Am going to a meeting with my Local MP at uni Rachael Maskell about the EU and Article 50 vote- apparently she's considering rebelling and resigning from the Shadow Cabinet over the issue, so I'm going to go and give me two cents- although she may remember me from when I heckled John Mcdonnell
What is the Labour leadership's position on the Article 50 vote? I can never tell.
Twirling, always twirling towards socialism.
Scream socialism, while having wholly different ideas of the EU. Hell two hard left MP's have a different opinion on this issue, and even on their priorities (Abbot and McDonnel). Whole heartedly support McDonnel on this issue but that's me.
They are in a tough position on brexit, as many of labour's base oppose the EU and immigration. The people who oppose the EU, tend to be on the hard left of the party, and they oppose immigration, while those who in the party anyways support any form of restricted immigration are on the soft-right or very few in the soft-left of the party, while generally supportive of the EU.
I believe (could be wrong), that labour's white working class base would lie some where in with the soft left, (not the Owen Smith liberal left and europhille like) and the soft-right of the party, with some militant types being on the hard-left.
I think Labour's White Working Class base aren't really political in that sense of the word; they vote Labour because they see it as the party that stands up for them; while the Tories stand up for the rich and the powerful.
At the same time, they voted Brexit to a large degree; and Labour's recent position on the EU (as well as a whole load of other things) has driven their alienation from the party.
I'm not sure we can split the issue as hard v soft left that easily. I mean, Corbyn is hard left, but working class voters tend to see him as both ineffectual, and just another London Metropolitan liberal (although of another type than the Ed Milliband or the Tony Blair types).
Of course, most labour members are also "London Liberals" ideologically speaking. So the "hard" left the "soft" left, the Labour right and all in between, at the end of the day, aren't very representative of the voter base.
Basically, Labour's problems go a lot deeper than how it reacts to Brexit.
