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If Labour splits into two parties, will it never be elected again?

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Original post by Trinculo
Again, you're looking at this from the point of view that you are inalienably "right" and that no point of view other than yours holds moral or political force. Unfortunately for you, the British electorate does not share your philosophy. You are not going to persuade millions of people to vote for the far left. It's just not going to happen. People might not be happy with successive Tory governments - but they are "satisfied" - and that's enough. They do know that they would be unhappy with a left-wing government, though.

The other problems are primarily your leader - he's unelectable. He doesn't look like a leader, and has displayed no traits of competence. In the days post-Brexit when the government lost its PM, Corbyn is scrambling around trying to rally troops round the old red banner.Secondly, the SNP aren't really a Marxist left-wing party. They're closer to what the BNP is - a nationalist party with some socialist ideas. They've capitalized on the nationalist fervour and taken all of Labour's Scottish votes.Sure, you don't have to become the Tories - but how can you expect to win an election with policies that only appeal to a tiny minority? You have to move to the centre.


You'll find the electorate agrees with corbyn views, nationalisation of the railways, taxes on the richest, abolition of tuition fees, end to austerity. socialism is coming back, the country has just been led to the right. the overton window moved to the right, but it can move to the left.*

Is corbyn not a leader, because he isn't charmastic and charming like Blair, let me tell you Corbyn is nothing like Blair, he doesn't have an ego and doesn't love smiling for the camera. Corbyn is more quiet and reserved, what's wrong with that. Give the guy a chance, he's been undermined at every turn and demonised every since he won, but your unlikely to do that.

*let me concentrate on the issues again, what is your view on austerity, privatisation, cuts, tax avoidance, you don't seem to being answering that question?*
You can't be cynical/pessimistic about everything, things can and will change.

Remember hope always brings change, things will never change if people aren't prepared to fight for it. *
Original post by Graham 14
You'll find the electorate agrees with corbyn views, nationalisation of the railways, taxes on the richest, abolition of tuition fees, end to austerity. socialism is coming back, the country has just been led to the right. the overton window moved to the right, but it can move to the left.*

This is where I can't understand your viewpoint. You're saying that the electorate agrees with Corbyn - when it's clear that they don't. If the electorate agree with him, why is his polling so negative in the extreme?


Is corbyn not a leader, because he isn't charmastic and charming like Blair, let me tell you Corbyn is nothing like Blair, he doesn't have an ego and doesn't love smiling for the camera. Corbyn is more quiet and reserved, what's wrong with that. Give the guy a chance, he's been undermined at every turn and demonised every since he won, but your unlikely to do that.

He's not a leader. That's proven. His handling of everything since the referendum has been utterly shambolic. The party election is in the High Court, he's had to appoint people he doesn't even know to his front bench, then the farce with sacking Thangam Debbonaire. Over all this, though is his total lack of anything approaching leadership on Brexit.


*let me concentrate on the issues again, what is your view on austerity, privatisation, cuts, tax avoidance, you don't seem to being answering that question?*

Because I don't need to. I'm not debating policy with you. I'm not interested in the rights or wrongs of your political beliefs. I'm telling you that nothing whatsoever supports the idea of a Corbyn-led Labour government.
Original post by Trinculo
This is where I can't understand your viewpoint. You're saying that the electorate agrees with Corbyn - when it's clear that they don't. If the electorate agree with him, why is his polling so negative in the extreme?



He's not a leader. That's proven. His handling of everything since the referendum has been utterly shambolic. The party election is in the High Court, he's had to appoint people he doesn't even know to his front bench, then the farce with sacking Thangam Debbonaire. Over all this, though is his total lack of anything approaching leadership on Brexit.



Because I don't need to. I'm not debating policy with you. I'm not interested in the rights or wrongs of your political beliefs. I'm telling you that nothing whatsoever supports the idea of a Corbyn-led Labour government.


You really trust what the murdoch media says, the polling is down because of the coup not him, he was up prior to it. Why has 600,000 people joined the labour for jeremy, these people are people who never voted before, people who came back after leaving new labour, and young people like myself who are energised by corbyn.

