I do accept that; it's why I voted 'yes' in the AV referendum. Until you change the FPTP system though it's very difficult for more than two parties to survive and eventually splinter groups will be forced to be subsumed in to a monolithic broad church party (like both Labour and the Tories are) because they realise that however much they dislike some people, they really dislike the others.
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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I do accept that; it's why I voted 'yes' in the AV referendum. Until you change the FPTP system though it's very difficult for more than two parties to survive and eventually splinter groups will be forced to be subsumed in to a monolithic broad church party (like both Labour and the Tories are) because they realise that however much they dislike some people, they really dislike the others.
there will never be more than 2 viable parties in a system where 35% of the vote can get you a majority of the seats in parliament
I’d probably be the opposite - I could get on board with the radical social and economic agenda, but I’d be put right off by the kooky foreign policy, fanatic ‘anti-Zionism’, and basic view of world held by Corbyn and associates.
True, but there's no pressure to change the political system while the status quo suits the two largest parties. Anyway, as UKIP showed, you can exert pressure that is disproportionate to the actual number of seats you have. For people like me unrepresented by the two major parties, that feels better than the choice on offer right now.
protest votes like UKIP are different to being a viable party, you're usually voting for a single issue party in the hope that one of the major parties absorbs that platform to win those votes
I honestly don't know how replicable that is, though. It's difficult to see how any fringe left wing group, no matter how radical or shouty, could get the disproportionate amount of airtime and attention from the media that allowed UKIP's platform to reach its audience.
@That'sHernandez
I think a centrist pro-EU party would get a lot of airtime if it got its act together - it wuld have the backing of most of business and the media would split between them and the Tories; Labour and the new SDP could sabotage each other effectively enough to get the Tories back.
I think a centrist pro-EU party would get a lot of airtime if it got its act together - it wuld have the backing of most of business and the media would split between them and the Tories; Labour and the new SDP could sabotage each other effectively enough to get the Tories back.
They're called the Lib Dems.
They don't have business backing and are apparently dysfunctional. A rebellion by the large mass of anti-Corbyn Labour MPs would catch the imagination of everyone in the media, most businesses, and among voters everyone who's similar to "libcafe".
the major problem they'll have is that the politicians touted to start this party all want to hold the great offices of state and they'd be kissing that goodbye
Yes, half of them will lose their own seats competing against Labour, so it will probably require some political bravery
All of them will. The vast majority of the seats in this country are safe labour or tory. What'll happen is they feck it for labour in the marginals. Owen Smith who's recently talked about leaving labour to start a pro-remain party lives in an safe labour, leave-voting seat, for example.Yes, half of them will lose their own seats competing against Labour, so it will probably require some political bravery
I think they could destroy the Corbyn surge of seats in 2017, which happened in London, which also seems to be the most People's Vote area.
Yeah that's the marginals which will go to the tories and give them a small majority like they had 2015-2017.
I wouldn't hold my breath about Labour keeping them anyway. I'm not really sure what the answer is, but something has to give.
Labour will spend less money in safe seats ala 2017 when the NEC was expecting annihilation and more money in closer races to unseat like likes of Amber Rudd. They will lose some of the richer parts of London but if they can pick up enough votes up North and disrupt the Scottish tory vote they'll make it impossible for the tories to form a government.
Agreed, but then UKIPs voice in the press was insanely over-represented, they approached half as many votes as Labour did in 2015. I think UKIPs air time was a one-off, but it doesnt mean that other parties couldn't do something similar on a smaller scale. The aim of a new party would be to establish itself, not to win an election first time round.
Very astute call.
That is exactly what I would want as well.
But. He gets most of his support from that group.
Nothing unusual there. Most political parties have a party within a party.
As I see it, Momentum are primarily a pressure group pulling Labour toward the left.
Such pressure groups would probably faint (or do something much smellier) their party ever got into power.
I largely agree that MP's within the party should be backing Corbyn (albeit not blindly so) and if they're not ruling out leaving the party or consider openly speaking out against Corbyn then they're probably wasting their time being in the Labour Party.
Problem is though, it's an area where Corbyn's never going to be able to assert his own moral authority because he was essentially in that position for a couple of decades before taking over as leader. Hard for him to demand absolute loyalty when a significant portion of his career involving constantly rebelling against whoever was in power. And for what it's worth I'd have probably agreed with his reasons for rebelling more often than not, but at the same time he'll struggle to argue for excluding people now without seeming at least a tad hypocritical.
Problem is though, it's an area where Corbyn's never going to be able to assert his own moral authority because he was essentially in that position for a couple of decades before taking over as leader. Hard for him to demand absolute loyalty when a significant portion of his career involving constantly rebelling against whoever was in power. And for what it's worth I'd have probably agreed with his reasons for rebelling more often than not, but at the same time he'll struggle to argue for excluding people now without seeming at least a tad hypocritical.
Again the reason she has had a no confidence motion is because she won't put a end to rumours of leaving the party.
