The Labour Files

[Bentley Bullet]

Dread to think how Corbyn would be handling Ukraine right now.

We’d have no nuclear deterrent and he’d be trying to engage in “dialogue” with Putin.

His side-kick Diane Abbott would have sorted it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

And you think that could possibly have been any worse than having Truss as FS and PM in this war?

[SydneyRover]

Or Dom can't it wait I'm at the beach Raaaab

[ncRover]

We’re talking about Corbyn here.

But yes, none of the mentioned names have/ would put our national security at such a risk as JC would have done.

Didn’t he want NATO disbanded?

[SydneyRover]

He would have gone the same way as chamberlain

[Bentley Bullet]

And you think that could possibly have been any worse than having Truss as FS and PM in this war?

I think NOTHING could possibly have been any worse than having Corbyn & Abbott in this war.

[Colemans Left Hook]

And you think that could possibly have been any worse than having Truss as FS and PM in this war?

I think NOTHING could possibly have been any worse than having Corbyn & Abbott in this war.

i have often wondered when the pair were in bed together which one would take the right side

[SydneyRover]

Corbyn said that the UN and the west should have been tougher on putin earlier on, not like johnson giving the oligarchs every facility and the keys to londongrad

[SydneyRover]

meanwhile back in moscow before the vote, why are we giving the british all this money boss ...... idiot, were helping them with the brexit decision ......... but why are financing the tories .......... idiot, so we can get our man to the top ............... any more questions? no boss.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I said at the time that the 2019 election was the very worst choice of PM in history.

One who is a lifelong adherent to the intellectually vacuous idea that the West is the Great Evil and therefore Russia as an enemy of the West is the lesser evil.

The other leading a party awash with Russian money, and in the pocket of an ex-KGB colonel.

What I didn't take into account was that the winner would then be replaced by a PM unable to form coherent thoughts.

As for Corbyn's response to Ukraine, had he won the 2019 election, he would have had two choices: support Ukraine or be booted out by a party that overwhelmingly supported Ukraine.

[Colemans Left Hook]

meanwhile back in moscow before the vote, why are we giving the british all this money boss ...... idiot, were helping them with the brexit decision ......... but why are financing the tories .......... idiot, so we can get our man to the top ............... any more questions? no boss.

you are too young to know anything about Harold Wilson

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-49939123

[Bentley Bullet]

Do you mean the Harold "original milk snatcher" Wilson?

[albie]

And once again, I'll ask you. What would have been the result in Dec 2019 had Labour not clawed back half those 5million votes that Corbyn lost in the first half of 2019?

I KNOW you won't answer because there is no answer other than the one your blind faith refuses to accept.

BST,

On the contrary, the point has been answered 3 times now.
Do you actually read links before posting?

Labour lost 2,582,853 votes between 2017 and 2019 GE. This on a lower turnout of 67.3%, down from 68.7%.
This came after a prolonged fraudulent campaign about alleged anti-semitism, now discredited.
https://twitter.com/Desuetudine/status/1643566533686226947

The figure of 5 million you give is incorrect, twice the true figure so way off the mark.
You have no evidence of 5 million lost voters, it is simply speculation. A convenient fiction to support your thin argument.
 
If you are taking that from polling, there is no read through from polls to actual voting on a long time frame above about 3 months before a GE.
Any such correlation is in no way predictive, and no-one experienced in polling would claim otherwise. A poll is not a data point.
The only benchmark is at a GE, not a loose intention before the fact.

It is clear that Labour lost the red wall seats on the basis of ref2. Starmer is responsible (with others) for that loss of support.
Some seats would have been lost anyway, as the trend away from Labour in the red wall was already established.
LD votes are not really relevant in the red wall, other than to deprive the main parties. If they have no realistic chance, choosing to protest vote LD is about as sensible as pissing down your own leg.

