I confess to being worried. Everyone, Jeremy Corbyn included, knows Theresa May will have a bigger majority after the general election than she has now.
Suggesrions that Wales might elect a Tory majority and that in Scotland the Tories really are the opposition now suggest that, for now at least, the collapse in faith in anyone else is significant.
Corbyn is, of course, a factor. Labour's collective suicide, from which path I fear it will not be deflected, is probably the biggest negation of responsibility in recent democratic history. But that said it is not enough to explain the collective leave taking from anything approaching common sense that is occurring right now.
The last time I felt sentiment like this that was so obviously disconnected from reality was in 1999 when market values of dot.com companies were wildly inconsistent with any then known possibility of real worth arising. A crash did, of course, follow.
That same disconnect exists now.
The NHS is in crisis and it is this government's fault.
The same can be said of education, social care, the justice system, the police, energy, social housing and so much more.
And the Conservatives have completely failed to deliver their economic promise, even if it was wrong headed.
Despite all this they appear dominant in all polling. There is, quite clearly, a collective leave of sense sweeping the UK right now.
But this never lasts. Blair survived and built on a landslide because he come in on an upturn and fortune let him build in it. May has no such luck. She inherited a mess and Brexit may be popular now (nothing else can explain this madness) but it is not long before it will become apparent that to be ill, young, old, on low pay, vulnerable within the whole spectrum of the criminal law system, with a disability and more will be enough to leave you on your own and subject to the whims of fate in which the state has little willing to intervene. All this and the likely failure of Brexit to deliver anything tangible will give rise to a backlash, and soon.
Labour though will not be there to exploit it.
UKIP is bust right now.
The LibDems and Greens are working from low bases.
The SNP has to prove it is a rounded party.
What that means is that when the backlash comes it is not clear who will gain.
There is a need for a Macron moment, but he is too much like Blair for comfort. The need is for a politics of care. It's been absent for too long. I wish I knew where it might come from.
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I agree. I have published a piece on Progressive Pulse which I need to update “Brexit P1, The State of the Nation 2016” but it is a bit of a long read: http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/brexit-bleakness-p1-the-state-of-the-nation-2016/
People outside London, the South East and some University cities have every right to be fed up with the status quo. The Welsh in particular have every right to be fed up as it is the poorest part of the UK and wants change. Many feel some hope that Brexit will improve things. That might well be so with a dynamic Progressive Government in charge, but I fear that things will get dramatically worse over the next 5 years with the Tory’s in charge. Why do people trust the Torys? They are very good at talking the talk but their record is pretty much abysmal; unless you are in the top 1%
I don’t think it is ‘madness’ in the usual sense of the word, Richard, because it is perfectly explicable as the Left is failing all over Europe. For example, melenchon made a lot of sense and had a decent narrative but there wasn’t enough time to build it so he had 20% of the vote meaning the Left in France was lower than the UK support.
I see the reasons as follows:
1. The Left in the UK had the last 6 years to get a narrative together, it couldn’t because it was divided AND no-one got a narrative going anyway.
2.Things are bad BUT for about 30% of the populace they are fine
3. The Tories have sold every economic myth under the sun and people have swallowed it; even May’s recent nonsense about Corbyn ‘bankrupting the country’ was not properly challenged. The paste on the mental wallpaper is very strong and being reinforced daily.
4. people are tired and stressed and are recipients of a tidal wave of fake economics, this is incessant.
5. A populace that is fearful and stressed out will accept simple explanations so will fall for May’s authoritatian power-dressing and ignore the vacuity.
6. The Tories have exploited the stress of the populace by pitting those In work against those OUT of work -I suspect their ‘Behavioural Insights Team’ had a hand in this as it worked during the Bedroom Tax debates. With in work and out of work alienated from each other then the task of destroying opposition is largely achieved.
I suspect that the future will be toddling along as we are now with another bail out if the banks go wobbly and secular stagnation. Germany is reporting higher rates of poverty at present DESPITE economic growth with an ever increasing need for food banks. They have had a punitive , sanction based unemployment benefit regime since 2003 (Hartz reforms) -I don’t see Tusk, Junker, Schulz ever comment on how ‘unliberal’ that was.
