An interesting viewpoint

[Ldr]

From the ex labour mp for Sedgefield.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/labour-leadership-race/2020/03/labours-mess-predictable-result-leader-and-philosophy-hated

[scawsby steve]

Utterly delusional, arrogant, whining, and blaming everyone but himself. He's learnt absolutely nothing from that humiliation.

If Labour select such as him in 2024, they'll get mullered again.

[Swifty62]

It was such as him who constantly tried to bury Corbyn while he was leader, is one of the main reasons labour lost,him and his blairite buddies

[BillyStubbsTears]

I certainly don't agree with everything in that article, but he's right on one key point.

How on earth a cult can take over a party, spend years loudly shouting that the party has been shit for the previous 60 years and then expect the people who supported it through that time to support it now always seemed to me to be odd logic.

But if you challenged that thinking, you were a Blairite. A Red Tory. You were the problem. "You lost. It's our party now."

Well, yes. It was their party. And like that article says, the despair with Corbyn that you heard on the doorsteps when campaigning showed how disconnected that party had become from the people who were once its natural supporters.

[IDM]

I haven’t read this link about Labour but in my opinion they lost the election mostly because folks just didn’t want Corbyn.

Couple that with a groundswell of people who (again only my opinion) react to headlines rather than details, and we end up with a majority government with about as much grasp of reality as spongebob squarepants and lead by curious George.

[tyke1962]

The article is fairly typical of much of what is coming out of the Labour Party since it's catastrophic defeat in December .

The disconnect with the heartlands actually began under Blair and intensified under Brown , Millaband and took a severe turn for the worse under Corbyn .

To say things were sweet under Blair in the heartlands and point to the three election victories is to totally misunderstand the problem .

The heartlands had no where else to go at that time and the hierarchy in the Labour Party knew that .

The heartlands were taken for granted , ignored and treated as an irrelevance .

When the borders were opened under Blair in 2004 , agencies sprang up to feed the race to the bottom jobs that had replaced the heavy industries lost under Thatcher .

The answer was to ramp up benefits and the beginning of the Jeremy Kyle culture .

All pride and self worth lost under Thatcher was compounded under Blair and continuation of the individualist narrative maintained .

Trade unions seemed to be a problem for Blair as much as they were for Thatcher although he was happy to accept the funding whilst triumphantly telling prospective business investors we had the best anti union laws in Europe , quite a man !!! .

You could say the heartlands were sold out for the middle England vote and their pro EU fanaticism .

Once the brexit vote was delivered the bandages came off and the wounds were exposed to the Labour Party .

The message was loud and clear " the Labour Party clearly doesn't represent the heartlands anymore " , it was laid bare for the electorate to see .

The truth is the disconnect began when Corbyn was a backbencher who nobody had even heard of .

Corbyn simply finished things off around the heartlands , wrong man , wrong time .

It seems to escape the Blairites that they were also defeated twice in GE's , the same number as Corbyn .

Electing another Blairite as Labour Leader such as Starmer will not instantly put things right in the heartlands and it would be a good idea to recognise that fact .

This goes much deeper than simply electing a clever man in a sharp suit .

Solving the combination of the heartland and middle class vote that is needed to win an election is the fundamental issue .

Except this time it's the heartland vote they need to work the hardest for .

[ravenrover]

As Liam  lancy once said to a very Bob Dylan you write beautifully but could you make your songs a little shorter

[tyke1962]

As Liam  lancy once said to a very Bob Dylan you write beautifully but could you make your songs a little shorter

It's no easy task placing the last 23 years of the Labour Party in to a single paragraph raven .

I'm passionate about the working class cause but the only way we can restore the Labour Party back to power from its present carcass is to debate and put everything on the table .

Otherwise we are completely fecked and that simply can't happen with a Tory government and a license to do whatever they want to do .

It never ends well for the working class but we MUST get our own house in order first and foremost .

[BillyStubbsTears]

All very good Tyke.

But there is no Parliamentary majority in appealing only to the Northern post-industrial heartlands.

You espouse a very nationalistic type of socialism. That absolutely does not appeal to the other part of Labour's constituency - the young, socially liberal, metropolitan globalists.

Now, you may not like them. But if you want a left-leaning party ever again to form a Government (and I'm not convinced you do, but humour me a moment) then you need a party that makes damn sure it doesn't lose their support. Because they are key to the future of the Left. And as we saw when Corbyn was stupidly allowing Labour to be seen as supporting a nationalistic line this time last year, their support can easily evaporate and drift away to the LDs and the Greens.

