We know authoritarianism is a flex for Starmer's politics, and Labour's choice to unnecessarily keep children in poverty has nothing to do with not being able to "afford" lifting the two-child cap. Politically, Starmer supporters can comfort themselves that this "hard choice" is actually the easy choice where public opinion is concerned. The Labour leadership are aware that despite the opposition coming from the left and the labour movement on this, there is no wider political pressure and certainly none from the media that will cost them in the immediate term. Haters are going to hate is the loyalist view, which helps focus minds away from what MPs were voting for: the maintenance of a cruelty millions of children and working class women are forced to bear.
It's true the suspensions break from Labour's traditional way of dealing with dissent. Neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown were as heavy-handed with backbench rebels. A younger Tom Watson might have growled traitor at Labour MPs walking through the opposition lobby, but in a position of strength with an effective majority of 180 Starmer's seems quite the overreaction. Then again, unlike Blair who, in his first term, had a large number of votes to back his claims for a popular mandate Starmer has no such luxury. Getting fewer votes than what was supposed to be Labour's worst performance since 1935, they'll never admit it but as everyone from Reform, the Tories, the Greens, the pol profs, and even those who note political realities without obsessing over the details knows, Labour's huge majority is made of sand. Starmer might be an authoritarian, but choosing to game First Past the Post in cahoots with the Liberal Democrats makes his authoritarianism very brittle indeed. And, in practice, such a politics has the historic tendency of covering for weakness by affecting strength.
Except conditions have now changed. Were this 20 years ago, unless one was George Galloway with his unerring ability to find his way back into the Commons, this would have meant the end for excluded Labour MPs. But this is now. Because of the results the Greens, Jeremy Corbyn, and the Gaza Independents were achieved, exile from the PLP does not mean the end. There is a constituency for an anti-imperialist, anti-austerity, green, pro-working class politics that is capable of returning MPs. But now with a cadre of eight former Labour MPs sat on the backbenches, it's decision time. In his reflections on his victory, Corbyn argued that his community rootedness enabled him to bat away the kitchen sinks bowled at his seat by Labour. A party cannot simply be declared, it has to be built from the ground up. But now, with seven MPs getting thrown out, tens of thousands of activists ready to go, and a Labour Party whose policy orientation is obvious has left a huge space to its left. That base for a new party Corbyn speaks of in hypotheticals already exists, and is likely to get larger as Starmer dismantles his party's coalition. If the parliamentary leadership ot the socialist/independent left/reborn ILP in embryo doesn't seize the moment, the insurgent Greens and the much, much worse Workers' Party are in with a stab of hegemonising it. What's it to be?
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The 7 rebels should certainly collaborate as a group, but should also co-ordinate with the Greens rather than compete with them as that would be a much more dynamic & ascendant block. Depending on how things pan out - which is very much an unknown, it's possible that in 5 years' time the rebels' best chance of re-election will come as Green MPs. Unfortunately I fear half of them are too steeped in Labourism to either work against the party or work closely with the Greens, and so they'll wait for 6, then 12, then 18 months hoping all the while to get the whip back. But an active & co-ordinated left/Green opposition would be a significant thorn in Starmer's side as his wagon lurches from disappointment to disappointment, with more supporters and MPs dropping off at each corner. Let's hope they can collaborate effectively.
ReplyDeleteIn a life which has included many mistakes, one of the worst was joining the ILP at the moment it went back to the LP
ReplyDelete«but the prospect of a backbench rebellion over retaining the two-child cap was enough for him to threaten Labour MPs with the removal of the whip.»
ReplyDeleteTo me this seems written to imply that Starmer was “losing sleep over the Labour lefties voting against him”, but to me threatening Labour Party entrysts trying to undermine the New Labour Party seems to have been a clever way to get rid of them, counting on them to defy the threat.
«But an active & co-ordinated left/Green opposition would be a significant thorn in Starmer's side as his wagon lurches from disappointment to disappointment, with more supporters and MPs dropping off at each corner.»
