When you say you are a political centrist who wants to look after the unfortunate whilst allowing business to flourish you fit neatly into the category of a One Nation Tory, a One Nation Tory is comfortable with free markets and is socially liberal in outlook and has a social conscience. Ken Clarke would probably be similar in outlook to you. The Tories in power now are free market extremists and culturally Conservative. The Tories just like Labour are a broad church of political opinion and at the moment the One Nation Tories (centrists) are on the fringes of what is now a populist movement hell bent on ideological minimalisation of the state because it believes that the free market answers all questions. That is the legacy of Keith Joseph the ideological driver of what we now call Thatcherism.
Those people, Thatcher included were rabid Pro EU, her legacy was the single market, the very single market many on the soft left, centrists and hard right of the Tory party now oppose. The Labour left in Bennite tradition were always anti EU, the Labour manifesto of 1983 included leaving the EU because the left saw it as a Neo-Liberal construct in hock with the Capitalists. The Labour Left also saw the EU as anti democratic and because the left are the real patriots in the UK (without the flag waving) it saw that the UK was being denied influence and self determination.
To put it simply, you can not be of the left and support the EU, so blaming the left for Brexit shows an ignorance of what the left has always been about. The soft left centrist Blairite part of the Labour party was always Pro EU and to fair to Blair he made a great case for membership and got many people onside with the Social Chapter which set minimal standards for workers rights which I applauded and I hoped the EU would become a fully federal state which at some point in the future could become a Socialist EU, but that is not going to happen because the owners of Capital run the EU, so we are better off out.
As for the Lying narcissist his idiocy and failure to be across his brief is the main reason Brexit is going wrong, blame him for it, it is his stupidity and overarching confidence in his own ability that has sold this country short, not the Labour party, although the Labour party and Starmer in particular with his flip flopping on brexit helped the lying cunts cause and split the Labour party asunder.
The sad thing is for me is that i saw a Labour party that echoed my views almost, but what was traduced daily and smeared hourly for all manner of ills yet had the best manifesto since 1982. It was not only attacked by the rabid fuckwits in the lunatic RW media but members and MPs in our own party. Socialism is a dirty word, its dirty because the owners of capital fear Socialism and they fund all manner of think tanks and media to persuade people that Socialism means the UK will be like North Korea, the ironic thing is that Priti Vacant wants us to be like North Korea.
For me, I believe Socialism is about dignity, it is about giving everyone dignity, from being able to work and feed your family to making sure those worse off can survive with dignity, its about making sure if you need to see a Doctor you can, if you want to borrow a book from a library you can, if you want decent police on the streets there are enough of them, if you need an ambulance you get one straight away, the schools our kids go to give them a decent education and a good start in life, industries that are natural monopolies should be publically owned so they can work for all not for profit for the few. We should have strong armed forces and equip them properly, we should have a world class infrastructure not a load of failing train companies given money to hand to their shareholders, we should pay a decent days wage for a decent days work but also tax those who get rich of the work others accordingly and make large corporations pay proper tax.
Nobody should be homeless, nobody should be hungry, nobody should be waiting 18 months for a referral to get help for mental health problems. We should be a country that acknowledges our imperial past and does its duty to those who need refuge from despots.
This country has become increasingly right wing fuelled by the media and Tufton Street mafia, but I do not believe this country is a right wing as the like of that horrible **** Farage make out, Patriotism does not belong to the flag waving loons on the far right it belongs to us all, because i can love my country and want a different path to what the self proclaimed patriots want and i do not believe we are that different. We want what is best for our country but see it differently that is all, but the RW are imbued with this culture war nonsense and that is damaging, its dividing us on issues that really have no consequence.
Yes I am a Socialist (spit everyone) but I am not a Socialist because I believe in trans rights or BLM or any other bogeyman cause the RW media attach to me, I am a Socialist because I want to make my life better and more importantly I want to make each and every person on the planets life better.
I wish Keir would see that instead of ostracising the likes of me.
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