The country needs a credible second Party. A party that appeals to voters and is electable based on their socialist policies. A Labour Party which majors on investment in infrastructure, health, Housing, wellbeing of all citizens would attract significant support. This government is Just so bad, so inept, so dishonest that it would be criminal not to mount a strong challenge at the next election with policies that would take all of the UK forward.
I look at Labour in NZ and know more about what they stand for and are trying to do than the party in the U.K. Starmer surely has to fix anti semitism once and for all within the party. He also has to somehow unify it. Could he not do that by being clear what he sees as the Core policies he wants to contest the next campaign under. If he is clever, could he not develop a manifesto that could be supported by both the left and the Left/middle? Jacinda seems to have done it.
if he can’t do this, and do it relatively quickly the U.K. will fracture as sure as eggs is eggs And Labour will be as culpable as the Tories in losing Scotland to the SNP who seem to have comfortably populated the left/middle ground.
Of course in our parliamentary system the Opposition play an important role in our democracy and that party whoever it is has to be seen as credible and as a Government in waiting. It has only been at times of national crisis that this has not been the case, the Churchill Government during WW2 being the obvious case when their was a national Government and some Labour MPs played a prominent role in Government. A case could be made that now is a time of national emergency and Starmer has acted like that but Johnson hasn't, he has been as partisan as ever whilst Starmer has barely opposed and waved a lot of stuff through. This in my opinion has not helped Starmer as he looks like a Tory enabler and showboating once a week at PMQs may impress some people but others see it as vacuous and collaborative.
I know little about Jacinda Ahern or her political stance so cant really comment but i do know she is a popular rather than a populist leader and has the trust of the people. Trust is very important which is why everything is always done to undermine a Labour leader and i don't think it matters who it is who is leader because they will be under the microscope and the dirt will fly.
Labour's biggest problem at the last election was brexit, it appeared the party was on the fence and the people wanted to see Brexit get done as it was reaffirming democracy. Labour and Starmer pushing for a 2nd referendum and fighting against getting brexit done reflected badly on the party and the leave remaining areas in the red wall abandoned Labour to get brexit done. The debate is well documented elsewhere so no point going over it again, but i will say if Labour had supported brexit and got fully behind it we may now have a Labour government and the stories briefed against Corbyn may never have happened such was the power of the media in wanting brexit to be done.
At the last election the Labour Party stood on a manifesto very similar to what you suggest, of course with Corbyn being leader the concentration of the media focused on him personally rather than the policies and as a result we had the antisemitism and the Pro Ira/Hamas stories. The Labour manifesto under Ed Miliband also had similar policies but again the media focused on how he ate a bacon sandwich and how his father was the man who supposedly hated Britain. We underestimate sometimes the power of the print media to skew opinion and base things on personality rather than policy. Johnson who has the most unconservative of Conservative back stories hardly got a mention, because the media was focussed on the big issue of the day which was BREXIT. Get Brexit Done was an extremely powerful message and totally overshadowed the Labour manifesto which in itself was already sidelined because of the other stories about Corbyn et al.
What does Labour do now, well i think it would be a huge mistake to become the party of rejoin. It may be able to do that at the election after the next one but not for the next few years as people don't like being told they voted wrongly. So Labour has to focus policy on what a UK is like outside the EU and this is where in my opinion it has a real chance to push a real Socialist agenda once the strictures of the EU against Socialism are removed, such as state aid. The question then becomes does Starmer really want to do that and i don't think so, he appears to want to marginalise the left and remove Socialism from the party and return it back to the Blairite days of being pro EU , pro free market and comfortable with neoliberal economics and trickle down economic theory as the way to achieve social justice. Blair had some great achievements whilst being PM but he also underwhelmed many of the left and not just because of Iraq but because of his failure to repeal draconian anti- Union laws.
Starmer then is in a bind, he can take the party rightwards and appeal to the RW media and look a safe pair of hands if and when this Troy government falls or he can keep the more overt Socialist policies of the Corbyn era and risk the wrath of the RW media and put himself under the scrutiny that every Labour leader goes through. I believe that by what seems quite happily sacrificing the left he has already decided to go to the right and appeal to the centrists and RW media, Mondeo man or whatever other nom de plume the media come up with.
My fear though is that by going rightwards the Labour party becomes a mirror image of the American Democrats, a socially liberal but economically conservative party which would allow the the Conservative party to push further rightwards and all the gains of the Corbyn era in moving the Overton window leftwards will be lost.
I believe the UK is broken, i fully expect Scotland to become Independent and Wales to follow, i expect there will be a United Ireland in the not so near future as well so an area Labour could exploit is to play the Unionist card. Not only play that card but go further and increase devolution not only to Scotland and Wales but to the English regions too. Andy Burnham has shown what a regional mayor can achieve if given a limited amount of power so Labour could campaign for further powers to be devolved whilst also setting up a constitutional convention to look at how a federalised UK could operate in the future. This Conservative government has been one of the most centralising in terms of power there has possibly ever been and there is an opportunity for Labour to offer an alternative and also offer the manifesto pledges you suggest. It may keep the Union together, appeal to Scottish and Welsh voters and also to English Unionists as I don't think the Tories are committed to the union, they have become the party of English Nationalism.
It has long been my belief that Socialism starts on a local community based level and should be about people and giving them chance to decide for themselves democratically what is best for there region. The Tories concentrate on London and cities like ours are left behind in terms of infrastructure spend and regional development. This is a consequence of the Tories obsession with the City of London and its financial power, after all the Tories love money more than people. Single policies like HS2 could be opposed as that will in my opinion only suck more wealth and power towards London, so oppose it and pledge to spend the money on improving peoples lives in the red wall regions on simple things like offering them a decent bus service. Little things like that may make those people feel as though they are being listened too. Invest in the town centres that are being decimated and give people pride back in their community.
Will Starmer do this, i don't know, i certainly don't expect him too but the chance is there and if he took it i do think many on the left would give him a chance and support him. Labour has to appeal to those who feel left behind and as a result enabled brexit. As brexit is a reality then it has to work with brexit and give those who voted for it hope of a better world. The Tories levelling up plan grasps that, but I do not beleive for one minute they intend to do it because the North to them is a another world and they cannot help themselves but concentrate their power and allocate resources to their own constituencies. Jenrick has shown this to be case.
Its a long road back for Labour and i have real doubts that Starmer is the man, i think he will be the caretaker until somebody else with a vision appears and replaces him. Whether the damage that has been done can be reversed is another story. Until then though it looks like we have the Tories for a generation and my fucking god i hate the corrupt cunts with a passion.
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