I know I was described as Jeremy Corbyn's guru last year, but that was nonsense. I've never been anyone's guru, least of all the Leader of the Opposition's. He just seemed to like some of my ideas. And I was happy to explain them to Labour audiences. Whether that helped him get elected as leader, or not, we'll never know. What we do know is that he is now under pressure to resign.
In commenting now let me say three things: first, I am still not a member of the Labour Party, and have no intention of being so. Second, I have not spoken to anyone in Labour about the issues that have arisen in the last couple of days. Third, all that follows is, then, my own opinion after getting a couple of hours away from the computer, the press, and everything else.
The first thing to say is how odd it is that Labour should be having a leadership crisis. In an opinion poll today Labour is at level pegging with the Conservatives, who are down five points. You could argue that it should be well ahead, but equally it could be argued that the Conservatives have just enjoyed an enormous amount of exposure, and one wing of that party has just won a major election: in that circumstance for Labour to be on level pegging seems to be a quite surprisingly good position.
Second, all analysis would suggest that Labour voters turned out pretty heavily for Remain: both David Cameron and the neoliberal wing of Labour should be very pleased with this. How it could really have done very much more is a little hard to tell given that the media seemed entirely focused upon Conservative participants in the referendum campaign.
Thirdly, you would expect Labour at this moment to be united in its desire to exploit internal Conservative divisions rather than provide the biggest possible diversion it can to weaknesses within the government. And yet, it does appear to today be taking all the attention away from Tory party division. Tactically I would not have thought this is the moment to do that unless there was some continuing, other, explanation such as a profound unwillingness to accept last year's Labour party leader election result or, maybe, concern that at some point Jeremy Corbyn might come up with a real alternative to the neoliberal agenda now pretty universally on offer. I suspect there are other, deeper agendas as well, including a concern to defend Tony Blair when the Chilcott Report comes out.
Whichever way it is looked at though 67% of Labour supporters voting Remain was not a bad result given the overall performance, which in contrast indicates just how far the majority of Conservative MPs are from being in sympathy with their own electors. To put it another way, it is the Conservatives who really do have a crisis right between the party and their supporters right now, and not Labour.
That said, around 40% of the shadow cabinet had resigned, and that's not healthy. Whatever sticking plaster held things together for the last nine months has clearly come off in the wash. Something pretty fundamental is going on, and it should be said in both the Labour and Conservative parties.
The simple reality is that a majority of Labour MPs remain fundamentally Blairite whilst a minority, who seem to have the support of most party members, are to the left, and as if to mirror this a majority of Conservative MPs are Cameronian with the party membership being much further to the right. Both parties have a crisis of the centre ground, which crisis they happen to share with the rump of the Liberal Democrats, and in all cases it is only the control but those in the centre exercise over their respective party machineries that has kept their MPs who are inclined the middle in office.
To put it another way, there may be literally hundreds of MPs in the House of Commons who have remarkably little connection with their own party membership, let alone those they are meant to represent. Is it surprising in case that so many feel disaffected?
Three thoughts follow. The first is that whatever happens now in both the Labour and Conservative parties, the fight is about more than control of the leadership: it is also about control of the party mechanism. There can be no doubt the Jeremy Corbyn has not, as yet, won this battle in the Labour Party, with an alternative leadership in waiting having been sitting in Labour Party HQ ever since he was elected. Unless, and until, that issue was resolved he has little or no hope of leading an effective Opposition. In the Conservatives the battle may be a little less obvious but there can be no doubt that the established voice did not want Brexit, does not want Boris Johnson, and is extremely worried about what is happening. That stress may be kept a little further below the surface, but I suspect that it is very real nonetheless.
Second, the outcome of this battle shapes British politics for some time to come. If, despite a leadership challenge, Jeremy Corbyn or some other person from the left wins through as Labour Party leader and can really secure control of the party mechanism as a result than that party will move quite significantly to the left for some time to come. Pretty much parallel circumstance will arise in Conservative Central office, where in effect the Taxpayers' Alliance will take over. No one could then doubt that we would be in for a much more polarised form of politics.
