After Corbyn

[plebian]

Which should happen to all legislation in a functioning democracy.

[dyqik]

Which should happen to all legislation in a functioning democracy.

Yep. The alternative is major policies being essentially written by a couple of interns and young staffers, then being given a tick by the politician they work for (US) or major policies being written by a special interest group within a party, who are the only ones who care about it at the manifesto policy meeting and know enough about which way to vote (UK). Often without much outside evidence, or input from those who'll have to actually implement the policy.

[GeenDienst]

Momentum's leadership will likely now insist that the core of Labour 2019 Manifesto is a sacred, unmodifiable document. Lansman has already said they will work with any leader, but expect McDonnell's economic policies.

Everybody will cospire to forget the broadband bollocks, though.

[bolo]

Sure, you may need to modify an electoral position once in office because you have to compromise to get legislation enacted, or because you find that actually implementing a policy, while remaining true to the spirit of your electoral position, requires some adjustments. This process tends to move the outcome toward the political middle.

It's very different to go into an election pretending that you are a moderate, planning the whole time to pivot away from the middle after being elected as a sort of gotcha on the electorate.

[dyqik]

Sure, you may need to modify an electoral position once in office because you have to compromise to get legislation enacted, or because you find that actually implementing a policy, while remaining true to the spirit of your electoral position, requires some adjustments. This process tends to move the outcome toward the political middle.

It's very different to go into an election pretending that you are a moderate, planning the whole time to pivot away from the middle after being elected as a sort of gotcha on the electorate.

I don't think we're talking about exactly the same things, tbh. You can have far-left/right aims, while stating that you will work with existing institutions and processes to make them happen, or create new institutions where necessary. That's a moderate institutionalist position, but can also be a progressive position (see Warren's plans and CFPB, or a significant chunk of Blair and Brown's policies), and no pivoting as such is required. Or you can have far-left/right aims, and state that you will do radical things like shut down institutions and processes to achieve them (something Sanders-type leftists and Trump both say fairly often - it could be "repeal Obamacare" or "abolish ICE", etc.).

The latter is inherently more scary to the middle of the electorate - we saw that in the US with the reaction to "repeal Obamacare" in 2018 elections, and with how Medicare-for-all plays depending on whether "for-all" means "everyone has to have it" or "everyone can have it", and how that interacts with people's familiarity with private insurance.

[Herainestold]

If you have a radical agenda and you promote it in a straightforward manner, you risk attracting the attention of those who can interfere in the campaign and subvert opinion. The media establishment, American billionaires, Russian troll farms, others who act behind the scenes. That is why it is so difficult for a politician to promote progressivist agenda in these parlous days. You have to play a subtle game, where your radical bonfides are known, but your policy approvals appear centrist and non threatening.

Not easy to accomplish at all.

[GeenDienst]

And FAOD, none of this is the same as lying.

Need to find somebody whoo looks moderate but has deep progressive and leftish instincts and who will pivot that way once elected.

[plodder]

If you have a radical agenda and you promote it in a straightforward manner, you risk attracting the attention of those who can interfere in the campaign and subvert opinion. The media establishment, American billionaires, Russian troll farms, others who act behind the scenes. That is why it is so difficult for a politician to promote progressivist agenda in these parlous days. You have to play a subtle game, where your radical bonfides are known, but your policy approvals appear centrist and non threatening.

Not easy to accomplish at all.

FFS. Corbyn is not an honest progressive with an excellent agenda that was subverted by vested interests.

He's a dishonest regressive with a crazy agenda that was subverted by vested interests.

[GeenDienst]

...and the voters who saw straight through him.

[plebian]

If you have a radical agenda and you promote it in a straightforward manner, you risk attracting the attention of those who can interfere in the campaign and subvert opinion. The media establishment, American billionaires, Russian troll farms, others who act behind the scenes. That is why it is so difficult for a politician to promote progressivist agenda in these parlous days. You have to play a subtle game, where your radical bonfides are known, but your policy approvals appear centrist and non threatening.