Can we talk about the issues , austerity, privatisation, tax avoidance, does the electorate agree with that too, of course jeremy's needs time to make his mark, things take time, I will not give up jeremy neither will 600,000 plus members.

I say this to you, jeremy has brought hope that things can change, you, the media, the blairites, the establishment can keep professing he's unelectable, but it won't change my mind or the members, if he's unelectable why did they try to keep him off the ballot and ban members from voting, doesn't sound very unelectable to him, he's the best thing since attlee, wilson, people want change, stop professing the likes of david miliband, he represents the establishment, he represents a return to the status quo.
*
Original post by Graham 14
You really trust what the murdoch media says, the polling is down because of the coup not him, he was up prior to it. Why has 600,000 people joined the labour for jeremy, these people are people who never voted before, people who came back after leaving new labour, and young people like myself who are energised by corbyn.

Firstly, the Murdoch Media thing is nonsense. It's conspiracy scapegoating - nothing more than a means of blaming and shaming people who don't happen to agree with you.

Second - the Corbyn poll myth. This is something that was invented by Corbyn's inner circle. Probably Seamus Milne - that Corbyn was ahead in the polls up until the coup. This is not borne out by any evidence whatsoever. Since the referendum, Labour have not been ahead in a single poll. Only one poll out of about a dozen - Survation on the 25th June has Corbyn level, and the average is something like a 4-5 point Tory lead. It also belies the idea that any Tory lead might be down to their new leader, rather than the Labour coup.Sure, there are a lot of people joining Labour- but nowhere near enough, and nothing like the number that would not vote for a Corbyn Labour in a General Election.



Can we talk about the issues , austerity, privatisation, tax avoidance, does the electorate agree with that too, of course jeremy's needs time to make his mark, things take time, I will not give up jeremy neither will 600,000 plus members.

I say this to you, jeremy has brought hope that things can change, you, the media, the blairites, the establishment can keep professing he's unelectable, but it won't change my mind or the members, if he's unelectable why did they try to keep him off the ballot and ban members from voting, doesn't sound very unelectable to him, he's the best thing since attlee, wilson, people want change, stop professing the likes of david miliband, he represents the establishment, he represents a return to the status quo.
*

It's entirely pointless to talk about issues, because you cannot be convinced of anything other than the righteousness of your cause and whether I agree or disagree with your politics is utterly irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is that the majority of people in Britain have shown that they do not like extremist governments, and they see Corbyn as an extremist. They want strong government, nuclear weapons and less tax - and see nationalization as wholly impractical. Hence, they won't vote for it whether or not you happen to agree with them.
Original post by Trinculo
Firstly, the Murdoch Media thing is nonsense. It's conspiracy scapegoating - nothing more than a means of blaming and shaming people who don't happen to agree with you.

Second - the Corbyn poll myth. This is something that was invented by Corbyn's inner circle. Probably Seamus Milne - that Corbyn was ahead in the polls up until the coup. This is not borne out by any evidence whatsoever. Since the referendum, Labour have not been ahead in a single poll. Only one poll out of about a dozen - Survation on the 25th June has Corbyn level, and the average is something like a 4-5 point Tory lead. It also belies the idea that any Tory lead might be down to their new leader, rather than the Labour coup.Sure, there are a lot of people joining Labour- but nowhere near enough, and nothing like the number that would not vote for a Corbyn Labour in a General Election.




It's entirely pointless to talk about issues, because you cannot be convinced of anything other than the righteousness of your cause and whether I agree or disagree with your politics is utterly irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is that the majority of people in Britain have shown that they do not like extremist governments, and they see Corbyn as an extremist. They want strong government, nuclear weapons and less tax - and see nationalization as wholly impractical. Hence, they won't vote for it whether or not you happen to agree with them.




