I posted this poll on Twitter yesterday morning:
I do, of course, accept that my Twitter following is not representative. It is bound to have a left-of-centre bias. But that makes this more relevant. What that makes clear is that amongst those who are left of centre, what Starmer is doing is deeply unpopular.
We know that Starmer is chasing swing voters on the right. That, though, makes no sense either. There are none left to be had when latest polls look like this:
There is no margin left for Labour to take there.
In that case what is Labour playing at? As Aditya Chakrabortty said in a Guradian email this morning:
Two weeks ago, Jeremy Hunt came out with plans which everyone credible says are simply not going to happen. And Rachel Reeves says, I'm going to accept all of it anyway. This feels a bit like handing your worst enemy your wallet, and asking them to count your money.
That's how insane what Labour is doing is.
And Labour is leading in the polls.
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For me, the shift to Labour is merely that people have had enough of the Tories – nothing more. Labour could be fielding Mickey Mouse as the shadow PM and they’d still get in. So much for our sophisticated electorate. I fear that there is not much engagement with the ‘detail’ in Labour’s response. This was the same response from the British public in 2010 and look where that got us?
What I saw in the Guardian this morning was Larry Elliott’s piece:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/brexit-disaster-rejoining-channel-europe-economy
I’m really not happy with Larry on this one to be honest but he has a a point.
I have never hidden the fact that Larry and I are friends.
I have sunk more than a glass discussing Brexit with him.
I remain completely baffled by his position.
Friends can disagree. I think he is wrong on this.
I think that you are right about his view being that the EU is Neo-liberal, hence this piece.
But what he seems to ignore is that in the case of the UK, Neo-liberalism begins at home.
I don’t agree with Larry Elliott on Brexit – but it should be compulsory reading.
Most Brexiteers are coming from a “right of centre tribe” that I profoundly disagree with on many (all?) issues – when it comes from some one in “my tribe” it is essential reading.
His point about Europe not being in great shape IS valid… but he takes too rosy a view of the UK!
Larry is only able to make his point (the EU’s got problems too) by treating Brexit as if it were over, done, when the reality is that the import controls central to our (supposedly) new (at the time of leaving) relationship with the EU, axioms of Brexit, have yet to be introduced. The new order has yet to be put in place. Let’s see how former and present Leavers feel when there’s only one shared basket of food to go round & the UK is on the outside of the sharing, forced to turn only to the meagre & insufficient provisions our beleaguered farmers have been able to produce. Storms are a-coming and we need the shelter of the EU. I don’t know what rejoining will do to Sunak’s SEZs though – will ISDS be implemented to loot the nation? If so we need to get out of that daft Pacific treaty first.
For those that think that the Uk might be able to rejoin, the official history of the European Commission 1956 to 1972 (note the word “official”) notes on the last page that in retrospect it was a mistake to allow the Uk to join the the “Common Market”. I agree with that point of view. The totality of the Commission will oppose the UK rejoining – any time in the foreseeable future. Von Der Leyen is not the Commission btw.
I also agree with the main thrust of Elliot’s article.
I will also draw readers attention to Thatchers very last apperance in the HoC. This is what she said (in response to somebody saying – “you should be the ECB governor”) & I 100% agree:
“I had not thought of it. But if I were governor of the ECB, there would be no ECB accountable to no one, least of all to national parliaments. Because under that kind of central bank there will be no democracy, and the central bank will be taking powers away from every single parliament and be able to have a single currency and a monetary policy and an interest rate policy that takes away from us all political power”.
In a previous post PSR noted – Merkel looted Deutsche Bahn to the tune of Euro200bn – this was to keep debt down – all to keep the ECB happy due to wholly arbitrary rules. For the UK to rejoin given the wholly undemocratic nature of ECB governance would be a disaster. It is bad enough that the BoE gets away with what it does – but at least there is some possibility of change. Try that with the ECB and the banking penumbra that surrounds it. & yes I still loath Thatcher & all she stood for – but I don’t confuse messages with messengers.
Larry has a friend here.
I think we will return – but it will be a long time coming and the EU will have been transformed – because unless existing governance structures are it will not survive – and nor will we.
Because the UK wasn’t in the Euro (hence the ECB) it had some ideological leverage but it blew it because moron UK politicians across the whole political spectrum couldn’t be arsed to do any homework which would have revealed sovereign governments can create their own spending money from thin air!
I think that Larry’s worries about the Neo-liberalism in the ECB are well founded and his ‘get out of jail card’ so to speak.
So, upon further reflection Larry can be forgiven in my view.
Your quote from Thatcher Mike further amplifies Richard’s defence.
Agreed.
Regular readers will, perhaps, know that I have been a Keir Starmer “apologist” – always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his continual tack to the right was all in the name of winning the election and that we should judge by his actions when in power.
Whether you agree with me or not, it is not a ridiculous position…. but it does become ridiculous if the strategy in not actually winning over voters. His first step to the right almost certainly won over floating voters, perhaps his second and third, too. But each step has diminishing returns. The right wing vote is now pretty “hard core” and he can say anything and not win over their vote (because they won’t believe him). On the left there may be “nowhere to go” but many will stay at home/vote Green (if the pages of this blog are anything to go by).
I can accept electoral posturing to quite a great degree as the price of removing the Tories… but not when it is counter productive.
He has gone past the point of diminishing marginal returns
My apologies, I didn’t read the comments – I was so enraged with Larry’s piece (even though I know he is/was a leaver) – I just wrote!
Apologies.
I don’t agree with him!
