UK Politics

GhostofCain said:
That is true, although seeing how the right wing press have been frothing at the mouth this week, it seems that Starmer might be steering to the left.
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Starmer's Labour are in a strange and difficult position right now, if they tack to the right they lose voters to the Lib Dems and the Green, if they tack to the left they lose voters to Reform. All the while Starmer himself comes across as a man with few solid positions or convictions because he alternates between trying to court both of these cohorts.

It is hard to think of a time when 'minor' parties (i.e. anyone except the big two) are as prominent as they are now, in the latest polls Reform + Lib Dems + Greens typically account for more than 50% of the vote share whilst Labour + Tories are floating around 40% combined. If this situation continues, parliament will have a very interesting makeup at the next election and whoever is trying to form a stable government will find themselves with a serious headache.
 
Brigantium said:
A Reform/Conservative coalition? :rolleyes:
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What's the current landscape? Is something like that a realistic outcome?

In Germany it is still considered a taboo for our conservatives to form a coalition with out far right party. At least for the moment. I'm afraid this is only a matter of time.
 
I could see the current Conservative leadership going for that, yes. Far more likely than any deal with Labour, ever, and I doubt the Lib Dems would be considered (or want to be considered).

The Conservatives were drifting more and more in that direction anyway post-Brexit, when a lot of moderates either left or were pushed.
 
The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme is gone, why?

Sorry folks, I don’t mean to stir the pot here but I am hot on this issue. DEFRA just pulls funding in March with no notice? W.T.F?!!

Where was the six weeks notice? Oh, it’s convenient to promise but, to deliver? Not so easy, is it? Well, when the vegans are all Lee Marvin and there’s no asparagus to be had, who’s to blame there?

Look, I’m not British, nor am I a farmer but I have opinions. Get it together Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs.

Maybe Treasury will come through with the £5.9Bn we’ve all been talking about.

Fingers crossed. Hopes high, but heart heavy.

Look, this issue may divide this forum but one must stand on principles if not praxis. Sometimes we sacrifice our friendships for our convictions and, for me, this is the line in the sand.
 
In short: no. They might have a couple of wins in the odd constituency and maybe a few council seats, but they'll neither get the s left of centre nor the populist vote.

There's not much interest in old school socialism.
 
I'd really like to see them do well, For all that the media likes to smear him Corbyn seems a decent guy who would actually do things to help people.

Even with the Labour Party stabbing him in the back constantly he managed to get 40% of the vote in 2017. You have to go back to Tony Blair first landslide to get those kind of numbers for Labour. So his ideas are popular. Even in 2019 he got more votes than Keir did. It's just the distribution of the votes and FPTP voting system that didn't help.
 
Aggelos said:
anyone believes they have a chance?

tjere's some big words there, not sure though of the appeal to the masses and of course not sure if they will actually live up tothose words.

www.theguardian.com

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana agree to launch leftwing party

Former Labour MPs condemn ‘rigged’ system and promise ‘a mass redistribution of wealth and power’
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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If this party actually takes off and contests seats at the next election (which is not guaranteed because this particular faction of the left is incredibly prone to infighting) it will be nothing more than a gift to Reform.

The Labour Party have largely monopolised the left-wing vote for years, they may bleed a few percent to Corbyn's group but under our first past the post system in most marginal constituencies this would just result in a splitting of the left-wing vote and the seat going to whoever was in second place.

There are a few areas where they would have success however. Look to the constituencies (mostly those with a large Muslim population) where Independents running Palestine centred campaigns won in 2024 and in some cases came a very close second, in fact it is likely that the Health Secretary Wes Streeting and some other notable figures would lose their seats under these circumstances.

I get the sense that the purpose of such a movement would primarily be to bloody the nose of Labour for their perceived centrist/right-wing shift under Starmer and to 'win the moral argument' rather than being conceived of as something that could actually win a general election. Corbyn was unable to do this, twice, even when he was Labour leader.
 
If I were trying to run a party like this in a FPTP system, I would run it only in specific areas where they can play spoiler, but promise to join any Labour government. The goal should be to push Labour into a situation where they need a coalition partner. In Canada, we have the Bloc Quebecois who basically attempts to monopolize Quebec, much as the SNP, Plaid Cymru, etc attempt to win in their specific regions. But because Quebec is such a large percentage of seats, there have been a few times the Bloc has forced a minority government and gained power.

Of course, we should be jettisoning FPTP.
 
LooseCannon said:
If I were trying to run a party like this in a FPTP system, I would run it only in specific areas where they can play spoiler, but promise to join any Labour government. The goal should be to push Labour into a situation where they need a coalition partner. In Canada, we have the Bloc Quebecois who basically attempts to monopolize Quebec, much as the SNP, Plaid Cymru, etc attempt to win in their specific regions. But because Quebec is such a large percentage of seats, there have been a few times the Bloc has forced a minority government and gained power.

Of course, we should be jettisoning FPTP.
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If that approach were taken, I can already see the attack ads during the campaign - 'Vote Starmer, get unpatriotic Corbyn + his Islamist mates'. This strategy was quite effectively deployed in 2015 by the Tories with an ad depicting then Labour leader Ed Miliband in the pocket of the then SNP leader Alex Salmond. Ironically that was branded at the time the 'Coalition of Chaos'.

The Tories won that election in the end, but I think anybody would agree British politics have been anything but stable since 2015.
 
The issue is that Reform and the Tories are going to split more of that vote. So I think that there is an opening here for another left wing party, be it the Lib Dems or someone else, to try to make balance of power. I'm no expert on UK politics but I will say that the rise of Reform very much mirrors the rise of the Reform Party in Canada, and that led to a decade of Liberal power. Of course, I'd take Jean Chretien as my PM over Keir Starmer every day of the week and twice on Sundays, but this seems to be the way it's gonna shake out.
 
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