It seems like - reading the BBC - Sultana just keeps jumping the gun. She left Labour and declared the party before the others involved planned to launch. She’s set up a membership portal - apparently because they agreed to do it by the end of September - it is basically two weeks early. And she wants everything laying out before the conference - when the conference is supposed to be the forum for sorting out the party structures.
Kind of, except by the conference there's supposed to be local groups and delegates in place.
It seems obvious that the IG MPs don't want to be in a socialist party and they don't want to be at risk of deselection, and at that point their committent to a member-led democratic structure gets rather weak.
Yes, it’s all very ‘here are two socialists without a party, and four Gaza independents, and we agree on Gaza, so let’s be a socialist party’ - without necessarily working through what else the 2 agree with the 4 on, or determining if the 4 are socialists… basically the idea is running much faster than the reality because enough people fervently want it to be a thing.
Sorry, what does IG stand for? Independents for Gaza?
There has been a LOT on Bluesky etc about the anti-LGBTQ+ leanings of the IG MPs which has basically made everyone go "fuck this, I'll just vote Green".
Following up on a comment about the Greens earlier, and one in which my name was mentioned...
I'm not sure I said that the Greens were 'hard-left' but that they were more leftward-leaning than many people assume. I also know some on the left of the Labour Party who were/are tempted to go Green.
That said, since making those observations, I've become more aware of former Conservatives who've gone Green. Around here, though, rural areas are still very True Blue Conservative so I've not seen the trend @betjemaniac cites of rural Greens with a somewhat right-wing agenda.
On a more general and sobering point, the left does seem to be in disarray and that bothers me as we see the rise of the populist right.
There are Greens and there are Greens, and it's probably as difficult to pigeon hole a Green member (let alone a voter) as it is a member of any other party.
The Green Party of England and Wales is quite different from Green Parties in other parts of Europe, including Scotland where the differences are sufficient that a couple of years ago the Scottish Green Party voted to break high-level formal cooperation with GPEW.
My knowledge is, of course, relating to SGP and what I know of GPEW is second hand. But, with that proviso ... SGP, and other European Greens, would identify as socialist (SGP actually identifies as ecosocialist, because "socialist" can sometimes be supporting workers without consideration of larger environmental issues) whereas GPEW would seem to be much more reluctant to adopt that identification (maybe the recent leadership election is showing a shift on that). SGP stands fairly evenly across the pillars of Green movement (environment, equality, radical democracy, and peace and non-violence), whereas GPEW (especially some local grassroots groups) seems to lean more heavily towards the environment, often in a conservative "National Trust" type of approach, putting issues of equality in particular in a lower priority position (it was on issues under equality and democracy that SGP and GPEW fell out). I can see how some parts of the Conservative Party would be attracted to that pseudo-NIMBY position of protecting rural environments if other aspects of Green ideals are not emphasised very much.
Yes, the pseudo-NIMBY angle has certainly been reasonably popular around here with increasing numbers of Green local councillors being elected - around here elections are usually Lib Dem/Tory races with Labour in fourth place or lower.
There are Greens and there are Greens, and it's probably as difficult to pigeon hole a Green member (let alone a voter) as it is a member of any other party.
The Green Party of England and Wales is quite different from Green Parties in other parts of Europe, including Scotland where the differences are sufficient that a couple of years ago the Scottish Green Party voted to break high-level formal cooperation with GPEW.
My knowledge is, of course, relating to SGP and what I know of GPEW is second hand. But, with that proviso ... SGP, and other European Greens, would identify as socialist (SGP actually identifies as ecosocialist, because "socialist" can sometimes be supporting workers without consideration of larger environmental issues) whereas GPEW would seem to be much more reluctant to adopt that identification (maybe the recent leadership election is showing a shift on that). SGP stands fairly evenly across the pillars of Green movement (environment, equality, radical democracy, and peace and non-violence), whereas GPEW (especially some local grassroots groups) seems to lean more heavily towards the environment, often in a conservative "National Trust" type of approach, putting issues of equality in particular in a lower priority position (it was on issues under equality and democracy that SGP and GPEW fell out). I can see how some parts of the Conservative Party would be attracted to that pseudo-NIMBY position of protecting rural environments if other aspects of Green ideals are not emphasised very much.
