Labour Party, if you get this wrong again you will be done for – Mutterings from The Left
Here’s some really useful information for anyone who wants to lead the Labour Party, in a response to an article by former Scottish Labour MSP Richard Baker entitled “Separation is not the answer” (to Labours woes).
This blog does not agree with everything the correspondent writes, but it’s very similar to VP‘s own articles and the original is well worth reading.
Forget Blairism. The con Blair pulled off worked once, but it will not work again in our lifetime, because there are things people don’t forget. Blairism gained Labour the support of a certain number of swing voters and that helped you as long as your core supporters loyally stood by you. Whatever made you think, though, that you could give up the goals and values of your real clientele and that nevertheless they would keep voting for you indefinitely? Sure, many people feel loyal to a party and are patient with it, and there is a certain inertia that needs to be overcome before some voters desert their traditional party. But if that party continually fails to represent their supporter’s interests, these supporters will eventually walk away. The sentence I heard again and again and again these last few months was this: “I have not left Labour, Labour have left me.” That is the core of the problem.
So listen to me well, Labour Party, because if you get this wrong again you will be done for, once and for all: Don’t try to appeal to Tory voters. Tory-leaning voters might vote Labour as a one-off protest vote, but by pandering to them you alienate the people who are your natural clientele. For a few years that might work out, but eventually the Tory-leaning voters will return to the Tory fold and your own supporters will decide you’re just not worth it anymore.
bulls**t
As always, when people make bald statements like that, I have to ask: Why? Show us your reasoning.
Its time for a new party all together the labour part is over and gone every one I know think its just a another right wing party its track record just goes to prove it we need a New Party and a New Political system
The United Kingdom can’t wait the several decades it would take for a new party to gain traction. Let’s get Labour back on track and win a few elections instead.
The one solid conclusion we can draw from Scotland and the desertion of Labour supporters is the anti austerity message which found an echo.
It is time constituency parties claimed the party back from the national focus groups and their sometimes juvenile stunts which are an embarrassment for a mature party.
We as a party have core beliefs which should be unchangeable regardless of leader. It is the role of the leader to give voice to those values. Ed Miliband was pushed and pulled by advisors which showed in his flip flopping on policy in the early days of the campaign. He was more stable towards the end of the battle and gave a good account of himself despite the constant barrage of hateful press coverage.
If Labour are to recover from this beating we need to stay on track in opposing cuts to workers rights and all our public services and welfare system.
We should all be involved in campaigns to protect what we have gained in the last 100yrs and in that work build up the party to be the voice of everyone in struggle just like it was with the unions when the party was first founded.
I obviously have no proof but I do strongly believe that pretty much any version of the Labour party could have won the ’97 and ’01 elections against the Tory party of that time, conservatism was a spent force in need of renewal. I’m utterly tired of people lauding Blair and Mandelson and trying to direct Labour back to those days, they weren’t geniuses and Mandelson is a thoroughly loathsome individual best consigned to the party’s shame archives and never be mentioned again. Blair should be on trial.
Have you noticed how it’s the old neocon Labour supporters who want a swing to the right? It’s the media classes of phony lefties shouting the loudest but nobody from the real Labour party, the grass roots, the working class (can we say that openly now? Or are we oiks still supposed to keep quiet and not frighten the horses?) thinks any such thing. My gut feeling is the upper echelons of the party are now so far from any genuine Labour Party and much closer to Rentoul and Aaronovitch and their ilk that Labour will be heading right.
Do these people not realise that if Labour keeps heading right then it has no reason to exist? Why does Chuka Umunna want to be elected as a Labour member of Parliament? He has nothing more to offer the working class than your average centre right Tory MP. He’s standing for and representing Labour under false pretenses and will lead the party under false pretenses, too. Why did he choose the Labour Party? Are there no safe seats available just yet in the Conservatives? It’s almost like these gits want to remove all traces of rampant corporatism and the last traces of working class representation in politics.
The first thing candidates have to do is stop copying each other. There’s nothing to make a choice about from what they’ve all said so far, everyone is just mechanically repeating the same buzzwords, especially ‘Aspiration’. It’s tedious and suggests that no one is really thinking, let alone being an individual.
With everyone being the same person, this Labour leadership race is turning into the biggest Clone War since Obi-Wan Kenobi met Jango Fett.
lest we forget
the Tolpuddle Martyrs where it all began
http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/index.php?page=martyr-s-story