I am not saying that the overall vote number is the only measure. It needs to be set alongside retention of sufficient votes in key seats, and ensuring a high turnout of support.
This is obvious from the numbers of seats changing hands.

The value of voter support in red wall marginals is much higher than other constituencies, because the tipping point is close to hand, so holding that vote and ensuring turnout is key.
Retaining the support of red wall leave voters was of greater strategic importance than pandering to remainiacs.

You seem to be saying that the overall numbers voting for Labour net out higher because of the ref2 position.
There is no data to support that, and with the electoral system we have, a smaller number of defections in marginal seats is of greater relevance than increased support in safe seats.

All of which is clear and well understood, except by those who wish to rewrite history.

Now, to the real point.
Does voting Labour do anything to promote socialism, improve trade union support, and rebuild the public sector?
What is the reward for working class people in backing Keith?
What is your view of the Doubledown news video posted up the thread by me and then Tyke?

[albie]

Ok then Albie, let’s say 80% weren’t aware of it. And I highly doubt it changed the mind of many of that remaining 20%. The majority of people are not heavily invested in politics on Twitter and even more are not in a left wing echo chamber. The main issue for many middle of the road voters were the hard left policies of Corbyn.

If you are on the side of Skinner over Starmer here I’m going to assume you voted Leave in 2016?

ncRover,

It is not about twitter or left wing politics.
The story was the big issue on the national news at the time, and covered in all the papers...it was a big deal.

The policies in the 2019 Labour manifesto are very well received, as all the data we have shows.
The Labour right and the media drove a wedge between Corbyn as an individual, and the policy platform.

I have already said I voted remain.
That does not mean I would support ref2, because a decision had been made, albeit the wrong one as is now clear from the economic losses.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Albie

When you take the attitude "I will ignore ALL evidence that contradicts what I want to be true" you are acting like a relgious zealot, not a grown up taking part in a rational debate.

The fact is that the opinion polls in Sept 2019 showed Labour had lost 5 million supporters to Remain parties. You can claim that's meaningless if you wish, but then you are choosing to ignore evidence.

A second fact is that, according to consistent poll data, Labour had lost more than 10% of its 2017 support to Hard Brexit supporting parties by that time. BEFORE that speech of Starmer's which you claim lost Labour the election.

A third fact is that, by December 2019, Labour had regained half the lost support to the Remain parties.

A fourth fact is that it had also regained a chunk of support lost to the hard Brexit parties.

Run it by me again how Starmer's speech lost Labour the election. And while you're at it, remind me how, precisely, Labour were supposed to win back the 1.25million 2017 supporters who had switched to supporting Farage's party. No blather and dissembling. Just explain those points simply and clearly.

[Branton Red]

When you take the attitude "I will ignore ALL evidence that contradicts what I want to be true" you are acting like a relgious zealot, not a grown up taking part in a rational debate.

OMFG LOL!! The irony! Incredible how the most self-certain can be those most lacking in self-awareness!!!

Billy this is a matter of historical record. Rather than assessing the evidence broadly and then coming to a conclusion with some degree of certainty your approach is to start with a certain conclusion and then: seek narrow confirmatory evidence; assess said evidence in a partisan manner; summarily dismiss or ignore evidence that contradicts your conclusion; and where no evidence fits your narrative present mere conjecture as fact.

Your posts on this subject read like something from the pen of Edward Lear just without the rhyming couplets.

1) Let's first take your hilarious assertion that Labour adopted Ref2 through hard-headed, long-term strategic thinking. This little outburst gives lie to that: -

"If the Right was going to give the finger to compromise, why shouldn't the centre-left? Why should Remain supporters grit their teeth and accept a soft-Brexit?"

Emotion was behind the Ref2 policy. Specifically childish, petulant anger. Nobody thinking rationally would have made such an utterly stupid decision.

To answer your questions. Tory Leavers didn't need to compromise because they won the referendum and even more importantly they won it by a landslide on a Parliamentary constituency basis.