That sounds fair - one of the Green Party leadership candidates represents a seat in parliament which I suspect (though this is second hand via some constituents) only went Green (from Tory) on a turbo-rural ‘you can trust us to not be like the Greens in Brighton and anyway we won’t win nationally so it’s safe’ sort of ticket.
Repeat that often enough and the challenge will be one of coherence because the urban Green electorate and the rural Green electorate won’t think like each other.
Repeat that often enough and the challenge will be one of coherence because the urban Green electorate and the rural Green electorate won’t think like each other.
Which was always the lib dems' problem, too. I think it's tempting for any small party looking to make headway to try and ride multiple horses but more often than not you have to either choose one or dislocate your hips. RESPECT foundered on much the same ground as YP is now - it tried to build on anger about the Iraq invasion in predominantly Muslim communities by allying with similarly disgruntled lefties. It became clear that (a) Galloway was far too much of an apologist for authoritarian dictators and (b) RESPECT couldn't appeal to the mainstream left without pissing of the more conservative elements of Muslim communities, and Galloway's authoritarian and social conservative instincts were more with the latter.
Repeat that often enough and the challenge will be one of coherence because the urban Green electorate and the rural Green electorate won’t think like each other.
Which was always the lib dems' problem, too. I think it's tempting for any small party looking to make headway to try and ride multiple horses but more often than not you have to either choose one or dislocate your hips. RESPECT foundered on much the same ground as YP is now - it tried to build on anger about the Iraq invasion in predominantly Muslim communities by allying with similarly disgruntled lefties. It became clear that (a) Galloway was far too much of an apologist for authoritarian dictators and (b) RESPECT couldn't appeal to the mainstream left without pissing of the more conservative elements of Muslim communities, and Galloway's authoritarian and social conservative instincts were more with the latter.
Agree - and as a LibDem voter I’m all too aware of the issue created by ‘the Tories can’t win here, vote LibDem to stop Labour: Labour can’t win here, vote LibDem to stop the Tories’ as a strategy for the same election campaign.
Nor that the LibDems were the first to call for an EU referendum on the basis of what was wanted by their SW England fishing/farming community heartlands, and how they keep quiet about that when campaigning in Cheltenham or Cambridge.
On a more general and sobering point, the left does seem to be in disarray and that bothers me as we see the rise of the populist right.
I was under the impression that the present incumbent was the least objectionable part of the left as far as you were concerned, and everything else was far left.
Well, your impression is wrong. My position is more subtle than that.
I don't carry much of a brief for Starmer, although will concede that he's handled Trump as well as realpolitik allows.
If I've railed against the hard-left on these boards it's because I have an aversion to political extremes of all kinds and have seen first hand the damage that Momentum style activists did across Labour Party branches I knew. I can't share too much on a public board but it would make your hair stand on end.
That doesn't let the right of the Labour Party off the hook nor does it exonerate Blair for his handling of things back in the day.
I'm also a contrary so-and-so and if anyone here bigs anything up my natural tendency is to try to pull it down ... 😉
I'm disappointed in Starmer. There was certainly a time when I thought he had the potential to make a fist of things but I was quickly disabused of that.
FWIW some of my best friends are on the left of the Labour Party 🥳 😉
Any group of people who hold strong ideals are going to find times when one set of ideals clashes with another, leading to groups tearing themselves apart. It's when you have a group who don't have any strongly held ideals where coherence around vague and meaningless concepts holds them together, because they don't actually have things they strongly care about to argue over.
If I've railed against the hard-left on these boards
Yes, it's somewhat ironic that the people you are hoping save the UK from the populist right are the 'hard left' who apparently do stuff that would make people's hair stand on end the rest of the time.
I've never noticed that to be the case at local or branch level in the way I've seen local Labour branches tear themselves to pieces.
They have central office to do their "trot hunting" for them. Just suspend any branch that questions Dear Leader or where their acolytes can't win contested elections.
If I've railed against the hard-left on these boards
Yes, it's somewhat ironic that the people you are hoping save the UK from the populist right are the 'hard left' who apparently do stuff that would make people's hair stand on end the rest of the time.
Again, you misunderstand. Probably my fault for not explaining myself more clearly.
We do need a strong left to counter-balance the populist right but we also need centrists to balance out both.
I have some sympathy with @Alan Cresswell with his comments about groups with vague and amorphous values. When I was more involved with the Lib Dems than I am now I used to get frustrated that we hardly ever discussed ideology but only who was going to leaflet where and who was bringing the tombola to the fundraising fete-worse-than-death.