Not easy to accomplish at all.

FFS. Corbyn is not an honest progressive with an excellent agenda that was subverted by vested interests.

He's a dishonest regressive with a crazy agenda that was subverted by vested interests.

They can speak for themselves but I read that post as being prospective for a viable candidate for PM rather than an assessment of Corbyn. On the former it's pretty bang on.

[sheldrake]

What do people mean when they say 'progressivist'?

[Opti]

I don't think it's a totally thought-through philosophy, it sort of means 'not reactionary'.

HTH.

[jimbob]

Momentum's leadership will likely now insist that the core of Labour 2019 Manifesto is a sacred, unmodifiable document. Lansman has already said they will work with any leader, but expect McDonnell's economic policies.

Everybody will cospire to forget the broadband bollocks, though.

Judging from Twitter, you're almost right, except that it is #CorbynMustStay as a typical response.

But it was apparently snakes like me caused Corbyn's defeat.

[GeenDienst]

Like you, as in voters.

[murmur]

Oh goody: according to some of our local meejah (and The Mirror) Ian Lavery is considering standing. That'll be nice...

And Anna Turley remains hugely pissed off with Corbyn and those around him, so I'm sure she will support Lavery...

[GeenDienst]

Lavery can enter an endless cycle of repeated f.cking off farther away. He is one of the prime architects of Labour's current clusterf.ck.

I enjoyed Lewis speaking out in favour of those of us who used to be 48% of something.

I think what we have to understand is what Brexit was. For many of us watching Brexit unfold, Brexit was a policy of a faction of the Conservative party and the right of this country that wanted to put globalisation on steroids, if you want, and it was a hard right political project. And I believe that the Labour party had to fight that with all its vigour and to offer an alternative.

I don’t believe this was the main reason for what happened to us in the election, but I think one of the things that we have to accept is that if you pick a side, you have to then argue for that side, and argue for it comprehensively. And what we didn’t do, by triangulating - one of the key USPs of Jeremy Corbyn was that he was an authentic politician, I genuinely believe that he was, but on the biggest political crisis of British modern politics we were unable, via Jeremy, to be able to take a position. I think actually we should have stood our ground and argued our case.

He'd make a fine sacrificial early step on their Sisyphean slope to power. Seems unlikely he'll get the backing to stand though, it says.

Also, the Graun has a digested read of Long Bailey's pitch in that organ:

Somewhat ironically, Long Bailey’s 850-word op-ed rails against New Labour “triangulation,” yet itself reads rather like a carefully calibrated pitch to the different power bases within the party. It also seems to borrow heavily from several of the leadership bids we’ve already heard. So there’s the essential nod to Labour’s trade union backers (“they are our roots in every workplace); the Clive Lewis-style hint of more power for party members (“our promise to democratise society will ring hollow if we can’t even democratise our own party”); and the Keir Starmer-ish pledge to left-wingers that Corbyn’s policy agenda will not be abandoned (“we cannot return to the politics of the past.”) Then there’s the establishment of working-class credentials (“I grew up watching my father’s friends lose their jobs”); and the Lisa Nandy-style vow to return power and patriotic pride to communities (“we must revive this progressive patriotism.”) If none of that sounds terribly original, well, that’s because it isn’t. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be enough to win.

So, they are trying to replace "neoliberal" with "triangulation" as teh evul word, so they can be all against something new labourey, while moving on from the (ahem) more recent past .

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... -live-news

[sheldrake]

Lewis' 'If only we'd come out more solidly for remain we could have won' is exactly the kind of deep delusion the centre left has to purge itself of to gain power again. This is so incredibly and deeply wrong.

[GeenDienst]

if Labour MP Toby Perkins (no, me neither) is to be believed, Lavery's reported intention to stand is merely a feint to make Long bailey look more palatable. He has chirruped:

Don’t be fooled by this. It’s purely an attempt to convince us all that RLB is not a far left choice. He won’t really stand, she will.