I have doubst there will be a backlash for many years, after all, the Tories have hammered the poor, vilified the unemployed, harried the disabled; watched while socila care collapses and the backlash hasn’t happened -I suspect it will drip on for years.
You left out that the press have been demonising Corbyn non stop ever since he won, much to their surprise, so out of touch are they.
Corbyn this weekend noted that anyone who takes on the Establishment gets monstered. Anyone who votes SNP/Green or who is Yes here in Scotland knows that one in spades. Nice of Jeremy to notice too. Will it change his attitude to the SNP/Independence, not on your nelly.
I see Open Britain are sponsoring Remain MPs, but only in England and no mention of Plaid Cymru, SNP or SDLP all solidly Remain parties but beyond the pale in some way (though the nasty Nationalist SDLP caucuses with Labour at Westminster).
Take note of any organisation which claims to be British, are they truly active over the whole country? or just in England. Last year an English only charity was caught fundraising here in Scotland, not mentioning that none of the money would be spent in Scotland.
Some really astute points here. It is easy to see the current Tory success as a failure of left/radical politics rather than a brilliant application of a neo-conservative strategy. Your points about a fearful and stressd population are spot on. But this is no accident and the right have been preparing for this moment for at least 20 years on both sides of the Atlantic. I have written a couple of posts on my blog about the strategy of ‘Great Project’ government which was articulated most succinctly by David Brooks in the Weekly Standard as long ago as 1997. Viewed from this perspective Brexit is seen as a ‘Great Project’ (but it wcould just as easily have been something else – for Trump it is Make America Great Again’). Other things such as the withdrawal of Government from individual rights and liberties (‘bonfire of EU red tape’) and persuading people to put up with hardship via negative wage growth flow from this strategy. They can also explicitly tie naked ambition and willpower into the programme. Hence the insistence on Grammar schools, despite Justine Greening vainly attempting to promote them as engines of social mobility! Intriguingly, despite his executing the plan US neo-cons are suspicious of Trump, viewing him as ill-disciplined. I guess they may have a different view of Theresa May.
Hey Simon!
Excellent post, good points. Germany – really! Inequality and upward redistribution happening everywhere I guess.
Hi John!
Good to meet you on Richard’s blog!
I back Labour to win the 2022 election (which may well be for the UK excluding Scotland, which will probably have left by then) under a new leader, but they may have to come back from a relatively small electoral base following this election. Or maybe not: there seems to be a much bigger investment in anti-Tory tactical voting this time than there was in 2015, and I get the impression that the Tory polling lead is quite soft (“a mile wide and an inch deep”, to quote something that was once said about Lyndon Johnson’s poll lead in the US), so a good campaign by Labour could do well. And Jeremy Corbyn, despite his shortcomings as a party leader, is actually a pretty good stump performer. He at least seems like he’s up for it.
Howard
Your thoughts on a new leader?
Richard
Clive Lewis seems to have positioned himself as a possible successor. There are others who could be in the frame – e.g. Lisa Nandy. I think that to be acceptable to the Labour membership a new leader would have to be from the left of the party – either the hard or the soft left. Hence I don’t think it’ll be Yvette Cooper, despite the fact she’s flavour of the month with the Guardian editorial writers at the moment!
Yvette has to learn economics
The membership of the SNP, standing at around 120,000, are working for social equality, land reform, a greater say for people in our resources, so there is good and hope there. Though the right wing press in Scotland are fighting tooth and nail to suppress that information.
And there is real leadership.
The thousands who joined the Labour Party in England were looking for leadership and got none.
I completely agree Brian, though the BBC did give the Land commission a passing mention.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-39478422?
I am delighted to see it happening. One of my ex pupils is on the committee.
And when do we ever hear anything of the Common Weal, with its tag ‘All of us first’ or its excellent work, that has been going on since before the first referendum? http://www.allofusfirst.org/
The finger is always pointed at Nicola Sturgeon as being the only one in Scotland who wants independence and that there is no appetite for another referendum. Truth be known a steady 50 percent or so of Scots are passionate about Scotland getting independence. (And that’s before they get their act together and start arguing the case) I suppose we will just have to wait out the elections results. I would not be surprised to see a few Tories getting in on the local elections because of the dirty tricks Davidson is trying to pull on the SNP by advising their supporters to put SNP last and by campaigning that their pensions will be unsafe. If they do it will immediately be jumped on by by the right wing press as the return of the Tories!