But, thirdly, what of the centre ground in the case? Where do those Remain Conservatives and neoliberal Labour MPs go? I am sure that in days gone by a Liberal Democrat leader would have been only too willing to welcome them, and some may have succumbed, but at this moment Tim Farron has little to offer anyone. I think few will be tempted that way. But, if as the logistics seem to suggest likely, the Labour membership votes left again, and the Conservative membership votes much further to the right than it has done for a long time, then you can see why some of those, particularly on the right of Labour at this moment, are feeling somewhat lonely and isolated and willing to take the risk isn the state of confusion that currently exists to try to secure their long-term position.
Without taking sides in either forthcoming election I foresee wins for both the left and right with the centre ground losing out badly, and in Labour's case, at least, those losing looking very vulnerable to de-selection and a future outside the party machine. So the question is what do those who find themselves in this position from both parties, and maybe some former Liberal Democrats, do now? Do they give up on politics, or has the basis for a new centre ground coalition being created?
I'm not sure that this possibility has existed before now precisely because the centre ground in both of the main parties has always had sufficient control of their party mechanisms to avoid a real need for any significant change in party structures. But, if that has changed, as I think is the case, will politics changed to reflect that fact and, unlikely as it may seem, will a referendum that appeared to be dominated by a rejection of the political elite give rise to a new party that may well reflect that political elite more closely than any has done before? Stranger things have happened.
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Yes. This. I hope to goodness the Bennite wing of the party sees this and accepts the inevitable because this circular firing squad has gone on quite long enough. The idiocy of it, and the downright venal opportunism is just insane. They’re using this as an excuse for manufactured outrage (because it worked so well for them over the invented ‘anti-zionist’ accusations) because they know if they wait until the NEC elections, they’re toast.
It’s not a surprise, but that doesn’t stop it being vicious.
I would agree Richard that UK party politics has for some time (many years if not decades) no reflected the majority of their own members real interests or views.
This has been reinforced and exacerbated by FPTP elections that meant the real political power players elected to lead one of the two main parties (even though their political views could be questioned whether they were even in the right party, never mid the left/right wing of the party).
With the introduction of single interest and national interest parties across the Union, I do not see the survival of FPTP and the two main party system is viable any longer.
As for a new centre ground establishment party, please lets sort out the electoral system before allowing a dominant one nation centre left/right party to take control with no real opposition in parliament.
That would be a recipe for corporatist takeover and the end of any sense of representative democracy in my view.
If this happens, I don’t fancy their chances electorally. 40 years spent splitting the electorate into winners and losers and then asking everyone to play nicely together?
Momentum have a petition out which I have signed opposing this absurdly timed coup.
My Labour membership will be over if the Party tries to take itself back to Overton Window ground. Already, there were signs from Cooper/Burnham, immediately after the result that they were ‘back’ and were already bleating the ‘immigration mantra’ as if to reveal their Overton Window worshipping tendencies.
Neo-liberalism has created a one party state which has damaged democracy; left an angry, voiceless populace and created space for extremism.
The Parties need to split but we need PR as well so the one-party state can give way to a variety of voices because we need to talk about what sort of society we want and that talking needs to start soon.
There is also a 38 degrees petition with 188,000 plus signatures. Jeremy still has vast support so I believe this will cause a massive upset with the members.
Tariq Ali wrote a prophetic piece predicting this here. He is very damning in his critique of the self serving nature of those who he says reaped the rewards of light touch regulation. There is the implication that these careerists will not tolerate a courageous politician working for the people. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n05/tariq-ali/corbyns-progress
I feel that in this particular case, in a democracy, MPs should abide by the membership or cross the floor. I say this because this is a case of a fundamental ideological mismatch of socialism versus neoliberalism within the Party. The decent thing to do is to leave rather than cause chaos when so much that the Tories have done and will do needs attacking. Shameful.
All of Jeremy
I think the title of Tariq Ali’s recent book:
THE EXTREME CENTRE
Sums up where we are very well.