ReplyDeleteIn this election for "whatever" reason Farage did not withdraw his candidates and split the Labour vote just like Owen split the Labour vote in 1983. My guess is that Starmer "knows" that for the same reason Farage will do the same in 2028.
In the meantime he has 400 New Labour MPs, 200 of which at least owe personally to him their being selected and being gifted a well paying job and the prospect of a new career. A little sniping here and there will not worry him too much -- since he started an amazingly fast political career (same as Sunak) despite having zero political skills (same as Sunak) his mission has been to relegitimate and rebuild thatcherism (not the state..) and that what he will continue to do regardless.
Unfortunately "an active & co-ordinated left/Green opposition" will not bother him much, especially under FPTP where their votes are diffuse.
ur
Compare the threat of that "left/Green opposition" to that of Reform UK and the Conservatives that together took rather more votes than New Labour.
Starmer will not worry about the "left/Green opposition" but he will much more worry about being outflanked on the right, even if and perhaps especially if then mythical "New Labour curious" soft tory voters did not switch to New Labour but to abstention (or Reform UK).
«Because of the results the Greens, Jeremy Corbyn, and the Gaza Independents»
ReplyDeletePerhaps I am too cynical but there is a case that the "Gaza independents" are actually the pakistani clientelism vote, that the results of the Greens are not impressive (and I suspect that the materials interests of many Green activists and voters are about property gains like for the LOibDems etc.), and that Corbyn is a very special case.
«There is a constituency for an anti-imperialist, anti-austerity, green, pro-working class politics»
There is indeed such a large constituency and by rights it should be winning most elections, and that costituency should include also many property owners and petty bourgeois inn the "pushed behind" areas as their prosperity depends on that of their tenants, upgraders, customers.
«that is capable of returning MPs.»
But that there is a large constituency does mean that it is "capable of returning MPs", see for example Reform UK's modest result (or the sudden collapse in seats for the SNP). There are two reasons for that:
* Many members of that large constituency vote the red rosette regardless because they still think that is own their side. My guess is that is around 15-20% of the electorate, or around half of the Labour vote. That will dwindle as Starmer makes progress with the PASOKification of the New Labour Party, but slowly.
* The remaining members of that large constituency are spread across many constituencies, not concentrated in some constituencies like the pakistani clientelism vote or the LibDems are.
Put another way under FPTP it will not be easy or quick: it will take like for the SNP building a movement first ideally concentrated in some geographical areas first and also waiting for Starmer to make good progress on his goal of PASOKification.
"choosing to game First Past the Post in cahoots with the Liberal Democrats".
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean in this? It seems to give credence to the line adopted by Blue Labour and supported by right-wing "Left" apologists such as Eric Lee, who even ridiculously equated those that point out the facts of Labour's lower vote and vote share with those that ignore the facts to justify conspiracy theories on climate change and so on.
In other words, the line given by Blue Labour and its apologists is that it was all a cunning plan to lose votes safely where they had loads in order to focus resources on winning them where they needed them. The trouble is the facts disprove that too. A look at each seat shows that in those target seats where they were then supposed to have focussed resources to in crease the vote which is what I take it you also mean by "gaming first past the post", they also either lost votes, or barely increased them over 2019, let alone 2017.
In nearly all those seats, Blue Labour, where they won, did so not by tactically gaming the system, and raising its vote just enough, but simply as a result of the Conservative vote falling, and the Conservative vote fell, not because it went to Blue Labour, but because it went overwhelming to Blue Labour's fellow reactionary nationalists of Reform, and elsewhere (Blue Wall) to the Liberals or Greens.
Add together the Reform and Conservative vote, and everywhere it is greater than that of Blue Labour, usually by a considerable margin. In other words, Blue Labour won in all those seats not as a result of it being clever or strategic or gaming the system, but simply because Reform smashed the Tories! Had that not been the case, which is outside Labour's hands, and so nothing to do with cunning or gaming, Labour would have lost in all those seats and had fewer seats than Corbyn's Labour had in 2019!!!
