This Once Great Movement Of Ours
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Author Topic: This Once Great Movement Of Ours  (Read 146742 times)
Filuwaúrdjan
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« on: May 07, 2020, 09:09:39 AM »

A thread for general discussion of the British Labour Party, the wider British Labour Movement and wider issues pertaining to the pair of them. Please behave.
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DaWN
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« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2020, 09:11:29 AM »

I can tell this is a thread where I'm going to make myself very popular
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2020, 09:34:38 AM »

I can tell this is a thread where I'm going to make myself very popular

There is no obligation to take part unless you have something useful to contribute Smiley
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PSOL
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« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2020, 06:27:07 PM »

I’ve already moved on, and I urge anyone else to choose better, albeit now smaller, pastures from here on out. The Labour Party’s ability to serve the British working class is dead, with cheers from the holders of Capital in Britain ecstatic that the nominal left party is of no threat to them.
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Nathan
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« Reply #4 on: May 07, 2020, 11:53:33 PM »

I’ve already moved on, and I urge anyone else to choose better, albeit now smaller, pastures from here on out. The Labour Party’s ability to serve the British working class is dead, with cheers from the holders of Capital in Britain ecstatic that the nominal left party is of no threat to them.

Did people come to this same conclusion when Blair was elected Leader in 1994? If so, clearly the Labour Party's ability to serve the British working class wasn't dead then, unless one is seriously going to argue that Blair's UK was materially no different for workers than Cameron's/May's/BoJo's; if not, then coming to this conclusion now implies the absolutely ludicrous belief that Starmer and his people are to the right of Blair and his people. The fact that any sane person could possibly hold that belief speaks to Corbyn's success in moving the party's center of gravity durably leftward, not to his many and various failures.
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EastAnglianLefty
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« Reply #5 on: May 08, 2020, 03:39:49 AM »

I’ve already moved on, and I urge anyone else to choose better, albeit now smaller, pastures from here on out. The Labour Party’s ability to serve the British working class is dead, with cheers from the holders of Capital in Britain ecstatic that the nominal left party is of no threat to them.

This sort of statement is genuinely hilarious when you consider the actual economic policies of Corbyn's Labour. They literally decided that they could only afford to either abolish tuition fees or reverse benefit cuts for the low-paid, and picked the former.
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Silent Hunter
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« Reply #6 on: May 08, 2020, 05:37:58 AM »

While I will probably start voting Labour again, I doubt I will rejoin the party. I've moved on.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #7 on: May 08, 2020, 05:49:57 AM »

I’ve already moved on, and I urge anyone else to choose better, albeit now smaller, pastures from here on out. The Labour Party’s ability to serve the British working class is dead, with cheers from the holders of Capital in Britain ecstatic that the nominal left party is of no threat to them.

A somewhat ahistorical statement that ignores the objective evidence that Starmer is actually one of the party's *more* left wing leaders, even if he is to the right of Corbyn.

(and exactly the same is true of his deputy, and possible successor)
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dead0man
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« Reply #8 on: May 08, 2020, 11:00:41 AM »

I see that the mods are Labour fans.
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MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!
Kalwejt
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« Reply #9 on: May 08, 2020, 03:36:01 PM »

I see that the mods are Labour fans.

A long-disappointed fan would be more accurate.
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Zinneke
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« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2020, 05:41:08 PM »

I see that the mods are Labour fans.

They did you a favour.
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dead0man
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« Reply #11 on: May 08, 2020, 05:47:13 PM »

but I didn't get to see the hot takes from you and the two others, how is that a favor?
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Zinneke
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« Reply #12 on: May 08, 2020, 05:49:46 PM »

but I didn't get to see the hot takes from you and the two others, how is that a favor?

How is pointing out the fact that the current leader's wife and kids being jewish is a hot take? It should be a pretty simple concept to grasp.
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dead0man
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« Reply #13 on: May 08, 2020, 06:42:41 PM »

again, I didn't get to see, because the mods deleted everything.  For reasons that have become even more confusing now.  I had assumed the responses were just insults and the mods found the small hijack too distracting, but you're telling me they were just informative...well that's odd.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #14 on: May 09, 2020, 12:54:58 AM »

The Labour Party is in a significantly stronger position than almost any other European social democratic party. Low bar, I know, but it must be said.
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EastAnglianLefty
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« Reply #15 on: May 09, 2020, 05:00:08 AM »

The Labour Party is in a significantly stronger position than almost any other European social democratic party. Low bar, I know, but it must be said.

Not really. Spain, Portugal and the Scandinavian nations certainly have more influential social democratic parties right now. Labour has a higher base vote, but that's not a sensible comparison to use when comparing FPTP and PR jurisdictions.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #16 on: May 09, 2020, 06:03:10 AM »

again, I didn't get to see, because the mods deleted everything.  For reasons that have become even more confusing now.  I had assumed the responses were just insults and the mods found the small hijack too distracting, but you're telling me they were just informative...well that's odd.

Simply making a statement that "Labour hates Jews" is trolling, and not the purpose of this thread.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #17 on: May 09, 2020, 07:14:22 AM »

The Labour Party is in a significantly stronger position than almost any other European social democratic party. Low bar, I know, but it must be said.

Not really. Spain, Portugal and the Scandinavian nations certainly have more influential social democratic parties right now. Labour has a higher base vote, but that's not a sensible comparison to use when comparing FPTP and PR jurisdictions.

Historically one can say Tories benefites more from the FPTP system than Labour. After all Atlee won the popular vote three times in a row (1945, 1950 and 1951), but that last time Conservatives won the majority of seats (it's funny to think that Churchill lost the PV three times in a row).
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dead0man
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« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2020, 07:24:49 AM »

again, I didn't get to see, because the mods deleted everything.  For reasons that have become even more confusing now.  I had assumed the responses were just insults and the mods found the small hijack too distracting, but you're telling me they were just informative...well that's odd.

