Labour's continuing inability to manage candidate selection for forthcoming elections, despite Keir Starmer's seemingly fetishistic demand for control of this process, gives rise to an obvious question. Might it be that we have now witnessed peak Labour?
To put this another way, is it possible that the electorate, having seen that our official Opposition seems nearly as incompetent as the government that they wish to replace, might react by voting for anyone but the two usual culprits that most usually opt for? Alternatively, might they simply not vote at all?
Both possibilities have to be considered, although we cannot, of course, know the answer as yet, even if the results of by-elections being held today might provide some clues.
If peak Labour has happened, the welcome news might be that we will be saved the prospect of a landslide victory for Labour. If that genuinely awful prospect, given the policies that Rachel Reeves is promoting, is avoided, it might just be that we should all be truly grateful for Starmer's current displays of dithering incompetence. Whilst I am quite sure that this country cannot afford another Conservative government, I am equally sure that a substantial Labour majority would also be prejudicial to the well-being of a majority of people in the UK as a whole.
The potential beneficiaries of Labour's failure might be the LibDems Dems in some of England and Wales, the SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in parts of Wales and Reform, although I continue to believe that they will take most votes from the Conservatives. The result could be a complete electoral mess, with many candidates being returned in our first-past-the-post system with remarkably small proportions of the overall vote, discrediting the election as a whole as a consequence.
However, if that created the momentum for electoral reform this might deliver what has always been said to be the outcome of UK general elections, which is the government that we deserve, albeit that, in this case, that might be the one to sweep away our sham democracy.
Will mass abstention achieve the same outcome? It is hard to tell, not least because the Tories have already so significantly gerrymandered the electoral system in their favour. As a result, it is already hard to know what proportion of those who say that they might vote Labour will actually turn out to vote, or be allowed to vote when they arrive at a polling station. Overall, however, given Tory abstentions are already likely to be high because many hard-core party supporters might not be able to bring themselves to vote for anyone else but cannot face any more of the fiasco that the Party has delivered in recent years, the situation that I note above might well be replicated in this mass abstention situation. We just have to hope that is the case and that no party from the far-right succeeds in exploiting this situation for their gain.
If my analysis sounds uncertain as to its conclusions, that is appropriate. From seemingly having a general election win almost safely secured, Starmer now appears to be doing his best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. That might put him alongside Neil Kinnock in the Labour pantheon of failure. For the rest of us, this might be good news. I can live in hope.
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My hope is that new people put themselves up for election as Independents and fight a local campaign to represent their community in Parliament.
We need fresh thinking, solution-seeking thinking, party-agnostic thinking.
Actually, that doesn’t work all that well in practice. What you describe is how the island of Jersey has been governed for many decades, and it is also what is wrong with Jersey politics
opponents can end up in La Moye -the prison
I think what we need is a re-set.
Getting a substantial number of unaligned Independent thinkers into Parliament seems to me to be the most achievable way of getting a change in this current Election.
Jersey does not set a good example for that
Starmer clearly economically and morally ignorant on at least two main issues Israel/Gaza Conflict and Climate Change. Even worse can’t link the the two together which any thoughtful individual would. The best anyone could hope for is that if Labour do get into office the party gets rid of Starmer and Reeves as quickly as possible for more competent ministers but not a lot of possibility that will be on the cards. The party seems in terminal decline in regard to its relevance for solving the country’s problems.
Thank you.
If the candidates getting selected and the wannabes I come across in the City are any guide, the next generation or two are a continuation of Streeting, Falconer, Tufnell (whose family parcelled and developed their eponymous London estate and now have their Cotswolds and Pembrokeshire estates only).
Mr Schofield, I agree with your sentiments – but “get rid of Starmer & Reeves asap”……..deeply unlikely given the “adjustments” made post Corbyn. That said, when in office will Reeves challenge Truss for the title of Mrs Lettuce? Hmm.