Can we talk about the issues , austerity, privatisation, tax avoidance, inequality injustice, homelessness, they are not pointless, they are significantly affecting the people of this country, people are suffering, is there suffering pointless?
Original post by Trinculo
This is true - after a while, what tends to happen is Conservative governments run out of ideas and Labour governments run out of money, and Liberal governments run out of goodwill. They then get replaced.



All governments run out of talent.

Governments tend to burn through ministerial careers at a faster rate than governing parties are able to attract new talent as MPs. Oppositions have an influx of new talent.

At the 2025 election, a new government is elected.

If the new Minister for Paperclips resigns in 2027 he will tend to go onto the backbenches. The PM needs a new Minister for Paperclips but the old minister will stand at the 2030 general election in the hope he may be appointed chairman of the Select Committee on Paperclips conducting fact finding missions into paperclip supply in St Lucia and Barbados.

The guy who was Minister for Paperclips in the 2020-25 government becomes Shadow Minister for Integrated Transport in the 2025-30 Parliament but by 2030 he has had enough. Being an opposition spokesman is a thankless task and he remembers the days when he had power. He quits at the 2030 general election to become boss of the National Paperclip Foundation. The opposition is able to elect in 2030 an ambitious new MP full of radical ideas about paperclips.

At the reshuffle following the 2030 election the government appoints its third Minister for Paperclips from the same talent pool it had in 2025. There is only so much paperclip talent in the party.

In 2035 the government loses and amongst the reasons for this is that the opposition has a much better paperclip policy.
Reply 47
Original post by Trinculo

Absolutely. A unified Labour Party led by Dan Jarvis would severely test the Conservatives. They would be utterly terrified of him, purely because they probably wouldn't mind too much if he won.

I'm not arguing against your politics, I'm telling you why it will not work electorally. I'm not trying to tell you that anti-austerity is good or bad. I'm telling you that the evidence is all one-way. It's all showing that you lost in 2015 on a left wing manifesto and will lose even worse on a hard-left one. The national polls are already showing that. A couple of by-elections don't mean anything when the national polls are showing your party 16 points down.


The Labour manifesto of 2015 was not left wing, it was a wishywashy version of the Tory manifesto. The SNP won against both parties with a left manifesto, a fact which seems to have been ignored by everyone in Labour. Corbyn's policies are not in any way 'hard' left. They are just not Tory policies which favour the rich, rather more the policies that favour everyone else.
Reply 48
Original post by Trinculo

The only thing that is relevant is that the majority of people in Britain have shown that they do not like extremist governments, and they see Corbyn as an extremist. They want strong government, nuclear weapons and less tax - and see nationalization as wholly impractical. Hence, they won't vote for it whether or not you happen to agree with them.

They do appear to like extremist governments. They voted the Tories in. They also voted UKIP into the European parliament. Perhaps Corbyn is not extreme enough, he is quite moderate if you actually look at his policies.
Reply 49
No they won't win.

They won't win anyway now : the latest ICM poll puts the Tories on 43% and Labour on 27%, at the same level of support labour had in 2009 after a disastrous 12 years of Labour rule. Those polls would give the Tories around a 100 seat majority; if there was a split this would only increase (perhaps up to 150).

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Original post by Aliccam
They do appear to like extremist governments. They voted the Tories in. They also voted UKIP into the European parliament. Perhaps Corbyn is not extreme enough, he is quite moderate if you actually look at his policies.


Unilateral nuclear disarmament is an extremist policy for sure. As to the rest - it's clear Corbyn is an extremist - look at the people he surrounds himself with and the company he has kept. Policy wise, ok he's really quite light on that - but he's a hardcore Marxist.

There is no possible way you could define 21st century Conservatives as extremists - they're as moderate as they come. They're certainly to the left of Bernie Sanders, they're about where Blair was give or take.

