From The Times Red Box this morning:
And you wonder why Jeremy Corbyn might be talking about staying in the Single Market?
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Labour needs to attract votes from beyond their usual supporters in order to win the next election.
It can chose to poach those from the Tories (as per T.Blair) by mimicking their policies, or, better still, from the 40% of people who don’t vote, a proportion of whom had given up because there was no real alternative to the centre right to vote for (as per J. Corbyn).
Many of those disaffected voters were also pro-Brexit, and there were also many ex-Labour voters who had moved, misguidedly, to support UKIP, who needed to be appealed to.
In the EU Referendum, on a constituency basis, Leave had a parliamentary majority of, IIRC, 167 seats(!), so Corbyn, being very aware of this, has an unenviable job and has had to tread extremely carefully not to alienate the Leave or the Remain vote.
Europe has always traditionally been a minefield for the Right; it’s now a minefield for the left as well.
Are you suggesting Labour are ‘triangulating’? Heaven forbid! If they want to be the Triangulation Party (again), perhaps they should bring back Blair and then we can all re-enjoy the delights of de facto Conservative governments whoever wins at the ballot box.
I live in a Labour stronghold which also voted heavily in favour of Brexit. Brexit is not the only issue and the Venn diagram is so complicated that it’s probably impossible to capture it no matter how you do your polling. (And polls don’t seem to have been much use lately anyway!).
But if triangulate we must, perhaps the question should be asked of Labour voters “Would you vote for someone else if Labour’s position on Brexit was pretty much the same as the Tories, all other things considered?”
Actually, the question’s already been asked to a degree – at the last election when that was (pretty much) the case. (Much better than an Opinion Poll when people would lie to try to influence the direction of policy). The party of No Brexit or Supersoft Brexit didn’t fare too well as I recall.
On a purely anecdotal level, I know several people (and I haven’t spoken to a huge number about it) who have told me that Labour’s apparent new stance (softening) on Brexit will see them vote for another party at the next Election. Maybe it’s just the circles I move in.
My feeling (and it’s only a feeling) is that Brexit softening is not a vote winner on a constituency basis.
Mr S is right.
This truly is a toxic subject and Labour has to be careful. Very careful.
Already the Right and the BREXITEERS are calling Labour foul on this in the media on a worryingly regular basis (remember something about how the telling of lies often enough means that they become believable?).
I hope that Labour aim their stance at the young who seem more positive about the EU.
From what I’ve seen of the non-voting young, they are very misinformed about Europe. Embarrassingly so.
The time is fast approaching that Labour has to take a stand against Brexit.
Labour is caught in a trap where finessing our arguments to avoid alienating either side is becoming more impossible everyday. There’ll soon be a day that Brexit is unavoidable and if we’re still equivocating we may as well have just signed off on Brexit ourselves. If that comes to pass remainers like me will never forgive our party the damage they allowed to be done to the country.
Brexit is clearly going to be a disaster and Labour must try to stop it regardless of the odds against us and the risk of party political damage. F#@* triangulation, just come out fighting for what we believe in and let those who believe the same line up behind us.
Adam, I’m with you on ‘f#@* triangulation’.
But . . . ‘Brexit is *clearly* going going to be a disaster’. . . is *clearly* an opinion. I’m afraid I suspect enough people don’t share that opinion to make it an electorally disastrous stance (my opinion!).
By the ‘we’ who should ‘come out fighting’, I presume you mean the Labour Party?
Well, following the Manifesto Pledge of the party that was subsequently elected (Tories) to put it to a vote and that pesky Referendum thingy that came from it and the pesky successful Legal Challenge that saw it put to a pesky Parliamentary Vote to ratify it, I think the Labour Party should outline their plans in a positive way of how they’re going to make Brexit work for the people of the UK.
That, to me, looks the best – and most principled – way forward.
What are you talking about Mr Lawless? Labour has stated that it agrees with Brexit but is pitching at one less dangerous than the cliff edge no deal Brexit the Tories seem to favour.
And that is a stance with which many firmly agree.
You’re putting up a straw man, no more no less, in order to further your own view.
“Was Britain right to vote for Brexit?” First off – Britain didn’t vote for what is now terned ‘Brexit’. A badly designed binary plebiscite with no constitutional precedent, coupled with two tendentious, dissembling campaigns, delivered a result that was democratically unrepresentative of the nation as a whole. Hence – GIGO. As a result both major parties have embroiled the public in a debate that has triggered an ersatz-civil war which cannot possibly have a satisfactory outcome.
The UK’s socio-economic problems are infinitely more complex than simply whether or not we are members of the EU. Of course it is an important element in the mix but neither a straight ‘in’ or ‘out’ decision will open the doors to a better future for the majority. The whole ‘Brexit’ agenda has, in effect, been a classic bait and switch campaign to divert from the systemic problems facing the UK. Furthermore, the time, money and effort being squandered on it is simply digging the country’s way out of a hole.
As the weeks, months and eventually years roll by attempting to get out of this self-perpetuating maze from which there is no exit, the nation’s problems will continue to compound: inequality, poverty, environmental degradation, low productivity, increasing personal debt, lack of social mobility, immigration-phobia, xenophobia, worsening public health, dysfunctional education, financial corruption, etc. etc. – all symptoms of a discredited ideology embraced to a larger or lesser extent by both the Tory & Labour parties, the MSM and consequentially accepted (albeit reluctantly) by the general public. ‘Plutocrcy rules OK!’.
Back to your headline. Conclusion? If you ask the wrong question you’ll inevitably get the wrong answer. Neither remaining within the EU as it stands or exiting it with our current domestic political options can be ‘right’ for Britain because both institutions are inherently regressive and plutocratic. This entire episode in our history will be viewed by future generations not as a gallant struggle for national sovereignty but as a post-script to Alice Through The Looking Glass, that would surely have amused Lewis Carroll, if it didn’t have such seriously negative implications for our society as a whole.
Barista – a double espresso per favore!
Make mine an Americano, black please
Fab post Mr D. Sums it up well..
Oops. Typo – as always. First line should be ‘termed’ not ‘turned’. Apologies for any others.
I doubt that Labour will have much chance of getting into Government any time soon. The SNP offered Labour an anti-tory alliance at the last election, which may have allowed for a minority Labour Government. Instead the Labour party in Scotland advised its supporters to vote tactically for any party that would stop the SNP winning. The result was that the number of Tory MPs went from one to thirteen!
It seems that the lesson from this disastrous miscalculation has not been heeded because Jeremy Corbyn recently recently visited Scotland, but only targeted SNP held seats!
Yes, and if the labour party were a progressive party it would have supported the progressive alliance at the GE and Corbyn would be PM now. Probably.
By seeking to stay in power by resort to illegal bribery the Conservative Party have not only lost all democratic moral authority they have deliberately obsfucated the fact that the 2016 EU Referendum was a poorly devised one in that it failed to clarify whether the UK should seek to stay in the EU Single Market and Customs Union by association or not. If by association the possibility exists that Liechtenstein style economic migration quota restrictions could be negotiated to deal with this contentious issue in the UK:-
https://labourlist.org/2017/07/tuc-we-can-stay-in-the-single-market-while-cutting-immigration/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/mar/24/how-immigration-came-to-haunt-labour-inside-story