[Closed] The end of Socialism in England - discuss

The only way ‘out’ is either ‘richer than than thou’, or to actually get out (emigrate). Either option (since Brexshit) has become many more times more difficult to achieve.

i have accepted the fact I am surrounded by morons, make your peace and just try and be a good person.

51%, well all that tells me is pretty much half the population is below average when it comes to thinking.

In a few years time Hartlepool will still be a shit hole, voting Tory wont change that.
sure, they'll benefit from some short term pork barrel politics but nothing changes the fact they voted for people that inherently have zero respect and compassion for them as they are 'poor'.

Unfortunately politics is now binary.. this division is the issue

No chance of what we see in the U.K. as socialismin the short or even medium term, also no chance if those opposing right/centre right views spend much of their time fighting like rats in a sack instead of forming a broad alliance.

I'm going to write to my local labour MP and ask her to support proportional representation, it the only way forward i can see.

Unfortunately a lot of people buy into the hard swerve (even further) to the right that the Tories have adopted over the last few years. Cameron's desire to appease the loony fringe of the extreme right and appealing to the UKIP/BNP/Brexit Party voter has meant that people feel freer to adopt/espouse hard right views, and meant even those who would otherwise be traditional Labour voters but hold those views have decided as 'left' and 'right' don't mean much any more, why not go with straight up xenophobia and racism instead?

Forgive my ignorance of international politics, are there other western democracies where one of the successful major parties has a name like labour, peoples workers party, etc?

If I took a very basic glance at UK politics* (which I'm sure many people do) then things like unions, strikes and so on are a big turnoff to me as a university educated professional middle class - which these days makes me mr average.

We no longer have the majority of citizens in the factory or the pit or the fields. The majority are or claim to be middle class.

*taking a proper look at the policies, yes, I agree with Labour. but what proportion of the population do?

This English disease

It's not exclusively 'English'. Many people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are ignorant, selfish narrow minded ****s as well.

Working in an Amazon warehouse/supermarket/call centre is the new 'working down the pit' innit. Fairly remiss of you to say that the majority of people are uni educated......I've had to start working in a supermarket post Covid. There's a handful of us with a degree.....and bar one all had a different career pre Covid, and aim to have a different one ASAP.

Hard to see what labour can actually do imo....populist nationalism is the order of the day, and a proper vote winner seemingly. Seems fairly inevitable that Scotland will want independence now....its going to get very messy.

If Tories created problems and Labour failed to fix those problems then they're both responsible for the problems.

Binary Division is made much more worse, because the liberals are now seen as an evil enemy that is actually so fictional it's entirely in their heads. More so in US. There it;s as if they are more evil than a communist dictator as if they've never had an administration slightly to the left of republicans before. UK is USA-lite.

There's a whole tens of % of demographic that are basically political orphans. Everyone thinks right=brexit left=remain, but that's total nonsense. 60/40 on each side maybe. So while the tories must have poached all the centre left brexiteers, the centre left has done the square root of naff all to try to woo over all the centre right pro-remain. Labour needs to woo us centrist globalists back.

I was not eligible to vote yesterday. There is not one single party that I would have been able to give my support since the day that Cameron said he'd hold a referendum if they won a majority. Not one single party. None. Would have to pinch my nose and vote tactically if it were a general election.

Labour in particular have a lot of work to do, and moving to the centre right might be a good start. And the Lib Dems simply need to actually exist!

There will not be an English Socialist government for at least a generation. Time to get used to it. #1 comes first.

I can't disagree with anything that's being said here. Ever since the brexit vote, I've looked at people in a different way, work colleagues, family members, people in the street, out on the trails, are you one of them? I think to myself. The positive of the pandemic is that I haven't had to see them as much. This country has shown it's true colours, it is filled past the half way point with bad people.
It's not about left or right, it's right or wrong, good or bad, black and white, it's not politics, most of these people don't care about politics. I can't wait to get out of here.

I think you have to look at it from the perspective of how influential are socialist ideas on real politics, what is their relevance and currency? It has been very significant at times, although maybe not right now.