UKIP are also by most standards a relatively moderate party - it's only in the context of Britain that they're seen as the "far right" - which is nonsense really. By comparison to parties in many countries, UKIP are very mild. By and large they look to Australia or the US in terms of immigration policy, they're nowhere near as harsh as say Switzerland or Mexico.
Original post by Grand High Witch
I think this will be the case. You would get the Blairites and those on the centre who do not want to vote Tory voting for the new party; however, you would get those on the left and those who vote Labour because their parents and grandparents did voting for Corbyn's original Labour Party. The vote would be pretty much split down the middle.
They should have been taken apart twenty years ago - the hole New Labour ******** idea shouldn't have ever been allowed to happen.
Reply 52
Original post by Trinculo
Unilateral nuclear disarmament is an extremist policy for sure. As to the rest - it's clear Corbyn is an extremist - look at the people he surrounds himself with and the company he has kept. Policy wise, ok he's really quite light on that - but he's a hardcore Marxist.
Not a Marxist a Socialist and not hardcore, though by your measure of the Tories he must seem so to you. I agree his policy on nuclear disarmament is not mainstream, but you don't seem to be able to point to any other 'extreme' policies, which is a similar to the approach of the media. As for the people he 'surrounds himself with', he has a preference for dialogue rather than confrontation or dogma so keeps channels open with all. His choice of MPs is currently limited by the ongoing coup. Hopefully once the leadership challenge is over, he may have more to choose from.

There is no possible way you could define 21st century Conservatives as extremists - they're as moderate as they come. They're certainly to the left of Bernie Sanders, they're about where Blair was give or take.
The Tories have moved further right since in office, and Blair had moved almost into the old Tory position. Bernie Sanders is trying to do things on a much harder playing field, and has therefore had to temper his policies accordingly.

UKIP are also by most standards a relatively moderate party - it's only in the context of Britain that they're seen as the "far right" - which is nonsense really. By comparison to parties in many countries, UKIP are very mild. By and large they look to Australia or the US in terms of immigration policy, they're nowhere near as harsh as say Switzerland or Mexico.
UKIP don't actually seem to have decided what their policies are, since they achieved their main one with Brexit.
Original post by Aliccam
The Labour manifesto of 2015 was not left wing, it was a wishywashy version of the Tory manifesto. The SNP won against both parties with a left manifesto, a fact which seems to have been ignored by everyone in Labour. Corbyn's policies are not in any way 'hard' left. They are just not Tory policies which favour the rich, rather more the policies that favour everyone else.


Since when is rent control, mansion taxes, caps on energy prices etc etc "wishywashy Tory"? Extremists keep on trotting out this line about Milliband's manifesto being "Tory-lite" but it's not based on anything other than their own delusions and their inability to face up to the public's overwhelming rejection of their party.*

And by the way, not a single person who has ever said this canvassed. None of them seem to have a clue what the public want or why they rejected Labour. This is why all these Momentum morons think they want Labour in a more leftist form than what was offered to them last time. They - and you and graham 14 - are living on another planet.

I'd tell you that you'll see what I mean come election time but probably not since you lot constantly blame the media for everything as if only people who happen to agree with you are capable of thinking for themselves without reading a newspaper and automatically being brainwashed like a dumb dumb. It's pathetic.*
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 54
Original post by KimKallstrom
Since when is rent control, mansion taxes, caps on energy prices etc etc "wishywashy Tory"? Extremists keep on trotting out this line about Milliband's manifesto being "Tory-lite" but it's not based on anything other than their own delusions and their inability to face up to the public's overwhelming rejection of their party.*

And by the way, not a single person who has ever said this canvassed. None of them seem to have a clue what the public want or why they rejected Labour. This is why all these Momentum morons think they want Labour in a more leftist form than what was offered to them last time. They - and you and graham 14 - are living on another planet.

I'd tell you that you'll see what I mean come election time but probably not since you lot constantly blame the media for everything as if only people who happen to agree with you are capable of thinking for themselves without reading a newspaper and automatically being brainwashed like a dumb dumb. It's pathetic.*
Thanks for the insults and assumptions. I will go away and hang my head in shame.
Reply 55
Original post by Aliccam
Corbyn supporters are not Trots and oddballs, they are ordinary people supporting a rare MP with integrity.