Although I would argue that if it takes the far left to put forward social democratic policies then there is something broken with today's liberalism.
But even with that for their own sake liberals should form a breakaway party. They'll get a ton of backing with money, TV air time, They won't have to deal with a membership that completely detests their type of politics and if they think their ideas are popular they could potentially stop the left getting into government.
Now I think the reason it hasn't happened yet is their ideas aren't popular, as mentioned the numbers don't work in their favour and sadly a lot of liberals suffer from late New Labour symptoms. Which is that they showed no interesting skills yet they still went to a high level University so they picked the one course(Literally the one course PPE - https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ppe-oxford-university-degree-that-rules-britain)to study.
While this made sense during the era of Blair and third wayism. You take this one course,get a well paid job in a British institution, spend 90% of time in the rich parts of London and you never know you may get a chance to make a few progressive changes to the system.
The 1st major problem comes when the system itself has a complete heart attack, shits it's pants and you now have to defend this system and then the 2nd major problem comes when (Here's where the new labour symptoms really kick in)you've realised everything in that one course is complete useless and you really don't have the skills, knowledge to defend the political ideas you believe in and it's far easier due your connections to get a non political job such as charging the public to see works of art or dancing like a bellend on television.
Ed Balls never wanted to change the economy of Britian, he just wanted to be a BBC light entertainment personality but had no personality and was shit with puppets so he joined the Labour Party instead.
Haven’t seen the interview, but I thought the reason she was said to be considering leaving the party was the anti Semitic abuse she’d received? Or was it Brexit like the other chappy.
Tbf I just read the motions and they don’t reference her wanting to leave the party or Brexit, they just mention her regularly criticising Corbyn.
Yeah I only saw the interview today, although they've now dropped the two motions.
Heaven forbid anyone criticises the Glorious Leader.
Yeah, definitely nothing to do with anti-Semitism whatsoever
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...hdraws-luciana-berger-mp-no-confidence-motion
(First paragraph)
Edit: The scary thing is you’re here blindly denying and defending it. Which again says it all about anti-Semitism in the party. Why don’t you do one and make your own party?
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New labour, part 4, service pack 6
From the same article
You do know the man who made anti Semitic comments on Facebook is like 80 years old right ? I'm betting the guy can't use a pair of shoes correctly yet alone a computer. Someones bigoted grandad is the scary threat to the Labour Party and its MP's.
Er because the people with my type of politics have almost every position of power in the Labour Party. It would be a rather stupid to form another party.
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A rebellion of that size would render Labour dysfunctional too.
Yes, for sure. But even a third of that would do enough damage to Labour.
I think a Labour rebellion would fail to make any significant impact on the whole but in all likelihood would do enough to feck over Labour as well. Them getting even, say, 10% of the vote would kill any electoral hopes for Labour, even if said hypothetical party would regard that as being disastrous.
I suspect they'd fail completely in the north. And any paltry but not insignificant vote totals wouldn't necessarily dent Labour's seat count. But they'd likely swing quite a few seats to the Tories in areas like London where the Tories have more of a presence, and where you'll have a lot of liberally minded voters who aren't necessarily of the working class left-wing demographic. They'd also kill off any Labour hopes in Scotland: it's already hard enough for them up here and any hopes of a recovery would be dashed in that they'd lose seats they gained by a narrow margin last time (which they'd potentially lose anyway) and almost certainly wouldn't make any gains.
I suspect they'd fail completely in the north. And any paltry but not insignificant vote totals wouldn't necessarily dent Labour's seat count. But they'd likely swing quite a few seats to the Tories in areas like London where the Tories have more of a presence, and where you'll have a lot of liberally minded voters who aren't necessarily of the working class left-wing demographic. They'd also kill off any Labour hopes in Scotland: it's already hard enough for them up here and any hopes of a recovery would be dashed in that they'd lose seats they gained by a narrow margin last time (which they'd potentially lose anyway) and almost certainly wouldn't make any gains.
What a shitshow all round.
There does seem to have been a sharp downturn in views on Corbyn in a relatively short space of time (and this is for a poll where the overall topline was decent for Labour - tied at 38%)
Imagine if they had somebody slightly less incompetent in charge... They would prove be 20 point up in the polls.
No doubt it's jezza playing a blinder again and trying to trick the pm into calling an election by pretending to be totally unelectable
Just out of interest who ?
Yvette Cooper or Big Dave Miliband. You can tell they're both super electable, on account of their previous leadership challenges.
Bet it's David Milliband.
Thornberry? Starmer?
Think they are the bookies 2 favourites to be next leader and both don't seem to carry the personal negativity Corbyn brings with him
I have gotten softer on him with time. He's in a pretty tough spot. I think he doesn't help himself with some of the people he puts around himself. McDonnell doesn't half stir shit up.
Tbf neither has lost a general election so perhaps to the general public they would have been more electable?
Trying to remember the last person to loose the first general election they lead the party in and subsequently went on to win one?...