Can’t fail to notice that the BBC are desperate to portray Marine Le Pen as the next president of France (to justify the Brexit madness no doubt) just as they and their cohorts in the press are fabricating the Tories as a viable opposition to the SNP in Scotland. Let’s wait and see how popular Ruth Davidson is in Scotland. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
A last word of contempt for Jeremy I’m afraid. What is he doing coming up here and rubbishing the record of the SNP as if he knows diddlysquat? It’s infuriating. Just like the Mayor of London he was up here yesterday, going through the sound-bite motions,showing his ignorance of Scottish politics and further turning off the electorate. Does he really believe the present Labour party has anything to offer Scotland? It’s really cringe-worthy to listen to him. He’s like the teacher in the school who everyone dreads getting for maths because he doesn’t have a clue what was going on around him and they just know there’s going to be mayhem in the classroom. Is that really the best Labour has to offer? I cant believe that somehow. We elected 56 mps to parliament who in my view have done a better job of opposing the Tories than I ever hear from the opposition benches.
Many objective observers will agree with your last comment
Ah yes land reform. It will result in people who have bought land fair and square having it confiscated. And then what will you do with said land. It does not look after itself , it costs money.
Michael
If I might say so you are beginning to look faintly ridiculous
First on nationalism and now you seem to be suggesting only the rich can look after land without wondering how they came to be rich
Might I suggest you need to think a little more deeply before commenting?
Richard
Unfortunately Macron is Blair. Man without a party. Economically committed to neo-liberal solution. June parliamentary elections will leave hime bereft of political support and direction. The new offer your vision demands will never happen unless neo-liberal view of economics is replaced.
I entirely agree about Macron’s policies
Right now the best that can be said of him is that he may be the last acceptable face of the old order
hopefully the ‘last’. But the Macron win will usher in years of street protests and resistance to the inevitable rounds of internal devaluation as macron tries to force through business friendly wage cuts in the Euro zero-sum game. This could play out for years. macron is a product of the superficially ‘liberal’ bankster dominated Euro zone that puts the primacy of money before life Macron is also an intellectual light-weight; at gatherings he call out ‘we love Europe’ as if the vision of monetarist, austerity obsessed Europe is some sort of ‘love’. But people cheer him because it all sounds cosy and liberal and the rentier rape that lies behind what Europe has become is well hidden. Expect lots of tear gas and police battons
This is the sad fact that many will conclude but it is an illusion. Western politics are in a tumult and like Hamlet or a soap opera, treachery, murder, betrayal and basic deceit are the dominant currencies. We must ride out the complete crisis which is not merely of Labour but of the ‘Westminster system’. Corbyn, for all his lack of guile and management, is seen as a teller of truth [sometimes]; no other leader is. We are the happy victims of skulduggery and we have been complicit in its birthing and its passing. We must arrive at the point when we are brave enough to refuse the Macron’s and to hell with the consequences. He is worse than Blair, he is an educated credulous lunatic. Le Pen is merely eccentric compared to Macron. We must remember Thatcher followed by Blair are the crazed authors of these dramas; Macron is straight out of their playbook.
Oh come on
Let Pen is a fascist
Macron is not
I don’t like many of Macron’s policies but he is not a holicaust denier
Get real
I suspect Gerry’s frustration comes from the bizarre paradox that macron is, in mt view part of a neo-liberal elite that have contributed to the creation of fascism by being a technocrat responsible for the financialisation of Europe -which has gutted economies, driven people to suicide, wrecked lives and the future of the young not to mention supported imperialist wars -the ‘banks not tanks one’ as well. The painting of Melenchon as ‘hard Left’ and macron as ‘Centrist Progressive’ tells its own distorted story.
