By taking for granted its Working-Class voters, Labour migrated towards young, educated & Professional-Class voters. As its new voter-base became repulsed by the old, the Tories picked up the Red Wall
I know an advisor to one of the Labour politicians you mention. She told me the politician was advised to show more enthusiasm for Britain. He replied that he preferred France.
Your analysis is astute. I would follow you on twitter. But twitter is lame and demanded I give them my phone (like I'm going to give a corpo my personal phone number). I came to the same conclusions years ago. You remind me of myself. The Left can't figure out why it can't get the working class. They bemoan this every time. It's a ritual holiday at this point. It's because the Left hates the working class. It sees the working class as reactionary rubes that need to die out the way of the dodo bird and the non-white vibrant "other" to replace them. They spew it every chance they get, on Liberal comedy shows, and act dumbfounded why no one wants to vote for them. It's not unknown to them that they're hated. They actually see the working class as subhuman despite the working class rhetoric and slogans they like to use over and over again. They have an idealized version of the working class they champion for.
This reminds me of the Spanish Civil War. Retarded Leftists start killing nuns and priests, burning churches, desecrating religious Christian statues, and wanting a sexual revolution. They thought the revolution would be easy because the rural poor would come to join them. What did most of the poor in the rural parts of Spain do? They joined Franco, and what was thought was going to be an easy revolution turned out to be a bloodbath as Leftists/Liberals in the cities got fucked. Why? Because their religious conviction was stronger than any class interest. Even smarter Leftists understood (and warned this countless times) you needed to develop and raise class consciousness before any revolution could be done. Leftists never learn despite how smug and smart they think they are. They'd be destroyed if the Right wasn't made up of dumb Conservatives. They should count their lucky stars every night that there's another group dumber than they are (a feat).
Thinking that the Maastricht Treaty was somehow imposing neoliberal policies on UK is delusional. Just look at some Member States of the EU which even have the euro and therefore are bound by more rules..
I found your piece very interesting and explains what has happened to Labour in UK. By the way, there are similarities to Australian Labour Party. thank you
Hi, I'm a bit surprised you wrote such a cynical essay about wokeness and this one! I don't think Blue Labour is going anywhere iirc it was a Miliband kite flying excise that didn't really take off but got him through a few months. It was then co-opted by paid pro-Brexit astroturfers. Last piece I read from Glasman was laughably blowing smoke up Starmer's ass.
As you touched on Labour's big error was allowing new EU citizens from Eastern Europe full access to the UK labour market in 2004. It lower wages/keep wages low, increased competition for public services and meant a noticable amount of anti-child poverty money went to new migrants. Giving the right wing press lots of material to attack Labour & the EU over.
I don't think the Blairites & the Corbynites are the economic & culture sides of the same Remain coin. Jones & Sarkar weren't particularly vocal nor earlier supporters of the 2nd referendum. It was a well funded Blairite operation to radicalise enough Remainers by delegitmiseing the referendum, exaggerating the economic consequences and with Labour MPs refusing to back May's deal that led to the 2nd referendum policy. Also, Farage actually saved ~40 Labour seats with most of his voters going to the Tories without his candidate standing.
Starmer's leadership went down the toilet when he started infighting during the pandemic rather than showing voters he was a tough guy they saw Labour attacking each other after 50k+ people had just died.
I'm a socialist who joined the Labour Party in 2015 to help elect Jeremy Corbyn. This was the first time in my life (I'm now 58) that I joined or supported a particular political movement. The party was, briefly, everything I wanted: anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and internationalist.
After the Brexit referendum, Corbyn was the first party leader to call for the invocation of Article 51, which would have set in motion Britain's departure from the EU. If his parliamentary party had supported him at the time, Labour would likely have retained many of their traditional working-class seats; unfortunately, the vast majority of Labour MPs were (and are) Blairite holdovers who hated Corbyn and everything he represented, the infamous 'chicken coup' was set in motion, and the party was torn apart between leavers and remainers.
So here we are: since Corbyn's resignation, the party has bled members (down 100,000) and is consequently on the financial rocks, with capitalist donors seeing no reason to give money to Labour when the Conservatives have a lock on power for the next ten-plus years and will do their bidding throughout that period.
To make matters worse, Keir Starmer lied his way into his position as party leader by promising to both unite Labour and to adhere to a set of ten principles that assuaged the concerns of many left-wing party members. Instead, he has engaged in political purges to make sure socialist candidates aren't in a position to win elections and has abandoned almost all of the aforementioned principles.
Is Labour on the road to PASOK-ification and irrelevance? Hard to say: there are still many traditional socialists amongst the remaining members, and a new leadership contest could see them flex their muscle again. There are local examples of Labour success when left-wing social and economic policies are embraced. However, a turn to Little England 'Blue Labour' principles would be a bitter pill for socialists to swallow and would see many more of us leave the party. We reject the racism at the heart of Blue Labour while recognizing that opposition to Brexit was a terrible mistake. There is plenty of room for an anti-racist socialist party in Britain but it may mean Labour must finally wither away. It won't happen overnight.
I know an advisor to one of the Labour politicians you mention. She told me the politician was advised to show more enthusiasm for Britain. He replied that he preferred France.
