... I think that England is so far gone that Keir Starmer should actually embrace his 'Sir' title instead of rejecting it to appeal more to the working class.
... I think that England is so far gone that Keir Starmer should actually embrace his 'Sir' title instead of rejecting it to appeal more to the working class.
Not sure, he has kinda earned his title, he hasn't just hung around Westminster for a few decades.
No doubt, by the lowly standards of the honours system he deserves it, even if it should be abolished in favour of something with no archaic royal ties. I'm just saying that the working class Little Englander seems to love and look up to someone with a title in their name.
I think that would normally be true, but when they find out he's a Sir because of human rights and helping out people they can't stand it won't last. I suppose prosecuting MPs for the expenses stuff might get him a few brownie points.
... Yeah, just occurred to me that him actually deserving the recognition wouldn't help him as much as if he was, say, knighted for Seal clubbing or services alongside Jeffrey Epstein or whatever the hell. Disregard my theory. :c
The play with rejoining the EU should be forward thinking. You know Leave's going to go south. It's a shit move. But you can't have your leader arguing for rejoining now. The right time was over the last 3 years. The only party advocating for Remain nationally was the LDs, who were terrible at politicking in their own way, so at this point, it's been 3 years since anyone really attempted to fully argue for the EU across the whole UK.
I think you need to give someone some free reign to jab at Brexit as a concept for the next 5 years. Don't let them be in leadership, but don't go all "crush the saboteurs" on them either. Leadership can say "we'd have done this better" while someone else (preferably a really young MP with career aspirations) can say "yeah, by not doing this in the first place."
No more being behind the ball on this. Don't take this election as "let's be pro-Brexit now." The next election is far enough away that some of the effects of leaving will already be felt. And when it all blows as a terrible fucking idea (which it is, and always has been, no matter who's argued for Leave), you've got this backbencher who can step up in a decade or two and say "I was always right on this, with the young people of the 2010s (who will now make up a larger share of the voting public in the future) and I can bring that sort of forward-thinking in leadership."
By definition, now that Bojo has 5 years, any strategy has to be a long game. Don't get bogged down in trying to win the 2019 GE because that one already passed and the politics of 2024 won't be the same as 2019. Try to predict where the electorate will be (and I've given my opinion above and elsewhere, but people are free to disagree; my point is that any strategy not aimed at the future electorate is a bit pointless).
The next couple of years is going to be all about leaving and other assorted conservative fuckery at home, the party doesn't have to become anti EU, but it has to deal with reality and that is we are still going through the exit.
What's the position on EU nationals, i.e there is a date that they had to of been in this country to stay under settled status?
anecdotal, but my brother in law who works for a large drugs company was saying they are having a lot of EAL leaving the UK
Yeah, I'd definitely agree with applying as soon as possible. No saying what fuckery they might do in the meantime.Anecdotal but still useful: the EU residents in the UK that I know don't trust a single word that the Home Office/Government say about their rights and are all weighing up their options with going back to live somewhere in the EU - unfortunately when people have houses/pensions/careers/etc established in the UK, this isn't an easy task to undertake so will take a while.
Also anecdotally for me, the company I work for employs a lot of non-UK citizens. They used to want to come to the UK since our wages are generally higher, they can improve their English, the career prospects are better, it's somewhere they want to live (permanently or at least for several years) and even if they return home it would look good to have a UK company on their CV. Now they generally want to work from home or join another office in the EU and maybe come over for a short placement (maybe a month) to learn the ropes.anecdotal, but my brother in law who works for a large drugs company was saying they are having a lot of EAL leaving the UK
In a different Labour party I would be happy to go with RLB, but we don't live in that reality, and there's no point having another 5 years of in-fighting and then asking people to vote for the party.
If some melt like Starmer wins, then it will mean the loss of at least 100k members and infighting will not stop at grassroots level.
Time for the party to go one way or the other. I suggest getting rid of 100MPs (actually going for deselections this time) is prefereable to losing the mobilised core of the party, which is committed to policies that the public actually likes.