I neo-liberalism ‘fascism’ which some on the Left articulate? Not in the sense that it uses ethnic/racial terminology or even nationalist terminology as it only sees two types: wealth extractors and the extracted. For neoliberalism to be fascist we would have to have a legal concept of ‘economic crimes’ which could be shown to be perpetrating crimes against a particular economic community – this would be a minefield of complexities in terms of theories of justice, althought there is an implicit theory of human value in neoliberalism: that you ar of less value (or no value) if you do not generate monetary wealth via the existing financialised channels. So maybe an implicit eugenicist approach is present -like the Tory Richard referred to the other day who said ‘if you intend to be old -save for it.’
So I would say there IS a sense in which neo-liberalism has fascistic tendencies but it is not explicit and harder to get at.
I’m not sure that le Pen is a a full holocaust denier that her father was (and fined for it) but she she seems to have indulged in some dodgy ‘historic revisionism’ about the Vichy regime by tinsisting it was ‘not France’ in some way -this is disgusting in itself.
But let’s be clear: Macron and Le Pen are part of the same dance nad macron is a fraud for not talking about the rise of fascism as a direct result of ne-liberal excesses. I would still prefer Macron to le Pen of course but with a tight peg on my nose and a handy bucket to wretch into.
I have to say I think the distinctions vastly sharper than you suggest
You might be right, Richard. The Danger is that the frustration of the failure of the left might be pushing people like Gerry to accept a ‘change at all costs appraoch.’
Macron celebrates in a stylish restaurant with celebrities:
‘On Sunday night, Macron greeted passers-by and sang the Marseillaise from the roof of his campaign headquarters in the south of Paris, then went to a large venue nearby for a long, rambling and unfocused victory speech in front of ecstatic supporters. He ended the night by celebrating with aides and friends in a Montparnasse restaurant that his campaign had fully booked.'(http://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-president-france-election-2017-own-worst-enemy-within-marine-le-pen/)
With main courses at 28 euros (circa £24) what sort of message does this send to the 24% youth unemployed? Why does it have to be SO ostentatious and why ‘celebrities.’ Is this the neo-liberal way, so it’s got to be done?
Good Start!
“Despite all  this they appear dominant in all polling. There is, quite clearly, a collective leave of sense sweeping the UK right now.”
I know that arrogant egotistic sense of superiority is a central core of your personality but could you entertain for just a second that you are wrong and the general public are right?
That they like May and the Tories on Brexit, their policies and want to move to the right?
There comes a point when standing against the tide switches to just outright delusion!
Every wisdom tradition in the history of humankind suggests that such a move is bad for the human condition. I am quite happy to stick with wisdom and stand against self-inflicted harm.
And quite what is arrogant, egotistic or superior about believing the well-being of others is at least as important as my own well-being defeats me, bit clearly doesn’t you
‘Richard’ ( the faux one above!) clearly assumes that the public are making an informed choice when they are not and he fails to add to his calculation that we have had years of the media propagating ONE economic ideology with bogus explanations of the nature of the economic ills that beset us -how can a population make a choice under these circumstances, in this case it just becomes ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’
As Goethe put it ‘freedom must be conquered daily’
Stephen what happens when the crowd in another country like Scotland has different ideas? 62 per cent of us didn’t vote for Brexit, but because Theresa May has completely ignored our pleas for a different way we’ve had to settle for the crowdocracy of England. How does that work? Are we delusional because 62 per cent of us have different ideas? In what way are we a United kingdom of equal partners as May keeps telling us we are?
The wisdom of the crowd is one thing when it’s a smart crowd, suitably informed and diverse, and when there’s a kind of communal thought or collaboration so that one person’s views don’t dominate proceedings, when it can draw on shared knowledge and so on, but we all know none of this is happening in reality. We now form our political opinions online in echo chambers by and large talking to like minded people. It’s the opposite of community actually and it accounts for a lot of the current polarization of political views. It also accounts for a lot of the swallowing of propaganda because you are less likely to encounter any opposing ideas that might make you think again. There is absolutely no sense of mutuality or integrating viewpoints.
“62 per cent of us have different ideas”
I voted ‘Remain as well but this cherry-picking argument is becoming dull. The referendum was undertaken across an entity called the United Kingdom not any subset of that area. There were no regional, metropolitan or age-defined sub-votes; one vote across one area on one question. Indivisible.