As you say, Sandra more revolving doors for the New Labour corporate gravy train -utterly shameless shysters all:
“Brown kept relatively quiet, perhaps because he was busy negotiating his very own private finance initiative with the investment firm Pimco (Ben Bernanke and the former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet are also joining its ‘global advisory board’). Simultaneously, his ennobled former chancellor, Lord Darling, was on his way to work for Morgan Stanley in Wall Street. Blair, an adviser to J.P. Morgan since 2008, must have chuckled. At last, a New Labour reunion in the land of the free. All that ‘light-touch’ regulation was bearing rich fruit. Virtually every senior member of the Blair and Brown cabinets went to work for a corporation that had benefited from their policies. The former health secretary Alan Milburn, for example, is on the payroll of several companies involved in private healthcare and is currently working for Cameron as the chair of his Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. “
Sounds to me as though we’re going to get a Real Left, a Real Right and a Real Joke – an alleged “Centre Party” amalgam of on the one hand a troop of homeless, Tory-lite neo-liberal Bitterites, and on the other of faux “Red Tory” Cameroonies, pretending to be “One Nation “we’re all in this together” Conservatives, each component of which will hold its nose as it shakes hands with the other, all the while pretending to get on, like quarrelling guests at some particularly fraught family wedding, keeping still just long enough for the photographer to take some misleading pictures!
The REAL need is for a return to the REAL Parties of the post-War era – a REAL Labour Party, and a REAL Conservative Party, each of which was worthy of respect and support.
It strikes me that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is far further along that project than the Tory Party: whatever Jeremy’s faults, no one can say that he hasn’t tried to re-discover Labour’s soul. Equally, no one could accuse Cameron’s Tory Party of having even begun to embark, or even imagine, such a journey.
I think this would be healthy and reflect more accurately the diversity of opinion in the Conservative and Labour parties. However, for it to work properly, the corollary should be a move towards proportional representation.
Whilst there will be support for a new home for displaced politicians, a retirement home where they can cause no further harm is the best place for the Blairites who gave us the Iraq war and Cameronian conservatives who gave us the EU referendum.
like the proposed bank for toxic assets?
The curse of the ‘centre ground’ is with us again – possibly. Roll out the focus groups. Those opinion polsters must be looking for a new area of employment. Every political party that has oppressed us with their ambition to reshape society in managerial or commercial or financial interests has done so in the name of the ‘centre ground’ – be it Blair or Cameron/Osborne. Every patrician politician that thought it knew what we wanted without knowing us – be it Macmillan or Jenkins/Williams – has spoken for the ‘centre ground’ before vapourising into nothingness. And now we are where we are in this complete political and social shambles. Give us instead an honest (with the emphasis on that word) party with a vision of a new place to which it is taking us rather than a pretense that all divisions are immaterial and we can all pretend to be in the mythical centre.
I think there is quite a big problem with a third party emerging. We just don’t know how this will play out on an individual constituency basis, and it might well end up with a massive Tory (or even Tory + UKIP) majority.
I think this is a potential problem emerging anyway regardless. I was just sitting in the car today wondering whether it might be possible for Labour to be decimated in a forthcoming election, and whether it might be possible for the Tories to win a 100, 200 seat majority. And I had to conclude that it might well be possible. Which was very scary.
The 67% Labour figure for remain is very misleading. This includes all the urban areas like London/Bristol/Manchester that were overwhelmingly remain among Labour supporters and also Scottish Labour voters. Once these voters are stripped out and you look at all the Rochdale/Barnsley/Docaster/West Brom type constitutenies, my guess is that Labour did really badly in these areas.
I accept we just do not know
Tell you what – forget a centre party – how about a common sense party. Forget the old Tory/ Labour stuff and let the 18 – 34 generation shape THEIR future.
We just need an unequivocal anti-austerity, anti-Neo-liberal party with a powerful, simple economic message that the public can understand. Simples!
Yes, that could work.
They could call it… oh, I don’t know…being social democrats and all, perhaps… the Social Democratic Party?
That’s a bit of a mouthful, so maybe best shorten it to the… SDP?
I can see a very bright future for it!
