There were two such examples from the last couple of days. In her mail out to subscribers, The I's Katy Balls reported on growing disquiet among Labour MPs about the party's strategy. One (anonymous, of course) insider said "If we’re doing Reform-lite policies, we shouldn’t be losing to Reform.” Balls observes that the government might, therefore, need to shore up its left flank with policies that, shock, left wing voters might like.
And then in The Economist we have Duncan Robinson laying into the delusions that have captured the Labour and Conservative Party leaderships. Starmerism and the Tories are beholden to a zombie politics in which their favourite voter is ... dead. This constituency, which haunts the imaginations of Morgan McSweeney, commits the government to the nonsenses of Brexit and the rejection of anything amounting to a sensible accommodation with the EU. He writes, "If, like everyone else in British politics, one is looking for right-leaning, Leave-voting non-graduates with particularly authoritarian views to attend a focus group, then the best place to find them is the morgue."
Long-time readers of this blog might be experiencing dejavu. Labour's right wing turn is unsustainable? You don't say. Right wing authoritarian politics is in long-term decline, and with it the parties dependent on these constituencies? Where have we heard that before? The basic, almost banal position of this corner of the internet is in the first instance the Conservatives, and Reform are subject to the aforementioned declinist pressures. Their base in wider society is ageing and dying, and not getting replaced like-for-like. For the moment, their support turns out disproportionately but any advantage the right holds here is time limited. It's therefore foolish in the extreme for a party like Labour, which still holds leads among working age people despite the collapse of the polling position, to hitch their wagon to a bunch of gee-gees ready for the knackers yard.
So we have an identification of a problem facing bourgeois politics, but what's missing from Balls's and Robinson's account is the explanation. It might seem puzzling that Kemi Badenoch's hapless leadership is abandoning efforts at winning back thw swathe of Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats for the sake of a handful of constituencies they conceded to Reform. However, the Tories - not unreasonably - believe Nigel Farage is the existential threat. To stand any chance of winning again, the Conservatives have to monopolise hardcore right wing voters. At least where the thinking of leading Tories are concerned. Only when the base is secure and the interlopers seen off can they think about taking back ground from the Lib Dems. The people Badenoch and friends have to attract might be dead, but their shades continue to animate the right wing media, which is still viewed as the voice of Tory England. Though these institutions are shedding readers to the Grim Reaper daily, their editorials are so much ouija spelling out what the Tories have to do.
And Labour? Being "responsible", the "grown up" thing is to put as much political distance between their management of British capitalism, and the aspirations of the party's base. Fiscal rules, attacks on the disabled, pretending to be Brexit true-believers, the expired, ex-voters of 2019 vintage are convenient ghosts summoned from the spirit realm to haunt the excuses for inaction and cruelty. But the Labour leadership are deeply cynical mediums and lack the credulity of a Derek Acorah. Their conjuring is a fraud to alibi a politics of managing expectations. The promise of doing very little and continuing attacks on the most vulnerable and the scapegoats favoured by the Tories dampens demands on them to do progressive things, while also reassuring the ruling class that Starmerism means safety where the stability of class relations are concerned. This means the last thing the government want is to reject the dead in favour of the living, because securing Labour's future as an election winning machine that can bury the Tories and see off Reform will only happen if they strive to be capital's master, not its handmaiden. And I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how unlikely that is.
16 comments:
Yes, a helpful intervention in that it analyses what to many of us is so enraging. We know there are decent people at most levels in the Labour Party who are equally frustrated. Deeply disappointing, doomed to failure and such harm done.
«Starmerism and the Tories are beholden to a zombie politics in which their favourite voter is ... dead. This constituency, which haunts the imaginations of Morgan McSweeney, commits the government to the nonsenses of Brexit and the rejection of anything amounting to a sensible accommodation with the EU. He writes, "If, like everyone else in British politics, one is looking for right-leaning, Leave-voting non-graduates with particularly authoritarian views to attend a focus group, then the best place to find them is the morgue."»
Probably many New Labourists and many Conservatives or Reform Uker think so but the more lucid ones know very well that the mass base of right-wing politics is "Middle England", not anti-EU cultural warriors or pensioners still alive or already dead. "Middle England" voters *also* have cultural inclinations about which our bloggers seems obsessive but those are rather secondary traits. An observer long ago wrote:
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.”