The result was clear; just as clear as the independence referendum the year before was for a different area. You don’t get to carve-off subsets of the result and declare it a different result. Metropolitan cities voted ‘Remain’ by-and-large but rural areas did not; the south voted marginally to ‘Leave’ but the north substantially so; old people voted ‘Leave’ to a marked degree. None of that is relevant. At all. The result was for one area (the whole) not any subset. You can ALWAYS choose subsets of data to express a different view but none of them are relevant if they are only constituent parts of the whole.
Do you suggest Manchester should leave the UK and try to join the EU separately? Or ‘People under the age of 30’ should exodus the UK and do likewise? That would be ridiculous, there are ALWAYS subsets within those as well, ad infinitum down to the individual level. Then why on earth should Scotland be treated with such desperate deference? Or, as normal, is this just another excuse to further a different agenda, hmmm?
Allan
I have to disagree
Scorland is a country
Of course how it voted matters
I am not at all sure how you think otherwise
Political difference matters enormously: it is in fact the basis for all change. Why deny it?
Richard
I do not deny the differences, in fact went out of my way to highlight them. They are valid differences.
But Manchester is a metropolitan area, so is London, there are defined boundaries, a separate legal existence, identifiable funding streams etc just the same as Scotland; but why should the Scottish sub-set of the vote get to be treated differently to those others?
It should not and I suspect will not.
Allan
I am sorry, but you are ignoring the fact that Scotland is a country
I think a little realism is useful in debate
Richard
It’s not new to say society suffers from a kind of religious devotion to celebrity and wealth. Nirvana is obtained through the addiction of ‘just buy more stuff’, peddled by corporations . When all this instant hedonism instantly wears off, the media and quite a swathe of politics is there to blame whatever suits their agenda, and urging society to keep believing the religion and buying the ‘stuff’.
We need to change this to a focus on interactions with other humans, nature, thinking, talking, music, etc, and all of this just for its own sake and not to suit some corporation, or politician,or enabled by ‘stuff’.
I’m as guilty as anyone of following the religion. It’s not easy to break free.
It’s difficult to say ‘stuff the stuff’
Jeremy Corbyn is in his element. He is the leader of a protest movement not a political party that is a government in waiting.
I get the impression this is just a warm up for him. I don’t think he will resign after the slaughter in the GE.
Sorry, In me haste I addressed my comment to Stephen when it should have been Richard (faux)
For those who deeply care about more than their own well-being (i.e. all natural life) are in for a very challengng time over the next 20+ years. It’s not just about the UK, it’s about our planet – the only home we have. I’m prtty certain in my own mind that global society is going through one of its periodic periods of ‘re-adjustment’ and there’s no quick fix, such as a national election. It’s a long-term, macro issue. Unfortunately we’re living at a time when we’re encouraged not to look further than the immediate future – and to make judgement calls based on increasingly short-term analyses, with all the inaccuracies that inevitably ensue.
At such a chaotic time, when current social models are being questioned at every level (not such a bad thing), I don’t think anyone can foresee how it will pan out. Our only guide is history. But our ability to learn from past events has a pretty dismal track-record and extremely short-term.
It breaks my heart to say I’m not optimistic. I fear that selfishness will overcome compassion and the human experiment / experience will end in appalling suffering. The devil has the best tunes – or at least the ones that are easier to sell.
It’s worth repeating, for the umpteenth time, Antonio Gramsci’s prescient observation 80 years ago that: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Hope rests on our collective ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. Roger Cohen’s OpEd in the NYT explains rather well where we’re at – or at least where we were in 2013. Plus ça change! http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/opinion/cohen-a-dangerous-interregnum.html.
With such uncertainty the best advice is to enjoy the moment. And for any Antipodean readers out there – Happy Anzac Day (nothing was learned from that catastrophic human adventure, was it?).
The politics of care will only come about after more pain has been felt unfortunately. A lot of pain in fact.
It is the human way and very sad. But this is what happens when we delude ourselves as we have been doing for sometime.
History will not be kind to us.
“Why do people trust the Torys? They are very good at talking the talk but their record is pretty much abysmal; unless you are in the top 1%”
Ehrmmm………….I trusted Labour once and voted in Blair!
The common thread I hear is that many so far are not voting for Labour. There is no trust there at all.
But they seem to be making this decision with no thought as to what that actually means for them if they vote Tory.
