It's worth looking at the LibDem position. They came second in 2019 in 91 seats, though this does flatter them somewhat. Only 15 seats finds the party facing majorities of fewer than 5,000, all of them held by the Tories with the exception of Sheffield Hallam (Labour) and Dunbartonshire East (SNP). Smashing the Tories in set piece by-elections are one thing, but they're always up against it in a general election where they're perennial also rans. Can they make a contribution to ending the Tories?
Their deputy leader Daisy Cooper thinks so. Making the same point as Starmer, she correctly states there are many voters in the so-called blue wall of ostensibly safe Tory seats that won't make the jump to Labour, but are willing to give her party a punt. She argues a formal understanding would smack of a stitch up which would scare off the soft Tory voters they need to target. It wouldn't be "fair". Slapping his party on the back, Ed Davey argues the North Shropshire result amounts to a "progressive reset" along the lines of what Boris Johnson pulled off in so many former Labour seats. That might be over-egging the pudding.
You wouldn't expect Davey or Cooper to honestly reflect on how Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire were one-off protests rather than the sea change they're hoping for, but the sad truth for Sarah Green and Helen Morgan is their time in Westminster is likely to be short. Because while the Tories are hurting and the Johnson tipping point might have been reached, this is not accompanied by an upsurge in enthusiasm for either of the main opposition parties - except for small, incremental advances in the polls. Yet, besides the LibDem bluster, they are on the right track.
During the years of the Corbyn interlude, Tim Farron and Jo Swinson believed disgruntled Labour voters were ripe for the plucking. For the former it was because Labour was too left wing, for the latter it was too beholden to Brexit. In the end, the LibDems failed to capitalise on either strategy because they were better placed to take votes from disgruntled Tories. At least that's what local contests between 2015 and 2019 demonstrated. You can make your own mind up about whether they chose to ignore what actual elections were telling them, or were keen to exorcise the spectre of working class politics and pile on Jeremy Corbyn's Labour. One thing's for sure, there would never have been any serious LibDem musing about a progressive alliance, even if it was de facto and on the down low, with the left still in the leadership.
The willingness for the LibDems to entertain these notions are another sign that Keir Starmer is successfully making Labour safer for bourgeois politics. But the jury is out on whether the LibDems can open a serious front against the Tories. They are caning the local by-elections, they are winning the parliamentary by-elections, so go ahead. They are welcome to knock themselves out and draw Tory fire away from Labour. But when all is said and done, the experience of 2010 hangs like a question mark over their heads. Can they be trusted to keep the Tories out?
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13 comments:
«another sign that Keir Starmer is successfully making Labour safer for bourgeois politics»
It is not even for “bourgeois politics” in general, because post-WW2 "butskellite" social-democracy was quite compatible with bourgeois interests too: it is about making all main parties safer for thatcherite "whig" politics, in the interests of finance and property rentiers, rather than the wider bourgeois class, much of which is still tied to productive industrial sectors, that are also being squeezed hard by finance and property rentierism.
«Because while the Tories are hurting and the Johnson tipping point might have been reached, this is not accompanied by an upsurge in enthusiasm for either of the main opposition parties - except for small, incremental advances in the polls.»
As remarked in the previous post, neither Davey nor Starmer nor their parties have done anything to deserve this oscillation in the polls, it is entirely the work of the Conservative whig globalist factions that oppose Johnson and the tory nationalist factions he is fronting. The current media campaign against Johnson is careful to be non-political, targeting Johnson personally, not his party or their policies, and using bigged-up small episodes that would have passed unnoticed in earlier times.
It is thus very predictable that if the anti-Johnson Conservative factions manage to get rid of him and take back control of the Conservatives, their aligned media will turn around and pump up the Conservatives again with their base, just as the New Labour aligned media ("The Guardian", BBC) turned around as soon as Corbyn was out.
In any case the media can influence popularity with their already-converted readership more than voting, and as to voting Starmer's New Labour has successfully lost very badly 4 by-elections, even achieving the rare feat of losing an opposition seat to a governing party that has been long in power.
«You wouldn't expect Davey or Cooper to honestly reflect on how Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire were one-off protests rather than the sea change they're hoping for,»
As to the ridiculousness of some polls and expectations of “sea change”, here is a fresh article on "The Guardian":
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/27/boris-johnson-a-drag-on-tories-and-sunak-would-do-better-poll-shows
“The pollster found 39% of people asked intended to vote Labour at the next election, seven points ahead of the Conservatives on 32%. But when Johnson’s name was added to the voting intention question, Tory support dipped below 30%, and Labour’s lead increased from seven to 12%. [..]