This made the UK leaving the EU a fait accompli. Campaigning to overturn this decision was therefore political suicide and doomed to abject failure.

2) "The moment for compromise had passed" What?? The 2019 GE was the only opportunity the electorate would ever get to opt for compromise. It was the Labour Party that killed that opportunity.

How the UK left the EU was not decided. The Tories put forward their version which tallied with what Leave campaigned on in 2016. Labour, through sheer petulance, decided instead to re-run a doomed Remain (vs Leave) campaign

It always amuses me how Labour and it's supporters criticise the Tory "Hard" Brexit when it was the Labour Party in 2019 who killed dead any opportunity the population had to opt for a compromise Brexit.

3) "Opinions had polarised" Perhaps in Westminster. But there was logically no reason why so amongst the electorate esp if Labour adopted "soft" Brexit and so transformed the national argument.

What your EEA study actually shows was (not a massive shift to Remain or indeed Leave) but the simple truth that the electorate was split 3 ways on Brexit (Ardent Europhiles; Ardent Brexiteers; Those in the middle). This was true in Jun-16, at the time of the poll and in Dec-19.

"A study around that time indicated that almost 70% of the population wanted Brexit cancelled or for us to join the EEA (the latter around twice as popular as the former)"

Simple Maths here. Approx half of 2016s 48% Remainers therefore were in favour of compromise as a first choice. (Logically under FPTP you'd expect more to be willing to compromise than allow a Tory Brexit - at a constituency or national level see point 6).

Therefore a "Soft" Brexit policy would have been at least as successful at attracting Remain votes as Ref2 and likely more so.

4) "miraculously won back all the Red Wall voters" Again how on Earth can winning back people who have voted Labour all their lives require a miracle?!

Red Wall Leavers switched to Tories/Farage not because they'd suddenly lurched to the Right but because of Brexit - largely the ending of FoM. Promising to leave the EU and end FoM would have won back a significant % of Red Wall votes and the respective seats otherwise lost due to Ref2

5) "Labour party policy was soft Brexit pre Sep-19" That's not how it was viewed outwardly by the electorate. Labour on Brexit was split, confused, contradictory, often strangely silent and uncertain.

 There was no unified national campaign arguing for a soft Brexit or anything else for that matter. Take their "ref on a deal" policy - which simultaneously ticked off Leavers, Remainers and those in the middle seeking certainty and suffering Brexit fatigue.

Taking the instructions on the indicative votes (which on SM were widely ignored inc by Starmer and other seniors) as evidence of a firm, solid, well-publicised, unified Labour policy on Brexit is really re-writing history.

6) I did not say Labour would only lose seats to the LDs through a soft Brexit approach - please consider my arguments more carefully before misrepresenting me.

I was pointing out that Remain areas consisted of many Labour safe seats (versus many Lab/Con marginals in Leave areas) where LD often have little presence which is important because.....

…...your assertion that Labour would have lost several previously safe seats to the Tories on a split Left vote shows a misunderstanding of how FPTP works. People are forced to vote for the least worst option i.e. I'd prefer Remain but LD can't win here so best vote Labour to stop a Tory Brexit.

7) “Labour was never going to be in a position to win in Dec 2019” I agree their chances were slim.

But their chances went from slim to zero with Ref2 being announced.

In 2019, like in 2017, Labour had potentially popular policies wheras the Tories had nothing. In 2017 Labour's vote share shot up on the back of this. Any such uplift happening in 2019 was killed stone dead by Ref2 turning the election into Leave v Remain.

Also often it's the Government which loses a GE rather than the opposition winning it.

It's amazing the foresight you attribute to Labour deciding on Ref2 re “let the Red Wall go temporarily, then win it back when Red Wall voters realise what a shower they had elected.” But also that they had the foresight to realise there would be no slip from Johnson et al in the 3 months up to the GE which may have swung the vote. Amazing!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Branton.

