I think everyone here knows the reason why the Parliamentary Labour Party was so keen to replace Corbyn but are currently extremely reluctant to replace Starmer.

We all go along with this nonsense that the issue is and was about the popularity of the Labour Leader. It was never about that, and it still isn’t about that now.

It always was, and still is now, about policy.

Even before Corbyn was elected Labour Leader Tony Blair, the arch-blairite Labour politician, was making it crystal clear that he didn’t want to see a left-wing Labour government.

In fact he could not have made it clearer :

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-says-he-wouldn-t-want-left-wing-labour-party-win-election-10406928.html?amp

For Tony Blair his wish came true and we now have a Tory government.

No apology needed binners…..you seem like one of lifes good guys mate, and tbf the first time I’ve ever properly encountered a ‘Sun reading, St George’s flag waving EU hater’ is in my current employment….sometimes a feel bad at not confronting it, but for little over minimum wage and a desire to make it as pain free as possible, I just cba!

It does however illustrate a potential problem with current Labour. I’m as guilty as you and countless other of being a long standing Labour voter and making the ‘White van man racist flag shagger’ comments…..Boris and the Tories in general have won them over. Lots of the folk that I work with have literally zero education/zero belief in themselves/zero aspirations for what we might consider a better life…..they’re convinced that Boris and Nigel are just like them….it’s terrifying really!

And who created and promoted that persona?

It’s his life’s work. He’s been tweaking the act over decades. He’s the political equivalent of Alan Partridge

If only he put 10% of the effort into being PM as he did preening his persona

Unfortunately it appears there are plenty of takers for the whole concocted charade.

As one of his aides when he was London Mayor said:

“Everyone loves Boris….

apart from those who know him”

Sun reading, St George’s flag waving EU hater’

I know most punters on stw fondly hang on to this stereotype as it’s obviously warmly reassuring to dismiss Brexiteers as stupid and uneducated.

And whilst I don’t want to rob anyone of the sense of superiority which it undoubtedly provides them with I reckon it distorts the truth so much as to render it meaningless.

The London borough next to mine is Sutton. Leafy Sutton is one of the wealthiest boroughs in London, it forms part of that affluent doughnut ring which encompasses Inner London.

Sutton has some of the highest house prices and levels of academic achievement in London.

It is a Liberal Democrat stronghold, it is middle-class and liberal. For over 30 uninterrupted years the LibDems have controlled the council. And until the great LibDem meltdown of 2010 they held the parliamentary seat.

In the 2016 EU referendum Sutton, this affluent middle-class well-educated liberal borough, voted to leave the EU by a greater margin than the national average.

I know simple is easy but it is not always correct.

On the other hand I’m a C2 who left school with only CSEs and hates the EU. So I guess I fit the stereotype nicely. Although I don’t drive a white van, currently it’s a BMW estate with a roof rack.

Pfft! Typical! Bloody BMW drivers!

I know most punters on stw fondly hang on to this stereotype as it’s obviously warmly reassuring to dismiss Brexiteers as stupid and uneducated.

I think there was data to back this up though wasn’t there? Also being educated doesn’t exempt you from political naivety and racism.
I live in a wealthy village in the New Forest. Retired doctors, senior people in companies etc,. stupid they are not. Being in or out of the EU would make very little difference to their lives, they can’t even have an issue with immigration and any impact whatsoever to them.

This is a ~65% Brexit and ~65% Tory voting area.
When I talked to them about Brexit, most were in favour but not a single one of them can actually give any sort of reason other than the typical bullshit the likes of Farage puts out.
Same goes for why they vote Tory, nothing to really back it up.
Does that make them stupid? (I know a few of them are a bit racist!)

On the other hand I’m a C2 who left school with only CSEs and hates the EU. So I guess I fit the stereotype nicely.

Yep, stupid racist.

Obviously not in all cases – but it’s not so much as these people are stupid and dumb (hell, my local barista who makes incredible coffee and food – always on the wrong side of history, anti-vax, Brexit, anti-Corbyn, pro distorted free market, foreigners taking all the money etc.) – it’s that they are really pissed and frustrated and their anger lands in the wrong place, cunningly guided by the newspapers.

Remind them the institutions of the last 40 years have robbed them and future generations. The ones they voted for.

The one problem now is you have the likes of Julia Spewer dividing these people up now into a fight for their freedoms against the elite and the msm. When in reality they are do the job of the actual elite by blaming foreigners and scroungers.