Blissex says that Starmer banks on Reform standing again. Probably so, but the consequences, next time will be different. By then, Braverman will have led a load of Tories into Reform. Reform will become the natural Tory Party. Its standing from this election already puts it in second place in many seats. Come the next GE, that means that it will be set to present itself as the rational choice for Tories and Blue Labour reactionaries, with a real chance of winning those seats.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Blue Labour will not be able to count on voters holding their nose to vote for it, to kick out the Tories. Indeed, as Starmer's Blue Labour simply continues those same Tory policies, as now seen in its first few days in government, many will adopt a similar approach of holding their nose to vote for some other lesser-evil, to kick out Starmer's Blue Labour. In all those seats, they will have Greens and Liberals also standing in second position, with a viable chance of winning.
Indeed, as Braveman et al, split the Conservative Party and make Reform the natural Tory party, the remaining rump of the Conservative party, as with the Peelites after the Repeal of the Corn Laws, will be free to join with the Liberals to create a new Liberal-Conservative Party, championing the interests of big capital, EU re-entry and so on, leaving Blue Labour and Reform to squabble over the remaining reactionary nationalist petty bourgeois vote.
@Bliss, Curious to describe Starmer's goal as PASOKification. That refers to the decline from largest party in Greek parliament to smallest. Surelly you aren't suggesting that Starmer is actively attempting to destroy his party?
ReplyDeleteIf he wanted to do that, wouldn't it be easier and quicker to espouse the end of private property, or go all Corbynite and lose the support of the shadowy medial moguls, oligarchs, financial and legal professionals and landed gentry that really run things?
«The remaining members of that large constituency are spread across many constituencies, not concentrated in some constituencies like the pakistani clientelism vote or the LibDems are.»
ReplyDeleteTo be sure: it is a matter of degree...
As to concentration there is an obvious geographical bent to both the Conservative and Labour vote; for example for Labour there is a map at the Science Museum in London of places where there were the most steam engines in the 19th century and coincides almost perfectly with Labour seats. But that is the hard core, Labour, Conservatives and Reform UK are far more "national" parties than the LibDems and obviously the SNP or Plaid Cymru.
As to the the ethnic clientelism vote a rarely mentioned aspect of UK politics is that in the UK (and also for example Australia, but not in Ireland) in particular class and politics used to and still largely coincide with with ethnicity. My guess is:
* Rentier class, tory politics: "normans".
* Business class (bourgeois/upper middle class), whig politics: "saxons" ("cheorls").
* Working class, left politic: "celts" and pre-celtic serfs.
So I think that a lot of voting was and still is actually ethnic clientelism voting and I guess that explains why rural people in some areas vote Conservative and in other areas LibDem even if that is not voting for their class interests (but it may be voting for leaders among "their own" along ancient ethnic lines).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Wales/Selected_quote/2
«In the speech, in Llandudno, the then Labour leader asked: "Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?"»
Having wasted a lot of time with TUSC in the past and now (just about) still holding a labour party card I don't say this lightly. However I do think this might just be a moment that needs to be grabbed with both hands. With years till another election and the group of independents + these guys there is the nucleus of a party. How to deal with the Greens and all that will need to be worked through but if now is not the time for a bold step I am not sure when is.
ReplyDelete«Blue Labour won in all those seats not as a result of it being clever or strategic or gaming the system, but simply because Reform smashed the Tories! Had that not been the case, which is outside Labour's hands»
ReplyDeleteIs that outside the hands of New Labour's "sponsors"? :-)
ReplyDelete«Curious to describe Starmer's goal as PASOKification. That refers to the decline from largest party in Greek parliament to smallest. Surelly you aren't suggesting that Starmer is actively attempting to destroy his party?»
I think I have already mentioned my impression several times in previous comments, but I shall re-summarize, as to the long-term shape of events as I perceive them to have some logic:
* General premise: political parties are self-sustaining institutions to a large extent, but to their "sponsors" they are just tools, what matters is which interests they work for.
* The Mandelson Tendency is not trying to destroy, but to downsize, not his party, but Labour.