I envisage the new centre ground won’t be proper centre but broadly what the Tories are now as the current Tory set-up moves right and Labour decidedly entrenches into Corbynism hopefully working with the Greens. Out of that, the new soft(er)-Tory/New Labour pseudo-centre neoliberals will split the non-left vote with the evolved hard-Tories. Meaning progressive left politics with evolved Momentum/Greens can reap the benefit.
The problem is that you’d need about 30 parties, each designed to catch a particular group. You could do that in Europe but here ? Who would the Queen talk to?
Someone in the FT skewered Jeremy’s problem. Why he’ll never lead the country & why I never could (although I’ve never tried). Nothing to do with being too left wing. Most people in those ‘Brexit’ constituencies would, instinctively, agree with much of what he says, They certainly wouldn’t support the ghastly bleating of Liz Kendall that “nice people get nice things because they deserve them, nasty people get nasty things because they deserved them”. BUT, they do like a bit of patriotism. I couldn’t, in all conscience, sing the wretched lyrics to that foul tune, but if you can’t you won’t get the vote out in places like Sunthorpe, Hartlepool, Barnsley..
‘that foul tune’
As a musician I can confirm that the tune IS foul heaven knows why Beethoven wrote some variations on it, perhaps to improve it, or maybe in the late 18th/early 19th Century Britain was seen as the bastion of freedom compared to Germany/Austria.
You can listen to to it here:www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejD-ZAcNW0M
Much prefer his Ode to Joy myself.
Other than it’s misuse by the EU! Beethoven would not have supported the EU and its shysterocracy that has reduced so many countries to an economic shambles.
The Schiller Ode to Joy contains the words: ‘seid umschlungen Millionen’ meaning millions be embraced. The EU/IMF has embraced the ‘millions’ like a boa constrictor.
I’m a member of the Labour Party; though a very inactive one. I was at one stage a very active member when I lived in Leeds North West particularly in the period 1995-1997; handing out leaflets, knocking on doors. Of course you will know what happened in the 1997 election.
In 1997 I moved from Leeds to the Newcastle area and was a pretty inactive member till the Iraq war – after which I left in disgust.
I rejoined last year. To be honest I am really more a Green than a Labour person; but the Greens get nowhere in Northumberland. I am a person of the generic left and would vote tactically to oust a Tory (and the odious UKIP) candidate. I am pretty inactive.
I like Corbyn and his policies are definitely moving in the right direction. His leadership style appeals to me but he was very ineffective large at PMQ.
I do talk to other Labour party members; but a small number more from what might be described as the “Champagne Socialist” wing of the party. Theses are successful people used to either running or having senior positions in large organisations (NHS and University). Their belief is whereas there is nothing wrong with Corbyn’s policies and that he is an extremely nice man, there is nothing about him which spells leader and he has to be gotten rid of now as there could be a snap general election and we won’t have till 2020. “He looks like a shabby old man who you would give a fiver to on the street”. The wanted someone like Margaret Hodge and thought her performance as chair of the Public Accounts Committee was outstanding. (Can’t say I disagreed with that). At the end of the day they said that whoever was leader had to have the support of the shadow cabinet.
I didn’t have the chance to discuss economics; they were more Blairite than me. When I tried discussing Neoliberalism their eyes glazed over a bit. They had no answer for who if not Corbyn. They agreed than Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper had been very lack lustre in the previous campaign.
On another issue does anyone have any more knowledge of the opinion poll? I have seen another on which puts Labour at 63% remain (Lord Ashcroft). As Adam c asks geographical spread is very important for these polls and if there is insufficient sample size a larger than usual chance for the poll to be badly wrong.