The more you carve society up the harder it is to heal.

If division delivers the 25% of the voting age public that you need into the booths to put a tick against your candidates… then why try and do away with it? Of course there are politicians who genuinely want to heal divisions… but are they winners? I consider Starmer one of those who want to being people back together… but no, not a winner.

Yep, it’s no good dismissing people who have not developed class consciousness with white van man ad hominems. The flag waving and imagined communities may well express a misplaced desire for solidarity and mutual support. The task is to swivel that anger against migrants and the EU towards bosses, rent-seekers and a Tory government who are really the ones who are screwing them over. If your arguments and evidence are any good you don’t need to storm off in impotent outrage. Stay for the extra pint, cajole and persuade.

I really like my “boss”. There’s more than one way to cynically divide up the population.

There’s some lovely smiley people out there extracting the surplus value from their underlings. Do you imagine that the capitalist system is divided between the nasty and the nice?

kerley Free Member

I live in a wealthy village in the New Forest. Retired doctors, senior people in companies etc,. stupid they are not.

On the other hand I’m a C2 who left school with only CSEs and hates the EU. So I guess I fit the stereotype nicely.

Yep, stupid racist.

So the posh people in your wealthy village didn’t support brexit because they are stupid. However in my case because I am working-class it must be because I am stupid.

Well there’s nothing quite like a bit of bigoted class prejudice, on a forum full of middle-class guardian-reading liberals.

So the posh people in your wealthy village didn’t support brexit because they are stupid.

They are not stupid in a qualification/job sense but I would say they are stupid politically based on their understanding of EU and Tories.

However in my case because I am working-class it must be because I am stupid.

I really didn’t think a smiley was necessary on that one but here you go 🙂

So now you’re smiling whilst calling me stupid?!?!

ffs

The comment “Yep, stupid racist” was clearly (well I thought so) meant as a joke.

No I am not seriously calling you a stupid racist.

Hang on…

Tony Blair, the arch-blairite Labour politician

What? Blair’s a Blairite? Jawdrop emoji.

was making it crystal clear that he didn’t want to see a left-wing Labour government.

…I thought he was saying he didn’t think Corb would be a good PM. Can you link the relevant quote? Actually no need, because who cares? He’s an ex pol who still comments and gets on the news but has no position or major influence that I can see.

Come on Earnie, you’re smart, not a racist, and had very reasonable objections to things done at the EU level. In terms of being pro-Brexit… I still don’t think you’ve seriously grasped what and who Brexit enables, and what they are going to do to us with the power we’ve given them.

FFS I was taking the piss! It’s what I do! Nothing discussed on here actually matters.

Anyway on a more serious note my point still stands.

Middle-class liberals are very quick to characterise working-class people who support brexit as stupid thick racists.

And yet I have never heard a middle-class liberal describe Tony Benn as a stupid thick racist.

In the 1980s it was Labour Party policy to leave the EEC. Obviously the party was then full of stupid thick racists, but I have never heard a middle-class liberal describe Michael Foot as a stupid thick racist.

So why is that? Well Tony Benn and Michael Foot were both middle-class educated lefties, like themselves, so it is not possible that they were stupid thick racists…..they probably even read the Guardian.

So yeah, bigoted class prejudice by middle-class guardian-reading liberals is very much alive. Ironically.

In the 1980s it was Labour Party policy to leave the EEC.

…and some cough*Corbyn*cough remained stuck in that era. As is pointed out extensively in other threads. Brexit and thick racist are overlapping circles on the Venn, but not the same thing.

Brexit and thick racist are overlapping circles on the Venn

Is that something to do with maths?

I only got CSE maths.

Plenty of ‘thick’ racist middle-class people in the current cabinet. Some are only there because of Brexit, they’d never have got the posts they now have without it.

Stay for the extra pint, cajole and persuade.

You’d be better off trying to teach a cat to windsurf

You’d be better off trying to teach a cat to windsurf

Don’t undersell yourself binners, I have seen your remarkable eloquence on here.

If there’s one man who can cajole and persuade it’s got to be you.

Just remember to take your blood pressure tablet before you walk into the Rose and Crown.

Just remember to take your blood pressure tablet before you walk into the Rose and Crown.

Does it have a big screen for sports that he could connect a laptop to and so educate them via the use of hilarious images?

Nothing discussed on here actually matters.

Always amazed at the number of people on here who haven’t grasped this central truth.