The research showed Johnson projected to win 203 seats, compared with 263 under Sunak, 162 under Truss and 136 if the party were led by Gove. The Conservative party currently holds 361 seats; 326 are needed to form a majority government.”
That's ridiculously absurd, as if the tory voters in 200-235 seats at g.e. time decided "I hate Truss and Gove so much that I am going to vote against the party that is gifting me 10% per year property price increases".
The only purpose I can see in that "research" is to be part of the campaign to replace tory kipperist frontman Johnson not with another tory kipperist like Gove or Truss, but with a whig globalist like Sunak (or Hunt or Savid perhaps). That even Johnson or Sunak would lose 160-100 seats is ridiculously optimistic: Johnson to win the same number of seats as Labour in 2019?
Currently many Conservative voters have been instructed by the right-wing press to hate Johnson, and this is damaging the electoral prospects of the Conservatives generally, but the right-wing press will change course before the next g,e. of course.
But when all is said and done, the experience of 2010 hangs like a question mark over their heads. Can they be trusted to keep the Tories out?
In a word: no, not least because one of the LibDems' many and ever-changing reasons for forming the Coalition was 'numbers.' So if the 'numbers' favour Tory + LibDems = majority government, they might go for 'Coalition II' in some form (see also what could easily happen under PR).
I think I might vote Green for the first time at least they stand for something. Not sure what Labour would/ will do since they are just waiting for the Conservatives to lose. Action not just words (although they are not saying much either). Its just spin and very good jobs for MPs alas.
I agree with you I supported Keir but for the same reasons I am now thinking of voting Green.
Yes, good points made by a number of BTL posters here, and on the previous thread. A key one, I think, being that any apparent, very recent, opinion polling uptick for NuLabour (not however any real world significant wins in bye elections !) is linked entirely to the short term negative polling impact for the Tories of the internal factional war going on inside the Tory party itself, as megaphoned by the Tory press . And as another poster rightly says, the Tory factional press assaults on Johnson are carefully restricted to the utter trivia of 'partygate' and 'renovation expenses gate', NOT Tory policy overall. And Labour are happy to play along - ignoring, for instance the hugely significant new pre privatisation changes to the NHS structure in England, into 4 huge 'Integrated Care Systems' areas , ready to be contracted out, to restrict their criticisms of the Tories purely to the anti Johnson jibes of the globalist section of the Tory press.
Sadly, Phil's blog, and his perennial supporting posters like the uncritical EU enthusiast poster on the last thread who always sees any criticism of Starmer's NuLabour2 as in some bizarre way "wanting the Tories to win " , is trapped forever in the ideological swamp of British Labourism, from which few self-identifying Labourite Lefties will ever escape . A smug myopia which seems likely to persist long after Nulabour 'does a PASOK or French Socialist Party' and disappears into organisational financial bankruptcy (looming large for NuLabour2 now already) and electoral oblivion.
As I, and other posters, have said already, the total recapture of Labour by the blairite neoliberals, and their blatant intention now to smash its Left Wing forever, does not mean the long term disenfranchisement of the masses of the poorest and most vulnerable amongst the electorate - who saw Labour as 'their party , protector and interest safeguarder ' for so many generations. In the short term mass abstentionism by ex Labour voters will prevail - but in the longer term this vast electorate, as with their temporary mass support for the Brexit Party, will be captured anew - most likely by the opportunist fake 'anti elite' radical Far Right - as has happened in France with the 'National Rally' (ie ,the French National Front previously) , or the German AfD. It will happen folks - but the UK Left seems content to carry on with its fruitless Sisyphus task eternal mission 'to turn the Labour Party left' , even after the utter failure of the Corbyn Insurgency of 2015 to 2019 !
Unknown, we see the same in the USA, where every Democrat wins in order to keep the evil republican out. Vote for us to keep Bush out, vote for us to keep trump out. This is the best they can offer.
The centrists build up a bogeyman and then plead with us to vote for them because the bogeyman will eat your children. This shows how utterly poverty stricken the centrists are and shows why woke hysteria fits so nicely into their agenda. They have no policy other than to keep the decrepit status quo going in its undead state forever.
They are like the anti Van Helsing, instead of killing the vampire they bring it more blood. That is you PhilBc, the status quo blood provider.
In reality, the parties are so identical that deciding which one you will support is about as significant as which pair of socks to put on in the morning, which is probably why something really really trivial could tip the balance.