Your point 1


The bit in quotation marks you cite from me was a statement about what the ELECTORATE was thinking, not the Labour party.

2) The tide had clearly turned against compromise. Because, once again, patiently and with a big deep breath, there was no possibility of a Brexit that satisfied one side wanting an end to FoM, and the other wanting something between rejection of Brexit and an EEA membership that word have required FoM. It was that latter that was the preferred choice of a large majority of the population in 2018, but that was totally off the agenda by early 2019. Labour had a clear and unequivocal policy in winter/spring 2019 of a "compromise" that meant no EEA membership and no FoM. It lost them support by the million to Remain supporting parties! That's the point you will not engage with. That answers your point 3. It did not attract any Red Wall voters. And recall, until May 2019, by which time the loss of support had happened, no-one of any note in Labour was talking about a Ref2 in any context other than to stop a No Deal mess. That answers your point 4.

Your point 5 is factually incorrect. Shoe me evidence of Starmer going against the Labour line in the IVs or withdraw it. And before you accuse me of re-writing history again, do your homework.

6) You're in Dreamland if you honestly think people always vote rationally to get the least bad outcome. Look at how many left leaning people voted LD in 2010 and opened the gates for theist rightwing economic policies since the 1930s. You reckon they thought the consequences through?

7) Talk me through once again what Labour was supposed to do in Sept 2019.

23% in the polls.

13% of its 2017 support now supporting parties that were advocating No Deal Brexit as a fine (in some cases, preferred) outcome.

39% of its previous support now backing parties that wanted to reverse Brexit.

On the bare numbers, Labour facing the possibility of winning fewer than 100 seats.

People like me, a lifetime member other than a few years under Blair, actively considering, if the slide in support continued, whether the LDs were going to reach the tipping point where voting for them didn't give a safe Lab seat to the Tories, but actually won it for the LDs.

Go on. Tell me how you square that circle.

[albie]

BST,

Well, your post 164 is up there with the great drivelling contributions to this discussion.

On the contrary, to your belief, the point you raise has been answered many times now.
Do you actually read links before posting?

Labour lost 2,582,853 votes between 2017 and 2019 GE. This on a lower turnout of 67.3%, down from 68.7%.
This came after a prolonged fraudulent campaign about alleged anti-semitism, now discredited.
https://twitter.com/Desuetudine/status/1643566533686226947

The figure of 5 million you give is incorrect, twice the true figure so way off the mark.
You have no evidence of 5 million lost voters, it is simply speculation. A convenient fiction to support your thin argument.
 
If you are taking that from polling, there is no read through from polls to actual voting on a long time frame above about 3 months before a GE.
Any such correlation is in no way predictive, and no-one experienced in polling would claim otherwise. A poll is not a data point.
The only benchmark is at a GE, not a loose intention before the fact.

It is clear that Labour lost the red wall seats on the basis of ref2. Starmer is responsible (with others) for that loss of support.
Some seats would have been lost anyway, as the trend away from Labour in the red wall was already established.
LD votes are not really relevant in the red wall, other than to deprive the main parties. If they have no realistic chance, choosing to protest vote LD is about as sensible as pissing down your own leg.

I am not saying that the overall vote number is the only measure. It needs to be set alongside retention of sufficient votes in key seats, and ensuring a high turnout of support.
This is obvious from the numbers of seats changing hands.

The value of voter support in red wall marginals is much higher than other constituencies, because the tipping point is close to hand, so holding that vote and ensuring turnout is key.
Retaining the support of red wall leave voters was of greater strategic importance than pandering to remainiacs.

You seem to be saying that the overall numbers voting for Labour net out higher because of the ref2 position.
There is no data to support that, and with the electoral system we have, a smaller number of defections in marginal seats is of greater relevance than increased support in safe seats.

All of which is clear and well understood, except by those who wish to rewrite history.

