Me, on Twitter this morning:
I wish I knew.
But I do know Labour is failing to give a voice those who oppose the Government.
And that is incredibly dangerous for the well-being of this country
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Young people are the only hope for getting the UK out of its rut. They’re fed up.
-Fed up with paying extortionate university fees, set in place by a generation that enjoyed free university education, with grants.
-Fed up with having to pay extortionate rents to private landlords, who very often are baby boomers.
-Fed up with having little hope of getting on the housing ladder. Guess who benefited from the housing price boom?
Fed up of having crap opportunities when leaving education because the economy is a total mess
-Fed up of being patronised by politicians who offer little except cuts, wars, restricted liberties and broken promises.
What we have witnessed over the past few decades is not just a transfer of wealth from poor to rich, but also from young to old. There is an intergenerational wealth transfer which is completely screwing over our young people and it is unsustainable and dangerous.
Young people do not vote in large numbers currently. Older people do. Older people get policies aimed at them, young people get ignored.
Any party that can produce pro-youth policies has a great chance of mobilising a mass of votes across the country that are currently not being cast. By supporting the youth you are not just engaging with young people but their parents as well – provide a message of hope for the next generation and it will be attractive to a wide audience. Scrapping student debt, cutting tuition fees (if not abolishing) providing generous state bursaries for training schemes, and a massive new social housing building programme (not like the pitiful efforts of recent years) could be enough to win an election.
No, not the only ones. If you make the mistake of saying so you’ll alienate a huge swathe of supporters who have been fighting these battles for longer than you have. That would be a grave mistake.
Demographically under FPP I see young people as being the only group that can bring about a change of government under current circumstances.
It appears they’re also fed up with voting which is , possibly, the reason the UK is where it is now, because while it is a fact most of the youth who bothered to vote, voted remain, a substantial number didn’t vote at all
Yes, it seems to me that Labour are trying to claw back voters that have gone over to UKIP rather than focus on the long term good of the country.
Considering the surge in younger labour members since the 2015 election, it’s not just odd it is an abrogation of Labour’s duty that young people have no oppositional voice. Caroline Lucas and Gary Linekar seem to be providing more opposition than Corbyn & McDonnell. And I say that as a Corbyn supporter, sadly. Much as I voted remain, is there no mileage in pursing a line of insisting on single market membership after we leave, at least, and selling that as labour’s message??
Much to agree with you on
One twitter comment seems apt to me –
“The Labour leadership has vacated the field of play over brexit and retreated to the safety of the clubhouse”
Corbyn is not only doing a grave disservice to his party, but seems intent on undermining the parliamentary process and failing completely in his role as leader of the opposition.
Shame on him.
Shame on THEM.
There are one or two still doing useful stuff and even some of the new ones who have been appointed by Corbyn have been pretty decent. However, they are all to blame. ALL of them.
Too many modern politicians are too self regarding these days and have forgotten what they are in Parliament to do. And it is not to be there playing ‘Who’s the King of Castle’ either.
Pathetic.
Keep up the good work Richard. The right are trying to manoeuvre us into a hostile Brexit , followed by a sweetheart deal with Trump. Their ability to do this depends on keeping Parliament out of things and getting an unconditional repeal of the European Communities Act.
The High Court has ruled that triggering Article 50 will repeal part of that Act. If the Supreme Court upholds this then no responsible MP can vote for it unless the House of Commons is guaranteed a final binding vote once the terms are known. This is basic democracy.
Labour should not be afraid of fighting for this. It is not obstructing the referendum result – it is seeking to ensure that the promises made to the British people during the referendum are upheld.
Keith
Going in with Trump would be a disaster. Good article from Robert Reich today (UC Berkley). On why California is doing so well and states like Texas and Kansas doing so badly.
http://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-california-trumpland-nemesis-524127
“Labour should not be afraid of fighting for this. It is not obstructing the referendum result — it is seeking to ensure that the promises made to the British people during the referendum are upheld.”
The promises made to the British people during the referendum by the leave side are impossible to uphold.
FWIW, I’m (just about) in the “younger” category. I paid £20 to vote for Corbyn to remain.
I think this was the right decision at the time. Firstly, because the timing and nature of the attempted coup was reprehensible. I wouldn’t support it on principle. Secondly, because bolstering the neoliberal wing of the Labour party would later be disastrous (e.g. as shown by the recent destruction of the Democrats in the US).
I now think Corbyn/McDonnell should get out of the way. There are two unforced errors which make this necessary.
1. Abandonment of Green/People’s QE. There is no coherent economic policy to fill the vacuum.
2. Failure to oppose Brexit. This might initially have been a strategic move, to stave of voter loss to UKIP. But, now that UKIP has mounted a reverse takeover of the Conservatives, it’s no longer necessary.