Sean,
I’m probably not far from you in outlook and background and hopes, BUT – successful ‘champagne socialist’ types in comfortable senior positions in the NHS or university whose ‘eyes glaze over’ when you begin to talk about neoliberalism are not going to get us anywhere out of our present domestic social political mess. Read Mike Carter’s article in today’s Guardian. It’s not the point whose fault, historically, it is, but that we have to recognise this is the state of our divided society. The Brexit vote has brought us no nearer to a solution. It may (possibly) have brought us nearer to recognising the problem. There is no sign that either political party is going to get to grips with it. The regrouped Conservatives may just make it all worse. The Labour party has entirely wasted its time since Corbyn was elected and its present machinations – whatever the result- can do them no good. Maybe Corbyn doesn’t have the personal qualities to lead the party but he clearly represented a mood in the country and his party, which Labour should have been building on or working through. If the PLP had got stuck in behind him when he was overwhelmingly elected they could by now have been well on their way to working through policy positions and revealing where the talent lay, whether or not they were going to stick with Corbyn in the longer term. Someone else might have risen to eclipse him. On either hand we have paralytic political parties that cannot see beyond their noses and anyone who has an inkling of the problem buggers off to do something else. Meanwhile the nastiness in the country grows. Can you imagine Boris at the helm, Osborne clinging on to the gunnels and Farage lurking around the edges in the gloom?
Nicholas
I didn’t say I agreed with trying to get rid of Corbyn; just trying to help Richard in understanding the mindset. I agree with what you are saying. Thanks for the Mike Carter: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/liverpool-london-brexit-leave-eu-referendum
-its no better in a lot of the Nortumberland towns. Politicians have utterly failed these people.
“Boris at the helm, Osborne clinging on to the gunnels and Farage lurking around the edges in the gloom?” is a nightmare. I saw somewhere that the Gini Index had overtaken the US and was more like a tin pot dictatorship than a western democracy. We badly need a Left Wing government which will tackle the real issues
““He looks like a shabby old man who you would give a fiver to on the street”.
That is the sort of condescending bollocks you get from the middle-class I’m-alright-Jack Labour voter who has a few investments, probably a buy-to-let (buy-to-scrounge) property -I’ve met ’em. On an individual basis these are ‘nice’ people but they are part of the problem because they cannot see beyond the end of their noses and snubb ones at that.
The want the well turned out corporate image which has shown itself to be utterly bankrupt.
I’m disgusted with Hodge for what she has started off. The reason Jeremy is the right person:
1) he is counter-cultural and not one jot image based.
2) He’s not spin-doctored into a facade.
3) he doesn’t give a flying **** what the bog-roll press think -which is an essential quality if the siren-like pull of the manufacturers of the Overton Window are to be resisted.
4) There is no dissembling-we have the cultural shock of a real human being.
5) He will NOT be bought -there will be no revolving door for him after retirement;no after dinner speeches for £10,000 a time; no kissing the arse of big finance.
6) The IMMENSE dignity of a man who has remained clam and even tempered after months of DAILY onslaught by nearly ALL the press AND his own Party.
In short , this is the quiet revolution we need.
If Labour want to remain in shysterdom and champagne socialist land then they are 100% irrelevant zombies.
I found this article today from Bill Mitchell a useful (if quite lengthy) summary of where we are now, how we got here and what needs to be done (from a progressive left perspective)
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=33894#more-33894
That’s Bill on form, Keith, a good piece of writing. The quote from Pilger rings true to me:
“A nineteenth century contempt for countries and peoples, depending on their degree of colonial usefulness, remains a centrepiece of modern “globalisation”, with its perverse socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor: its freedom for capital and denial of freedom to labour; its perfidious politicians and politicised civil servants.
All this has now come home to Europe, enriching the likes of Tony Blair and impoverishing and disempowering millions. On 23 June, the British said no more.
The most effective propagandists of the “European ideal” have not been the far right, but an insufferably patrician class for whom metropolitan London is the United Kingdom. Its leading members see themselves as liberal, enlightened, cultivated tribunes of the 21st century zeitgeist, even “cool”. What they really are is a bourgeoisie with insatiable consumerist tastes and ancient instincts of their own superiority. In their house paper, the Guardian, they have gloated, day after day, at those who would even consider the EU profoundly undemocratic, a source of social injustice and a virulent extremism known as “neoliberalism”.
Although I don’t agree with him when he says: ‘British said no more.’ It’s not as informed a debate as that and not a decision that was taken with a high level of awareness due to the dumbed-down debate. Pilger is projecting here.
