I almost quoted them, in the sense that I certainly don’t want that to happen. But what is the future for Labour? Under Corbyn, they seemed to be heading towards a socialist future outside Europe, but with Starmer we have a vision of a separatist nation which isn’t socialist in the slightest, just a bit less awful than the Tories. Great. The other thing to remember is that taking a pro-European stance is the only hope Labour has of ever winning back Scotland. If the SNP have their way and achieve independence it won’t just be a generation Labour will be out of power for, but eternity. No thanks.
Saw this and thought it worth a share. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indy100.com/news/brexit-leave-eu-deal-regret-b1780258?amp Weirdly, the Brexit voting fish trader had a large development grant from the EU in 2012 and sells all his catch to the EU yet appeared in pro Brexit ads. He regrets his decision now. Then I saw this which made me smile despite how tragic the whole thing is.
So with the Brexit deal being voted for today, can anyone break down what we will lose or gain? Can’t find a breakdown anywhere.
Gain; The whole world. Lose; Our soul. Or is that the other way round? Not sure. Apologies to Mark’s Gospel.
Bit of a false equivalence there, though I do see the similarities. There is a world of difference between the British Labour Party and the US Democrats; no comparison really. Socialism isn’t a dirty word over here, despite the efforts of the right wing press to make it so. And I might be being naive here, but, despite Brexit and Boris Johnson, I don’t think there’s anything like the appetite for right wing populism in Britain that there clearly is in the US. Thirdly, while racism clearly exists in the U.K., and unscrupulous politicians certainly aren’t above exploiting that, there is nothing like the fundamental divide between alienated communities here, that there is in the US.
The point being that the traditional bastions of Labour are far from socialist these days. And yeah, unfortunately I would say that you are being rather naive if you do not see the extent to which the Labour and Conservative coalitions have shifted. Labour has become and will continue to become more of a party whose membership is derived from educated middle and upper-middle income areas, while the Conservatives will see their vote share increasingly come from the (white) working classes. The 2019 election reflected that. Future elections will also reflect that.
To US Republicans anyone who even thinks about the democrats is a communist - I see it in our daily meetings at work and deffo from my republican daughter. I think it is on the rise big time. It is becoming normalised as well. (not saying you think it is normal) We are not there yet, but getting there. IMO in the US it is pretty much white v black, here it is white v black & asian. There are completely isolated communities in parts of the UK and whilst I often think they don't help themselves, it still exists. What I mean by that is I have family from my father's side who live in Hounslow and are shocked that I have 'white friends'. They also only socialise with each other and only speak their native tongue wherever they go. That I don't agree with at all and causes divisions for the opposite reasons you mentioned.
Yeah, the UK hasn't gotten to the point that the US has. The level of political self-segregation in the US is very, very high: rural areas are almost universally Republican, urban areas are almost universally Democratic (Oklahoma City is the biggest 'red' city, and it's shifting blue; all 24 larger cities consistently vote Democratic regardless of their state), and education and gender are increasingly salient markers for political lean. But it's absolutely heading in that direction. The surest sign that there's a large appetite for right-wing populism is, well, Brexit. Its proponents argued for it on strongly nationalist, populist grounds, and a great many of the Brexiteers then voted Conservative regardless of their previous lean. That's likely to stick. Yesterday's socialists were your working-class unionists who were three strong drinks away from being Bolshevik revolutionaries. Tomorrow's socialists are educated Londoners from solidly middle-class backgrounds who will find their primary opposition as the working-class sorts who will benefit most from the programs they espouse. Does that make sense? Not particularly! But it's somewhat in keeping with history, I guess.
Yes, a lot of truth in this, but you are underestimating how deep rooted and visceral are the ties that have traditionally bound working class, former industrial communities to the Labour Party. The Durham Miner's Gals is still a significant event in the grass roots political and social calendar of the left in Britain; even though Durham Miners are largely a thing of the past. The Labour Party was born in those communities, it started life as the Parliamentarian wing of the Trade Union movement - as I said, it's a very different animal to the US Democrats. For Labour to turn it's back on those former industrial towns, the crucible of it's traditional support, would be insane. And to assume those "Red Wall" communities that voted for Brexit, and subsequently Boris, have left Labour forever, is defeatist in the extreme. Labour has always been a broad church, the challenge of uniting it's disparate threads and traditions is not a new one. And those Red Wall votes are only lent to the Tories - many people held their noses to vote Tory for two Reasons; Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn (ironic given that Corbyn was one of very few Labour figures who recognised, and respected, their social conservatism). And there's certainly no future in becoming mainly a party of the educated middle classes, at a time of economic polarisation, where the middle class is a rapidly shrinking demographic. That's an absolute blind alley if there ever was one. Lastly, yeah Brexit, and the upsurge of English Nationalism it engendered, is a worrying phenomenon, and not a million miles in character from the forces that aligned to elect Trump. But England is not America. Extremism has historically failed to take root here. I have no doubt that a Johnson led Tory Party would attempt the same dog-whistle right wing populist approach that Trump perfected. But the Tories have tried this many times before; and it's never really worked.