But saying you're not able to see how we will ever achieve an English Socialist Government - we've never had a socialist government in the UK, or even come close to one AFAIK. It's been 200 years without a sniff of one.
The early labour victories of Macdonald in the 20s and 30s were minority governments and could not / did not enact socialist policy (second one ended up in total disarray during the great depression), and the great Atlee government post war was led by someone from the right of the party.

Maybe if labour offered more true left wing policies .......

If you look at it economically then signs,even up here in the North East,are positive.House sales in my " poor " area are strong and I have never seen as many new Mercedes,BMW's,Audi's,Range Rovers,etc on the road.
We know it's false as it is all borrowed money because of low interest rates, but the 20 year old queueing at McDonalds drive thru in his/her new A Class Merc isn't bothered about that.They aren't the great unwashed typical Labour voter anymore.Debt and greed are good.
Because of a perceived higher standard of living then plenty of people are prepared to overlook how bad this government is.I'm saying this as an ex Tory voter.
Brexit and the subsequent appalling deal seems to have been accepted by Labour with a shrug of the shoulders.But Boris delivered Brexit so it's job done.
With all the cronyism within this and previous governments it has worn me down over the years into thinking does voting actually alter anything.

At the risk of this becoming a repeat of various other threads...

There are two aspects to politics. You need to have the idea and the power.

The left (labour?) need to understand that people are not going to vote for socialism. What they need to offer is what people want which in my "expert political analysis" appears to be something near to the Torys unfortunately. So aiming left enough of that to get affect change but pick up enough ideas to get into power would be a good start. There's no point winning the arguement on the margins of government.

Oh, and I'd suggest bare faced lies as well. Seems to have worked for Johnson. Tell them Brexit was amazing, we'll deport all the brown people, get voted in, rejoin the EU, give everyone free broadband.

The left (labour?) need to understand that people are not going to vote for socialism

I think a lot of work needs doing to reverse the US style 'socialism is communism is Stalinism is evel' type mindset, that's been peddled by the right and far-right for decades, and has gradually infected UK and wider European politics. So, a lot more 'socialism is free healthcare, education and support for the needy' type rhetoric. IE; all those things that would make our society better. But whilst massive greedy corporate interests are lining up to take their slices of our public life, Socialism will remain the bogeyman. The keyt is to attack that greed; 'look at this rich ****; he's rich and you're poor, cos he's taken all YOUR money'. appeal to people's base instincts. People soon rally round socialists ideals and principles, in times of crisis and need. They just don't realise it.

This is typical, people don't vote they way you want them to vote so you call them selfish and racist.

How about people who just don't actually believe the fairytale? Maybe some people think that the notions are good but the reality is it just won't be possible and the side effects might actually harm the country. Are they selfish racists ?

As a long term labour voter I think the Hartlepool result is a massive problem. Not that Labour are doing that much wrong but that the Tory lies and brexit BS machine is so effective.

How do you combat such blatant lying and corruption when a bit of brexit red meat and some friendly press coverage seems to override everything you try.

Labour are in a tough place - but not every seat is as brexity as Hartlepool.

This is typical, people don’t vote they way you want them to vote so you call them selfish and racist.

How about people who just don’t actually believe the fairytale? Maybe some people think that the notions are good but the reality is it just won’t be possible and the side effects might actually harm the country. Are they selfish racists ?

@bazzer can you hand on heart say that Johnson et al are doing a good job? Or their policies benefit the majority in the country?

If not, then what else, other than nationalism/jingoism is the characteristic that keeps voters coming back to them? And like it or not, those attitudes are clearly linked to structural racism and inequality.

Anybody who knows about employment performance reviews is aware that the reviewer only considers what happened in the last 3 months.
So, a massive Brexit seat remembers that in the last few months the EU made a disastrous error in trying to ban us from getting the vaccines, the vaccination programme has been a massive success and those people who died as a result of Boris's massive failures are, sadly, no longer eligible to vote.