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are areas where the Lib Dems have sufficient critical mass to afford the luxury of political debate rather than discussions as to who is going to deliver Focus leaflets.
I got the impression, though, with our local Labour branch that it ran to the opposite extreme and you couldn't cross the threshold without an intense interrogation to find out which end of the Labour spectrum you were.
Rather like those conservative evangelicals who are more bothered about obsessively finding out whether you are a-pre-or-post-millenial in eschatology than they are about your well-being.
I always worked well with Labour councillors and activists and generally supported their initiatives but I wouldn't have wanted to join the Party.
To be fair, their internal procedures seemed robust, but they also seemed to have similar frustrations to ourselves when dealing with central and regional HQs. I suspect that's in the nature of these things.
Anyhow, returning to the left more generally it looks like 'Your Party' has nose-dived before it got off the runway.
What happens next?
Some 750,000 potential members indicates an appetite for a more strongly socialist party - or a socialist party full stop. There are some mini-ones out there but there does seem to be a gap in the market.
If I've railed against the hard-left on these boards
Yes, it's somewhat ironic that the people you are hoping save the UK from the populist right are the 'hard left' who apparently do stuff that would make people's hair stand on end the rest of the time.
Again, you misunderstand. Probably my fault for not explaining myself more clearly.
We do need a strong left to counter-balance the populist right but we also need centrists to balance out both.
That's incoherent reasoning, how exactly are the centrists 'balancing out both' at this moment in time? For them to do that would actually entail 'balancing out' the 'populist right', how are they doing so?
That's the most serious charge against Starmer. By appeasing the "populist" right, he is legitimating it, and shifting the Overton window into territory it last reached 100 years ago in a country not very far away. That's what centrists do under these circumstances, because they assume a stability which doesn't exist.
Going back to posts which I think are from yesterday afternoon, should anybody be soliciting subscriptions at all for a party which does not exist yet? What are they being asked to subscribe to, and who have any control over where the money goes? Whose is it? How can anyone be said to join a party which as yet, so far as one can tell, isn't?
If it is true that 20,000 people had joined by yesterday afternoon, potentially that could have brought in about £1M.
Going back to posts which I think are from yesterday afternoon, should anybody be soliciting subscriptions at all for a party which does not exist yet? What are they being asked to subscribe to, and who have any control over where the money goes? Whose is it? How can anyone be said to join a party which as yet, so far as one can tell, isn't?
If it is true that 20,000 people had joined by yesterday afternoon, potentially that could have brought in about £1M.
Should the police be asking questions?
I'm not sure police have much remit to investigate people handing over money for subscriptions with no tangible reward being offered, particularly if people are (as seems to be the case) cancel the payments. At absolute worst it would be the sort of grifting engaged in by various shady right wing figures like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon which is still not illegal. But I don't think there is any suggestion that Sultana is, to pick an example completely unrelated to anyone thus far mentioned, converting the funds raised into a certain white powder associated with the deterioration of the septum.
That's the most serious charge against Starmer. By appeasing the "populist" right, he is legitimating it, and shifting the Overton window into territory it last reached 100 years ago in a country not very far away. That's what centrists do under these circumstances, because they assume a stability which doesn't exist.
The Overton window has already shifted in a number of places in Europe - France and Hungary spring to mind, and AFD had more support than it should pulling the window over in Germany. Wherever you've got parties across the normal spectrum allying to counter the far right, you're seeing a flaky sticking plaster over a major festering wound. And I can see that situation after the next GE here, may God forfend.
The centrist argument, of course, would be if you've got an extreme right and extreme left then you need a moderate middle-point for those who aren't attracted to either of those polarised positions.
How coherent an argument this is, I don't know.
If The Party With No Name had got off the ground I can see lots of people who wouldn't want to vote for that any more than they'd want to vote for Reform.
The centrist argument, of course, would be if you've got an extreme right and extreme left then you need a moderate middle-point for those who aren't attracted to either of those polarised positions.
How coherent an argument this is, I don't know.
It isn't. Because if you stand for nothing you'll fall for anything. And centrism always falls to the right.
I think this is pretty untrue. An extreme party on one side doesn't "balance" an extreme on the other. Rather it reinforces it - fear of the opposite extreme is a great recruiting sergeant. On the other hand a strong centre with large areas of consensus encompasses most people's most strongly held principles and marginalises the extremes. The centre sometimes falls to the right and sometimes to the left, but it's much better for everyone if it holds!
