About the best interpretation of Starmer’s stance is that he is taking the anti-Tory/anti-Brexit vote for granted and wants to win the pro-Leave “Red Wall” vote back.
However this presents us with a catch-22 - if you believe Starmer is honest and will do as he says you can’t, as a left leaning pro-Eu voter, really lend him support as his policies are exactly what you don’t want. If you believe it’s just to get in power and he’ll pivot once there - well, that just makes him another dishonest politician so, once again, difficult to support. Especially when he has pushed his “integrity” as a feature compared with the Tories.
PS and I speak here as someone who voted Labour on the basis that anything was better than the Tories when Jeremy Corbyn was leader - for Starmer to have got me to the point that I will not even vote tactically for Labour is quite something!
Well, probably not, bearing in mind that one does not elect the leader unless one is lucky enough to live in their constituency, almost anything *would* be better than the Tories and Labour have been the 2nd placed in my fairly safe Tory seat with a 30/20/3k votes split which leaves the Lib Dems a heck of a lot of catching up to do.
The one thing I do like with Labour is their policy for self sufficiency in British farming.
Like you though I think that he should be much more pro revisiting Brexit, especially as the polls are showing more people are dissatisfied with the outcome.
He’s got himself into a “dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t” situation with Brexit, and digs the hole deeper every time he discusses the subject.
But there’s a whole lot of other stuff - more austerity, insisting the “NHS has to reform or die”.
I honestly can’t support much of what Starmer is saying (even if Labour official policy is currently a bit different - one fears it will get changed in due course).
I agree… certainly there is a worry factor as Starmer is currently playing to the gallery in order to re-secure the red wall from the swivelled eyed loonies.
But, what to do?
He needs to re-secure the ground before he can do anything at all. de Pfeffle promised sunny uplands populated with unicorns, milk and honey a plenty and didn’t deliver so what’s the difference if Starmer uses the same tactic - but a more advantageous one for the benefit of the country, as it were.
Decisions, decisions.
Reform UK is certainly off my list though, of that I’m certain and the LibDems whilst having some attractiveness to a disaffected long-time Tory (courtesy of the aforesaid de Pfeffle and his swivelled eyed cretins) I don’t think they could turn the tide as was the case with Canute.
Reversing Brexit now its “done” (not) is an implausible prospect and with the ever increasing realisation of that fact, a more enlightened electorate will not see the LibDems as a serious desirable option if they continue on that tack.
Still, what do I care? our 15 years are now up and unless the vote is restored in the current Parliament, it’s all academic anyway as far as we will be concerned at the next GE.
Unusually, I may be less cynical than you two here.
I think he’s cautious and canny by nature, and he is avoiding nailing his colours to the mask where he can do that. The UK is still a while away from the next GE and a lot might change.
On the subject of Brexit, isn’t he just letting (the effects of) Brexit do his campaigning for him? It’s increasingly obvious that it’s not working out like they said it would: he just needs to sit tight and wait for an overwhelming clamour to rejoin.
I (think I) understand his Brexit messaging - I’ve said myself that I doubt we could rejoin soon or easily because it takes two to tango and I think the EU would (rightly) be very cautious regarding any approach by the UK to join the 27 again.
Where I struggle is his insistence on sounding like a born again Brexiteer all the time.
The United Kingdom also includes Wales and Northern Ireland, both of which have their own take on politics, though granted they’re watching what happens in Scotland closely but not for reasons of socialism. Please leave the snarkiness at home next time.
Having seen the country swing right as a whole in 2019 - and I did talk about the UK - I don’t believe the UK is socialist in ideology. Those who are firmly convinced of a political stance do not change their voting allegiance. I therefore content that my statement to answer your question was correct, even if some minority segments of the population do in general support socialism as an ideology.
I have remained polite to you - please extend me the same courtesy.
Mate, if you don’t appreciate my contribution, block/ignore me by all means and I’ll do the same courtesy to you. If you can’t cope with a tiny bit of pushback on your ideas, well…
Disagree with me, fine. What you wrote appeared rude to me - if I have misunderstood and it was NOT intended to be snarky then I apologise, but that’s how it read.
The thing is, the actual manifestos in 2017 and 2019 were very acceptable to most people. When opinion pollsters ask people about each policy separately, the majority heartily support them. And these manifestos were both fully independently costed.
UK under-35s, especially, are very leftwing - eg. over two thirds ‘would like to live in a socialist economic system’, nearly three-quarters want basic utilities and public transport to be nationalised, and think private sector involvement in the NHS puts it at risk, fully three quarters see climate/ecological breakdown as ‘a specifically capitalist problem’, and nearly 80% blame capitalism for Britain’s housing crisis.
As @kirsteastevenson rightly commented earlier, the best chance the UK had of saving the NHS was probably ‘with the old boy with the red rosette’ - and I would add the best chance of achieving much else positive besides, such as the aforementioned popular reforms, not to mention avoiding the hard brexit currently destroying the UK.
So why did the majority not vote for the manifestos they actually believed in? The answer, I think, is simple: people can only base decisions on what they know. As with the brexit referendum, people were subjected to a barrage of misinformation by the media, and the now well-documented ‘political assassination’ of Corbyn. So now they’re stuck with - again as Kirstea said - ‘a slightly younger bloke with a red rosette who is a virtual carbon copy of the bloke with the blue rosette’.
The NHS is not just one giant broken down behemoth, it is creating personal tragedies over and above
Events like this will keep happening and very likely increase. The system is not merely failing. Now it is time to admit that it is broken, deconstruct the entire entity and build anew for the 21st century. With at the very least, and realistically so much more, the same funds, energy, science and speed that was thrown into preparing the UK for an unknown future during the recent global pandemic.