The future under Corbyn/McDonnell looks little better than under the Tories. They’d exit the EU, and would struggle to implement even a weak redistributive programme. The short- and medium-term economic downsides of leaving the EU under Labour would be comparably bad as they would be under the Tories (that is, very bad).
A Corbyn/McDonnell government would be preferable to what we’ve got, but only mildly in comparison to what we could have (stay in EU, implement Green QE). It also has near zero chance of happening as currently promoted.
I’d like Corbyn/McDonnell to pass on the baton (I’m aware of the lack of credible candidates) to someone who could build a cross-party alliance to oppose Tories/Brexit/Austerity/neo-Fascism. I’m fairly stunned that they aren’t able to offer effective opposition themselves.
Thank you
Richard, what are your views on FPTP. I came to this conversation quite late but it seems to me that a lot of the current problems in the Labour party are caused by their need to fit into the FPTP voting system.
Someone above mentioned the Labour seems to be scared, probably with some justification, about losing seats in the north and welsh valleys to UKIP if they oppose Brexit. A 10-20% loss of votes in these areas may be enough to lose the seat under FPTP, spread across the country this might lead to a 30% loss of seats for a much smaller %age loss of votes. Under some form of PR this loss of votes would have a proportionate loss of seats in Parliament but this may be made up from, say, Tory remain voters in other areas of the country.
Another point raised in this thread was about younger people not voting. I think that FPTP was responsible for the rise of New Labour as Old Labour were unelectable at that time under FPTP (now we see the Blairite/Corbynite schism tearing Labour apart as they try to be the “big tent” party that FPTP enforces according to Duverger’s Law). New Labour carried on policies that someone else mentioned in this thread, leading to tuition fees, increasing housing costs, not enough done to replace industries affected by the Thatcher years etc (leading to the much discussed “Left Behind” and comfortable baby boomers). I think young people will be more inclined to vote if they feel they have a chance of their voice being heard – no safe seats, no tactical voting. Corbyn has attracted young voters, as has Bernie Sanders in the US, but their chances of being elected under FPTP are minimal as this system is only interested in the votes of swing voters in marginal seats (or States), estimated to be only half a million in 2010.
FPTP has to go
I prefer STV in multi-member (between 5 and ten members) per constituency
Most people will get a member to represent them that way
Surely that is what democracy demands?
agree 100%
It is the silence that I find puzzling sure – Corbyn goes through the motions in the HoP – but apart from that one hears little in the media from them, no plans, no “opposition”.
I’m a boomer. I’ve worked hard for what I’ve achieved in life, which isn’t much but it’s been quite enough to make me comfortable. I’ve been lucky and frankly, when I look around me I feel a bit guilty about it. I doubt that I’m the only boomer who feels that way.
I am fairly confident that the reason the main political parties target the middle aged and above is that they tend to vote. Unless they are in the obsessive minority or driven to the polling station by their parents, the young tend not to.
I’m not young so I don’t know why they don’t vote but if I had to guess, I’d guess that they cannot see anyone worth voting for. Both of the major parties are beyond redemption and the others stand no chance of getting into office unless there’s a hung parliament and even then they’ll just be Smithers to Mr Burns.
In my dreams there’s a Progressive Alliance made up of Green, Lib-Dem, non-feudal Tory and non-Corbynista Labour MPs that come together to form a government for
– the future, not the past,
– the people, not the vested interests and
– the good, not the convenient.
A government that is both practical and compassionate, that genuinely (not theoretically) wants to give everyone the chance to make what they can of their lives, that looks after those who need help in doing so, that wants to get on with our neighbours, that builds bridges not walls and that invests in the country’s human as well as physical capital.
That might get the young out to vote. Some boomers might too. I would.
We’re still allowed to dream, aren’t we.
I share your dream
My other (better) half paid £20 too (she is 53, I am 51 in December) to vote for Corbyn and still thinks that he is preferable to others on offer. I admire her courage. My kids like him too. May looks like some sort of nightmare severe headmistress to them. And even they can see Farage for what he really is.
I count myself as young person because that is how I feel (despite my aching knees and how bits of me I never knew existed are still wobbling when I’ve just finished dancing these days).
And all I see in Labour is a bunch of people who will not work with each other because their internal/personal politics means more to them than the wider political environment. Many of them make me feel embarrassed to be middle aged to be honest (as much as Trump makes me feel embarrased to be a male of the species). Some of the more sensible responses have come from the younger MPs.
Not only are Labour caged by their own internecine disagreements but they are also not helped by a cynical and predatory MSM.
Even if they were to argue to remain and fight BREXIT they would be torn to pieces. As Jolyon Maugham has pointed out, Labour are cowed to populist sentiment but which large party isn’t at the moment?
The key is for Labour to put US before themselves and work together and accommodate each other and start from there. That is what good teams do. And note my emphasis on the collective and not the individual.