* The miltant mandelsonists are quintessentially "whig" (thatcherite radical globalist) but most of the Labour Party is "trots" (social-democratic internationalists) and most of the Conservative Party is "tories" (thathcherite conservative nationalists).
* Unfortunately "whig" politics is rather unpopular, so after the demise of the Liberals most "whigs" (and most importantly their "sponsors" in finance etc.) have joined and eventually taken over (Cameron, Blair) the Conservative and Labour parties, so no matter how the "tories" and "trots" vote and no matter whether they abstain both "tories" and "trots" can only elect a mostly "whig" government.
* The problem is that most activists and members and voters of both Conservatives and Labour still are not "whigs", they are "tories" for the former or "trots" for the latter.
* This means that like with Corbyn and Johnson there is always the risk that some "tory" or "trot" will take (temporary) control of their parties by appealing to the mass of "tories" or "trots" in those parties.
* My guess is that the militant mandelsonists and their "sponsors" had a big "HAHA!" moment with the 2010 Coalition: if only both Conservatives and Labour never were able to govern on their own again, but always had to compete with each other to get in coalition with the LibDems, and therefore had to adopt "whig" policies, that would ensure that the resulting government would never be able to be "tory" or "trot" even if either party were taken over by "tory" or "trot" leaders.
* The solution is simple: PASOKification, which for Labour is the *opposite" of “wouldn't it be easier and quicker to espouse the end of private property”. Both parties must be made to posture against the leanings of much of their bases, so that many "tory" voters abandon the Conservatives and many "trot" voters abandon Labour, and switch to abstention, or to irrelevant "illegitimate" "extremist" parties, so that both Conservatives and Labour be downsized, but not as much as the original PASOK.
My usual apposite quote from Tony Benn's diary entry about his last NEC meeting in 1993, where he had already perceived the trend:
https://www.google.de/books/edition/Free_At_Last/Rvy6KJQrITsC?pg=PA177
“PR is being advocated with a view to a pact with the Liberals of a kind that Peter Mandelson worked for in Newbury, where he in fact encouraged the Liberal vote. The policy work has been subcontracted. These so called modernisers are really Victorian Liberals, who believe in market forces, don't like the trade unions and are anti-socialist.”
So where's this party going to come from?
ReplyDeleteYou need a Farage or a Galloway to pull a new party out of thin air. Otherwise you end up with what the far left moulders along as; or it evaporates instantly like Umunna and his band (remember them?)
Corbyn could do it, if he chose, as he has the established cult of personality. But he won't, because it's opposite to his preferred way of doing politics.
Without a single uniting figure, the Greens and the WP are the only viable occupants of that space on the left.
«so that both Conservatives and Labour be downsized, but not as much as the original PASOK>»
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the "whig" factions would like a situation where only the more affluent 50% of the UK population bothered to vote, and their votes be split 15-20% to the LibDems, 25-30% each to New Labour and Conservatives, and the rest wasted on "extremist" parties for the few remaining "tories" and "trots" that would still bother to vote. Not too far from that :-).
«The problem is that most activists and members and voters of both Conservatives and Labour still are not "whigs", they are "tories" for the former or "trots" for the latter.»
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is that the Corbyn "catastrophe" was caused by a related gross miscalculation by the militant mandelsonists:
* One-member-one-vote was meant to replace the trade union block vote, and the militant mandelsonists pushed that for many years, finally succeeding in 2015 IIRC.
* It was expected that one-member-on-vote would mean that a significant number of New Labour "whig" affluent voters would become members, as "trots" were supposed to be too stupid and demoralized by New Labour to bother becoming members or voting in internal elections.
* What actually happened is that New Labour affluent voters did not bother to become members (their mindset is that politics is a consumer thing, not an activism thing, a form of passive entertainment, not a "hobby" like gardening), but lots of "trots" unexpectedly did become members (Labour Party "entrysts"!) and "stole" the New Labour Party from the Mandelson Tendency.
* Therefore the current New Labour militant mandelsonists want to get rid of both the trade union block vote and the members individual vote, and have the leadership elected solely by MPs, which would be selected by the same leadership, so MPs and leadership would become a self-perpetuating "whig" group.