It is as if there is no association whatsoever with the hardship they may be incurring and those who currently hold power. None.
Or as if those hardships are worth putting up with instead of voting for Labour.
It is truly bizarre.
But never mind Blair – what about Labour idiot No.1 Liam ‘There is no more money’ Byrne? He has a lot to answer for. He really does.
For it was Byrne who has written the shortest suicide note in political history.
What possible reason is there to vote Labour?
At no point has any Labour MP articulated a coherent explanation of why Austerity is nonsense. You only have to observe the Daily inadequacy of Rebecca Long-Bailey to know a vote for this party is pointless.
Even if Labour did win do you really believe they would do anything to undermine the criminal activities within the City of London?
The reason is to keep the Torirs out where they have best chance of doing so
The only hope for a politics of care at the moment lies in the progressive alliance, and we are not talking about official pacts between parties at the national level, but in the informal movements that are taking root to support tactical campaigning and voting at local level. It’s up to ordinary people like us to get involved and out on the streets or use social media to do our best to minimise the size of the Tory majority.
I went to the second local meeting in a week last night where the proposition put forward was clear. This is unlike any other election because the prospects of a one Party tory state that destroys public services is very real, particularly due to the boundary changes. In the Brighton/Sussex area, for example we could ensure 5 tory free seats if we work together now. Once the boundary changes are through that will be impossible under a FPP system and Howard’s dream of 2022 Labour victory unlikely..
The argument to put aside tribal differences, part mistakes, criticisms of party leaders (until June 9) to achieve a single aim – getting the Tories out or minimising their majority is compelling and the nearest thing we have to a Marcon moment, arguably it could be better. The idea that the spread of a regressive global alliance requires unusual action by progressives is too. There is a lot of generosity of spirit amongst local party candidates who want to make this happen. But it will require significant organisation and commitment on the doorstep as well as by influential bloggers too. We have 44 days.
There is no point criticising Corbyn or Farron now, in fact that becomes part of the problem. The focus needs to be on simple messages and the policies -why what any progressive party proposes is better than the horrors proposed by May. Our local area has been producing fliers that show what impacts Tory cuts will have on local schools, e.g. numbers of teachers and that is making some wake up. I’m hearing of young single Mums that have never voted before deciding this is important and organising meetings for groups of Mums to support Labour which all parties agree is the progressive party we have to get behind in this constituency where the sitting Tory has a small majority of 690.
If in the unlikely event an alliance achieved a majority, it would be a muddle, and anyone deeply concerned about that might as well vote Tory. I’d rather try and create a muddle and then commit to hanging on in there to ensure those we’ve supported are called to account, particularly for changing the voting system.
Thank you, cathys, you’ve articulated the current state of play at grassroots level in this General Election. Many people coming to the conclusion that at least the Tory way forward is unconsionable so we need to sweep-away past grievances and work out how to frustrate that result. With any sort of goodwill we can make a better fist of things than the catastrophe that the Tories are making of our society.
There is an alternative.
For Jan, Gareth, Roger and a host of others,
Please don’t be too surprised if this sounds simplistic because it is; ‘If you don’t stop them the Tories get in’.
That’s it, all of it, the whole kit and kaboodle of what we all need to understand at this election. We’ve all participated on this board and many others in lots of analyses and conjectures about what could or should be done at any one time and it’s been good fun and lovely mental stimulation. But now we have a chance to do something concrete; cast a General Election vote. And for whatever point you wish to make I’ll just make that one above in response.
‘But I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn is a good leader’. That may be so but ‘If you don’t stop them the Tories get in’.
‘I don’t like what might happen to ‘our’ EU relationship in Scotland under Brexit. That may or may not be a problem but ‘If you don’t stop them the Tories get in’.
‘I’ve followed this for a long time and it all started going downhill in 1963 …’. That’s interesting but right now ‘If you don’t stop them the Tories get in.’
‘Isn’t it awful that …’. Possibly but ‘If you don’t stop them the Tories get in.’
‘I don’t like … ‘. I’m sure but ‘If you don’t stop them the Tories get in.’
Any questions? The answer is; ‘If you don’t stop them the Tories get in’ and continue to lay waste to our society and worsen all the things you are unhappy about. Please bear this in mind.