Aj: Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) have had some electoral successes

There's a slight assumption here that a socialist government could have been elected. The system isn't designed to allow for that.

The UK hasn't elected a socialist government in my lifetime and Labour have only won when they moved to the middle ground. Corbyn was Kryptonite to middle England. It will take a generation for labour to recover from Corbyn and Momentum.

NB I voted LD yesterday. Can't forgive Labour for being pro-Brexit.

Some good points here

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1390609662618308612

@Jakester

At the moment its the lesser of two evils, I have never been so disappointed and disillusioned with both sides of the house.

At the last election we had the the right pushing through Brexit, the left doing very little(nothing) to oppose it.

And we had the left wanting to stealth tax everyone's pension with the employee ownership nonsense, which capped what actually went to employees at a low level and the rest went to the government.

So we have the right doing everything to make the rich richer and sod the middle man and the left doing everything to make the rich poorer and sod the middle man.

So to be honest there is no perfect option at the moment and neither are fighting my corner.

NB I voted LD yesterday. Can’t forgive Labour for being pro-Brexit.

That's it isn't it both parties have been complicit in something that feel is wrong on a moral and a financial level, so its really hard to forgive that. So I feel exactly the same.

Economics and politics is a relatively new thing in the scheme of the world, for 100’s / 1,000’s years we have all worked on dictatorships and monarchies (give me the money and shut up).

Politics and economics is fairly new in the scheme of things and I think now the world is beginning to realise it can not deliver a utopia.

So it’s either communism to the left, dictatorship to the right or socialism in the middle, doesn’t make too hoots whether that’s labour or conservative in the middle, they are both in the middle.

And there will always be rich and poor, that’s human nature.

And for a socialist state, the fact is people keep voting to say they don’t want to pay for it

Labour has a big issue at the moment that's for sure.

It doesn't seem to have a stance on brexit - can't make up it's mind if it's good or bad for the country, as a large proportion of labours voters are pro brexit. So has this "it's the will of the people, so deal with it" argument that isn't good enough for me. Labour, in my view are not 'pro-brexit' but just can't seem to get the balls to say it for fear of alienating a large proportion of voters.

Labour has to been seen to be supportive of the government during big current decision making around the pandemic and added to that a lack of parliament debates in the last year has seen a distinct lack of opposition from them. In my view the SNP has done a better job here with the pandemic and has generally lead the UK government at every turn.

I'm not a labour supporter, but the party values are cirtainly closer to my own than the far right direction the Conservatives are driving us in. It's just I don't think we've seen enough of a drive away from Corbin or a clear view of the direction Starmer wants the take the party/country towards over the last year or so of his leadership.

We have socialist institutions and socialist policies entirely mainstream in the UK... but if you want to keep them, and add to them, don't call them socialist. This lesson should have be learnt long ago.

Socialism in the UK ended at the 1983 election. The very fact people on the left are still talking about capitalism vs socialism illustrates why they lose. This is the 21st century, people are not interested in state ownership of industry, collective bargaining and council housing, they're worried about climate change, falling wages and rising prices, good jobs for their kids, and the impact automation is going to have on their livelihoods. Time to get with the programme. We could do a lot worse than following what's happening in the US.

So, a lot more ‘socialism is free healthcare, education and support for the needy’

Which I agree would be good with more of it around, but;

Ever since the brexit vote, I’ve looked at people in a different way, work colleagues, family members, people in the street, out on the trails, are you one of them?

51%, well all that tells me is pretty much half the population is below average when it comes to thinking.

There is also a lot of this going around from both the left and the right. So it boils down to do the general population want to pay more to help one another, when most seem to think others are not worthy of paying more to support - 'cos they are scroungers / work shy / racists / selfish / stupid etc?

Over the last number of elections we have been shown that time and time again the general population are, on the whole not willing to pay extra to help someone else.

We will have a conservative government in power in Westminster for at least the next 8 years (rest of this term and almost certainly the next).

If Tories created problems and Labour failed to fix those problems then they’re both responsible for the problems.

Very much this.