Extreme is a relative state, not an absolute one. Nothing that Your Party is advocating would have been anywhere other than the centre less than a generation ago. Oh those dreadful extremists who sound like Macmillan. Those extremists?
Well, as I asked upthread: how exactly are the centrists 'balancing out both' at this moment in time? For them to do that would actually entail 'balancing out' the 'populist right', how are they doing that?
'Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold,
Mere anarchy loosed upon the world ...'
Are you saying that there is no room whatsoever for a centrist position in whatever form?
That the only alternatives are hard-right and hard-left?
What room for nuance? For chiaroscuro?
Besides, the suggestion that anyone who has different views to yours is lacking in conviction is somewhat problematic.
Just because someone is in the 'centre' or more 'moderate' or 'liberal' - and I know these are all relative terms, it doesn't mean they don't stand for anything.
The right claim the Overton Window has shifted leftwards.
The left that it has shifted rightwards.
I'm not sure it's as simple as that and I'll resist the both/and thing ...
In ecclesial terms it's not as if the only choices are extreme sacramentalism on the one hand or extreme Pentecostalism on the other.
There might exist a theoretical (perfectly spherical) centrism that has principles it is willing to defend. I'll let you know if I ever see it in the wild. What I see of real life centrists is politicians who'll chase after right wing votes while attacking the left. You want to talk about the Overton window? Farage has just announced he wants rid of indefinite leave to remain i.e. he want to pick and choose from long term immigrants and deport those he doesn't think are worth having. Remigration by another name still smells like a Nazi turd. See how quickly the debate has moved from "illegal" migration to people who have jumped through every hoop asked of them?
'Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold,
Mere anarchy loosed upon the world ...'
Are you saying that there is no room whatsoever for a centrist position in whatever form?
No, I'm asking you a direct question: How exactly are the centrists 'balancing out both' ? How are 'centrists' 'balancing out' the 'populist right' ?
The UK has had a 'centrist' government currently, so why the right rising while a centrist government is in power if centrism is capable of 'balancing' them out?
Well, as I asked upthread: how exactly are the centrists 'balancing out both' at this moment in time? For them to do that would actually entail 'balancing out' the 'populist right', how are they doing that?
Well they aren't at the moment, and that is the problem. It's not a question of "balancing" anyway. I think it's a matter of restoring belief in "the establishment" in the broadest terms. That is - precisely such principles as the rule of law, equality before the law and due process. These are centrist principles. Saying that centrism has no principles is part of the problem. The fact that self-proclaimed centrist are not defending these principles strongly enough is a bigger part of the problem.
That is - precisely such principles as the rule of law, equality before the law and due process. These are centrist principles. Saying that centrism has no principles is part of the problem.
I don't think they are, unless the claim is that "centrism" is synonymous with liberalism of the classical variety (which in actual practice has always had a highly qualified understanding of "equality", hence the property qualification for representation, the groups of people who were outside representation and so on).
The fact that self-proclaimed centrist are not defending these principles strongly enough is a bigger part of the problem.
In that case they are either not "centrist" any more are they? Or centrism lies somewhere else.
The biggest issue centrism has is that it is fundamentally small-c conservative - it thinks things are mostly fine as they are and has no aspirations that they can be significantly better. When things are demonstrably not fine centrism has no answers.
@Gamma Gamaliel it would be helpful if you could define exactly what you meant by "hard right" and "hard left" in terms of policies - I don't mean that in a snarky way, it would genuinely be helpful if you could refer to actual policies in terms of how you're defining terms.
Any suggestion that the Overton window has shifted leftwards is surely too ludicrous to take seriously, for example. There are no policy shifts that would support such a claim.
@Gamma Gamaliel what I mean is that "centre" is a meaningless term, because it's relative. The more strident the hard right becomes, the more the "centre" moves towards with the hard right, as previously defined. The centre can't help triangulating, which the primrose path to meaninglessness, or to a position which is far from being the persistent voice of sweet reason.
I'd see "Centrism" as meaning the belief that the Government/Law should apply equally to all and not favour anyone. I would contrast that with the Left and Right, who both believe that the Government/Law should favour certain people but differ on which people those are.
I'd see "Centrism" as meaning the belief that the Government/Law should apply equally to all and not favour anyone. I would contrast that with the Left and Right, who both believe that the Government/Law should favour certain people but differ on which people those are.
