic fairness, being reasonably principle and being willing to be open and honest about the failures of the new Labour project rather than just trying to ram through the successes.

I have spent time with Momentum people. These people are not Lenin and Luxemberg. They are just ordinary people who want a bit of a fairer society. Demonising people very rarely wins them to your position. A degree of reflexivity is needed from the Labour centrists if they ever intend to govern again, as opposed to wanting to basically price people out of voting.

 

[catcherintherye]

Labour are screwed.....

It's strange as I don't think it's as bad as people make out, but in other ways it's worse.

They are in a similar position to the Conservatives in 2005 (albeit the tories had gone in the right direction, Labour in the wrong direction).

Demographics are very much on our side. There is stuff to be optimistic about.

There are key questions about how do we win without Scotland. I think on one occasion we have won an election without Scotland. It's a big loss. Nobody has any right to govern, but if intellectually we can find the right solutions things can turn around quickly. I do have my doubts that there are people of the intellectual capacity to do so though.

 

[random]

Why is that though when they all voted for him two years ago?

Page 24 of the Labour Manifesto 2017 "Labour accepts the referendum result"
Page 89 of the Labour Manifesto 2019 "We will put that deal to a public vote alongside the option to remain"

(And we had also seen 2 years worth of blocking anything to do with Brexit).


Like I said he was the same guy so it wasn't all on him, unfortunately the party position changed and with it so did a lot of crosses on the ballot papers

 

[Black Belt Jones]

It's strange as I don't think it's as bad as people make out, but in other ways it's worse.

They are in a similar position to the Conservatives in 2005 (albeit the tories had gone in the right direction, Labour in the wrong direction).

Demographics are very much on our side. There is stuff to be optimistic about.

There are key questions about how do we win without Scotland. I think on one occasion we have won an election without Scotland. It's a big loss. Nobody has any right to govern, but if intellectually we can find the right solutions things can turn around quickly. I do have my doubts that there are people of the intellectual capacity to do so though.

Labour's Scottish strategy has been a joke under JC - you can say the UK is not really a left-wing country but Scotland for sure is not (used to live there, extremely small c conservative place), zero appetite for Corbyn's people of his policies. I don't understand it, it's like labour has written it off like they're up against the Tories in Surrey or somewhere, completely unwinnable. It was red not even a generation ago and the SNP are a band of comedians once you get past like 5 front bench people.

 

[dannyboy]

I think this is part of the problem of the analysis though. Lets be quite real about it, as frankly being polite or sugarcoating hasn't worked for Labour, there were never hundreds of thousands of left wing activists in the country, never mind with an interest in affected Labour. The total was a few hundred or a couple of thousand at most.

Thats a story Labour centrists have told themselves to make themselves feel better about the debacle. It's easy to blame the bogeyman of Trotskyists. Whats much harder is to face the truth, that hundreds of thousands of ordinary people were in open opposition to their moves to the right and were willing to try and get involved in trying to organise something different.

They made enormous mistakes in the time past. They are still making the same mistakes. As astute politician would have said, most of those people were politically illiterate. Why do they like Corbyn? What is he offering that we are not? It wasn't even a question that was that hard to answer. A degree of economic fairness, being reasonably principle and being willing to be open and honest about the failures of the new Labour project rather than just trying to ram through the successes.

I have spent time with Momentum people. These people are not Lenin and Luxemberg. They are just ordinary people who want a bit of a fairer society. Demonising people very rarely wins them to your position. A degree of reflexivity is needed from the Labour centrists if they ever intend to govern again, as opposed to wanting to basically price people out of voting.

This is an excellent post. I despair at the narrative about Momentum on this website because it´s just copied and pasted from the Daily Mail word for word without any element of truth. Momentum is mostly young activists campaigning for a Labour government. Thousands of kids battling pouring rain and giving up their own time to create a better country. Why would you want to get rid of that from the party? Why not look to harness that energy and enthusiasm towards a winning formula? But no, the prevailing attitude seems to be, "They´re all Marxists, purge them."

It´s clear from the last couple of days the right of the party is itching for a civil war; it´ll be a bloodbath and it´s one they will probably lose. The party as a whole should be looking to build a consensus between all sides and agreeing on ideas and values that can take our movement forward with everyone included.

Right now, no one should feel triumphant. The left have just been routed and the right experienced this pain in 2010 and 2015. People will say, and rightly in my opinion, that Corbyn and his inner circle were too far removed from the working class in the northern towns, but this exact accusation can be leveled at the right of the party. So rather than proclaim to members, "I told you so," they´d do well to put their ideas forward on how to fix it.

 

[dannyboy]

Labour's Scottish strategy has been a joke under JC - you can say the UK is not really a left-wing country but Scotland for sure is not (used to live there, extremely small c conservative place), zero appetite for Corbyn's people of his policies. I don't understand it, it's like labour has written it off like they're up against the Tories in Surrey or somewhere, completely unwinnable. It was red not even a generation ago and the SNP are a band of comedians once you get past like 5 front bench people.

What policies should be adopted to win back the Scots?

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

I doubt in 5 years this will be a thing.

Oh it will be, remainers will just transition rejoiners. And Brexit will still be very much thing, as our trade deals will still be concluding.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

What policies should be adopted to win back the Scots?

It's tedious I know. However, this is how, stop Brexit and then roll back devolution. Of course this is not going to happen. And This obsession with Scotland is ridiculous, it's on a path of self determination, Labour began to make itself an irrelevance in Scotland with its manifesto of 1997, the rest of UK needs to get over Scotland, it's going.