A mate of mine recently did a really good potted history of our experience of Labour/Conservative during our lifetime:

Here is a selection of my personal moments of deepest political and economic despondency.
Let's start with the militant trade unions in the 60s exploiting our lack of sensible labour laws, wreckers under the direction of the Soviet bloc. Political extremists who swallowed communism, coercing and cajoling honest working men into strikes and violent picketing. The clearest case of "lions led by donkeys" in 20th century British history.
Continuing with Heath and Barber pissing Roy Jenkins' good work against the wall and backing down to the miners, abandoning the sensible labour law we needed.
Then the incompetent Callaghan fiddling while the unions ran amok and Benn nationalised Leyland and left it to vegetate, as Wilson had done with steel - Clause 4 accomplished, Sir, now sit back and watch the wealth create and redistribute itself - I don't think.
Knee jerk to Thatcher, deciding "industry doesn't matter" and bleeding it white with high interest rates (Milton Friedman couldn't believe his luck, finding a national leader daft enough to try out his theories - in any case sensible, well governed countries already had interest rates out of political hands). And that "railways are old fashioned" and ditching the ATP after it broke down in trials during exceptionally bad winter weather. Leaving us to buy the tilting technology from Italy for far more than the 37 million BR had spent, just few years later.
Next up was the privatisation of public utilities, ultimately allowing foreigners to subsidise their own domestic prices and balance sheets from British purses.
And this from the Iron Lady, who took us to war with Argentina to save our national face, but surrendered our markets to our competitors. Not just without a fight but while tying our manufacturers’ hands behind their backs with high interest payments and then stabbing the same backs by spending public money on foreign goods that could be made at home.
Cue the arrival of Major, more destructive monetarism, nascent Euroscepticism and the first sleaze, typified by "cash for questions" - the direct antecedent of what Johnson is being harangued for here. Would that it were only Johnson doing it!
Enter New Labour who reversed the Tories' spending policies to create a phoney feel-good factor, but didn't raise a finger to reverse Thatcher's and Major's (lack of) industrial policy e.g. Vauxhall in Luton – contrast with what Merkel did to salvage GM sister Opel in Germany.
And their greatest folly, opening the immigration floodgates into an economy that was short on decent jobs in industry, eventually mutating to gigs and zero hours contracts.
The state of the nation with criminality rife and a seam of dishonesty and lack of integrity right through the populace are the direct result of all the above, but especially "industry doesn't matter" and New Labours' acceptance of what they took over (shades of Corbyn's doctrinaire Brexit inaction?), that turned fitter-turners and first hand smelters into white van men.
In parallel leading to the diminishing of UK's participation in even simple technologies, as they were imported and domestic suppliers went down the pan (cf. the Army getting Renault vans while Leyland DAF expired under Blair). In short, knocking the shit out of the fabric of the land that invented industry and most of the things industry gave us.
Finally Brexit, the barmy culmination of being governed by an elite that neither knows nor cares about working class conditions or aspirations, and has become more and more self-seeking. As well as EU jobs emigrating, and banks, Toyota and Honda doing runners, we have missed out on a Tesla works, the Land Rover Defender clone - and many other chances to welcome foreign companies wanting a foothold in the EU in an English speaking country - while day-to-day trade with Europe is a shambles that may or may not recover.
However, who cares? Reet-Smugg's hedge fund will prosper, salt its profits away in tax havens and then claim all the plebs need is more like him and trickle-down.
And the sad fact is that I could have mentioned perhaps three times as many examples of economic mismanagement and sleaze - Jenrick, Desmond, Patel and Green, for example - by the cynical or plainly clueless in government.
Oh Boris, you enemy, you.

Forgive my ignorance of international politics, are there other western democracies where one of the successful major parties has a name like labour, peoples workers party, etc?

Aj: Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) have had some electoral successes

Um, "some"? The current president is from the PSOE. I'm not sure I'd say he's particularly socialist though, his politics are fairly centrist.