Yes, they are. No-one serious believes Corbyn is doing well or has put Labour on course to win an election - he's doing terribly. The only people who don't care are indeed Trots and oddballs who don't mind destroying the Labour party as an electoral force in order to take it over.

It would be good if we could go back to the old system of Tory (right) Liberal (centre) and Labour (left), to at least give voters a proper choice.


The only time in its history that Labour approached this level of far-left fringe politics was under Michael Foot, which caused the rupture of the party and led to the party being seen as competing against the Liberals to retain the status as official opposition rather than the Conservatives for government. It took a landslide Tory victory to unseat him.

For the rest of its history, the Labour Party has been chiefly moderate - and at its most successful when it turns its back on its extremists.

I'm a Tory, but I've got many friends and family in the Labour party - a lot of them life-long Labour voters. They've never been as disillusioned or frustrated with the party - I suspect many of them will end up not voting at all if Corbyn leads at the next general election. The Labour Party as a mainstream political party simply doesn't exist at the moment - the centre-left are disheartened and looking for options.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 56
Original post by Aliccam
The Labour manifesto of 2015 was not left wing, it was a wishywashy version of the Tory manifesto. The SNP won against both parties with a left manifesto, a fact which seems to have been ignored by everyone in Labour. Corbyn's policies are not in any way 'hard' left. They are just not Tory policies which favour the rich, rather more the policies that favour everyone else.


I'm guessing that you're not particularly familiar with Scottish politics, but to suggest that the SNP is more left-wing than Labour is utter nonsense. The SNP win because they are centrists.

Labour went into the last Scottish election pledging tax rises to increase public spending, reverse cuts, abolish and replace council tax and ban fracking. The SNP went into it pledging to reduce tax for higher rate income tax payers and to make a small change to the multipliers for some council tax bands.

The SNP are the most small-c conservative party in the UK.
Reply 57
Original post by L i b
I'm guessing that you're not particularly familiar with Scottish politics, but to suggest that the SNP is more left-wing than Labour is utter nonsense. The SNP win because they are centrists.

Labour went into the last Scottish election pledging tax rises to increase public spending, reverse cuts, abolish and replace council tax and ban fracking. The SNP went into it pledging to reduce tax for higher rate income tax payers and to make a small change to the multipliers for some council tax bands.

The SNP are the most small-c conservative party in the UK.

This is conservative? Plus they wanted less Westminster.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/20/snp-manifesto-2015-key-points
Reply 58
Original post by Aliccam
This is conservative? Plus they wanted less Westminster.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/20/snp-manifesto-2015-key-points


Yes, it is.

On welfare, they have few beliefs beyond tinkering around the edges (a slight rise to Carers' Allowance, that the Tories came out with first, for example) or returning the welfare state to the position it was before the reforms in the later years of Labour and the advent of the Coalition. Essentially a John Major timewarp.

On tax, while the Greens, Lib Dems and Labour were all advocating tax increases in Scotland to avoid cuts in public spending, the SNP could only bring itself to call for a slightly reduced tax cut for higher earners.

They supported a minimum wage increase below what George bloody Osborne introduced.

They supported an increase for NHS spending in line with the Barnett consequentials they'd receive from the proposed increases in England. This is after cutting the NHS in real terms, while the Coalition were increasing spending on it in England.

The SNP U-turned on any suggestion of a "mansion tax", instead introducing a tiny increase for council tax on the highest value properties - an increase the Tories backed them on! They U-turned again on a 50p tax when the powers to implement it were introduced to the Scottish Parliament: they've dropped the policy.

Tell me again what makes them radical left-wingers. Wanting Trident out of Scotland like a bunch of pearl-clutching, 70s-throwback Hyacinth Bucket-style NIMBYs? Great, just great.
Original post by Graham 14
he's the best thing since attlee


That made me laugh, given that Clem was a product of one of the most expensive public schools in England! Not your typical Leftist idol.

Thinking of schools, I went to school with Corbyn's son. There was some consternation when Corbyn didn't send his son to the local comprehensive, but to a grammar school several miles away.

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