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    Labour should split into two

    I was finally tilted over the top reading Jeremy Gilbert's piece on PR, linked to below (which is absolutely imperative, btw). Starmer posed as a unity candidate but he has been absolutely no such thing. In fact, I consider the way he garnered votes such as mine for leader (more fool me) has been fraudulent. If he and the party had made the sort of noises they've made since he was elected leader, I would never have voted for him. The right wing bureaucrats now have the party firmly in their grasp, going back to the sort of vacant pragmatism that was such an electoral success in 2015, because it's all they know. Starmer has proved to be pliable and wholly without principle. Christ alive, Mr Remainer's most recent comments on Europe was that we should "stop banging on about" it - the main priority now being to appease the Angry Old Right Winger In Stoke.

    I'm convinced Labour will not win in 2024; That'll most likely be down to with offering nothing in the way of either charisma or substance to persuade voters either that they represent change or that that they might not just as well stick with the Tories. But the party will doubtless blame that on the lingering effect of the Corbyn era and seek to tack further to the right.

    I believe the Tories will be in power for a further nine years, though not under Johnson who may well not last nine further months. On that basis, I think it is time the party's left and right stopped living in the same house, the same unhappy marriage and became divorced. So much of the hatred between the party's factions is generated by both laying claim to representing the soul of the party. Were they to split, the left would be free to articulate its vision for the country without being suppressed, from PPC level upwards by the right, so many of whom seem in the Labour party to prevent socialism. As for the right, they would be free to articulate whatever the fuck it is they are actually about without fear of impediment from the "toxic" left; neither would any of the others' business any more.

    Of course, there would be a custody battle for the name Labour; perhaps that could be settled by determining whether it is the left or the right who are most sincerely determined to defend the interests of Labour in its ongoing negotiations with Capital. Of course, since the split I'm talking about would have to be taken by the left, it would not be as reasonable and fair as that; perhaps the new party could call themselves True Labour, a la New Labour, as opposed to the right wing rump left behind laughingly clinging to the moniker Labour even as they try to boast their "get tough" attitude to unions to floating voters.

    Just consider the energy which could be redeployed if the two wings went their separate ways; the massive reduction in scheming, rage.

    Of course, all of this could only work with the successful, concomitant introduction of PR, for which there would have to be a renewed and vigorous campaign. But all of this is on the assumption that there are nine years of Tory rule ahead (they were in charge for 18 years under Thatcher/Major; 19 isn't implausible). Thing is, although a surprising number of people believe in eternal verities such as the young becoming more conservative as they enter property owning middle age, those conditions aren't obtaining for increasingly large numbers of people. Also, bear in mind that whereas in 1979/1983, 42% of 18-24 years olds voted Tory, in 2019 that figure was 21 per cent. And, as Andy Beckett has pointed out, the demographic who haven't migrated from Labour to Tory because they haven't ascended the gradient to prosperity enjoyed by previous generations growing older and older. Labour's defeat, as with the EU referendum was brought about by a veto by the elderly.

    Of course, all of this would require a collective and huge act of nerve and career sacrifice and the banishment of memories such as Arthur Scargill's pitiful two men and a dog attempt to launch an alternative socialist party in the mid-90s. But then was then and now is now. I realise that this might well seem like a long, wishful, impossible shot; but I think it's important at least to visualise ideas like this, rather than just be fatalistically clever. And, when the upcoming Forde report is published, I suspect that'll persuade quite a few more people that it is ridiculous that they are in the same party as Labour's obnoxious, sabotaging, careerist apparatchiks. And how bad can an idea be that is most vociferously opposed by the Tories and the Labour right?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...f-factionalism



    #2
    Yep, agree with most of that, although I'm for us keeping the name and the centrists fucking off to the Lib Dems, which is where they'd be if we had PR.

    It would be much better to deal with an honest LD party, acting as an honestly centrist force/middle way, than have these people in the Labour Party sneering at socialists.

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      #3
      This is the thing; look how relatively cordial relations are with the Lib Dems and Labour compared with Labour and Labour. (and yes, I think left Labour by rights should retain the name rather than the "business friendly" wing)

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        #4
        FPTP fundamentally distorts party alignment everywhere it exists, not infrequently forcing divorced couples to live under the same roof for years.

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          #5
          I always had time for decent Lib Dems, and as many of us have always said, it's not about policy as much as integrity. The main problem with Starmer is not that he's not left enough, it's that he misrepresented his agenda in order to win the Leadership and is treating members like enemies. That Owen Smith campaign was as dirty and underhand as. Don't get me started.

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            #6
            Absolutely, re Starmer. The joke about him knocking over that cyclist; "Indicated left, turned right". In a nutshell. For all his much-vaunted forensic skills as a poltician he strikes me as bumbling, vacuous, clueless, easily led. His reign is likely to make the Blair/Brown era seem principled and full of substance by comparison.

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              #7
              Isn't the problem the infrastructure? If there is a breakaway party they have to forgo all the Labour infrastructure all over the country. This is why the centrists didn't break away over Corbyn. And why the left breaking away over Starmer is not as simple as it looks

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                #8
                Oh it's not simple at all, I agree. But the present situation is impossible.

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                  #9
                  I was finally tilted over the top reading Jeremy Gilbert's piece on PR, linked to below (which is absolutely imperative, btw).

                  What though does the fact that PR is very unlikely to be implemented in our lifetime do to the basis of your debate?