The leader of the TUC also said something about needing a credible leader who can be supported by the whole country something, but nobody alive remembers what the TUC was, and are wondering why a cheesy biscuit has an opinion here.

Also, it's apparently looking like a Long Bailey-Rayner ticket, which momentum will deliver as the next losers.

[greyspoke]

Lewis' 'If only we'd come out more solidly for remain we could have won' is exactly the kind of deep delusion the centre left has to purge itself of to gain power again. This is so incredibly and deeply wrong.

Backing remain and continuing to do so would have been a long game with an uncertain outcome. It will be the "I told you so" option in the next election but one, or a dud. But the approach they took was the worst of all, if they had gone firmly remain (or firmly leave) they would have lost by less. From where Labour is now, it should be playing a long game as there is little in the short term to play for.

[GeenDienst]

Alistair "Evul Neoliberal Triangulator" Campbell points out (covered in today's Graun live, link nearby above) that he was hoofed out of labour in about 3 mins flat for voting LD and saying so in the European elections, yet one "Gisela Stuart ... said this morning she was still a party member - even though she appeared on a platform with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove during the election campaign, urging people to vote Tory to deliver Brexit".

Consistent with the view that the inner clique hate new Labour more than they do the Tories, and a follow on to Corbyn's policy of only ever punishing naughty remainers.

[sheldrake]

Lewis' 'If only we'd come out more solidly for remain we could have won' is exactly the kind of deep delusion the centre left has to purge itself of to gain power again. This is so incredibly and deeply wrong.

Backing remain and continuing to do so would have been a long game with an uncertain outcome. It will be the "I told you so" option in the next election but one, or a dud. But the approach they took was the worst of all, if they had gone firmly remain (or firmly leave) they would have lost by less. From where Labour is now, it should be playing a long game as there is little in the short term to play for.

The Labour party today, in my view, is tasting the blowback from telling working class people what they ought to think, rather than representing what they actually think, and this resentment has been brewing up for a while.

I may be biased by having been a leaver myself, but I think in some respects this helps me understand other leavers; I don't see an upside to one day possibly being able to tell people they had been wrong. Winning elections is about being popular, not about being right.

[murmur]

Lavery can enter an endless cycle of repeated f.cking off farther away. He is one of the prime architects of Labour's current clusterf.ck.

Quite so.

f.ck me, but if I lived a few miles further south he'd be my MP. Instead of which I have the unalloyed joy of being represented by...Anne-Marie Trevelyan...

Ain't politics grand?

[GeenDienst]

Lavery's majorities:

2010: 7,031
2015: 10,881
2017: 10,435
2019: 814

Next time.

[JQH]

Lewis' 'If only we'd come out more solidly for remain we could have won' is exactly the kind of deep delusion the centre left has to purge itself of to gain power again. This is so incredibly and deeply wrong.

Backing remain and continuing to do so would have been a long game with an uncertain outcome. It will be the "I told you so" option in the next election but one, or a dud. But the approach they took was the worst of all, if they had gone firmly remain (or firmly leave) they would have lost by less. From where Labour is now, it should be playing a long game as there is little in the short term to play for.

The Labour party today, in my view, is tasting the blowback from telling working class people what they ought to think, rather than representing what they actually think, and this resentment has been brewing up for a while.

I may be biased by having been a leaver myself, but I think in some respects this helps me understand other leavers; I don't see an upside to one day possibly being able to tell people they had been wrong. Winning elections is about being popular, not about being right.

So back when a majority of the working class was racist and homophobic, what stance should Labour have taken?

[greyspoke]

...

I may be biased by having been a leaver myself, but I think in some respects this helps me understand other leavers; I don't see an upside to one day possibly being able to tell people they had been wrong. Winning elections is about being popular, not about being right.

Yes, but the next election is probably already lost for Labour. The ground may have shifted by the time of the one after that. You can change your position to what is popular now, or set it so it will be popular when will be relevant to you. If you can predict that accurately enough. As I said, Labour has to play the long game from here and that necessarily involves looking ahead, quite a long way ahead.