It’s hard for me to get past Corbyn’s recent statement that he would not work with the SNP in Westminster to defeat Tory measures, because the SNP is not ‘progressive.’
The man spent far too many years on the backbenches, being the ‘rebel’ who wouldn’t align himself with anybody, and who sat back, arms folded, looking aggrieved. He’s still behaving like the gadfly he prided himself on being, not the party leader he is now.
The SNP’s policies are more or less the same as Labour’s, minus the independence issue. The SNP are a rounded, politically savvy AND talented party, with depth and experience outwith politics in most of their MPs. Nobody’s talking formal coalition here, only cooperation to achieve mutual goals and reduce Tory impact. If Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour can’t recognise allies and cooperate with them, well… what ARE they, really? Purists? Socialists? Don’t make me laugh.
This is not looking good, is it?
The SNP is not a socialist party. I once met a SNP member who was to the right of Margaret Thatcher.
What you need to do is look at SNP’s actual policies now. And compare them to Labour’s policies now. There isn’t a lot of difference EXCEPT the independence issue.
Corbyn described them as ‘not progressive.’ I would love to see how he came to that conclusion, especially as the SNP is the ONLY major party at Westminster that continually opposes the Tories in meaningful debate. And doesn’t vote with the Tories on any policy issues AT ALL.
“It’s hard for me to get past Corbyn’s recent statement that he would not work with the SNP in Westminster to defeat Tory measures, because the SNP is not ‘progressive.’”
Corbyn was rejecting Sturgeon’s overtures about a “progressive alliance” if “parliamentary arithmetic” allowed it. There is no need for Labour and SNP to work together to defeat Tory measures, they are both parties of opposition, they can both vote against measures on their own. Labour doesn’t need to work with the SNP to march down the No lobby.
But if you were actually referring to some sort of alliance/coalition, then you are assuming that Sturgeon was acting in good faith when she suggested this alliance. Sturgeon knows two things: 1) There is almost no chance that the parliamentary arithmetic will be there, because no one seriously thinks that the result of the GE will not be a Tory majority; 2) by suggesting a formal alliance she is encouraging the Tories to claim that there will be a Labour/SNP alliance which is partly what sunk Ed Miliband in 2015. She is perfectly happy for the Tories to claim this since she knows it causes floating English voters to back away from Labour and vote Tory. Remember, Scottish independence is far more likely to happen under a Tory government than a Labour one. Finally, Sturgeon’s sole driving force in politics is her ambition for Scottish independence, her supposedly centre-left policies are a means to an end, and the truth is that Sturgeon has absolutely no interest or need for an anti-Tory Westminster alliance.
I don’t claim to know the minds of either Nicola Sturgeon or Jeremy Corbyn, as to the reasons behind why he made that statement. Your reasoning may (or may not) be correct. However, he did say, in public, that it was because the SNP wasn’t ‘progressive.’ I find that statement astonishing, frankly.
And then he follows it up with the declaration that if Theresa May won’t debate on TV, then NEITHER WILL HE. As Nicola said: He was given an open goal (and a chance to put his party’s intentions forward without Tory rebuttal) and he chooses to walk away?
Sorry. What is he playing at?
I agree that Corbyn saying that about the SNP is really bad.
But the good thing (hopefully) is that if the Tories get into power the huge mistake it was not to work collaboratively with other progressives will be reified.
If parties want to behave like dinosaurs then they will become extinct. Politics in society is now more complex than the over-simplified version that is practised in Parliament. People will start to represent themselves. It will take a long time and there will a lot of economic suffering but it is starting now I think.
As I’ve have said before – we have all the politics we need – we just need a better democracy and I feel that even though people might well vote the Tories in, there is still an unmet desire for democracy out here.
Hello Jan,
I said the same thing when 56 of our 59 mps descended on Westminster and Nicola Sturgeon held out a hand to Ed Milliband to defeat the Tories but he was having none of it. I thought at the time it was an act of immense ego from Milliband and would end it tears. As you say, co-operation to achieve mutual goals and defeat the Tories is there for the taking but Corbyn is even less clued up about the nature of SNP politics than Milliband.