Your analysis is astute. I would follow you on twitter. But twitter is lame and demanded I give them my phone (like I'm going to give a corpo my personal phone number). I came to the same conclusions years ago. You remind me of myself. The Left can't figure out why it can't get the working class. They bemoan this every time. It's a ritual holiday at this point. It's because the Left hates the working class. It sees the working class as reactionary rubes that need to die out the way of the dodo bird and the non-white vibrant "other" to replace them. They spew it every chance they get, on Liberal comedy shows, and act dumbfounded why no one wants to vote for them. It's not unknown to them that they're hated. They actually see the working class as subhuman despite the working class rhetoric and slogans they like to use over and over again. They have an idealized version of the working class they champion for.
This reminds me of the Spanish Civil War. Retarded Leftists start killing nuns and priests, burning churches, desecrating religious Christian statues, and wanting a sexual revolution. They thought the revolution would be easy because the rural poor would come to join them. What did most of the poor in the rural parts of Spain do? They joined Franco, and what was thought was going to be an easy revolution turned out to be a bloodbath as Leftists/Liberals in the cities got fucked. Why? Because their religious conviction was stronger than any class interest. Even smarter Leftists understood (and warned this countless times) you needed to develop and raise class consciousness before any revolution could be done. Leftists never learn despite how smug and smart they think they are. They'd be destroyed if the Right wasn't made up of dumb Conservatives. They should count their lucky stars every night that there's another group dumber than they are (a feat).
Thinking that the Maastricht Treaty was somehow imposing neoliberal policies on UK is delusional. Just look at some Member States of the EU which even have the euro and therefore are bound by more rules..
This is my favorite political analysis that I've seen.
I found your piece very interesting and explains what has happened to Labour in UK. By the way, there are similarities to Australian Labour Party. thank you
Hi, I'm a bit surprised you wrote such a cynical essay about wokeness and this one! I don't think Blue Labour is going anywhere iirc it was a Miliband kite flying excise that didn't really take off but got him through a few months. It was then co-opted by paid pro-Brexit astroturfers. Last piece I read from Glasman was laughably blowing smoke up Starmer's ass.
As you touched on Labour's big error was allowing new EU citizens from Eastern Europe full access to the UK labour market in 2004. It lower wages/keep wages low, increased competition for public services and meant a noticable amount of anti-child poverty money went to new migrants. Giving the right wing press lots of material to attack Labour & the EU over.
I don't think the Blairites & the Corbynites are the economic & culture sides of the same Remain coin. Jones & Sarkar weren't particularly vocal nor earlier supporters of the 2nd referendum. It was a well funded Blairite operation to radicalise enough Remainers by delegitmiseing the referendum, exaggerating the economic consequences and with Labour MPs refusing to back May's deal that led to the 2nd referendum policy. Also, Farage actually saved ~40 Labour seats with most of his voters going to the Tories without his candidate standing.
Starmer's leadership went down the toilet when he started infighting during the pandemic rather than showing voters he was a tough guy they saw Labour attacking each other after 50k+ people had just died.
Coming soon to a former colony near you.
Great article. I share many of your sentiments.
I'm a socialist who joined the Labour Party in 2015 to help elect Jeremy Corbyn. This was the first time in my life (I'm now 58) that I joined or supported a particular political movement. The party was, briefly, everything I wanted: anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and internationalist.
After the Brexit referendum, Corbyn was the first party leader to call for the invocation of Article 51, which would have set in motion Britain's departure from the EU. If his parliamentary party had supported him at the time, Labour would likely have retained many of their traditional working-class seats; unfortunately, the vast majority of Labour MPs were (and are) Blairite holdovers who hated Corbyn and everything he represented, the infamous 'chicken coup' was set in motion, and the party was torn apart between leavers and remainers.
So here we are: since Corbyn's resignation, the party has bled members (down 100,000) and is consequently on the financial rocks, with capitalist donors seeing no reason to give money to Labour when the Conservatives have a lock on power for the next ten-plus years and will do their bidding throughout that period.
To make matters worse, Keir Starmer lied his way into his position as party leader by promising to both unite Labour and to adhere to a set of ten principles that assuaged the concerns of many left-wing party members. Instead, he has engaged in political purges to make sure socialist candidates aren't in a position to win elections and has abandoned almost all of the aforementioned principles.
Is Labour on the road to PASOK-ification and irrelevance? Hard to say: there are still many traditional socialists amongst the remaining members, and a new leadership contest could see them flex their muscle again. There are local examples of Labour success when left-wing social and economic policies are embraced. However, a turn to Little England 'Blue Labour' principles would be a bitter pill for socialists to swallow and would see many more of us leave the party. We reject the racism at the heart of Blue Labour while recognizing that opposition to Brexit was a terrible mistake. There is plenty of room for an anti-racist socialist party in Britain but it may mean Labour must finally wither away. It won't happen overnight.
You may like this since we're on this topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMzJ1afYabY&lc=UgxzqyPo53h2QAmyn_h4AaABAg&ab_channel=KeithWoods I'll stop bombarding your comments now. Sorry.