My usual suggestion for the Mandelson Tendency to ensure that Labour Party "trots" never again be able to take over the New Labour Party is to have New Labour members selected every year by their MPs, as currently the membership is "undemocratic" because it is not elected by anybody, so anybody can become a member and thus potential be an "entryst".
Now if Starmer were to lose the unions, then something might happen.
ReplyDeleteA nationwide NHS Nurses Party, fronted by actual NHS nurses, would instantly be the primary threat to every other party. The only reason that the political class don't lose sleep over it is that it seems impossible for it to happen; the country's frontline medical staff are too overworked and underprivileged to realise their political potential at scale. Someone else would have to organise it for them.
The goal is gaping. ‘And Corbyn must score………’
ReplyDelete«A nationwide NHS Nurses Party, fronted by actual NHS nurses, would instantly be the primary threat to every other party.»
ReplyDeleteThat is a truly bizarre idea, but it reminds me of a sign of the times: in the early years of the New Labour government Blair did a test of public opinion: the government sacked 500 older NHS nurses for being "unaffordable" (with seniority their wages had increased) and replaced them with younger (and almost entirely immigrant) temping agency nurses. There was no reaction to that as "Middle England" was doing very well indeed and could hardly care less about 500 "lazy, overpaid, entitled" workers, NHS nurses or others. My guess is that the 2-child benefit cap is a similar operation of testing public opinion. Another success (including the riddance of 7 "trots").
The english middle classes affect sentimentality about various things, but that is humbug, as Marx wrote quite a while ago:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch03.htm
“The Tories in England long imagined that they were enthusiastic about monarchy, the church, and the beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent.”
Well, Bliss, the "day of danger" for the NHS will be upon us soon enough. Streeting and Reeves are very obviously gearing up to make the announcement that no government in nearly 80 years has dared to make, despite many in the last 45 clearly wishing that they could: that "the NHS is unaffordable". If they don't bottle it, what do you expect the reaction to be? "Oh well, how sad, just don't take away our ground rent"?
ReplyDeleteTiny toes in the water during the Great Bubble economy complacency of the Blair days hardly seem relevant to current conditions. But after its wretched performances during the last 15 years, I would never overestimate the floor of what the British public is capable of. Perhaps they're so broken by the decades of Good Cop Bad Cop routine, so pathetically emotionally committed to Starmer the Saviour, that they'll greet the winding up of the NHS dream by a Labour-branded regime with harrumphing circle jerks in praise of "grown-up government".
«the announcement that no government in nearly 80 years has dared to make, despite many in the last 45 clearly wishing that they could: that "the NHS is unaffordable"»
ReplyDeleteThat is indeed possible, but in my long term view the trajectory so far has been rather different and cleverer, which I have described a few times:
* To create for every service a "gold", "silver", "bronze" and "slate" level (as in 1st, 2nd, 3rd rate and "slum" for housing, or 1st, 2nd, 3rd class and "steerage" for travel).
* To reduce all public offerings to the "bronze" level in tory-voting areas and to the "slate" level in "trot" voting areas, with "silver" private plans for the middle class funded by property profits and "gold" private plans for the upper class.
All businesses and rentiers know that instead of raising prices they can reduce quality (for example doubling up in smaller and smaller and lesser and lesser maintained flats for housing), and thatcherite politicians know that instead of raising of raising taxes that applies to public services too, and they have been slowing doing that for decades, including the NHS. "Shrinkflation" or "crapification" are common terms for a reason.
But perhaps that like Osborne achieved thatcherite glory by privatising an icon like the Royal Mail, Streeting would like to achieve the same for cutting down to size the NHS.
PS: Another interesting sign of the times is that 2/3 of new doctors hired by the NHS are immigrants, their degrees fully paid for by foreign taxpayers, as funding for UK medicine degrees has covers less than 1/3. A career as doctor was once a path to the middle class for UK people, every internationalist should be pleased that it is now a path to the middle class for people of global majority (egyptians, pakistanis, nigerians mostly).