This is why annon is incorrect to say:
"its That's ridiculously absurd, as if the tory voters in 200-235 seats at g.e. time decided "I hate Truss and Gove so much that I am going to vote against the party that is gifting me 10% per year property price increases""
If I were PhilBc (the vampire blood provider), I would be strongly pushing the argument that house prices will be safe under Keir!
Of course in the world of humans such venal motives as house prices rising are hidden under a lot of political icing/spin/bullshit, for reasons only psychology can explain. I guess icing is the thing that separates us from the animals!
I hope anyone supporting Labour has a really really shit New year by the way.
«Nulabour 'does a PASOK or French Socialist Party' and disappears into organisational financial bankruptcy (looming large for NuLabour2 now already)»
* Part of the current lack of funds is due to having gifted large sums to the moles who undermined Labour in 2015-2019; that's a once-only expense, but the cuts are being made to recurrent costs like staff positions.
* Various large donors have been mentioned as ready to provide funds as long as New Labour does the right things on domestic policy and Middle East policy, and Keir has been doing everything the donors wanted in both areas.
So my guess is that the bad financial situation is temporary and is begin bigged up to support getting rid of a chunk of "trot" staffers. A lot of companies also take advantage of real or made up crises to do staff turnover, a typical managerialist tactic.
Once that's achieved the big "sponsors" will surely help and "The Guardian" will praise the success of Starmer in attracting high-net-worth donors (they already did a few in the past before the current attitude of pleading poverty to sack "trot" staff).
«and electoral oblivion.»
My guess that the goal is not full oblivion, but to reduce New Labour to a size where it must always govern in coalition with the LibDems. If New Labour also succeeds in grabbing a chunk of the Conservative electorate, the Conservatives will also always have to govern in coalition with the LibDems, which would be the ideal outcome for the Mandelson Tendency and their sponsors.
Why do some simpletons and hysterics think the term "nuLabour" is kinda clever? It's Labour, same as it was under Ramsey McDonald, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair. Same as it was when Lenin wrote Left Wing Communism - An Infantile Disorder.
Methinks you complain too much, Jim. It was Tony Blair and his circle who decided to rebrand the Labour Party as 'New Labour' on all their Party literature - representing , but never clearly stated to members or the electorate, a massive shift in ideology and policy priorities from traditional Labour social democratic objectives , in which public ownership had a significant role, to an adoption, stealthily, but with increasing momentum as the years went by, of the Thatcherite privatisation and deregulation of the financial sector, core mission.
Labour, regardless of its opportunist 1918 adoption of Clause 4 , and the claim to be a 'democratic socialist Party ' on its membership card, has never, ever, been any kind of socialist party . It always was a reserve party of UK imperialism and capitalism, with the job of keeping the working class constrained within the boundaries of the capitalist status quo. But the Blair era , and Blair's rebranded 'New Labour', in its utter rejection of Labour's previous social democratic statism (and for instance its never declared, but core , policy of using the unlimited labour supply of the EU to undermine UK wages and trades union power, keeping ALL the Thatcher era anti trades union laws on the statute books), represents a significant sea change break with what old Labour was before. So the jibe reference to 'NuLabour', treating the very 'Labour' name merely as a convenient brand (as Blair did - and he mused over even changing that , and formally breaking the link with the trades unions), reflects a very real parting of the ways for post 1997 Blairite Labour from the old social democratic norm (matched by the adoption of neoliberalism by most European and antipodean social democratic parties eventually)
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You need to read up on the history of the Labour Party, Jim.
Jim Denham must be a simpleton to think that Labour didn't fundamentally change under Blair, and alongside the historic defeat of liberal social democracy in the face of neo liberalism.
The question is to analyse this change in the broader context, and I think when you do that, Nulabour sort of makes sense, in a sickening kind of way. Labour has changed because society has changed in a very fundamental way.
Also when you analyse this change in the broader context, Denham's comment reveals all of his philistine cretinism.
'Unknown': it may have passed you by that Blair *didn't* break the link with the unions (mainly because they were more supine than he expected so there was no need - but that's another story); nor did he succeed in changing the name of the party and even the prefix "new" soon dropped away. And DFTM: clearly, only a "simpleton" would attach any significance to the fact that about sixteen or seventeen years after Blair "fundamentally changed" the nature of the Labour Party, one Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader ... and the fate of Corbyn's leadership does not change that essential fact. For now, comrades, I prefer to stick with Lenin's analysis of labour as a bourgeois workers' party that communists should work within and support (albeit like the proverbial "rope") at elections. What do you advocate?
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