The labour movement has created and formed the following:

The weekend off work
Sick pay
Holiday pay
Free at the point of delivery healthcare
Health and safety
The wider welfare state

The list goes on and on and on

Thatcher disassembled the working class whilst at the same time demolished the manufacturing base in this country destroying communities.

If people think these tories are any different then it’s time ....... I don’t know what to do.

Everyone has the right to free choice, even to choose to be conned and lied too.

Say goodbye to the NHS, free speech and rights in the workplace

Now who was that shipping company who didn’t own any ships.......

two things

The tory mayor of Tees has done a very good job of regenerating the area, it's hard to deny that. That has definitely contributed to this result.

As someone living in the north east as a teenager in the 80s, i remember the depravation and hardship faced by many (luckily for me, not my family). I will never vote tory, but i struggle to see what Labour are now. for the first time ever i voted green last night. Other than keeping the tories out i don't know why i would vote labour now, and thats not a good thing in what is essentially a two party system

I was responding to the question: 'are there other western democracies where one of the successful major parties has a name like labour, peoples workers party, etc?'

Yep, no socialist but hey.

I think the Labour Party have 2 main problems at the moment

The first is brexit which, certainly in their traditional northern heartlands, was very popular for reasons I am at a loss to understand. And Boris gets a lot of credit for getting it done

The second is wokesim. Labour has gone woke and I cant for the life of me see how that was ever going to appeal to their original core voters who are / were white working class families.

As a result its very easy for the Tories, with the help of the media, to portray Labour as a pro EU, pro woke party that isn’t going to appeal to their core supporters

Fairly remiss of you to say that the majority of people are uni educated

since the Blair years, about 50% of school leavers have gone to university. obviously for those older, it was a reduced number so not going to be 50% of voting population.

Its not exactly the elite club that some make it out to be.

(and nor, of course, is it necesarily a marker of intelligence)

Labour were a total sham by me in the local elections, Tories very pro-active, be no surprise if their wiped out in the results. The Labour Party just seems directionless and clueless at the moment.

Other than keeping the tories out i don’t know why i would vote labour now, and thats not a good thing in what is essentially a two party system

This 👆

This is typical, people don’t vote they way you want them to vote so you call them selfish and racist.

No, it's just Tories.

Tory ideology is small government - right? We can all agree on this, it's not a secret and it's not controversial.

But what does small government mean? It means the government does as little as it can, it stays out of your life and your business as much as possible. That means less regulation. Great, surely?

Well, it's great for a business owner, for sure. They don't have to care about any of it. But what regulations do you lose? Stuff like worker's rights, for starters. Small government doesn't want to protect workers rights. It thinks that your work contract is between you and your boss and if you don't like it work somewhere else. But what happens if ALL the jobs have low security and crap conditions? Then you've got no choice but to work in a shitty job with low security. This doesn't affect well educated professionals as much, because their skills are in demand. So the less educated or more disadvantaged get the shitty end of the stick.

This means that a relatively small number of business owners can be a bit richer, because they can get away with paying their workers less, but for millions it makes their lives much worse.

THAT is why Tory voters are selfish. It's not a random throw-away insult. I don't feel the same about Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid or Green voters, even though I don't necessarily agree with them. It's Tories.

How about people who just don’t actually believe the fairytale?

It's not a ****ing fairytale. I just want social democracy. Like lots of other real actual countries have today. So, free childcare, for example - not a fairytale, it happens for real in other places, and it helps so many peoples lives in so many ways. Why don't we have it? Why are single mothers whose partners have left them forced to live on benefits WHEN THEY WANT TO WORK? Because Tories want business owners to be a bit richer and pay a bit less tax. **** Tories.

Labour on Scottish Independence - Please vote tory

Labour on Brexit - Please vote tory

Labour on CV-19 - Please vote tory

They have basically utterly lost their identity and are just scrapping with the SNP now in a bun fight most people don't even know is going on. If we are lucky a strong leader will come through the ranks and put of the flaming wreckage and rebuild.

Has Labour really "gone woke", or is that just what the Daily Mail et al are saying to try and discredit them?