«The basic, almost banal position of this corner of the internet is in the first instance the Conservatives, and Reform are subject to the aforementioned declinist pressures. Their base in wider society is ageing and dying, and not getting replaced like-for-like.»
But "Middle England" is not an age cohort that is ageing and dying, it is a vested interests category (used to be called "class" IIRC) constantly being replenished by the heirs of "Middle England" parents and grandparents and new entrants; the "petty bourgeoisie" and the rentier middle-class who belong to it are in decline, as property ownership concentrates and middle-class jobs shrink, but very slowly.
«For the moment, their support turns out disproportionately but any advantage the right holds here is time limited.»
Also a large part of the current working class do not have the right to vote as they are immigrants, and nearly all of "Middle England" have the right to vote. Eventually the immigrants or their descendants would get the right to vote, but in the meantime a lot of money can be redistributed upwards and many political careers can flourish in that “time limited” period.
Regardless if all major politicians "somehow" choose to refrain from representing the working class then whether they have the vote or not?
«foolish in the extreme for a party like Labour, which still holds leads among working age people despite the collapse of the polling position»
It may be foolish for Labour, but it may be instead very deliberate for a party like New Labour, as the strategic goal of New Labour may be PASOKification.
Tony Benn, "Diary", 1993: “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.”
Reform have a putrid ace in the festering hole - the "anything but the status quo" vote. The very same that got Trump elected a second time. All they have to do is to be the only visible anti-status-quo party which looks powerful and connected enough to form a government.
Bliss, if Starmerite Labour have their finger on the pulse of Middle England rentier sentiment, then perhaps you can explain to us why their polling is so bad?
Man who hasn't read "Political Parties" by Robert Michels, and therefore has not learned about The Iron Law of Oligarchy, wonders why a political party when elected conforms to the Iron Law of Oligarchy.
Many such cases.
Robert Michels in 1911:
"In England, for instance, the opposition possess the same simple and resistant structure as the party which holds the reins of government; its programme is clearly formulated, directed to purely practical and proximate ends; it is thoroughly disciplined, and is led by one lacking theoretical profundity but endowed with strategic talent; all its energies are devoted to overthrowing the government, to taking the reins of power into its own hands, while in other respects leaving matters exactly as they were; it aims, in a word, at the substitution of one clique of the dominant class for another. Sooner or later the competition between the various cliques of the dominant classes ends in a reconciliation, which is effected with the instinctive aim of retaining dominion over the masses by sharing it among themselves."
You cannot vote your way out of this.
There is a mystery at the heart of this. You suggest SKS and his guru the Demon Barber are fixated on appealing to a particular version of voter. Yet polling suggests that their policies have little popular appeal. So, either this version of voter is concoted and false, or there are few of them. In either case, it's a peculiar way to behave in government. Unless they are simply doing what their funders require, despite it being unpopular. Even so, this self-destructive path is hard to rationalise. Do they imagine they can turn it around before 2029? Or do they not care because neither of them intends to stay in politics? Or do they actually believe that what they are doing is necessary because the laws of economics (which they see as natural laws, like gravity or thermodynamics) demand it?
We saw this self-destructive approach when the LibDems went into coalition with the Tories and imposed Austerity. They seemed to believe that they had to - there was no alternative. They paid a price electorally - but the damage they did outweighed that, yet still some of them seem to have convinced themselves they were right. Weird.
It's as if they channel the public disapproval to strengthen their resolve. "Everybody hates it so we must be doing the right thing". Obviously by everybody they really mean most ordinary people. There was a certain sector that were very happy with the erosion of public services and the boom of private equity and its takeover of essential infrastructure.
Phil and Helena no Justice should do something on this together- just a thought- worthwhile.
«polling suggests that their policies have little popular appeal»
What matters to them is not popular appeal, it is electoral considerations leading to seats. For example: there is no significant party of the (economic) left so New Labour do not need to care about voters who want (economic) left policies, most of them like in 2001 and 2005 will just give up voting or make protest votes.
> there is no significant party of the (economic) left so New Labour do not need to care about voters who want (economic) left policies
What are you talking about...? The present shambling parody of Labour are quite sufficiently threatened by Reform alone, never mind the grim prospect of a Tory-Reform pact, that they need to care about votes that they AREN'T getting.
