Rayvin

Also not so much desperate to fail as desperate to see other people also sharing my views trying to hold them to account, which makes sense you would think in ensuring that I don't just give up on the whole thing? Granted Gaza and climate change aren't the sum total of my issues with Labour. I'd still vote for them despite those things if they were doing either of the two things that actually mattered. On Gaza we're just a pathetic nation with no actual leadership skills, doesn't matter who is in charge, it's going to be the same. On climate change, its the same. Baked into the national psyche at this point.

Just to clarify, I too want Labour to succeed. I just measure success in more than just winning this election. They have to actually also be good and useful in government.

Progressive young/urban voters turning away from Labour over Gaza and climate change apparently: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/11/labour-may-fail-to-grab-target-seats-as-young-voters-turn-away-over-gaza-and-climate Could just be a scare article but some suggestion it could cost them some key seats here and there. Doubt it matters in the end but hopefully something that will remind Starmer that we're not all collectively a centre right hive mind. Sunder Katwala, the director of the non-partisan thinktank British Future, said: “This is a 2025 or 2028 challenge for Labour. There is a danger of taking your core vote for granted, and that danger will be very apparent after the election.”

I don't personally feel like I am but I suspect the same could be said for most of the Tory party I did have a civil conversation with an ethnonationalist recently and somehow resisted the urge to cancel him, so I'm going to use that single data point to claim that I could be worse

Do I come across as that woke to you guys

Yeah just to be clear then, I'm not saying that most of the British public are secret fascists. I'm saying that enough of them are stupid enough that they don't need to be in order to cause harm, and that this characteristic should be enough to keep the Tories around.

They still elected Johnson though, and he's certifiable. The sensible/boring British public voted for this complete fiasco we've had for the last 5 years. Clearly they didn't understand how mental their choice was going to be, but all that means is that they lack the critical thinking skills to understand the consequences of what they're voting for, meaning it could easily happen again. That's my point - the British public cannot be trusted not to make stupid voting decisions on the right hand side of the political spectrum.

Loads of the centrists tried to sabotage Corbyn, so I assume they were all pricks too. Also I voted for two centrist Labour administrations before this. My issue with Starmer, as you know because I keep saying it, is that he fails to deliver anything useful to me across the only two policies that can make any significant difference to the country. Should that change, consider my vote bought. As for the Brexit point, I didn't say in any post that the majority of people were far right leaning. I said what you have just said, that they were capable of voting for far right insanity, as evidenced by Brexit itself. I think we agree on this point tbh.

I think that's exactly why he was voted in. "Let's get Brexit done" was the framing of the entire campaign - and Brexit remains, all the way through, a far right wet dream. I don't really understand how him campaigning to deliver a hard brexit (pure enough for the right wing of his party, remember) is somehow something other than a highly desirable right wing fantasy that a lot of people voted for. None of us would have said in 2019 that Johnson's platform was about bettering lives or anything, it was entirely on Brexit. Unsure of the leanings of the statesmen but Gen Z are definitely in the crosshairs, yes: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/society/2023/11/gen-z-most-conservative-generation-radical-youth Labour are presently nothing because we don't know what they stand for. They're a series of assumptions that we're projecting onto them due to our own biases. But tbh I would still vaguely consider them progressive anyway, at least in some areas. That said, I've no idea which areas those are at the moment, just blind optimism tbh.

They voted him in to deliver a far right wet dream. There is no escaping that this country is absolutely capable of making batshit voting choices as long as they're on the right of politics. It is surely all the more believable now that Labour have undeniably moved to the right. The Tories went to the right, Labour did, that just moves the centre to the right too. So Braverman, I would argue, isn't far right now - she's right of the new centre. It is what it is. Gen Z are in trouble too btw, really alarming surge in right wing sentiments coming from them. With the left collapsing as a cultural force, they're being left to channel their frustrations in the way instagram influencers like Tate tell them to. So I don't actually see much optimism for the death of the hard right, there' plenty coming for the Tories to run at.

How come the majority voted for Brexit then? The majority have the potential to be incredibly stupid.

Would you consider Trump far right? Asking because he was of course a democrat and swapped over for opportunistic reasons too. If we're calling Braverman far right, we have to call Johnson the same. Opportunist or not, he delivered the far right wet dream. Actions define us, not words.

Whole world is turning right wing, the left has lost. All that happens is everyone shifts to the right. The Tories will take up their new position as culture warriors first and foremost. I absolutely believe that this country can and will elect a far right politician. I believe Boris Johnson was/is one.