You are right. The reason so many people from Scottish Labour joined the SNP was because it was an easy transition policy-wise and they could say goodbye to the Labour mps that were making a hash of it, like the hapless Joanne- “We’re not genetically programmed in Scotland to make political decisions” Lamont! We now have a set of mps with good heads on their shoulders with broad life experience and talent which is why they’e lasted so long. Why can’t Labour in England see it?
I wish I knew the answer to that one
The SNP has attracted a range of talent not really found in other parties. I think that is indisputable
Yes – but they still need a better system that GERS upon which to make decisions.
I hope that they are talented enough to realise that Richard!
I have some doubts about that in some cases
I just wanted to support AllanW’s point that, if we do nothing, or don’t vote Labour, or don’t tactically vote, or don’t in some meaningful fashion make a stand against the Tories, then they will get in again and that will effectively be game-over for democracy as far as I can see, at least for a generation.
And please, please, please stop denigrating and down-talking Jeremy Corbyn. He is the leader of the Labour party, elected by a large majority of it’s membership. He has more authority to be Prime Minister than Theresa May who got in by the back door, without any mandate from the electorate, or for that matter, her party membership. We need to support Jeremy even if we don’t always support the stance that he chooses (or is forced) to take on issues such as Brexit, alliances with other parties etc, because the alternative scenario is too chilling and too awful to contemplate, and if we do nothing, then on our heads and on our conscience be it.
I try not to denigrate Jeremy Corbyn in public for that very reason, Nicola Christina. If I lived in England, I’d be voting Labour. However, I live in Scotland, and we have a better choice. It just bothers me how everybody seems to hate the SNP when they’re actually doing a good job keeping Scotland afloat during these troubled times.
Nicola, I will stop denigrating and talking down Jeremy Corbyn when I judge his remarks to be worthy of my respect. The other day he summarily insulted 50 percent of the voters in Scotland by telling them that the party they had elected for the last 3 terms were ‘ a poor imitiation that has overseen an increase in child poverty and the biggest increase since devolution of those people classified as poor despite being at work’ when we all know that it’s the horrible Tory austerity policy that is responsible for the foodbanks and the poverty we see. Nicola Sturgeon has been doing her level best to mitigate against the worst excesses of that by providing free quality childcare for all 3 and 4 yr olds, free school meals for all children in the early years, no prescription charges, and has established a new £29,ooo,ooo fund to tackle poverty at grass roots. He then asked if people want to vote for the SNP who want to fight for another ‘unwanted’ and ‘unnecessary’ referendum — when he knows full well that Brexit has changed everything. In 2014 we were told that we could only stay in Europe if we voted NO. We did that and guess what? Now were out of Europe. An overwhelming majority of Scots voted to remain in Europe in the recent referendum and yet we are out. So much for being ‘equals’ and ‘valued partners’ in 2014. Less than two years after the ‘lovebombs’ of Indyref, we are again completely ignored and insulted by Westminster politicians. It is immaterial what sort of Brexit the Tories negotiate with Europe, hard or soft, it will harm Scotland and it is against the wishes of the Scottish people. What is Jeremy Corbyn thinking of?
I don’t buy this distinction between nasty nationalism and nice nationalism. You can dress it up any way you like but when you peel away the veneer, nationalism is about fear and fear’s inevitable progeny, hatred. Hatred for an other or hatred for the others; it’s always hatred. From Franco to Farage, from Milosevic to MacDiarmid, from the Iron Guard to the IRA, the one consistent and abiding theme is hatred. To try to give it a nice flavour is like seasoning strychnine. It does not matter how it initially tastes, poison is poison. Nationalism is evil. End of.
I fundamentally disagree
The desire of an identifiable national group for self determination is in my opinion entirely reasonable and it is offensive and wrong to describe those those who wish for that as driven by hate.
Your position is a gross simplification, at best and just wrong
Do you feel the same about capital? That nation states should have no right to control how capital is deployed and that taxes imposed by nation states on capital and the income it generates should be minimised?
My guess is you have no opinion because you are engaged in a culture war which is played by those comfortably off who don’t have to worry about where the next meal is coming from.
Of course the nation state must have control of some aspects of capital
Do you want it engaged in drug trafficking?
Etc?