What we need now is not a new party, but a new politics.
The European Union was founded after the holocaust of two World Wars. Since then, it has delivered on its promises of relative peace, prosperity and security. The EU is the largest economy in the world. Yet the Brexit vote indicates a profound dissatisfaction with the way it has drifted, and that something has to change.
Europe needs a new vision for the future. The divisions within both the Labour and Conservative parties are signs that a new vision is trying to emerge, as the vying leadership contenders grapple with the thorny question of what this could be. I will not pronounce on the eventual outcome, but we can identify some general features to help us to recognise what it might look like.
In the first place, project Hate and project Fear have both failed. They must be resigned to the past. We must look to the future with hope. We must respect the dignity and rights of every human individual, although this may not extend to freedom of movement. Just how we control this is an open question, and related to the question of restrictions on the free movement of capital.
In the second place, to stand against project Hate and project Fear is a call to unity which transcends party political boundaries. Given that unity is what our main political parties sorely need, this call may be the rallying point that leads UK and Europe into the new era of politics. We must put aside our petty squabbles and divisions, and work together for the greater good of all.
In the third place, the death of Jo Cox is a reminder of that call to stand firm against hatred. Just as the old EU was founded to end the centuries of warfare that had split the continent, what we now need is an EU that will stand firm against the hatred that ruins the lives of innocent people. I sincerely pray that the legacy of Jo Cox may be foundation of a new Europe united against the evil that killed her.
In the fourth place, a call to unity means an end to opportunism. Politics has become the breeding ground of opportunism, when a party in power can enact policies in its favour to cement its own advantage. Democracy is the only way, but we have to be aware of its limitations. Those limitations became apparent in the latest referendum, when it is clear that hardly anyone really knew what they were voting for. True democracy requires transparent information and open debate, not scaremongering and manipulation.
In the fifth place, can we have confidence in our elected politicians to deliver this kind of new politics? They are all members of a party with their own personal biases and preferences. So unless we can find a breed of politician who is free from the temptations of ordinary mortals like the rest of us, we will continue to have to hold them to account in all the ways we can. But like the ballot box, none of these are perfect.
It is that lack of confidence which is affecting the Labour party now. The electorate do not have it, and neither do many Labour MP’s. They are looking for a scapegoat, and Jeremy Corbyn is the obvious candidate. But if he goes, how does his successor avoid the same fate? The only solution for the progressive parties is to begin the transition to the new politics, and there are two events which could provide a needed rallying cry of unity. First, is the death of Jo Cox. Second, is the vote for Leave. We must leave behind project Hate and project Fear, and take control of our politics for the good of the nation. That is what the British people want. The question of immigration is clearly at the top of people’s minds, and must be raised to the highest level, without becoming an emotionally charged issue.
In the sixth place, the Conservative government is struggling with party unity too. The last time a government was brought down by a motion of no confidence was 1979, after the winter of discontent that swept Margaret Thatcher to power. The motion was passed by a margin of 310 to 309, and would have been stopped had the Labour MP, Dr Broughton, not been ill and unable to attend the sitting.
Jo Cox was the successor of Dr Broughton in Batley and Spen. She made reference to this in her maiden speech to Parliament. The Conservative party, to their credit, are not contesting the by-election in her vacant seat. But would it not be a greater mark of respect were they to call for fresh elections, and usher in a new vision for the future, based on the kind of politics she stood for? It is the true test of whether they will put the unity of the country before the unity of their party. And whoever emerges as the victor will have an electoral mandate, to begin the work towards a new politics in a renewed Europe with a new vision for the twenty-first century.
‘Since then, it has delivered on its promises of relative peace, prosperity and security. ‘
That is too much of a claim in my view.
“Over the past 25 years, income inequality of OECD countries increased from 0.29 to 0.32 between the mid 1980s and late 2000s. This is a historic reversal amongst these countries, which since the Second World War seemed to progress towards more equal income distributions.” (see:http://inequalitywatch.eu/spip.php?article58&lang=en)
During the last ten years in particular we’ve have seen the rise of ultra right-wing parties and high levels of social division.