That they are acting like they don't, suggests that either they are completely disconnected from reality, or that "electoral considerations" are not their foremost concern at all.
«if Starmerite Labour have their finger on the pulse of Middle England rentier sentiment»
Do they? I am skeptical. "Middle England" sentiment is about making money, and property prices are doing better but not so well overall. As I wrote New Labour do *wish* to pander to "Middle England" interests, whether they will be successful is not yet clear.
«why their polling is so bad?»
The question is whether it matters:
* The New Labour polling was bad before the 2024 general election and the result of that election was also quite bad (polled less than Conservatives plus Reform UK and less than Corbyn in 2019 despite the complicity of the right-wing press) but they got 400 seats regardless thanks to Reform UK splitting the tory vote. That is good enough for them.
* Anyhow their political strategists seem to be pandering to "Middle England" sentiment towards the 2029 elections, not today's polling numbers.
If "Middle England" property profits boom between now and 2029 then I guess that as usual they will be reluctant to vote out a government that delivers what they most want, same as what happened to New Labour in 2001 and 2005, where New Labour votes collapsed but they still got a majority of seats as "Middle England" would not vote for their opposition (until 2010 after New Labour had crashed property prices).
George Osborne: “A credible fiscal plan allows you to have a looser monetary policy than would otherwise be the case. My approach is to be fiscally conservative but monetarily active.”
George Osborne: “Hopefully we will get a little housing boom and everyone will be happy as property values go up”
Just as Keir Starmer seems to aim to be the return of David Cameron, it look that Rachel Reeves wants to be the return of George Osborne.
"there is no significant party of the (economic) left so New Labour do not need to care about voters who want (economic) left policies"
«they need to care about votes that they AREN'T getting.»
But even if they occasionally try to be many things to many people, they know that they cannot appeal at the same time to "trot" voters ("who want (economic) left policies") and to "Middle England" voters (who want more redistribution upwards from "trot" voters) and since they reckon that "Middle England" voters are the only voting block that matters, and they got 400 seats by pandering to "Middle England". Why change a winning team? :-)
«The present shambling parody of Labour»
Starmer's Party is not a parody of Labour, not even of "labourist" Labour, but a parody of New Labour. How are the mighty fallen! :-).
«or that "electoral considerations" are not their foremost concern at all.»
"At all" is way too strong, but perhaps there is a point as probably New New Labour still follow Tony Blair's principle:
Tony Blair, 2015: “I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.”
But regardless they can only appeal to voters compatible with "Middle England" interests, for example voters with a single-issue voting motivation that is in a different domain.
"Why change a winning team?"
Because you've looked at the polls, and seen that it's no longer winning?
Admittedly, they might reasonably want more evidence. They'll shortly get about the best that will be available in this half of their term, I believe.
If they get the expected drubbing, then we'll perhaps see if they're indeed rational; or if they're as wedded to delusional/psychopathic (delete as appropriate) "principles" as Blair claimed to be.
"they reckon that "Middle England" voters are the only voting block that matters, and they got 400 seats by pandering to "Middle England""
Perhaps we'll also see whether or not they are capable of re-examining their assumptions, as there are other competing explanations for how they actually got 400 seats. And current polls suggest that those might become relatively more credible over time - as obsessively trying to pander to "Middle England" continues to fail to bear fruit for Zombie Blairism.
Speaking of re-examining assumptions:
"they know that they cannot appeal at the same time to "trot" voters ("who want (economic) left policies") and to "Middle England" voters (who want more redistribution upwards from "trot" voters)"
In fact they "know" no such thing, and aren't living in the real world if they think that they do.
There are certainly conditions under which those two groups will no longer be completely opposed. Such as, for example, existential threats to the legal jurisdiction upon which the latter's cushy lifestyle is dependant. Or, and somewhat overlapping, obvious imminent collapse of the shared state infrastructure upon which they are forced to also depend.
Unless they also suffer a very comprehensive mass delusion, Middle Englanders must realise that there are crises which increased parasitism upon the lower classes will not save them from. And even Middle Englanders very much DO care if their local waterway is full of effluent (or roads full of potholes, etc and so forth) and nobody is doing anything about it.
Indeed, our blogger has argued that Starmerism at the time of the GE was based much less on appealing to the greed of rentiers, than on appealing to a widespread awareness that the state was close to an abyss and needed rescuing from its incumbent misgovernance.
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