Perhaps what is needed is AATLINO.. An Alternative to LINO. People could stand as candidates under this & provided they offered clear alternatives to the TCP (Tory Continuity Party) they would stand a chance. That said, perhaps this is all far too late, but what is clear is that while Labour under Corbyn was a bit disorganised & was slow to address anti-semitism, overall they appeared a paragon of ethics and organisation compared to the current bunch of flip-flops.
@ Mike Parr
Indeed I simply view the current Labour Party under Starmer now as an ethics free zone. If you don’t understand the importance of ethics or rather caring for others then you clearly don’t understand how deeply this is embedded in life itself (research hologenomics for example)!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hologenomics
We have an alternative to LINO – The Green Party. The modest green votes in the two by-elections show just how hard it is to create such a thing and win.
It’s worth noting that Sir Keir Starmer has called for a ceasefire. There are many ceasefire options on the table, and the one the LOTO has called for is the one Hamas supporters don’t want to talk about. To say Sir Keir does not want peace in that region is a lie.
His peace seems to be one that requires the Palestinians leave Gaza to me
Agreed – I feel the same – Starmer wants peace with the Palestinians out and away and he is as blind to the plight of their hardships under Israeli rule as he has become blind to the hardships visited upon his fellow Englishmen by his love affair with the market.
I think 99.5% of us want peace in Israel. But how do we get there? Is there a picture of 2 state solution. What is the road map? Since none of this is communicated, I have to assume that such plans do not exist.
I could be wrong and that they do exist. However, this would be evidence of an even greater problem. That the political mechanism of the labour party are opaque to me. I can’t infer their policy because I don’t understand the language that they are speaking. They are foreign to me. It would be absolutely terrible if this was true.
Well done Richard, you have finally attracted the attention of the genocidal PR machine. Incoming accusations of antisemitism from client agencies such as CST guaranteed.
I suspect so
I apologize for my ignorance, but what is the LOTO?
Leader of the Opposition
There is an Opposition?
Um, what – exactly – do they oppose………………………………………?
Much agreed.
There has been some debate with pollsters and political scientists over the last week, as to how much real attention is being made to the inside dealings of political parties – in that the majority of people only take real detailed notice of politics and political parties just before they vote. In other words the fine details and minutiae of following politics are left to those of us who follow it very closely from day to day.
This may help Labour in the election (whenever it is this year) as the polls are suggesting a healthy lead, but it may lead to a loss in Rochdale.
I noticed that Richard, like so many others, has not mentioned ‘the Invisible Party’ the Greens. Please don’t write us off, as we have not evaporated and right now, we are the only truly democratic Socialist Party with a strong Green agenda. I worry that many of the well-established left-wing Labour MPs, those already kicked out by Starmer plus those he has yet to target and exclude, will run individually as Independants without any party affiliation. This will facilitate their being totally ignored by the UK media. However, these MPs would gain collective political clout by running as either ‘Independant and Green’ or ‘Socialist and Green’.
Perhaps the most powerful tool to finally extinguish the toxic dictatorship of Starmer would be a strong candidate prepared to run against him in his own constituency. Well blow me if just such a character hasn’t already signed up for the challenge as reported on Skwawkbox: “OCISA selects candidate to fight for Labour leader’s seat at next parliamentary election” They highlight “Andrew Feinstein speaking at the ‘Stop Starmer’ initiative in London’s Conway Hall last year”. Who knew there was an official ‘Stop Starmer Initiative’? Here is the title of the Skwawkbox article: “Jewish former S African MP Feinstein will stand against Starmer in Holborn St Pancras”.
So for those unfamiliar with OCISA or Feinstein: The OCISA group formed with the aim of ousting so-called ‘Labour leader’ Keir Starmer has selected Corruption Watch UK director Andrew Feinstein, a Jewish former South African MP and adviser to Nelson Mandela, to stand against Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras in the next general election. Feinstein now lives in the seat.
