version

Well-known member
Obviously Corbyn has to go, but who succeeds him? What happens to Momentum? Do Labour have any choice but to move back to the centre?
 

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
The centre of what? A lot of Labour policies are just standard in a lot of European countries. That seems pretty much fucking "centre" to me.
 

version

Well-known member
Britain, particularly England, apparently leans further to the right than the rest of Europe though.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
i hope he stays. better to have a decimated socialist labour party than a centrist labour party in power.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
i hope he stays. better to have a decimated socialist labour party than a centrist labour party in power.

Fuck off with that 'comfort of impotent purity' bullshit.

Sorry but you don't live here and aren't going to have to live with the consequences of this.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I was hoping we could talk about a broader “where to know” than the Labour Party.

The Labour Party will descend into internal faction fights and recriminations. As we can see above.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
The point I’ve made on here a few times is that the reinvigoration of the Party is inspiring but it won’t count for much if it remains an electoral machine. We need a social movement. And the potential is there I think.
 

droid

Well-known member
They will have to face the fact that the electorate did not abandon Labour for the centre. They went either to the far right in England and Wales or to the social democratic nationalist alternative in Scotland. They did not go to the Liberal Democrats or back Change. Chuka Umunna, Dominic Grieve, David Gauke, Anna Soubry, Jo Swinson and Luciana Berger all lost.

Younge make a very good point there. The Centrists were destroyed by the hard right.

Corbyn's policies are consistently popular in polls. The challenge for Labour and the left in general is to combine populist left policies with a candidate and campaign that can fight a battle in the gutter and win in the face of massive structural obstacles.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
some things off the top of my head that might help:

1) a more charismatic leader who's a good communicator

2) a more cautious manifesto.

3) more emphasis on patriotism.

4) rhetorical appeals to social conservatives.

5) less london-centric front bench and rhetorical style

6) then there is all the grim stuff where labour will have to decide if it wants to follow johnson in avoiding media scrutiny, misleading online advertising, lying, etc.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I always thought it was a mistake to agree to this election. I know that just sitting there doing nothing with a totally dysfunctional parliament was hardly a long term strategy but it seemed preferable to this.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
In fact, my main regret is that they were unable to take advantage of that period when there were the numbers in parliament to form a kind of Remain coalition de facto government due basically to infighting and lack of political will. I mean, I know there would have been howls of rage from the right-wing press and Tory MPs and basically it would have been a government lacking in any true mandate or even legitimacy - but fucking hell, we know that if the Tories had been in that position they would have done it, they were prepared to bend the rules in any way they could think of to gain the slightest advantage. Why did the good guys never do that? That mix of squeamishness and arguing about who would lead it meant that it never got off the ground - and that is something that I do hold Corbyn and Swinson directly responsible for.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I mean, it feels like politics has descended into a world of dirty tricks and can't escape and what I just advocated would hardly be a remedy for that but... if only one side is prepared to fight dirty then we're fucked. It seems as though the Tories are likely to use their time in power to gerrymander for more wins so future looks very grim.
 

sufi

lala
The media and especially and increasingly internet have sucked all the life out of politics until there is nothing left but personalities, gestures and spectacles,

So ... the internet is now the place that needs to get it fixed. tbh mucking about with parties and parliaments seems futile to me, when change can be driven by memes and events transmitted across 50% of our species virtually instantly. We just need to find the dragon's reins, if that's not a metaphor too far
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Why Labour lost:

From https://labour.org.uk/page/labour-brexit-plan/

A Labour government will immediately legislate for a final say vote once elected.

Why do we need to give people the final say?

Britain is divided. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have taken extreme positions on Brexit. Both parties won’t do anything to heal the division in our country.

Boris Johnson and Tories are trying to hijack Brexit to sell out our NHS and working people by stripping away their rights. Their Brexit will reverse hard-fought gains won by working-class people over generations. Worse, it could lead to £500 million per week of our NHS’s money ending up in the pockets of big, US drugs companies.

The Liberal Democrats have taken an undemocratic decision too and would cancel Brexit. But the Liberal Democrats can’t win an election. They make Boris Johnson’s Brexit even more likely.

Labour is the only party that can and will get Brexit sorted by giving people the final say. Labour is determined to bring a divided country together, and deliver the real change Britain needs after almost a decade of Tory cuts so we can get beyond Brexit.

What will happen in the final say vote?

It won’t be a re-run of 2016. This time the choice will be between leaving with a sensible deal or to remain in the European Union.

A Labour government will negotiate a sensible deal within three months of being elected. It will be based on the things we always discussed and said were necessary with the EU and which are supported by trade unions and businesses. This includes a new customs union, a close single market relationship and guarantees of rights and protections.

Within six months of being elected, we will put that deal to a public vote, alongside remain. Two clear options, both agreed with the EU – no false promises or bluster. Labour will then carry out whatever the people decide.

Labour’s Brexit position is simple: Labour will give people the final say.

Nobody but Labour will get Brexit sorted and bring our country together because years of division over Brexit has become a barrier to delivering the real change this country needs.
Labour’s plans for real change will invest in every nation and region, creating hundreds of thousands of good jobs with a Green Industrial Revolution. We will rebuild our public services, and give our NHS, schools and police the money they need, by taxing those at the top to properly fund services for everyone.

To do that we need an economy that works for the many not just the few at the top. Labour has a plan to do just that.

(And that's not the whole story, because details of the proposed deal remain vague. For instance, there's no agreement about whether to retain freedom of movement. Obviously social progressives in the party want to keep it, while left-gammon reactionaries like McLuskey want to ditch it, while Corbyn is publicly ambivalent, although I suspect personally in favour of ditching.)

The Conservative message:

"Let's Get Brexit Done"

I mean, there are other reasons, sure. But that's a very big part of it. I wonder if the Left has learned anything at all from the last four years. Facts and arguments don't work any more. Elections now are won and lost on simple, emotive themes that can be expressed in short phrases. "Let's Take Back Control", "Brexit Means Brexit", "Make America Great Again". "For the many, not the few" was a good start but then Labour came completely unstuck over Brexit, even in the absence of a hostile media, anti-Semitism and whatever else.

I think they'd have done better if they'd adopted a definition position in the immediate wake of the referendum, stuck with it, hammered it home with a simple slogan and devoted their energies to saying the Tory version was shit and that those offering it are liars and charlatans. Whether the actual position was Leave or Remain is probably less important than having a position that was clear, consistent and easy to understand.
 
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