We can still share a drink though
Clive sorry to say you’ve allowed yourself to be boxed in by a conundrum. The history of the Labour Party except for a few years after the Second World War has revealed itself to be intellectually lacking despite a propaganda effort to portray itself as wearing its heart on its sleeve. This is a lacklustre party that consistently fails over the long term to combine the two.
So sad Starmer has turned the Labour Party into the Waffle Party. There’s just no credibility in anything he says because it all flows from his lazy ignorance in believing the Neoliberal lie the UK government has no money creation powers of its own! If he genuinely wanted a fairer Britain he’d be leaving no stone unturned in trying to achieve this and clearly this is not what he’s doing, in fact just the opposite!
Richard, have you read Larry Elliott’s piece in today’s Guardian claiming that leaving the EU actually had many economic benefits? I think it is something that Larry Elliott – a leaver himself – self selecting.
Any thoughts?
Search the comments here
I have already answered the point
Apologies – I put my apology in the wrong reply box!
I know Larry Elliot is your friend Richard but his Guardian article today is so Neoliberal. He fails to see that the Neoliberal austerity ideology holding back the major EU economies is the same as the one that has held back and deteriorated the UK economy! Larry’s article is just lazy waffle like Starmer’s!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/brexit-disaster-rejoining-channel-europe-economy
I have always thought that Larry Elliot was a Brexiter because he thought we were stuck with neo-liberalism as long as we were members. The article does make this point, not very strongly, and does not say that we seem to be just as stuck in the UK. I guess he was hoping for different politics?
He has always been pro Brexit necause he thinks the EU is neoliberal
I make a point of reading Larry Elliot, without always agreeing with him, eg today.
His logic is not coherent, as he says one of the reasons the EU is not doing well is ‘the adherence to neoliberal economic ideas– such as tough controls on the size of budget deficits’, but does not mention the UK is in the same position.
Then he says if the polls are correct ‘the next election will be won by a party of the centre-left rather than a party of the extreme right’ and ‘the UK has not witnessed the rise of the nasty nationalism seen across the Channel’.
Not sure about either of these.
I think he is wrong about Labour and fails to acknowledge the massive wing to the right here.
We all have off days.
This is one of Larry’s.
At least Larry Elliott in his piece acknowledged ‘extra red tape’ (for smaller businesses), and at the end the prospect of re-joining in the future (of it being a ‘long haul’, which most re-joiners are well aware of).
This is an important end to his article, as leaving the EU was supposed to be the end of it – that’s it decision made – there’s no going back.
In more stable and coherent countries, there would never be polling as to whether a country wants to break up – I’m yet to see the end of polling for Scottish and Welsh independence or Irish reunification. And whether to join or stay out of/get closer or more distant to the world’s largest trade block on our doorstep, will be a question as long as the geological and geographical realities of the UK (or what remains of it) remain (Eurosceptics have never figured out how to change plate tectonics!).
He’s not looking to court tory voters, that’s just the excuse ascribed by political commentators looking to make sense of his actions.
His mission is to drive the Labour party as far right as the polls will allow (still more to go here, apparently) and to offer the electorate nothing for the next GE.
One thing should be clear to Labour is the support they have in the polls right now is not saying give us more of what the Tories have been doing for the last 13 years and for 31 out of the last 44 years. If Labour get elected and then want a second term, they are going to have to show that they are doing something different. If they fail to do that they will at some point face their own electoral challenge because those that voted for them because “they are not the Tories” will then say, “they are just as bad”. They won’t vote for them again. Then there is Labour’s traditional support. Their alienation could lead to them looking elsewhere. Under FPTP, Labour should know what that means. They experienced it when the SDP broke away.
I think there are many people looking for a political home now who would not vote for current Labour, assuming the Starmer/Reeves policies, if we had PR. Our democracy does not give us a genuine choice. I’m inclined to vote Labour if it gets the Tories out, but I’m not voting for them because of what Starmer stands for. For a start, I think the commitment to iron clad fiscal rules at some point in a Starmer Government will result in a crisis. It is inevitable. If Labour then drop them, the Tory media will wipe the floor with them. If they stick to it, then we get austerity 3 and the electorate will wipe the floor with them. Unfortunately, this is what FPTP democracy has become. The choice being the lesser of two evils, but both are pretty evil.
I hope Starmer’s Labour prove me wrong, that they are playing the electoral game to get elected, but I doubt it. All opinion polls that I’ve seen suggest that the traditional areas which you would expect Labour to support strongly, the NHS, education, housing, public ownership of key utilities like water, gas, electricity, the national grid, public transport, etc, now have strong, steady support. Despite this, Starmer’s Labour seem to only want to appeal to that small segment of Tory support in middle England. He runs the risk of getting things very wrong and it will damage Labour at some point and let back in whatever Tory right wing beast emerges after the next election.
One increasingly gets the impression politics just isn’t Starmer’s thing. This is something which, given his position, creates problems for us all.
Wages in France, Germany the Netherlands and elsewhere in the EU can be 25% or so above the UK’s level, which is a critical factor but whether we are in or out of the EU won’t make much difference as the anti-trade unions’ laws in the UK have almost destroyed workers bargaining power and UK employers are more bothered about paying dividends and themselves before paying decent. wages. I didn’t understand Elliot’s point about the big tech companies being monopolised by the US and China and how this affects economies in either the EU or the UK. Luckily we don’t have extreme right parties gaining ground in the UK but there are extreme rightwingers in the wings like Farage and Robinson waiting to pounce and exploit social tensions.
I think we have got extreme right parties.
…the current Conservative Party.