Shameless plug for LBD: Hi everyone We’d love to be wishing you a happy new year under more hopeful circumstances, but we know for lots of people it’s been a difficult time. The pandemic has caused so much pain, with more challenging months still to come. And today the UK finally, properly, turns its back on the most successful project for peace and prosperity of our lifetimes. We know nothing we’ve done can undo those things, but as we leave 2020 we thought you may like to be reminded of some of the interventions your extremely generous donations have made possible this year. When Britain formally left the EU on January 31st we set out to do something to challenge the triumphalism of Farage and his friends and make a stand for decency – one that would give a different impression to the world than images of the Brexit Party’s flag-waving plastic patriots. So we interviewed two heroic veterans of World War Two – men who had risked their lives for their country – asking them to address a message to Europe. When we projected their testimony onto the White Cliffs of Dover their words of deep and profound regret at the UK’s departure from the EU spoke for so many of us. The film was watched six million times online and ran on news programmes across the world (in France the main evening news ran it in full that evening). The film ended with a picture of a yellow star on a blue background and the words: “THIS IS OUR STAR. LOOK AFTER IT FOR US.” We know from your messages to us that those words meant a lot to many of you. Then that evening we highjacked the clockface of Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) to project a film exposing Johnson and Farage’s lies and the moral corruption at the heart of their campaign. They wanted Big Ben to bong that night – well, they got their wish, courtesy of your support for Led By Donkeys. Weeks later the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK. Predictably, Johnson failed to protect the people of this country. We wanted to expose the contrast between, on the one hand, the failing politicians and billionaires seeking bailouts, and on the other hand the doctors, nurses and care home workers saving lives. Our Heroes vs Zeroes billboard campaign was seen by millions of people. We felt strongly that the story of Johnson’s woeful, disastrous, almost criminal negligence in the face of the pandemic (he missed the first FIVE Cobra meetings on the virus) was simply not being told. At least not in an easily digestible form. So we set out to deeply research his record then made a ten-minute timeline video detailing his shocking failures. But where to project it? Barnard Castle, of course. The film has now been watched more than ten million times online, exposing huge numbers of people to the truth about the fiasco of Johnson’s performance. Our later timeline film on Trump’s Covid response was viewed five million times in the US in the month before the Presidential Election (a projection on his Turnberry golf course comparing his golfing tally with Covid deaths in the US also racked up over two millions views). And our new timeline film on Johnson’s failed Track & Trace programme was viewed three million times over Christmas - huge thanks again to Gavin Esler for volunteering the voiceover. We’ve also worked with NHS doctors and nurses to expose the PPE scandal and we’ve allied with the families of Covid victims to highlight how Johnson abandoned his promise to meet them and hear their plea for a public inquiry into the government’s Covid response. When Priti Patel tried to distract the public from that inept response by stirring up hostility to the desperate migrants crossing the channel in the summer, we asked Hassan Akkad to record a message for us to project onto the White Cliffs. He spoke of his own experience crossing the water, how he spent the pandemic in PPE gear cleaning an NHS hospital, how people like him love their families just as much as everybody else. “In the end,” he said, “the only difference between you and us is luck.” The film of the projection struck a nerve in the UK and across the world. It was watched more than ten million times and seemed, for a while at least, to silence the likes of Patel and Farage. What else? We spent a fair bit of time tracking down every word Johnson said and wrote during the 2016 referendum, so we can all hold him to account for what he promised as the impact of Brexit plays out over the coming months and years. It’s all here at JohnsonDossier.com. There’s so much more we could say – it’s been a busy year for us – but those are some of the highlights. All made possible because you contributed to our crowdfunder page. Led By Donkeys is still just four friends with a determination to hold populist politicians to account. But together we’re many thousands. And we’re not going away. There will be much to do in 2021. Thank you so very much. Ben, James, Olly and Will x please log in to view this image
I like the optimism and wish for this to be the case, but I think we are much further gone than we may realize. Trump was elected on a minority of the vote in the US due to a technicality in their ****e joke of a presidential electoral system, Brexit was voted for here by a majority all be it a very small one. Most (but not all) of the working class and older portions of the population blame foreigners for all of their ills, although this is more nationality based than race in my experience (particularly a lot of anti Polish sentiment during the referendum in this city). The working class of the past recognized who were responsible for their pay, working conditions and standard of living and worked extremely hard to force positive change through unions, nowadays many just blame who the newspapers and social media tell them to and seem to lack the ability to think critically. However, longer term (10-20+) years I think there will be a turnaround, the younger half of the population are much more savvy to media manipulation, are taught to think critically, are pro EU and generally resent the Conservatives and Brexiteers stripping them of their rights, sabotaging their future and endangering the country. The polling from the last election suggests that over 50% of under 30's voted Labour, while under 25% of them voted Conservative, Labour and Lib Dems also accounted for over 60% of the vote below 40 years old. I know the saying is you become more Conservative as you grow older, but the Conservative party has absolutely nothing to offer anymore besides Brexit. I'm rambling on, but my main point is I think we are in a really difficult time, however there is a pathway back to being a country we can be proud of again.
Pissed off and been playing depressing music all day. Just glad that Covid means that we wont have gloating leaver idiots dancing and celebrating in the streets. At 11 this evening I will be wearing a black arm band.
Is Robert Lindsay trying to make some sort of political point? Matt Hancock is quite right to celebrate a great British success story, the vaccine was developed in this country by Professor Sarah Gilbert and her team at Oxford University. Pascal Soriot is the CEO of Astra Zeneca, the company with the deal to manufacture the vaccine.
It's the smug attitude that Hancock has that irritates many along with his previous misleading statements. Bit of a trait of the current incumbents. Well done all involved in vaccines research and development and the ongoing international implementation of a worldwide inoculation program. I can only hope the same energy can be directed at other diseases and a refunding of the NHS
To be clear, here: my suggestion wasn't that Labour abandon the working class. My suggestion is that, even if Labour moves left, large parts of the working class will abandon Labour. And again, this isn't merely conjecture, it's already underway. Labour won a large plurality in 2017 and 2019 with voters who had college degrees. Per exit polling, the income brackets where the Conservatives won by the largest margins in 2019 were £20,000–39,999, followed by 'Less than £20,000'. It does not make a hell of a lot of sense from a platform standpoint, but yeah: Labour is increasingly the party of younger, educated voters and non-white voters across all age brackets. The Conservatives are increasingly the party of older, whiter and less-educated voters.