[tyke1962]

All very good Tyke.

But there is no Parliamentary majority in appealing only to the Northern post-industrial heartlands.

You espouse a very nationalistic type of socialism. That absolutely does not appeal to the other part of Labour's constituency - the young, socially liberal, metropolitan globalists.

Now, you may not like them. But if you want a left-leaning party ever again to form a Government (and I'm not convinced you do, but humour me a moment) then you need a party that makes damn sure it doesn't lose their support. Because they are key to the future of the Left. And as we saw when Corbyn was stupidly allowing Labour to be seen as supporting a nationalistic line this time last year, their support can easily evaporate and drift away to the LDs and the Greens.

I know that Billy and once both you and I can debate , compromise and finally agree on a way forward then I hope that will be mirrored across the whole movement .

The biggest difference of opinion within the movement has already been resolved for us , we have left the EU and we won't be returning .

We have to come together under that narrative and plot the way forward .

The question of the EU is no longer relevant and from what I read with the outbreak of this pandemic it may not be relevant for too much longer in central and eastern Europe either .

We may have just got the hell out of Dodge just in time .

Starmer has one hell of a task ahead .

[BillyStubbsTears]

So your approach to the young, socially liberal, metropolitan globalists appears to be "You were wrong. You lost. Suck it up. And please vote Labour." Is that about it?

[Ldr]

So your approach to the young, socially liberal, metropolitan globalists appears to be "You were wrong. You lost. Suck it up. And please vote Labour." Is that about it?

Playing devils advocate, wasnt that their view of the voters in the heartlands

[BillyStubbsTears]

Ldr.

No. The eventual policy was "We entirely accept that the vote in 2016 was for Leave. But it was never clear what Leave meant. "Leave" covered a multitude of possible outcomes and it has never been clear that a majority in the country voted for "Leave, no matter what form". If we win the Election, we will hold a second referendum between a specific, defined Leave and Remain. Because this is far too important a decision to be taken without clarity".

I entirely accept that that message didn't come across clearly, because Labour's policy from 2018 until last 2019 was a dog's breakfast. That should have been Labour's policy clear and simple from 2018 onwards. Repeated constantly. Instead, Corbyn wanted the whole thing to go away, then came out as a clear supporter of Brexit at Xmas 2018, and presided over the biggest drop in Labour poll ratings in it's history as a result. It was only after Labour were facing absolute annihilation by Summer 2019 that they switched to the policy that should have been crystal clear from the start. And when they switched to that policy, no-one on EITHER side of the argument believed them.

[tyke1962]

So your approach to the young, socially liberal, metropolitan globalists appears to be "You were wrong. You lost. Suck it up. And please vote Labour." Is that about it?

No my point is that Brexit is the past and no longer relevant and Labour need to accept that fact and come up with solutions that post brexit  will enable them to gain power .

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm not sure why you are pointing this out Tyke. Everyone in the Labour party leadership race has accepted that Brexit has happened and the party needs to develop post-Brexit policies. This isn't news.

[tyke1962]

The strategy as I see it for the Labour Party is to lead the heartlands towards prosperity whilst not throwing them to the sharks of free markets and neoliberalsm .

The Blair way of things didn't shield the heartlands from the Amazon's and Sports Directs of this world and Corbyn lost the argument on who owns the means of production .

This in my opinion is where we are and where we begin the road back to unity and power .

There is much said about using the current pandemic to politically score points ....... however .

It's one thing to stand in parliament and throw pelters at the tories and quite another  from the wreckage of this tragedy and try and build a better society for ALL .

The catastrophe of word war 2 led to affordable housing , the safety net of welfare in time of need and the NHS , something good for society came from the wreckage , heartache and hardship .

We have to take the argument away from the role of the state is a bad thing and make the case that it delivers basic need and there is massive value in it .

Corbyn's biggest mistake was to attack the wealth and make them the enemy .

The way I see it is to go down the route of value and change the narrative of building thousands of affordable homes is a bad thing , that low skilled jobs have value and that the NHS will always be a world class health system and the envy of the world .

The argument must never be to walk hand in hand with the neoliberal elite like Blair did but it must also understand attacking them won't bear fruit either as Corbyn found to his cost .

Pride and value are the name of the game in the heartlands , historically very proud communities who found their worth in the mines and steel works keeping the country going .

These same fundamental values have to be reignited in the UK of today .

This is where we must start this journey if we want to see the heartlands back voting the Labour Party back to power .