Ah yes, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
The only way you can get that belief from centrism is by ignoring all existing structural inequality.
The biggest issue centrism has is that it is fundamentally small-c conservative - it thinks things are mostly fine as they are and has no aspirations that they can be significantly better. When things are demonstrably not fine centrism has no answers.
And, it's even worse when one extreme gets to invent non-existent things which are "demonstrably not fine", to which there can be no answers from the centre (or, indeed, anywhere else).
An example that's currently vexing the right wing is migration - having had the extreme right invent a problem of too many migrants, inventing a fictitious group of "illegal immigrants" where the vast majority are not entering the country illegally, the far right have now convinced a sizeable proportion of the population that this is "demonstrably not fine". The only answer that the centre (and, indeed, the left) can offer is to point out that things actually are fine, that there aren't too many migrants and stopping the boats is as easy as allowing those entering the UK to buy tickets on cross-Channel ferries (especially those who will be claiming asylum and thus entering the country legally). And, to point out the real problems which relate to underinvestment in public services over the last 15 years to fund tax cuts for the rich, local authorities not building enough houses for social rent and house building targets being delegated to private construction firms who have no interest in meeting the housing need (because that would cut into profits they can make selling in a market with very high demand), and other examples of the rich getting richer at everyone elses expense. The centre and the left need to balance the far right by pointing out that the problem isn't migrants but the rich; we can afford to provide refuge to a few people in need of a safe place to live, we can afford to raise wages and improve conditions for the working poor, etc ... we can't afford to keep on enriching the already rich.
We need politics for the millions not the millionaires.
I'd see "Centrism" as meaning the belief that the Government/Law should apply equally to all and not favour anyone.
It's somewhat indicative that you omit the actual content of the law here, and whether it's just as opposed to simply blind. But really all you've actually done is describe a weak commitment to one aspect of classical Liberalism which in practice doesn't even meet the bar set by Rawls (because you throw out the original position).
Or in other words, if this is centrism who has written its political philosophy?
The biggest issue centrism has is that it is fundamentally small-c conservative - it thinks things are mostly fine as they are and has no aspirations that they can be significantly better. When things are demonstrably not fine centrism has no answers.
Well that's exactly how I would see myself. I do believe that things are mostly fine as they are and that when we attempt radical reforms we will see just how much worse things can get. In fact that is what we are beginning to see at the moment, and one of the root causes is cynicism about the status quo and a failure to see how prosperous and peaceful the world circa 2000 or even 2010 really was and how much of this still remains.
I very much agree with Alan's comments about manufactured grievance.
Don't get me wrong folks, I'm not saying that the Overton Window has shifted leftwards, but the populist right are claiming that it has.
A few Reform people have said this to me recently to which I've replied that they obviously weren't around in the late 1970s/early '80s when there was a lot more actual Marxism around - as I recall - than there appears to be now.
Also, I'm not saying that everything is fine and dandy and that there is no need to tackle inequality etc. Far from it.
Somehow, though, the populist right is managing to convince a lot of people that everything is shit and that they are the only ones with the answers.
I'm not sure how we can reason with these people. I've tried. I'm sure others have tried harder.
I think for someone in their sixties or seventies, as regards casual racism and homophobia the Overton window has shifted leftwards in their lifetime. Over the past ten or twenty years maybe less so. The far-right are trying to drag it back.
Economically the Overton window has shifted drastically rightwards.
Andrew Marr in The New Statesman seems to think it's a distinct possibility, or at least violent unrest or some kind of far-right stoked-up 'race war.'
I've spoken to far right people who seem to think it's an inevitability and I even know an RC priest who seems to think so too.
I'm not saying I agree but I do think there are elements out there who might go so far as to stir this sort of thing up in order to serve their particular agenda and justify deportations, the curbing of civil liberties and a right-wing crack down.
The far right have been banging on about the "coming race war" since at least the 70s. Increased right wing terrorism and rioting? Absolutely. An actual civil war? No. No quartermaster could supply enough Stella to keep the gammon army in the field for more than a few days.
Sure. I don't think we should underestimate the capacity of some of these goons to cause some serious damage though.
I don't mean to be rude but you're a long way from all of this out in the Hebrides.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't envisage organised self-appointed 'militia' and so on, but I wouldn't put it past these people to stoke up tensions between different groups in order to further their own ends.