As an aside, a doctor I know says if you are over 40 and don’t ache somewhere when you get up you should check that you are still alive
Are you advocating a voting system where the votes of young people carry more weight?
I am a fan of one person one vote all carrying the same weight. Your reference to the remain vote and democracy sounds like a combination of sour-grapes whining and pathetic pandering to curry favour among the young.
No
It was a comment on politics failing young people
I voted remain, but I have to respect the vote, so forgive me if I have misunderstood, but did I not see Kier Starmer stand up in parliament for Labour saying that Labour would not seek to go against the democratic vote for Brexit, but would seek that parliament should have the right to ratify or not, by vote’ on the terms of the withdrawal?
Personally I think this is reasonable stance, and taking the Orange Bookers view that the Brexit vote result should be ignored, is frankly undemocratic.
Secondly I do recall, in the Independent, that Jeremy Corbyn stated that it was Labour policy that being in the single market was one of the conditions for Labour support of any leaving terms.Again I think this is doing something reasonable, but maybe I should stop reading the Independent?
Meanwhile the march of Farage/UKIP and the growing disintegration of the Tories quietly passes. Regards to a good blog.
What is undemocratic about saying a decision is wrong?
That’s what the losers in democracy are tasked with Doung all the time
And every party out of power is also tasked with saying the electorate were wrong and need to change their behaviour
Can we be realistic in this?
The current argument is that a vote on a day is definitive
In a democracy that is not true
Quite so.
And, although I cannot find the link I’ve seen evidence that suggests Remain would now win.
I’d certainly suggest that the young are owed the right to remain.
And especially when leaving will dominate their future lives.
Talk about paying the price of the follies of previous generations.
Andy F
I am working my way through “The Courageous State” at the moment. Really though provoking. I read this blog every week but it’s the first time I have posted.
I am will not renew my membership of the Labour party. I have been a member for 40 years but the party these days is dominated by 20-30 year old professional miltants who appear to have made a career out of aggressive ‘socialism’ and the suppression of free speech.
Meetings are being increasingly manipulated and anyone who dares to speak up with any ‘off message’ view is branded a class traitor a Corbyn hater a Blairite (untrue but this appears to be the worst insult they can hurl) and told to f*ck off to the Tories. It is no longer the party I joined.
I was recently accused of being an “establishment elite” because I have two sons at university ! Wow there must be an awful lot of elites in this country.
The party has lost its way completely over Brexit. I agree that its focus appears to be on winning over UKIP voters from the North who are characterised as the forgotten “working class”, so Brexit now appears to be “official policy” pursued aggressively by the militant entryists because ‘big capital’ wants to remain, so remain must defacto be capitalist and wrong. They appear to hate Keir Starmer firstly because he is a remainer and secondly, I suspect, because his leadership abilities are showing.
I don’t quite know how the party are going to square pro- immigration policies, which Corbyn supports, with this stance, and win over UKIP voters which may explain the reason for the silence and confusion.
My two sons feel utterly betrayed by Labour and a straw poll at their student houses seems to confirm that their friends feel the same. I keep being told of the huge growth in the party membership and that this means a shoo-in for Corbyn in 2020. Even if I thought that were true (which I don’t), I question the extent to which it will retain this membership over the next few years given its continued inability to offer any viable opposition or vision and its almost complete marginalisation of the young. People like me are already drifting away and the young and idealistic may well follow if the party offers them nothing but empty rhetoric and militant theory. Inwardly I just feel despair.
Thanks for the kind comments on the book
Re Labour, all I can say is you are not alone
I am not sure if I was amused or not to have John McDonnell and the Labour treasury team walk by me this afternoon and completely ignore me
You are in or out
“You are in or out”
That is the behavoiur of a cult – not a serious political party. Whatever happened to “Big Tent” politics?
If only Caroline Lucas could lead the Labour Party
I much enjoyed seeing her today
She is great
We had fun presenting the Green New Deal on LBC, wholly unscripted
Andy
I share your frustration. I was a very active Labour member for many years but left the Labour party on disgust after the Iraq invasion. I only rejoined last year – to leave again in disgust with Brexit – and the Corbyn/McDonnell team. I could go on.
The vilification of Blair is extraordinary. Blair made a huge mistake over the Iraq war, but the domestic running of the country was vastly better than the proceeding 18 years. Continuing Major’s PFI was a mistake and with 20/20 hindsight he should have denounced neoliberalism for what it was. He could however win elections. I remember how grim the Michael Foot years were; and the 1992 election.
As Bismark said “Politics is the art of the possible”. In 1997 I hoped I would never see a Tory government in my lifetime – sadly it now looks as if we will have nothing but.
By the way, I consider that the function of the opposition is to always criticise rather than always oppose.