Middle-class liberals are very quick to characterise working-class people who support brexit as stupid thick racists.

Or nazi appeasers 😏

…and some cough*Corbyn*cough remained stuck in that era.

And ironically had Corbyn stuck to his 1980s views on the EEC labour might have held on to many of those brexit voting seats in the north and the midlands.

And probably held even fewer seats nationwide.

And probably held even fewer seats nationwide.

Yes of course, because under the visionary leadership of prime-minister-to-be Jo Swinson, the resurgent Lib Dems would have wiped the floor against labour just like they did in 2017. We have the power of hindsight now, and the facts are pretty clear that the remainer lib dem threat to labour was non-existent compared to the brexit supporting tory threat in red-wall seats.

There are very few Labour vs LibDem marginals… so I have no idea what you’re on about.

There are very few Labour vs LibDem marginals…

Which doesn’t really help your point. It comes down to whether the labour remain vote was bigger than the labour brexit vote in labour marginals. The labour leadership, under pressure from centrist remainers such as Starmer made a decision to fall on the remain side of the fence. Evidently that was a catastrophically wrong decision given that we now know the election result.

To put it simply… in most seats people deciding not to vote Labour gives us more Conservative MPs, not more LibDem ones. A firmly “Brexit at all costs, no further votes” policy would have decimated Labour support in many seats. Voters would have stayed away, or voted Green, LibDem, PC… resulting in more Tory MPs not more Green or LibDem seats (well, apart from a small number possible of seats).

A firmly “Brexit at all costs, no further votes” policy would have decimated Labour support in many seats. Voters would have stayed away, or voted Green, LibDem, PC…

But the evidence of the election doesn’t support that does it? You’re just assuming that’s the case to support your remain position and justify the labour pro-remain policy. Labour didn’t have a pro-remain policy in 2017 and didn’t lose all it’s support as you suggest. The only thing we know for certain is that labour shifted to a pro-remain policy and lost loads of seats in it’s traditional heartlands to the tories, which it previously held with a ‘respect the result’ policy.

Middle-class liberals are very quick to characterise working-class people who support brexit as stupid thick racists.

Interesting article I read about why many people with heritage from the Indian sub-continent voted Brexit – essentially a lot of them wondered why it was that they fought for Britain/the allies in WWII but then had less rights/a harder time staying here than people from nations we’d fought against or who hadn’t done as much. Also perhaps that we owed a debt from colonial exploitation etc. Interesting perspective and one I’d not considered.

justify the labour pro-remain policy

Labour didn’t have a pro-remain policy in 2019. It had a fudged policy to try and fight many different fights in many different types of seat. It didn’t “work”, but let’s not kid ourselves that Labour were doing well before they adopted that fudge. They were fourth in the polls at one point.

.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/10/thinking-big-labour-politics-radical-vision?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Ooh you don’t say Ed. Go big? Oh what with big macroeconomic policy. Yes of course. People on s/t don’t believe it though. They think being successful is all about PMQs.

Mind you you’re not Corbyn so they probably will agree, and because it’s in the Guardian it will be a great piece

They were fourth in the polls at one point.

Let’s not also forget Labour were 9pts ahead in May 2019 too. (Kantar)

Something the current Labour leadership can only dream of.

Ooh you don’t say Ed. Go big?

There’s going to be a lot of this in next year or so. All the labour big beasts will be manoevring for pole position, and Ed clearly fancies another crack at it. He makes all the right noises but still short on detail. It’s all very well talking about green new deal and ‘properly financed’ social care but it needs flesh on the bone as right now people just think it’s a lofty ideal.

What green jobs will be generated? Who will they be available to? Where’s the education and training coming from to get these jobs? He wants a social housing revolution, where will they be built? How much will they cost and who will be prioritsed? How’s he going to control and prevent the ruthless instincts of the market? We’re long past talking about what’s wrong, we all know already, what we need to hear is how it’s going to be fixed.

I’d like to hear all that detail as well… but then at the last two elections Labour were the only party with properly set out and costed plans in their manifesto… many people aren’t moved by that kind of detail in the slightest… they want to read the front page of manifestos, at most, and then weigh up the vague lofty wiffle waffle of the two front benches, especially the leaders, and, unfortunately, the take of “journalists” about whether it’s all credible or not.

Sorry, I still have no answers, only problems… I should shut up.

Gove found to have broke the law in case brought by Good Law Project. Come on Keir don’t let us down.