Any members leaving because Stamer is "too right wing" is probably a good thing for getting a Labour government again in my lifetime. The tankies, militants and other communists will never help get a government elected in the UK.
i enjoy how both the strong pro-corbynites and the stupidest right wing columnists both subscribe to the same delusion that the labour membership is full of hardliners.
most members voted for corbyn twice because everyone else in the party tried to argue ed miliband was just too left wing, then undermined corbyn and didn't give him a fair chance by forcing another election only a year later.
despite the misleading impression given by cranks on twitter, the average labour member is an older public sector worker who reads the guardian, thinks austerity and leaving the eu are bad, and likes both corbyn and starmer.
Any members leaving because Stamer is "too right wing" is probably a good thing for getting a Labour government again in my lifetime. The tankies, militants and other communists will never help get a government elected in the UK.
It's fine to prefer RLB to Stamer, but if you're only in the party to be a cheerleader for woke communism then you aren't doing anything useful. Stamer is not some red Tory melt.
If Keir Starter doesn't win this, it'll be another 10 years in the wilderness for Labour. Two failed elections on Corbynism should be warning enough that Rebecca Long Bailey isn't the right person to lead the party.
Stramer aint center left though, hes rather left but people think hes centrist. id argue thats a benefit personally!
I'd argue that's not the tone of the far left, they're angry that the cities have so much and the rest of the country is being starved. The tone has never been "oh these poor provincials don't even know how good London life is, we must help them!" except when the right are just making up what the left think. They want to take away from the cities if anything.I don't think the policies are the issue, as Starmer has said the issue is trust, there wasn't a lot of trust that Corbyn could deliver the 2017 manifesto, and the response to that in 2019 was to promise even more, just a terribly misguided approach in my opinion.
I also think the other reason someone right of Corbyn will do better is that the tone of the far left of the party does not work outside of metropolitan areas, a lot of people live outside major cities because they hate major cities, so messages like 'the rest of the country is falling behind London and the South-east' are border line offensive. I don't know what the right message is for those areas but I know the far left one has not worked.
I'd argue that's not the tone of the far left, they're angry that the cities have so much and the rest of the country is being starved. The tone has never been "oh these poor provincials don't even know how good London life is, we must help them!" except when the right are just making up what the left think. They want to take away from the cities if anything.
Public ownership is popular though?That's why I think 'public ownership' falls so flat as a policy in these areas, rural England doesn't see public ownership as their ownership, they see it as some twat in London running the trains instead of some twat in Germany.
Not what I said. You said "Corbynism", not me, so what bits of "Corbynism" policy do you think should be changed to appeal to these peopleLabour lost 60 seats under Corbyn and a leader hand picked by the current top team to be the successor won't win over the electorate. That's not a wild assumption to make.
I'm also not responsible for choosing or moulding Labour policies. But I'll tell you, the electorate didn't care for them so that's why we're on the mess we're in now.
I'm not disagreeing that they think that, cause they're told that. That's not the tone of the left.I think its more personal than that, I've never seen anger about big cities when I'm in rural England, what I've seen a lot is people thinking that I look down on them because I live in a city.
That's why I think 'public ownership' falls so flat as a policy in these areas, rural England doesn't see public ownership as their ownership, they see it as some twat in London running the trains instead of some twat in Germany.
Not what I said. You said "Corbynism", not me, so what bits of "Corbynism" policy do you think should be changed to appeal to these people
Phillips also said she thought one of the reasons why Labour lost in Scotland was that it did not necessarily have a clear position on the two big constitutional questions of the day (Brexit and Scottish independence). On Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn said he would be neutral in a second referendum on the topic. And, although Corbyn did not support Scottish independence, he did not rule out allowing Scotland to hold a second referendum on the issue."I don't think we should have another referendum on Scottish independence – 53% of the Scottish public in the general election did not vote for a party that was promoting independence.
I think that we should be talking about things that are relevant to the lives of people in Scotland.
I can't see a circumstance where I think it would be better for Scotland to leave the UK.
Right, so what different thing do you want. This isn't a hard question, I'm not asking you to write a manifesto or run for leadershipI've told you, I'm not in charge of shaping Labour policy but I realise that Labour have to offer the voters something different to even get a sniff at Larry's litter tray.