I don't mean to be rude but you're a long way from all of this out in the Hebrides.
I have family and friends in England, some in deepest gammon land. I was also living in west yorkshire the last time the far right were getting strong, not far outside of Burnley, and worked with local churches to get signatories on a letter condemning appropriation of Christian symbols and identity. The situation is more serious now, but please don't try and make out I'm talking about something of which I have no experience.
Comments
Yes, it’s all very ‘here are two socialists without a party, and four Gaza independents, and we agree on Gaza, so let’s be a socialist party’ - without necessarily working through what else the 2 agree with the 4 on, or determining if the 4 are socialists… basically the idea is running much faster than the reality because enough people fervently want it to be a thing.
(I think it’s 4, off the top of my head)
I think ultimately it was a case of someone with a naturally emollient personality trying to square something which couldn't be squared.
There has been a LOT on Bluesky etc about the anti-LGBTQ+ leanings of the IG MPs which has basically made everyone go "fuck this, I'll just vote Green".
I'm not sure I said that the Greens were 'hard-left' but that they were more leftward-leaning than many people assume. I also know some on the left of the Labour Party who were/are tempted to go Green.
That said, since making those observations, I've become more aware of former Conservatives who've gone Green. Around here, though, rural areas are still very True Blue Conservative so I've not seen the trend @betjemaniac cites of rural Greens with a somewhat right-wing agenda.
On a more general and sobering point, the left does seem to be in disarray and that bothers me as we see the rise of the populist right.
The Green Party of England and Wales is quite different from Green Parties in other parts of Europe, including Scotland where the differences are sufficient that a couple of years ago the Scottish Green Party voted to break high-level formal cooperation with GPEW.
My knowledge is, of course, relating to SGP and what I know of GPEW is second hand. But, with that proviso ... SGP, and other European Greens, would identify as socialist (SGP actually identifies as ecosocialist, because "socialist" can sometimes be supporting workers without consideration of larger environmental issues) whereas GPEW would seem to be much more reluctant to adopt that identification (maybe the recent leadership election is showing a shift on that). SGP stands fairly evenly across the pillars of Green movement (environment, equality, radical democracy, and peace and non-violence), whereas GPEW (especially some local grassroots groups) seems to lean more heavily towards the environment, often in a conservative "National Trust" type of approach, putting issues of equality in particular in a lower priority position (it was on issues under equality and democracy that SGP and GPEW fell out). I can see how some parts of the Conservative Party would be attracted to that pseudo-NIMBY position of protecting rural environments if other aspects of Green ideals are not emphasised very much.
That sounds fair - one of the Green Party leadership candidates represents a seat in parliament which I suspect (though this is second hand via some constituents) only went Green (from Tory) on a turbo-rural ‘you can trust us to not be like the Greens in Brighton and anyway we won’t win nationally so it’s safe’ sort of ticket.
Repeat that often enough and the challenge will be one of coherence because the urban Green electorate and the rural Green electorate won’t think like each other.
Which was always the lib dems' problem, too. I think it's tempting for any small party looking to make headway to try and ride multiple horses but more often than not you have to either choose one or dislocate your hips. RESPECT foundered on much the same ground as YP is now - it tried to build on anger about the Iraq invasion in predominantly Muslim communities by allying with similarly disgruntled lefties. It became clear that (a) Galloway was far too much of an apologist for authoritarian dictators and (b) RESPECT couldn't appeal to the mainstream left without pissing of the more conservative elements of Muslim communities, and Galloway's authoritarian and social conservative instincts were more with the latter.
Agree - and as a LibDem voter I’m all too aware of the issue created by ‘the Tories can’t win here, vote LibDem to stop Labour: Labour can’t win here, vote LibDem to stop the Tories’ as a strategy for the same election campaign.
Nor that the LibDems were the first to call for an EU referendum on the basis of what was wanted by their SW England fishing/farming community heartlands, and how they keep quiet about that when campaigning in Cheltenham or Cambridge.
I was under the impression that the present incumbent was the least objectionable part of the left as far as you were concerned, and everything else was far left.
I don't carry much of a brief for Starmer, although will concede that he's handled Trump as well as realpolitik allows.
If I've railed against the hard-left on these boards it's because I have an aversion to political extremes of all kinds and have seen first hand the damage that Momentum style activists did across Labour Party branches I knew. I can't share too much on a public board but it would make your hair stand on end.