Now, to the real point.
Does voting Labour do anything to promote socialism, improve trade union support, and rebuild the public sector?
What is the reward for working class people in backing Keith?
What is your view of the Doubledown news video posted up the thread by me and then Tyke?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Albie.

I used to have a lot of respect for your arguments, even when I strongly disagreed with you.

These days, you've gone entirely off the rails.

Ignoring polling data because there wasn't an election that day is just stupid.

A poll is a measure of support at the time that it is taken. Consistently, polling throughout Sumner 2019 showed that 5 million 2017 Labour voters had switched support to Remain supporting parties.

You don't like that data, so you totally ignore it.

You say, in effect, "the majority of Remain supporters who voted Labour in 2017 also voted Labour in 2019. Therefore they were always going to vote Labour in 2019. And I will ignore the copious evidence that a very large number of them were telling pollsters they wouldn't vote Labour, before the Ref2 policy was adopted."

Similarly, you are saying. "Labour adopted a Ref2 policy and then lost Red Wall seats. Therefore they lost Red Wall seats BECAUSE of the Ref2 policy. That's what is called a "post hoc, ergo proper hoc" mistake. Your logic totally ignores the fact that copious polling evidence suggests those Red Wall voters who deserted Labour had chosen to do so months before Starmer's speech and the Ref2 policy.

I KNOW you want to ignore the polling data, because it directly contradicts what you want to be true. That's your prerogative. But it is literally wilful ignorance.

[Branton Red]

The value of voter support in red wall marginals is much higher than other constituencies, because the tipping point is close to hand, so holding that vote and ensuring turnout is key.
Retaining the support of red wall leave voters was of greater strategic importance than pandering to remainiacs.

Spot on.

[albie]

BST,

A poll is not a data point, period.
With experience in the sector, you would know that this would always be stressed to interested parties.

I have explained some of the caveats to be considered, but you insist on squeezing the information for something that it cannot tell you.
No-one can have a discussion with you if you continue to base your case on extrapolating uncertainty.

In fairness, you are not alone in this mistake.
The media continually misrepresent poll outcomes as indicative of something in the future, from a source which they does not accurately measure in the first instance.

So by all means keep on cherry picking, but do not expect to be taken seriously!

[BillyStubbsTears]

So you are determined to stick to this belief that we know nothing about electoral support except on Election day?

[albie]

I have not said that, as you well know.

I am saying that their is no reliable predictive capability from mid term polling, using different methodologies and sample sizes, and built for different reasons.

If you think that there is, you are away with the unicorns and fairies.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Albie

You haven't explicitly said that. But you have, absolutely and determinedly refused to engage with the evidence from the polls.

The evidence that Labour had lost 5 million supporters to the LDs, Greens SNP and PC between New Year and midsummer 2019.

You point blank refuse to address that. Instead, you lecture me on something I already know - that polls are not a guarantee of what will happen in the future.

What you totally refuse to engage on is that we have no information other than polls to assess what may happen at a subsequent election in the absence of changes of circumstance.

By refusing to engage with that, you are doing what I said a few posts up - saying people who voted Labour in 2019 were always going to vote Labour and so didn't need to be won over.

[Branton Red]

Branton.

Your point 5 is factually incorrect. Show me evidence of Starmer going against the Labour line in the IVs or withdraw it. And before you accuse me of re-writing history again, do your homework.

You "Labour had a clear and unequivocal policy in winter/spring 2019 of a "compromise" that meant no EEA membership and no FoM."

IV 1/4/19 Keir Starmer voted For Common Market 2.0: Remaining in the European single market and seeking a temporary customs union with the EU www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47779783

Remaining in the Single Market would necessarily involve retaining FoM.

That evidence enough for you? Care to apologies?

And before you accuse me of re-writing history or being factually incorrect again, do your homework. 

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yep hand up. I'd forgotten about the CM 2.0 proposal. Mistake by me.

It's also a mistake by you to claim that Starmer went against Labour policy on this. Corbyn wrote to all Labour MPs asking them to support this motion, and voted for it himself. As did the whole Labour leadership.