We were saying they wouldn't make it 6 months tbf. The Tories are not dead, they will never be dead. That is the only truth to take from all of this.

I guess we shall soon see what splendours Labour have in store for us. Very little point in arguing about it though, none of us have a fucking clue what they'll do at this point and this board in general has a shocking track record with predictions anyway. Remember when we all thought that the Tories would never see out a full term after Brexit?

The centrists did the same to Corbyn for the entirety of his tenure. There was article after article about how unhappy they were and if I recall correctly there was a leadership challenge that they were obliterated in as well. Taking the partisan glasses off for both sides here, the broad church is dead. Both sides have turned on each other and it is not going to be reversed. To his credit, Starmer has recognised this and instead of trying to placate the left and build bridges, has gone for the soft right. That is all that is happening here IMO. So Labour have shifted right to compensate for the collapse of the broad church, and due to the Tories heading farther right themselves. The moderate left is now fairly homeless. The one upside for me is that I just do not care anymore. This is the first political conversation I've had in months, whereas it used to be daily. I am now free. The UK sucks, its going to hell, no one is going to prevent that, and I have accepted it. It's nice to re-run the old hits of course..!

That sandwich does indeed have a lot to answer for. I wonder how much of that loss was the sandwich, and how much was the Tories successfully attaching the SNP to Labour. It is a bit of a shame tbh, I think Miliband could have done ok.

Precisely. See, Gloom gets it. He knows there's no place for someone like me in the Labour Party, and he's not afraid to say it. I respect that. I came to the same conclusion my friend. And yes, we may have had two complete failures to win an election from the grown up centrist wing of Labour prior to the left having a shot, but that simply isn't worth noting.

Based on this morning, a free half devoured mouse to every householder.

My cat could win the election at this point if it happened to lead the Labour Party.

I don't know tbh. Maybe a bit but I pay so little attention now that I imagine it might just swapping a couple of texts with friends afterwards, not watching it as it happens. The Tories won, they pulled everything to the right, got everyone to accept Brexit, and have ruined the country. Now we're just rearranging deckchairs on the titanic. It's hard to celebrate it even if they do get wiped out.

I would argue though that since he broke all his pledges, I don't owe him anything. I voted for him to be leader in good faith based on those pledges. I know you are prepared to look past that, but I can't. He needs to earn back my trust and faith - and I'm open to him doing that tbh, but it's not just being handed over.

I am massively cynical of them now, yes. And Starmer broke pledges he made that I believed in at the time of voting for him, so naturally I am particularly cynical of him. Background be damned. I keep saying this next point but it doesn't seem to ever go in - if everyone to the left of you just went 'ah ok, yeah the Tories are better off out of power so let's just drop all our principles and settle for whatever Labour give us from a centrist standpoint', then there would never be ANY progress towards anything we want. Because there would be no votes to compete for on that side of the spectrum. The assumption would simply be that Labour had done it, re-formed the line, rebuilt the broad church, and that they could just stand still. Otherwise you tell me, is there any evidence in the entirety of human history for a political party being more radical than the entirety of the electorate that votes for it? If not, then why on earth should people to the left of Labour move in for them now if they ever want to see change? It makes absolutely no sense. An electoral landslide as we're about to see will make them very confident that they have the right of where they are, and they will be reluctant to deviate from what has delivered it - which at this point is doing absolutely nothing while the Tories hang themselves. I predict this next Labour government will be marked in particular for being timid, avoidant of rocking the boat. As for what motivates them, power. It can only be power because they're not about to achieve anything besides it based on what has been said so far. Again, maybe all of this changes in the manifesto - or when they're in power. We will see. But I will be watching closely, and believe me I'll be revisiting these themes as we go through that electoral cycle. Hopefully I'll be saying "Damn this is great to see, all this positive change that is really transformative of people's lives". I doubt it, but I do hope for it.

I don't really disagree honestly, I just don't think any of the options on the table are meaningful enough to warrant me endorsing them as opposed to indicating that they're all failures in my eyes. Manifestos may change that but I doubt it based on what has been said. It's not a big deal for me anymore tbh, I've just accepted that this is how it is. I won't cross my red lines but I also know that I'm completely irrelevant.

Biden looks like he might be at risk next time out though... becoming slightly concerned that the US might just be mental enough to bring Trump back.