That doesn't let the right of the Labour Party off the hook nor does it exonerate Blair for his handling of things back in the day.
I'm also a contrary so-and-so and if anyone here bigs anything up my natural tendency is to try to pull it down ... 😉
I'm disappointed in Starmer. There was certainly a time when I thought he had the potential to make a fist of things but I was quickly disabused of that.
FWIW some of my best friends are on the left of the Labour Party 🥳 😉
But then I'm one of the great unwashed, one of the unenlightened ones ...
Yes, it's somewhat ironic that the people you are hoping save the UK from the populist right are the 'hard left' who apparently do stuff that would make people's hair stand on end the rest of the time.
They have central office to do their "trot hunting" for them. Just suspend any branch that questions Dear Leader or where their acolytes can't win contested elections.
Again, you misunderstand. Probably my fault for not explaining myself more clearly.
We do need a strong left to counter-balance the populist right but we also need centrists to balance out both.
I have some sympathy with @Alan Cresswell with his comments about groups with vague and amorphous values. When I was more involved with the Lib Dems than I am now I used to get frustrated that we hardly ever discussed ideology but only who was going to leaflet where and who was bringing the tombola to the fundraising fete-worse-than-death.
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are areas where the Lib Dems have sufficient critical mass to afford the luxury of political debate rather than discussions as to who is going to deliver Focus leaflets.
I got the impression, though, with our local Labour branch that it ran to the opposite extreme and you couldn't cross the threshold without an intense interrogation to find out which end of the Labour spectrum you were.
Rather like those conservative evangelicals who are more bothered about obsessively finding out whether you are a-pre-or-post-millenial in eschatology than they are about your well-being.
I always worked well with Labour councillors and activists and generally supported their initiatives but I wouldn't have wanted to join the Party.
To be fair, their internal procedures seemed robust, but they also seemed to have similar frustrations to ourselves when dealing with central and regional HQs. I suspect that's in the nature of these things.
Anyhow, returning to the left more generally it looks like 'Your Party' has nose-dived before it got off the runway.
What happens next?
Some 750,000 potential members indicates an appetite for a more strongly socialist party - or a socialist party full stop. There are some mini-ones out there but there does seem to be a gap in the market.
Who is going to fill it?
That's incoherent reasoning, how exactly are the centrists 'balancing out both' at this moment in time? For them to do that would actually entail 'balancing out' the 'populist right', how are they doing so?
If it is true that 20,000 people had joined by yesterday afternoon, potentially that could have brought in about £1M.
Should the police be asking questions?
I'm not sure police have much remit to investigate people handing over money for subscriptions with no tangible reward being offered, particularly if people are (as seems to be the case) cancel the payments. At absolute worst it would be the sort of grifting engaged in by various shady right wing figures like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon which is still not illegal. But I don't think there is any suggestion that Sultana is, to pick an example completely unrelated to anyone thus far mentioned, converting the funds raised into a certain white powder associated with the deterioration of the septum.
The Overton window has already shifted in a number of places in Europe - France and Hungary spring to mind, and AFD had more support than it should pulling the window over in Germany. Wherever you've got parties across the normal spectrum allying to counter the far right, you're seeing a flaky sticking plaster over a major festering wound. And I can see that situation after the next GE here, may God forfend.
How coherent an argument this is, I don't know.
If The Party With No Name had got off the ground I can see lots of people who wouldn't want to vote for that any more than they'd want to vote for Reform.
Is it really such a Zero Sum Game?
It isn't. Because if you stand for nothing you'll fall for anything. And centrism always falls to the right.
Mere anarchy loosed upon the world ...'
Are you saying that there is no room whatsoever for a centrist position in whatever form?
That the only alternatives are hard-right and hard-left?
What room for nuance? For chiaroscuro?
Besides, the suggestion that anyone who has different views to yours is lacking in conviction is somewhat problematic.
Just because someone is in the 'centre' or more 'moderate' or 'liberal' - and I know these are all relative terms, it doesn't mean they don't stand for anything.
The right claim the Overton Window has shifted leftwards.
The left that it has shifted rightwards.
I'm not sure it's as simple as that and I'll resist the both/and thing ...
In ecclesial terms it's not as if the only choices are extreme sacramentalism on the one hand or extreme Pentecostalism on the other.
Likewise in politics.
'Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.'