Agreed, the EU is far from perfect. Neoliberalism is the modern enemy that was fascism in the 30’s. That is why reform is urgently needed, and the vision to deliver it.
The current ‘Labour’ party is in fact a ‘covert coalition’ of a ‘natural’ ‘Old Labour’ party and a ‘natural’ ‘New Labour’ party. Approximately 10 million voters voted for the current ‘Labour covert coalition’ party in May 2015, and those who were trying to vote for what turned out to be the ‘wrong’ ‘natural’ party were disenfranchised. That is not democracy. The ‘honourable’ democratic response would be a split into a ‘natural’ ‘Old Labour’ party (which should choose a leader from the Old Labour ‘Big Beasts’) and a ‘natural’ ‘New Labour’ party (which should choose a leader from the New Labour ‘Big Beasts’). However, with the current dis-proportional voting system, both of those smaller ‘natural’ parties would be wiped out in terms of MPs. So, of course, the current ‘Labour covert coalition’ party has always resisted the idea of such a split out of venal self-interest.
Howver, whoever led a ‘Labour covert coalition’ party in 2020 would struggle to gain power and influence. The rise of the SNP and the UKIP parties, the Conservative boundary changes, and the fractured image of the ‘Labour covert coalition’ party will leave the field to a ‘coalition-chaos’ executive for a generation. Thus, the best that supporters of a ‘natural’ ‘Old Labour’ party and supporters of a ‘natural’ ‘New Labour’ party could hope from a general election in 2020 would be a fair and proportional (but non-dominant) share of power and influence over the (covert and/or overt coalition) Political Executive, so ‘honourable’ democrats in the current ‘Labour covert coalition’ party must now reconsider their position on proportional representation. They must consider the possibility of working with ‘honourable’ democrats in other parties in a campaign for ‘Optimised Democratic Governance’ (based on fully-proportional representation in the Representative Assembly holding the Political Executive to account), as a pre-requisite for a constructive split into a ‘natural’ ‘Old Labour’ party and a ‘natural’ ‘New Labour’ party.
Similarly, the current ‘Conservative’ party is in fact a ‘covert coalition’ of a ‘natural’ ‘Europhobe Conservative’ party and a ‘natural’ ‘Europhile Conservative’ party. Approximately 10 million voters voted for the current ‘Conservative covert coalition’ party in May 2015, and those who were trying to vote for what turned out to be the ‘wrong’ ‘natural’ party were disenfranchised. That is not democracy. The ‘honourable’ democratic response would be a split into a ‘natural’ ‘Europhobe Conservative’ party (which should choose a leader from the Europhobe Conservative ‘Big Beasts’) and a ‘natural’ ‘Europhile Conservative’ party (which should choose a leader from the Europhile Conservative ‘Big Beasts’). However, with the current dis-proportional voting system, both of those smaller ‘natural’ parties would be wiped out in terms of MPs. So, of course, the current ‘Conservative covert coalition’ party has always resisted the idea of such a split out of venal self-interest.
However, whoever led a ‘Conservative covert coalition’ party in 2020 would struggle to gain power and influence. The rise of the SNP and the UKIP parties, and the fractured image of the ‘Conservative covert coalition’ party will leave the field to a ‘coalition-chaos’ executive for a generation. Thus, the best that supporters of a ‘natural’ ‘Europhobe Conservative’ party and supporters of a ‘natural’ ‘Europhile Conservative’ party could hope from a general election in 2020 would be a fair and proportional (but non-dominant) share of power and influence over the (covert and/or overt coalition) Political Executive, so ‘honourable’ democrats in the ‘Conservative covert coalition’ party must now reconsider their position on proportional representation. They must consider the possibility of working with ‘honourable’ democrats in other parties in a campaign for ‘Optimised Democratic Governance’ (based on fully-proportional representation in the Representative Assembly holding the Political Executive to account), as a pre-requisite for a constructive split into a ‘natural’ ‘Europhobe Conservative’ party and a ‘natural’ ‘Europhile Conservative’ party.
That would be ‘Optimised Democratic Governance’. That would be worth registering and voting for.