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                    #10
                    And there was a centrist breakaway of sorts: CH:UK, whose humiliating and total evaporation within a matter of months was politely ignored by the commentariat.

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                      #11
                      ale, if an idea is a good one, why not argue for it and fight for it? How does any good idea start? This is the sort of fatalism I'm talking about.

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                        #12
                        Well, the Tories aren't going to bring in any form of PR that would be of any use to anyone but themselves.

                        ​​The only way the they would ever bring anything like this about would be if they could do so in a way that would eviscerate both the centre and the left for as long as possible, preferably indefinitely. The only way of doing it that would fit both the reality of what would have to be done to get there and the caveats mentioned above (ie, party infrastructure, name whatever) would be to seek the dissolution of the party and to reconstitute as separate political parties. That would presumably require a majority vote (I'm not a member and have little idea about their party mechanics), probably with some sort of super-majority? Sounds like a big ask to me.

                        I think the only way it can happen is for those who don't want to be in the Labour Party to leave, but regardless of how anything like this comes about there'll be an outpouring of the last vestiges of the bitterness that some people have been storing up in the name of party unity since Blair, and they'll most likely spend at least the next couple of years going at each other like honey badgers while the Tory press stands on the sidelines laughing themselves silly, unable to believe the extent of their luck. Meanwhile, the Reform Party will be starting to call themselves the "official opposition." They're not, but it goes down better with the public as a slogan than the sound of crunching bones coming from the left.

                        As for an amicable split... in *this* political climate?

                        I think it will happen in the fullness of time, in the next fifty, hundred years or whatever. But the victory of the far right has been that they've coalesced around one single point. And in an era when it looks as though we're headed towards 50/50 splits, that's all you need.
                        Last edited by My Name Is Ian; 22-11-2020, 20:42.

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                          #13
                          The fact that Blair had promised PR to the Lib Dems in 1997 (and subsequently turned his back on it as soon as he got a huge majority) seems to have been quietly swept under the carpet. New Labour had 13 years to bring it in and stop the Tories ever getting back into Government and they blew it like the electoral geniuses that they are. Got high on their own supply.

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                            #14
                            Funny you bring that up, it's exactly what I was going to say.

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                              #15
                              With PR wouldn't we have some kind of fash/national liberal/conservative party, a big social/economic liberal party with Gaukeites, Blairites and Lib Dems probably the dominant party in most governments, a social democratic party and a socialist party, one of which (maybe both) would absorb the Greens?

                              So, it might be good for neutralising the very worst of the Right, but I am not convinced that the Left would be in power that often.

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                                #16
                                Tbh one of the problems is there isn't a working class to represent any more.

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                                  #17
                                  That makes no sense. There is, it's just different, and tends not to be working in massive factories and unionised industrial installations but in franchised outlets, warehouses, call centres, offices, shops, car washes etc. instead.

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                                    #18
                                    There's most definitely an economically-deprived class with no autonomy in the labour market.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                      Tbh one of the problems is there isn't a working class to represent any more.
                                      The working class is still there in the sense that there are still people that are relatively poor, it's just that the massive industrial workplaces are less prevalent. There are plenty of relatively low paid workers in warehouses, shops, supermarkets and call centres, then there are the workers in the so-called "GIG economy".
                                      Last edited by Kowalski; 22-11-2020, 21:53.

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                                        #20
                                        And, to an extent, no right to vote in Parliamentary elections.

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                                          #21
                                          I don't have a dog in this fight, but I recall Labour splitting in two not all that long ago (1981.) Perhaps it's something that's required every forty years or so?

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                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Kowalski View Post

                                            The working class is still there in the sense that there are still people that are relatively poor, it's just that the massive industrial workplaces are less prevalent. There are plenty of relatively low paid workers in warehouses, supermarkets and call centres, then there are the workers in the so-called "GIG economy".
                                            There are a lot of people working shit jobs, who generally are too tired to care much about politics that increasingly looks like some kind of moneyed class performance art, and who don't feel represented by anyone. But nobody seems to identify as working class any more or have that sense of solidarity across workplaces. A general strike wouldn't happen now, and not just because people don't belong to unions.

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                                              #23
                                              And as a minor aside, the Labour Party already has the Co-operative Party sort of alongside but kind of inside it in a quasi-permanent electoral pact, so it's already in two in a way.

                                              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-operative_Party

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
                                                That makes no sense. There is, it's just different, and tends not to be working in massive factories and unionised industrial installations but in franchised outlets, warehouses, call centres, offices, shops, car washes etc. instead.
                                                Would call centre workers think of themselves as working class? I didn't when I worked in one. The move to the service industry generally has changed jobs to careers.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
                                                  With PR wouldn't we have some kind of fash/national liberal/conservative party, a big social/economic liberal party with Gaukeites, Blairites and Lib Dems probably the dominant party in most governments, a social democratic party and a socialist party, one of which (maybe both) would absorb the Greens?

                                                  So, it might be good for neutralising the very worst of the Right, but I am not convinced that the Left would be in power that often.
                                                  Which is exactly the argument put forward by the Sensibles. Not that I'm accusing you of being a Sensible, but they don't like people like me pointing out that Corbyn in 2017 got 35% more votes than Blair did in 2005.* PR is not the perfect solution, but it is a million times better than FPTP.

                                                  *And averaged more votes over his two elections than Blair got over 3.

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