I think that the key to understanding this is just to remember how far to the right the whole UK political spectrum is. Jeremy Corbyn could move to the left, by proposing to become a "centrist" european social democratic party. A lot of centrist Labour MPs would happily have been tories, if Labour weren't a much better bet from 1992 on. or if the tories were still like they were under Heath. A lot of labour centrist voters are people who define themselves as centrist and reasonable people, and define themselves by where the edges of the party and given where the 'extremes' of the labour party are, they wind up espousing positions held by US democrats. The Tories have gone full blown Tea Party Paul Ryan madness.
The UK has an income inequality level directly comparable to the USA. It's taken a long time to get there, and the first and third New Labour govts really didn't help in this respect. Other northern European countries are comparable with where the UK was in the sixties and the seventies. The UK govt's share of GDP as 36% which was absurdly low by european standards, New Labour only got it half way to the Northern European average. Taxation is low in the UK by northern european standards, as is spending, but they're not necessarily aligned, so you manage to get the worst of both worlds. The UK system could function reasonably well at these levels of spending and taxation, if the Govt was trying to run things as well as they could, but that's not really what's going on in the UK. Tories systematically aim to move money from the many to the few, and that fucks everyone up, it's also a deeply unpopular policy, with only 11% of people in the UK agreeing with the proposition that the Govt needs to be smaller. Yet Liam Fox is 'negotiating' 'trade deals'. This in itself wouldn't be a problem if Labour had been acting in the opposite direction when they were in power, rather than agreeing to stick with the Tories spending figures for the first three years of their first govt, and allowing that to set the tone. It doesn't help that the UK has the 40th freest press according to RSF, and only part of that is due to the ownership model. A lot of it is down to the UK's rather draconian secrecy laws, and lack of protections for Jounalists.
This is a big part of the problem. If you're defining yourself by your position relative to the two extremes, rather than believing in certain principles, or way of doing things, then you are at risk of being moved to the right by the way that debates are framed. This is how people who really should know better find them in a situation where they have to listen to "legitimate concerns." because these concerns can be made legitimate by three quarters of the UK press ranting about them every day.
But there's another issue tied in here that confuses things. The old concept of the political parties had them split on their economic policies, they were coalitions of People who can agree on economic policies but who can have fundamentally different opinions on social policies, I was pretty horrified to see for instance that in Ireland the split was 53% Economically left, but of that 54%, two thirds described themselves as socially conservative. (I.e. people want the state to give them more money because it suits them, but then want the state to ruin the day of everyone who isn't like them) You can want the govt to increase your pension, but you have legitimate concerns about migrants, primarily because you believe that they are getting money that should ideally be spent on you. You get to be treated equally, even though you're really an Enoch powell who has fallen on hard times. there's a lot of this going on in the UK and what you get is the sort of "Centrist" person who in spite of having fairly conservative economic policies can define themselves as more left than they think they are, simply because they don't want to put a saddle on black people or foreigns.
it's not easy to see a solution to this. The UK is fucked, and watching this whole brexit thing leads me to suspect that the next ten years are going to be horrendous on a scale that will make people long for the days of Generous Gideon. Perhaps the opportunity will arise for a fundamental restructuring of the UK political system along more rational lines. the UK will learn a better sense of itself and its place in the world, and start to act appropriately. However it's far more likely that the UK is going to continue its slide into polite respectable fascism. largely through the medium of people being incapable of assessing economic or political decisions on their own merits, rather than choosing their position in relation to what people they don't like are saying. The Centrists say to the "left"wing of the labour party "We'll all drown in our own faeces if we don't first die of hunger if we leave the EU." "Yeah well Iraq" say too many people. Meanwhile Jacob Rees mogg has become one of the most influential people in the UK.
The UK has an income inequality level directly comparable to the USA. It's taken a long time to get there, and the first and third New Labour govts really didn't help in this respect. Other northern European countries are comparable with where the UK was in the sixties and the seventies. The UK govt's share of GDP as 36% which was absurdly low by european standards, New Labour only got it half way to the Northern European average. Taxation is low in the UK by northern european standards, as is spending, but they're not necessarily aligned, so you manage to get the worst of both worlds. The UK system could function reasonably well at these levels of spending and taxation, if the Govt was trying to run things as well as they could, but that's not really what's going on in the UK. Tories systematically aim to move money from the many to the few, and that fucks everyone up, it's also a deeply unpopular policy, with only 11% of people in the UK agreeing with the proposition that the Govt needs to be smaller. Yet Liam Fox is 'negotiating' 'trade deals'. This in itself wouldn't be a problem if Labour had been acting in the opposite direction when they were in power, rather than agreeing to stick with the Tories spending figures for the first three years of their first govt, and allowing that to set the tone. It doesn't help that the UK has the 40th freest press according to RSF, and only part of that is due to the ownership model. A lot of it is down to the UK's rather draconian secrecy laws, and lack of protections for Jounalists.
This is a big part of the problem. If you're defining yourself by your position relative to the two extremes, rather than believing in certain principles, or way of doing things, then you are at risk of being moved to the right by the way that debates are framed. This is how people who really should know better find them in a situation where they have to listen to "legitimate concerns." because these concerns can be made legitimate by three quarters of the UK press ranting about them every day.
But there's another issue tied in here that confuses things. The old concept of the political parties had them split on their economic policies, they were coalitions of People who can agree on economic policies but who can have fundamentally different opinions on social policies, I was pretty horrified to see for instance that in Ireland the split was 53% Economically left, but of that 54%, two thirds described themselves as socially conservative. (I.e. people want the state to give them more money because it suits them, but then want the state to ruin the day of everyone who isn't like them) You can want the govt to increase your pension, but you have legitimate concerns about migrants, primarily because you believe that they are getting money that should ideally be spent on you. You get to be treated equally, even though you're really an Enoch powell who has fallen on hard times. there's a lot of this going on in the UK and what you get is the sort of "Centrist" person who in spite of having fairly conservative economic policies can define themselves as more left than they think they are, simply because they don't want to put a saddle on black people or foreigns.
it's not easy to see a solution to this. The UK is fucked, and watching this whole brexit thing leads me to suspect that the next ten years are going to be horrendous on a scale that will make people long for the days of Generous Gideon. Perhaps the opportunity will arise for a fundamental restructuring of the UK political system along more rational lines. the UK will learn a better sense of itself and its place in the world, and start to act appropriately. However it's far more likely that the UK is going to continue its slide into polite respectable fascism. largely through the medium of people being incapable of assessing economic or political decisions on their own merits, rather than choosing their position in relation to what people they don't like are saying. The Centrists say to the "left"wing of the labour party "We'll all drown in our own faeces if we don't first die of hunger if we leave the EU." "Yeah well Iraq" say too many people. Meanwhile Jacob Rees mogg has become one of the most influential people in the UK.
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