Simply making a statement that "Labour hates Jews" is trolling, and not the purpose of this thread.
I didn't say that, I asked if they still did.  As they did just a few months ago, I thought it was a reasonable question.  Apparently it's not and magically, Labour totally loves Jews now and there totally isn't still a problem.  Right?


I guess the question now is....where did all the left learning bigots go?
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parochial boy
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« Reply #19 on: May 09, 2020, 08:03:50 AM »

again, I didn't get to see, because the mods deleted everything.  For reasons that have become even more confusing now.  I had assumed the responses were just insults and the mods found the small hijack too distracting, but you're telling me they were just informative...well that's odd.

Simply making a statement that "Labour hates Jews" is trolling, and not the purpose of this thread.
I didn't say that, I asked if they still did.  As they did just a few months ago, I thought it was a reasonable question.  Apparently it's not and magically, Labour totally loves Jews now and there totally isn't still a problem.  Right?


I guess the question now is....where did all the left learning bigots go?

Here presumably
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #20 on: May 09, 2020, 08:12:26 AM »

I didn't say that, I asked if they still did.  As they did just a few months ago, I thought it was a reasonable question.  Apparently it's not and magically, Labour totally loves Jews now and there totally isn't still a problem.  Right?

Not at all: what has happened in this respect over the past five years has amounted to a public scandal and is being investigated as one by a statuary body (the Equalities and Human Rights Commission). The report is due out at some point over the next few months. It is likely that the report will be highly critical of what has happened, it is likely that the new leadership will move to implement its recommendations with something akin to enthusiasm. But until the report is published we're in a strange limbo.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #21 on: May 09, 2020, 08:18:09 AM »

The Labour Party is in a significantly stronger position than almost any other European social democratic party. Low bar, I know, but it must be said.

Not really. Spain, Portugal and the Scandinavian nations certainly have more influential social democratic parties right now. Labour has a higher base vote, but that's not a sensible comparison to use when comparing FPTP and PR jurisdictions.

It's also the case that a) a substantial proportion of Labour's vote at the last GE was driven by tactical pro-European voting, only moved towards Labour quite reluctantly during the campaign, and can't really be seen as 'belonging' to Labour as such. Take that away and you're looking at 25-27% or so, and that b) most voters understand how FPTP works at a constituency level which means that to understand support you can't just look at vote shares. If there's massive consolidation behind the other party (and my God did we see a lot of that last year: the scale of anti-Labour voting in most of the country ought to be seen as quite shocking) then that's often a sign of the party in question being deeply unpopular. FPTP has always encouraged 'negative' voting, but it has taken widespread partisan dealignment for the impact to be visible in Britain.
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EastAnglianLefty
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« Reply #22 on: May 09, 2020, 11:35:51 AM »

The Labour Party is in a significantly stronger position than almost any other European social democratic party. Low bar, I know, but it must be said.

Not really. Spain, Portugal and the Scandinavian nations certainly have more influential social democratic parties right now. Labour has a higher base vote, but that's not a sensible comparison to use when comparing FPTP and PR jurisdictions.

Historically one can say Tories benefites more from the FPTP system than Labour. After all Atlee won the popular vote three times in a row (1945, 1950 and 1951), but that last time Conservatives won the majority of seats (it's funny to think that Churchill lost the PV three times in a row).

On the flipside, FPTP worked to the Conservatives' detriment in 1997, 2001, 2005 (very notably) and to some extent in 2010. But talking about which of the big two the electoral system benefits is beside the point. The system as a whole benefits the big two, regardless of whether one benefits more than the other.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #23 on: May 09, 2020, 04:10:48 PM »

The Labour Party is in a significantly stronger position than almost any other European social democratic party. Low bar, I know, but it must be said.

Not really. Spain, Portugal and the Scandinavian nations certainly have more influential social democratic parties right now. Labour has a higher base vote, but that's not a sensible comparison to use when comparing FPTP and PR jurisdictions.

It's also the case that a) a substantial proportion of Labour's vote at the last GE was driven by tactical pro-European voting, only moved towards Labour quite reluctantly during the campaign, and can't really be seen as 'belonging' to Labour as such. Take that away and you're looking at 25-27% or so, and that b) most voters understand how FPTP works at a constituency level which means that to understand support you can't just look at vote shares. If there's massive consolidation behind the other party (and my God did we see a lot of that last year: the scale of anti-Labour voting in most of the country ought to be seen as quite shocking) then that's often a sign of the party in question being deeply unpopular. FPTP has always encouraged 'negative' voting, but it has taken widespread partisan dealignment for the impact to be visible in Britain.

Yes, PSOE, PS, and some (but not all) of the Scandinavian parties are in a better shape right now. But as for estimating what "real" Labour support is, I'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from that. If we should discount the people who voted Labour in 2019 out of pro-EU sentiment, then by the same token shouldn't we also discount the pro-Brexit Tory vote? I'm not saying we should do so, mind you - it's still an open question whether 2019 is the new normal alingment-wise or whether things will revert to normal once Brexit is (more or less) behind us. But whether or not that's the case, in both situations Labour still has enough of a base to unambiguously be one of the two major parties (2019 is proof enough that the LibDems will never supplant them), which means it has a pretty decent chance of coming back to power at some point in the next decade. You certainly can't say the same for the SPD or PS.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #24 on: May 10, 2020, 05:59:08 AM »

Yes, and the fact also remains (though some have tried to write it out of history) that Labour got 41% of the GB vote in 2017 - something that remains woefully under-analysed (by most of Corbyn's backers as well as opponents, it has to be said)
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