Feinstein. the son of Holocaust survivors, has a long record of substance and principle that stands in stark contrast to his ‘broken every promise’ opponent, Feinstein has also consistently stood against Israel’s apartheid and genocide in Gaza, arguing that the same tactics his ANC party in South Africa used to bring down apartheid there must be used against Israel and pointing his social media followers to information about Israel’s slaughter of innocents.
Please Richard don’t write off the only truly Socialist, pro-environment Green Party or the fiercely competitive Independants who are stepping up to the challenge of ridding the UK of poverty, climate ignorance, and incompetence. We just need to encourage these courageous individuals to coalesce under one obvious Socialist banner so that they are not collectively marginalized into extinction.
The Greens still have dire economic policies. Sorry, but that’s a fact.
Feinstein looks t9o be very good.
I am alarmed that you feel so negatively towards the Green Party. Please bear in mind that it would not be possible for any radical economic policies to be included in the Green Party Manifesto unless they were selected and democratically approved by the party members in a vote. The Green Party remains fiercely anti-war, anti-austerity, pro-public ownership of utilities and public transport as well as the first party to fully support the Green New Deal.
Neither one of the party leaders, nor Molly Scott-Cato, can dictate Green Party economic policy in the same way that other political party leaders can. Anyway, I sincerely doubt that the Green Party will gain a commanding position in parliament to implement such policies given our FPTP voting system. I hope you will continue communicating with the top team as I still believe the Greens are your best hope of a vital breakthrough in fiscal common sense.
I would find it hard to vote Green right now so bad is their economic policy.
I have made that clear here before.
Molly and I have discussed the issue.
Will you please do a review of Green economic policies and outline why you think they are so dire.?
It seems the Donut and Post Keynesianism underpin most of the published policies.
I would imagine you would endorse both these sets of broad principles.
I can appreciate that UBI is contentious, but a critque by you would be most welcome, and probably very helpful to intending Green voters.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/07/07/the-green-partys-policy-on-money-and-so-on-the-economy-is-a-work-of-econimic-fantasy/
The only possible way forward for me is for the those of us like me who will not vote to become more politically active or mobilised in some way.
A march on Parliament by FPTP ‘refuseniks’ demanding to be heard in our democracy would be an interesting spectacle – we could claim to be feeling not properly represented.
We need to raise the profile of those of us who want more social justice. The day of the swing voter has to end.
I am an active member of the Labour party and knock on doors, canvassing. There is a great deal of disenchantment with politics in general, to the extent that people are saying they just won’t vote. This isn’t apathy as such, but active disengagement. When they say this I do encourage them to vote, but to spoil their paper by writing None of the Above or similar. At least they are sending some sort of message.
And no, I don’t like everything the Labour Party says and does, but I don’t dislike them as much as the Tories!
Used to be an active member of the labour party, but no longer. However, I tell those who say they will not vote to vote Green. It’s not such a wasted vote as saying none of the above, and we might even get more Green Party MPs.
I was on weownit at lunchtime and their pledge to save the NHS has more green party candidates signing up for it than any other party.
If you want to know what is happening in your own constituency My Society has a new website called Local Intelligence.
https://www.localintelligencehub.com/?utm_source=mailout&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=launch
I found your ‘Local Intelligence Hub’ link very informative. While I knew we had a majority younger population due to the students, other statistics were not as I expected. As a Green I was encouraged to see above average support for environmental issues. However, I was unaware of how deprived Oxford East was, with more people impacted by the economic crisis than the UK average. In hindsight I should not be surprised by this, with so many Tory policies negatively targeting young people. I strongly support reminding students to register to vote in time, no matter who they support.
Last night BBC4 about Nazi rise in 1933 such a chilling thought that much of what they did in a few months – to abolishi democracy has been done here but in a more gradual and subtle way. Our constitution so disfunctional cant see how FPTP would ever be abolished.
