Lurch to the right is doing Labour no good
JVL Introduction
This piece from LabourHub is a useful review of Labour’s woeful performance in last week’s elections which saw the party cede swathes of territory to Nigel Farage’s far right Reform UK. It makes the point that “conservatism” in Britain now encompasses dangerous fascist-leaning elements that Labour accommodates at its peril.
It quotes left Labour MP Richard Burgon’s correct assessment: “Trying to win over these Reform voters with rightward lurches risks doing more harm than good by alienating core Labour supporters and making vote-splitting amongst progressive voters even more likely.”
While there are signs that some in the trade union movement may be ready to put up a fight against Reform in local government, the signals from Downing Street suggest that the yawning gap on the left of the political spectrum is destined to widen further.
It needs to be filled, and soon, by a coalition uniting all those opposed to austerity, militarism, authoritarianism, racism and the gallop towards environmental collapse.
NWI
This article was originally published by Labour Hub on Mon 5 May 2025. Read the original here.
Local elections 2025: Labour must change course, not double down
Mike Phipps analyses a grim set of results for Labour and explains why Keir Starmer’s promise to move “further and faster” with his current policies is the wrong lesson to draw.
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The decision to increase the military budget to 3% of GDP is a truly lunatic idea that was first advocated by Liz Truss and then became Reform policy at the last general election. And now we find that it is Keir Starmer’s policy too.
The cost of this is enormous and would have to be paid for by tax increases or cuts elsewhere. Implementing that proposal would mean a military budget of about £75 billion, an increase of about £20 billion a year.
This policy should be abandoned and Starmer should stop trying to sabotage the prospects for peace in the Ukraine by wanting states that are de facto parties to the conflict to be stationed in the Ukraine as ‘peacekeepers’. Nobody in his right mind would regard that as a serious proposal.
Mostly correct analysis – but most probably also just howling at the wind.
“If Labour is replaced by an ultra-right wing government, it will be a huge defeat for the working class”
The Labour Party is already a defeat for us, regardless of more right-wing ones, like Reform.
“and the unions who represent them”
But a lot of unions simply don’t appear to that, which is part of the problem. They seem to act as an adjunct to human resources/taking managers, not workers side, and happily going along with Labour.
Richard Burgon’s suggestion that the Lib Dems and the Greens are “left” parties is way off base. Look what is tying up the Greens these days; it is identity politics, not socialism: https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/the-greens-keep-ploughing-away-in
The call for Labour Party members to express their discontent assumes there is a means for doing this. The internal democracy of the Party has been effectively shutdown, Constituency Parties sidelined, Council and Parliamentary shortlists rigidly controlled, discussion neutered, accountability removed. The Party has been depoliticised and the membership silenced. Those who haven’t abandoned Labour in disgust – over Gaza or cuts – are rendered passive in the face of Starmer’s centralised dictatorship. There is no means within the Party to force a leftward shift. The machine locks socialism out. The moment anyone tries to challenge this they are blocked, suspended or expelled. Scores of sitting (and potential) Labour Councillors are routinely barred from standing … being even vaguely opposed to cuts is enough to see you removed from selection panels and shortlists. Local activists are non-existent and local Parties, campaigning in the community, invisible. Where are the critical voices inside Starmer, Streeting and Reeves’ Constituency Labour Parties?
To build a socialist society, capitalism must be abolished. There is no middle ground. Labour, including the ‘Labour left’, and the TUC have no intention of doing this; their loyalty lies with preserving the system, not dismantling it. That’s why vague terms like neoliberalism are thrown around, as if the problem is merely a bad version of capitalism, not capitalism itself. They only seek to reform the unreformable, to dress up exploitation as something beneficial.
The false Labour Party is an outcome of the phoney antisemitism fuelled corrupt takeover by the entitled and on the take establishment hierarchy. Those who voted Labour in the General Election as a reaction to the failing Conservative government have realised that they were swindled. Duplicity, under a false name, has created another failing Conservative government, which is truly worse than useless for almost all of us in virtually all ways.
Unless the electoral system is changed we will end up with an extreme right government on a third of the votes – like Labour who got 33.7% but a massive majority. FPTP is not fit for purpose. This will be Starmer’s legacy. Just stating, however, that we want PR is not sufficient because there are so many systems. The left needs to unify on one. If single member constituencies are kept then the alternative vote is a possibility but not as good as the second ballot with a runoff a week or two later between the top two in any constituency where no candidate got 50% of the vote. In 2024 this would have been 85% who did not get a majority over all other candidates. It gives the voter a chance to vote the second time knowing what the realities are and for parties to make recommendations to their supporters if they are not in the top 2. It stopped the National Rally in France in their recent parliamentary elections – they came first in the first ballot but third in the second. ‘Vote first with your heart, then with your head.’