Which political party is more left-leaning?

[mileslunn]

Labour by a mile. A better question is whether NDP or Labour is more left wing. Also Liberal Democrats vs. Liberal Party of Canada or the two Conservative are better comparisons. That being said I do think Justin Trudeau is more left wing than Tony Blair, but back then Chretien and Martin were Liberal leaders who were more centrist than Trudeau and in many ways at least on domestic fiscal policy to the right of Blair (more left wing on social and foreign policy though). The only political party at any level as left wing as a Corbyn led Labour is Quebec Solidaire.

[mileslunn]

You'd be hard pressed to find a more left-wing "center-left" party than Labour currently. Even during Blair they were well to the LPC's left.

Certainly on fiscal issues, Martin and Chretien were definitely more conservative than Blair was.  On social issues perhaps more left wing as they legalized gay marriage which Blair didn't, mind you Blair said he regretted he hadn't done this and also the courts forced Martin and Chretien's hand, doubt they would have done it if the courts hadn't ruled on it.  A lot of people place Blair to the right because he went into Iraq which Chretien opposed, but that is one issue and you cannot place someone on the spectrum on one issue.  On that issue Blair was more in line with right wing than left wing parties, but on most other issues not so much.  Perhaps on fiscal issues Trudeau is more left wing as he raised taxes on the rich, something Blair never did although Brown did (He raised top rate from 40% to 50% while Trudeau raised Canada's top rate from 29% to 33% but since we have provincial unlike the UK our combined rate was mid to high 40s before Trudeau while now low 50s in most provinces and high 40s in a few so comparable).  But when compared to Corbyn, he is well to the left of any Liberal leader and in fact even to the left of the NDP.

He wants free tuition which no party in Canada is calling for.  On corporate taxes he wants to raise it back to 26% which is close to what Canada is now, while on income taxes he wants to hike the top rate from 45% to 50% and if you take the combined provincial + federal rate, we were around 45% depending on province under Harper while around 50% now.  Mind you his shadow chancellor John McDonnell wants to raise top rates to 60% and no party not even the NDP is calling for rates that high.  Also too Britain only has federal rates while Canada has federal + Provincial and I suspect the reason for a high top rates is that they are separate and many leaders in both ignore that and just look at their own jurisdiction.  If we had only federal taxes, I highly doubt even the NDP would push the top rate over 50%, that is more a result of the fact we are a decentralized federation as opposed to unitary state.

But on nationalization, only Niki Ashton in the NDP went down this route.  True water and postal service are public in Canada unlike the UK, but there's a big difference between wanting to stop privatization of something and then reversing it once done.  On utilities, they are public in many provinces but Trudeau's closest ally Kathleen Wynne in Ontario just sold off over 50% of the shares for Hydro One which is the electric utility in Ontario so exact opposite of Corbyn.  Likewise in Nova Scotia and Alberta, you had/have NDP governments and electricity is private in both provinces yet neither tried to bring it back into public ownership.  On rail, we still have VIA Rail, but tracks and freight are private and were privatized by the Liberals back in 1995 and no party has talked about re-nationalizing it.  That being said somewhat comparing apples to oranges as rail in Canada is mostly freight while in UK mostly passenger and EU rules don't allow track ownership for companies that operate on it whereas in Canada usually the company that owns the tracks runs the trains on it (although VIA Rail doesn't own any tracks, instead they use CN and CP Rail and have to pay fees to use them).

[mileslunn]

Pretty dumb question but might have made some sense maybe back during the Blair years but certainly not now.  Now I do think the following two questions would be quite sensible and not stupid at all:

1.  Which is more right wing, Canadian or British Tories?

2.  Which is more right wing, Canada or UK?

My answers would be Canadian Tories for #1 while UK for #2.

[mileslunn]

See, the Liberal Party is hardly to the left of even Obama’s Democratic Party. Chrétien and Martin are probably even to Obama’s right. Given this, I don’t get how you can argue the Liberals with a straight face.

Liberal Party of Canada has largely been more a party about winning than any given ideology.  Prior to the 1960s they were more classical liberals so centre-right.  60s and 70s when the left was at its ascendency they swung leftward while in the 80s and 90s when the country swung rightward they did too.  Recently we've become more polarized, but it seems easier to pick off soft NDP voters as the Tory base is pretty firm and hard to move thus why they've swung leftwards.  Otherwise unlike most parties which have certain core ideology and principles, Liberal Party of Canada's main one is winning.

[mileslunn]

See, the Liberal Party is hardly to the left of even Obama’s Democratic Party. Chrétien and Martin are probably even to Obama’s right. Given this, I don’t get how you can argue the Liberals with a straight face.

Liberal Party of Canada has largely been more a party about winning than any given ideology.  Prior to the 1960s they were more classical liberals so centre-right.  60s and 70s when the left was at its ascendency they swung leftward while in the 80s and 90s when the country swung rightward they did too.  Recently we've become more polarized, but it seems easier to pick off soft NDP voters as the Tory base is pretty firm and hard to move thus why they've swung leftwards.  Otherwise unlike most parties which have certain core ideology and principles, Liberal Party of Canada's main one is winning.

They are the weathervane of Canada aren't they?

Yes and that is why they are the third most successful party in the democratic world in terms of winning elections.  I believe the Social Democrats of Sweden and Liberal Democratic Party of Japan are the only ones that have a greater success rate at the national level.  In the case of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, although more right wing than the Liberal Party of Canada, my understanding is they are sort of a catch all with many factions that cover the spectrum.