This does reinforce my main thrust, (even though I admit I was wrong to claim Labour were clearly against FoM)

What the leadership actually did was to refuse to answer whether they were for or against FoM at that time, when pressed.

And for a very good political reason - because there was no coherent answer that could prevent the loss of one section of Labour support or another.

And as I've said, the mood in the electorate was no longer for compromise. Even though Labour supported that motion, they still suffered a catastrophic loss of support to the more strongly pro-Remain parties in the next few months. Because among those people, the possibility of Ref2 was now active. Labour didn't start to regain those 5 million lost supporters until they finally faced reality and embraced Ref2.

I'll say again. What possible policy could Labour have embraced in 2019 that would have retained those increasingly militant pro-Ref2 voters AND retained the Red Wallers who by mid-2019 were embracing No Deal?

There wasn't one. And by September 2019, Labour had lost the support of BOTH groups, and we're facing electoral meltdown.

The argument that Albie makes that Starmer's conference speech lost Labour the election is facile nonsense.

[wilts rover]

Dread to think how Corbyn would be handling Ukraine right now.

We’d have no nuclear deterrent and he’d be trying to engage in “dialogue” with Putin.

Churchill won WW2 by forming a pact with Stalin. Or to be more historically accurate - Stalin won WW2 by forming a pact with Churchill & Roosevelt.

All wars end in dialogue. The fighting bit gets you there.

[belton rover]

I apologise, but …

[belton rover]

Dread to think how Corbyn would be handling Ukraine right now.

We’d have no nuclear deterrent and he’d be trying to engage in “dialogue” with Putin.

Churchill won WW2 by forming a pact with Stalin. Or to be more historically accurate - Stalin won WW2 by forming a pact with Churchill & Roosevelt.

All wars end in dialogue. The fighting bit gets you there.

But isn’t nc’s point that we would have nothing to fight with, therefore no need for dialogue?

[Branton Red]

Billy

I forgot Corbyn's intervention on CM 2.0. My error. Happy to withdraw my comment on Starmer.

However that was only an aside. The main thrust of my argument - that pre Ref2 in 2019 Labour on Brexit were split, confused, contradictory - is proven correct.

Your assertion that I was 're-writing history' because Labour had adopted and successfully communicated a soft Brexit without FoM policy pre Sep-19 as I was proposing is proven false.

You've gone from clear and unambiguously in favour of ending FoM; to refusing to commit either way on FoM; via the majority of Labour MPs voting in favour of retaining FoM.

And you can substitute SM for FoM in the above sentence as the 2 go hand in hand. Clear and unambiguous on Brexit?? No confused and contradictory clearly.

And therefore Labour lost support from Remainers, Leavers and those in between who just wanted certainty.

Your whole argument is underpinned on Labour having a clear soft Brexit policy pre Sep-19 and the reaction to that policy showing a hardening of position and an unwillingness to compromise amongst the electorate.

But Labour provably didn't have a clear policy on Brexit. The central pillar to your argument is fatally undermined. Your self-certain opinion is based on mere conjecture that views had hardened and significantly shifted across the country. It is not based on evidence.

Actual evidence suggests Red Wall Leavers would have returned to Labour with a 'respect the referendum and end FoM' policy - because they voted for Labour in 2017 when they explicitly promised that.

Actual evidence (which you kindly provided) suggests around half of Remain voters wanted a compromise as a first choice. Before taking into account those who would accept a compromise if proposed as the only viable alternative to a Tory Brexit (no not everyone always votes rationally to get the least bad outcome under FPTP but that's not what I was arguing - just that many would have done).

Therefore the evidence, as opposed to baseless conjecture, suggests Labour would have almost certainly won more votes and certainly won more seats (remembering the Red Wall Leaver votes were proportionally more valuable in terms of gaining MPs) by adopting a compromise position rather than Ref2.