While the British left is buried in factional debate, Reform is rapidly securing a foothold in former socialist heartlands across the country — paving the way for a nightmarish far-right takeover of the British state.
This wouldn’t be happening if Labour had competent leadership. Instead, Starmer is letting Farage and his mob drive the agenda, even shamelessly adopting the worst of their policies, such as the harassment of people with indefinite leave to remain: follow the rules, work with the system, get cated and screwed over. Great fucking message. And the fascists are still not going to vote Labour. It’ll just encourage Labour’s voters to stay home or vote Green.
I’m not sure I agree. That’s not me saying Labour’s leadership is competent.
But we keep circling around “the message just isn’t being heard”.
I think the message js being heard fine, it’s just that people disagree with it. Labour’s core philosophy around how we should treat refugees and asylum seekers just doesn’t line up with what many voters believe.
Until we recognise that people, rightly or wrongly (I believe it’s wrongly, but that’s beside the point), feel immigration really genuinely is too high, and “we should take care of our own first”, Labour will, I think, continue to lose (as will the Tories) and Reform will continue to gain.
The social democrats of Denmark “solved” this. And when I say “solved”, I simply mean they adopted a policy on immigration that I personally don’t agree with, but one which has kept the more extreme views out of too much influence. Their argument, at least the public argument, is that “immigration puts pressure on those with few resources first” and “to look after those people, we need to curb immigration”. They call this “good social democratic policy”, and call out that immigration can’t be seen as more important than looking after those we’ve got.
If Labour wants to regain relevance in the industrial ghost-towns, they have to move towards an expressed and inacted “harder line” on immigration.
I don’t think they will, or can, or should. And therefore we are seeing weird FPTP results all around the country (LibDem suddenly have a huge chance of winning my own constituency, where before they were a remote third), but with an overall push towards Reform UK.
If you really want to change that picture, supporting our education system so that people vote backed by data, not by emotions, is the real change we need. But that doesn’t serve anyone - the uneducated can much more easily be told what to believe and thus vote.
I mean, there’s a thing most countries don’t do what you’re describing, and that’s that it’s economic suicide. It’s easy to forget it what with the fascism and all that, but the first world is currently going through a demographic crisis and needs all the labor it can get.
I 100% agree. I was talking about what I think Labour should do if it wants to stay relevant in British politics, not what I believe we, as a country, should do.
This would not be a problem if they could fix the economy. Fundamentally speaking, people who oppose immigration either do it out of economic anxiety or racism. The first can be solved by regular socialist policies, while the latter are an irrational bunch of reactionaries that will continue to oppose the left no matter what.
It would, because competent labour leadership wouldn’t be able to magic up the growth they need to not have to have a shit choice at each budget. The best leadership in the world can’t undo years of underinvestment and a massive spike in inflation, but had to pretend they could to get into power.
This wouldn’t be happening if Labour had competent leadership. Instead, Starmer is letting Farage and his mob drive the agenda, even shamelessly adopting the worst of their policies, such as the harassment of people with indefinite leave to remain: follow the rules, work with the system, get cated and screwed over. Great fucking message. And the fascists are still not going to vote Labour. It’ll just encourage Labour’s voters to stay home or vote Green.
Labour has competent leadership, whose goal is to serve the rich, and they are very efficient at it.
This wouldn’t be happening without Russia actively funding right wing extremism everywhere.
But yeah, what the FUCK is up with Starmer? He’s not doing social democratic policy, he’s doing right wing nutjob shit. What is that?
I’m not sure I agree. That’s not me saying Labour’s leadership is competent.
But we keep circling around “the message just isn’t being heard”.
I think the message js being heard fine, it’s just that people disagree with it. Labour’s core philosophy around how we should treat refugees and asylum seekers just doesn’t line up with what many voters believe.
Until we recognise that people, rightly or wrongly (I believe it’s wrongly, but that’s beside the point), feel immigration really genuinely is too high, and “we should take care of our own first”, Labour will, I think, continue to lose (as will the Tories) and Reform will continue to gain.
The social democrats of Denmark “solved” this. And when I say “solved”, I simply mean they adopted a policy on immigration that I personally don’t agree with, but one which has kept the more extreme views out of too much influence. Their argument, at least the public argument, is that “immigration puts pressure on those with few resources first” and “to look after those people, we need to curb immigration”. They call this “good social democratic policy”, and call out that immigration can’t be seen as more important than looking after those we’ve got.
If Labour wants to regain relevance in the industrial ghost-towns, they have to move towards an expressed and inacted “harder line” on immigration.
I don’t think they will, or can, or should. And therefore we are seeing weird FPTP results all around the country (LibDem suddenly have a huge chance of winning my own constituency, where before they were a remote third), but with an overall push towards Reform UK.
If you really want to change that picture, supporting our education system so that people vote backed by data, not by emotions, is the real change we need. But that doesn’t serve anyone - the uneducated can much more easily be told what to believe and thus vote.
I mean, there’s a thing most countries don’t do what you’re describing, and that’s that it’s economic suicide. It’s easy to forget it what with the fascism and all that, but the first world is currently going through a demographic crisis and needs all the labor it can get.
I 100% agree. I was talking about what I think Labour should do if it wants to stay relevant in British politics, not what I believe we, as a country, should do.
This would not be a problem if they could fix the economy. Fundamentally speaking, people who oppose immigration either do it out of economic anxiety or racism. The first can be solved by regular socialist policies, while the latter are an irrational bunch of reactionaries that will continue to oppose the left no matter what.
The labour is lost. It’s been corrupted. Isn’t there a true leftist party that could be credible?
It would, because competent labour leadership wouldn’t be able to magic up the growth they need to not have to have a shit choice at each budget. The best leadership in the world can’t undo years of underinvestment and a massive spike in inflation, but had to pretend they could to get into power.