We have a UK Constitution? Wow! I thought we had a loose collection of supposed conventions based on the political writings of a few individuals which can, and are, routinely ignored when a government has a commanding majority in the Commons. Breaking international law and ignoring international treaties are just two of the instances we’ve seen in recent times, but one that is consistently deployed and rarely given much attention by the UK MSM is the countermanding of laws passed legitimately within its designated powers by the Scottish Government (for instance the banning of the recycling of glass in Scotland while approving it for Wales can only be construed as blatant political mischief-making by the Tories).
I think the forthcoming General Election in the devolved nations is more likely to show increased interest in secession from the UK and a corresponding reduction in support for Tories and Labour. And why not? I’ve been banging on about the impossibility of Scotland making a bigger hash of our own governance than we’ve witnessed from successive Tory and Labour Gov’ts, especially in the last 20 years. Increasingly that goes for N Ireland and Wales too, such has been the astonishing incompetence of recent Tory Gov’ts: a PM who has no conception of truth or morals, the current PM whom nobody believes (likewise Starmer the potential successor to his job), Truss (no explanation required) and a throng of Ministers blessed only by ignorance: Raab unable to return to work at the height of tha Afghanistan crisis as ” the sea was closed”; a Minister who was surprised to find that Dover is the lynchpin for imports from the EU; a Transport Minister who issued a huge contract to a “shipping company” which had no ships and which proposed to use a port which was too small for the scale of the contract; the cabal of Ministers who issued PPE contracts to pals (cf the Baroness of Mayfair scandal); the list goes on and on. On these grounds, I suspect the devolved nations ae more likely to demonstrate their distrust and rejection of UK governance as it stands.
I have watched two Channel 4 interviews with Scottish and Welsh Health Service ministers focussing on failing performance and not once has the issue of background Tory defunding and austerity been mentioned. Not once.
And the ministers answering the questions never alluded to it either which surprised me.
Mark Drakeford did and he is gone. So what gives?
It is bizarre, isn’t
They are so keen to pretend they have power that they won’t state the bleedin’ obvious truth.
PSR,
The Scottish Ministers do mention it from time to time, bt the News Agenda in Scotland is driven by generally pro-Unionist, pro-Conservative Press/Media; combined with a lead Scottish Conservative Opposition in Holyrood, which effectively sets the Agenda, and crucially both the Scottish Conservatives and Press/Media have decided that for all day-to-day political intents and purposes Scotland is already, effectively independent. When Scottish Ministers mention Austerity or Westminster funding, the standard Scottish Conservative response, backed overwhelmingly by Press/Media is that Scotland has been lavishly funded, perhaps excessively. The argument is that it is all squandered by the SNP.
For example, while Westminster blows £100Bn on HS2; or the Truss/BoE/LDI fiasco, £30Bn; Mis-spent PPE, £9Bn; this list was assembled without even thinking about, because it is almost endless: meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives dine out every single week on the £80-£100m badly spent on two ferries. Literally recycled weekly. The BBC Newsroom repeated it this week, when one ferry began some sea trials. The two ferries are the best thing to happen to the Conservatives in fifty years. They have recycled it so often the Scottish public think two ferries account for half the Scottish Budget.
That is how it is done. Do the SNP make it easier for the Opposition? Absolutely.
If he hasn’t got the balls to call for a ceasefire, then he hasn’t got the balls to call for anything!
Surely we are beyond mouth pieces and now need government? He is not displaying anything but the status quo and that should be frightening to us all.
I believe that has become the disenfranchised for many of us!
https://weownit.org.uk/act-now/pledge-nhs
Three Green Party candidates have so far agreed to support this pledge to save the NHS, along with one labour candidate, Ian Byrne.
Four tories have said they can’t, but no libdems have said anything.
Which party should you vote for if you want an NHS next year?
There are now 7 Green Party members who support weownit.
Ian Byrne is still the only labour party member who says he supports it.
Catherine West, labour, does not support it.
Do you not think you could try and persuade those Green party members to rethink their economics policies? If not now, when?
Neither of the libdem candidates who have responded to weownit so far have said they will support the pledge.
Wouldn’t want to vote for them.
I suppose that’s because they were in the government which brought in the Lansley reforms.