No, I'm asking you a direct question: How exactly are the centrists 'balancing out both' ? How are 'centrists' 'balancing out' the 'populist right' ?
The UK has had a 'centrist' government currently, so why the right rising while a centrist government is in power if centrism is capable of 'balancing' them out?
Well they aren't at the moment, and that is the problem. It's not a question of "balancing" anyway. I think it's a matter of restoring belief in "the establishment" in the broadest terms. That is - precisely such principles as the rule of law, equality before the law and due process. These are centrist principles. Saying that centrism has no principles is part of the problem. The fact that self-proclaimed centrist are not defending these principles strongly enough is a bigger part of the problem.
I don't think they are, unless the claim is that "centrism" is synonymous with liberalism of the classical variety (which in actual practice has always had a highly qualified understanding of "equality", hence the property qualification for representation, the groups of people who were outside representation and so on).
In that case they are either not "centrist" any more are they? Or centrism lies somewhere else.
Any suggestion that the Overton window has shifted leftwards is surely too ludicrous to take seriously, for example. There are no policy shifts that would support such a claim.
Ah yes, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
The only way you can get that belief from centrism is by ignoring all existing structural inequality.
An example that's currently vexing the right wing is migration - having had the extreme right invent a problem of too many migrants, inventing a fictitious group of "illegal immigrants" where the vast majority are not entering the country illegally, the far right have now convinced a sizeable proportion of the population that this is "demonstrably not fine". The only answer that the centre (and, indeed, the left) can offer is to point out that things actually are fine, that there aren't too many migrants and stopping the boats is as easy as allowing those entering the UK to buy tickets on cross-Channel ferries (especially those who will be claiming asylum and thus entering the country legally). And, to point out the real problems which relate to underinvestment in public services over the last 15 years to fund tax cuts for the rich, local authorities not building enough houses for social rent and house building targets being delegated to private construction firms who have no interest in meeting the housing need (because that would cut into profits they can make selling in a market with very high demand), and other examples of the rich getting richer at everyone elses expense. The centre and the left need to balance the far right by pointing out that the problem isn't migrants but the rich; we can afford to provide refuge to a few people in need of a safe place to live, we can afford to raise wages and improve conditions for the working poor, etc ... we can't afford to keep on enriching the already rich.
We need politics for the millions not the millionaires.
It's somewhat indicative that you omit the actual content of the law here, and whether it's just as opposed to simply blind. But really all you've actually done is describe a weak commitment to one aspect of classical Liberalism which in practice doesn't even meet the bar set by Rawls (because you throw out the original position).
Or in other words, if this is centrism who has written its political philosophy?
Well that's exactly how I would see myself. I do believe that things are mostly fine as they are and that when we attempt radical reforms we will see just how much worse things can get. In fact that is what we are beginning to see at the moment, and one of the root causes is cynicism about the status quo and a failure to see how prosperous and peaceful the world circa 2000 or even 2010 really was and how much of this still remains.
I very much agree with Alan's comments about manufactured grievance.
A few Reform people have said this to me recently to which I've replied that they obviously weren't around in the late 1970s/early '80s when there was a lot more actual Marxism around - as I recall - than there appears to be now.
Also, I'm not saying that everything is fine and dandy and that there is no need to tackle inequality etc. Far from it.
Somehow, though, the populist right is managing to convince a lot of people that everything is shit and that they are the only ones with the answers.
I'm not sure how we can reason with these people. I've tried. I'm sure others have tried harder.
Economically the Overton window has shifted drastically rightwards.
In the context of the UK in particular why do you think there's any risk of civil war?
I've spoken to far right people who seem to think it's an inevitability and I even know an RC priest who seems to think so too.
I'm not saying I agree but I do think there are elements out there who might go so far as to stir this sort of thing up in order to serve their particular agenda and justify deportations, the curbing of civil liberties and a right-wing crack down.
I don't mean to be rude but you're a long way from all of this out in the Hebrides.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't envisage organised self-appointed 'militia' and so on, but I wouldn't put it past these people to stoke up tensions between different groups in order to further their own ends.
So not actually a civil war then? I've not known Marr to be particularly insightful.
I have family and friends in England, some in deepest gammon land. I was also living in west yorkshire the last time the far right were getting strong, not far outside of Burnley, and worked with local churches to get signatories on a letter condemning appropriation of Christian symbols and identity. The situation is more serious now, but please don't try and make out I'm talking about something of which I have no experience.