Why the left keeps on loosing

So despite the fact brexit is clearly becoming an ever growing clusterfuck, the labour party are still silent on the matter. They have had an open goal with which to attack the tories for a year now. They could be pointing to the obvious failures of Tory brexit policy, how its causing real and crippling hardship for many and then explain to the public what labour would do differently (such as going into a customs union or getting a free trade deal). That after all, is how you win elections. You identify the problem and thus why a vote for your party will make things better.

But no, labour isn’t doing any of this. Supposedly because Starmer doesn’t want to piss off the leave supporters in so called “red wall seats”. This unfortunately ignores certain realities and is just a repeat of Corybn’s failed brexit policy that led labour to a history defeat. As I’ve pointed out before, this myth of the working class brexiter is somewhat exaggerated. Yes some did vote leave, but the vast majority of leave voters in these constituencies were “comfortable leavers” (i.e. retired, middle or upper class Tories & UKIPer’s) as well as those who don’t normally vote (but had been promised £350 million if they voted for a leaf). And besides, the primary reason the red wall flipped is more down to demographics than anything to do with brexit (as they represent an ageing population, who are more likely to vote tory).

Among labour supporters support for remain runs at between 90-70% depending how you phrase the question (i.e. labour voter or labour party member, pro-single market or back in completely). And this figure has been getting higher over time not lower. And generally what lexiters do exist tend to be on the softer side of leave (i.e. they’d be willing to accept a customs union if it means they can buy food again at a reasonable price). So Starmer’s master plan is to give the Tories a free pass on an potentially election winning issue, piss off 90-70% of labour supporters (and hope they don’t go and join the lib dem’s), just to avoid offending the ego of a mostly Tory voting bloc in the north.

But ok, maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe this lexiter voting bloc is the key to winning the next election. And that its even possible for labour to get them to back Starmer (cos polls say otherwise!). Well there are rail strikes on right now, being led by the RMT union, who famously backed leave (and thus managed to get several hundred of their workers fired as a consequence). If this voting block is so critical, why isn’t Starmer out there showing solidarity with the rail workers? Why isn’t he promising that labour will improve working conditions for all blue collar workers. Notably, by closing the loopholes that have allowed companies to become even more dependant on migrant workers since brexit, the opposite of what the Tories promised. Again, this is how you win elections.

But no instead, he told senior labour MP’s not to go near the strikers with a barge poll. This may have something to do with the fact that the Tory tabloids tried to blame labour for the strikes. Yes, 12 years of Tory government and a rail strike is labour’s fault. That’s how demented they are. And how brainwashed Tory voters are, in that the tabloids can get away with making such a ludicrous claim. I’m pretty sure if Starmer tackled a suicide bomber and prevented a major attack they’d accuse him of being Islamophobic and failing to respect social distancing rules.

But either way, it would appear that actually Starmer’s “don’t mention the war brexit” policy is more about image and avoiding nasty attack articles from Tory tabloids, than actually trying to win over lexiters. Spoiler, that’s not going to work either! The tabloids are ideologically committed to the Tories. They will always attack labour and cover for the Tories no matter what happens. You’ve got more odds trying to talk the Pope out of being catholic.

In fact its interesting to note that the RMT’s leader Mike Lynch has managed the press far better than labour recently. How? By not playing the media’s game. They try to trap him with some “gotcha” and he just ignores them and points out he’s here to talk about the issues. He ends up coming off sounding fairly reasonable, while the mask falls off the reporter (exposing them as a fanatical Tory shill).

That’s how labour should be handling the press. Announce policies that will win votes. And, far from sugar coating them, instead I’d make sure they are as provocative to the Tory press as possible (e.g. banning foreign billionaires living in tax havens from owning newspapers). This will provoke them into go on a rant, exposing their bias. And I’d use alternative media to get the message out, bypassing the main stream media as much as possible (do the bare minimum of interviews on the BBC and don’t even bother talking to the Tory press at all).

Yes I’m sure the Daily Fail/express editors would cough up their skulls, but so what. In some respect’s that work’s in labour’s favour. Under a FpTP electoral system you don’t win by getting a majority to vote for you (no government in the UK has actually achieved that since 1930’s). You win by promoting policies that are attractive to the people who might actually vote for you and making sure you get the vote out. You do deals with other parties to ensure tactical voting, while making sure the other side are left conflicted and divided (i.e. the other reason to bring up brexit is to get the Tories fighting with each other again). If labour can get in, what the Tory press think won’t matter anymore (not after their owner is banned from owning them and a public enquiry into press conduct means they are forced to shut down). But instead he’s letting Tory newspapers decide labour policy. Let me know how that one works out for you.

The Handmaiden’s tale

Meanwhile, over in the US we had the inevitable overturning of Roe v Wade. This is something the republicans have been openly working on for several decades. And too be clear this was a political decision, not a legal one…with a touch of racism (inevitably it dove tails into the usual white power stuff). Which means everything in the US constitution is now at risk, from basic civil rights to gun rights.

Unelected lackeys of the republican party are in a position to re-write the constitution and ignore public opinion (which is overwhelmingly pro-choice). In fact you can tell it was politically motivated by how they announced a pro-gun ruling right before the abortion one, specifically to distract the gun lobby, even thought it changes nothing (if Roe v Wade can be overturned, then if ever a liberal majority gets control of the court, they can overturn many of the pro-gun rulings too).

The democrats have done nothing to stop the GOP’s plans, despite multiple opportunities to do so. They had a high enough majority several times to pass a law at least (if not a constitutional amendment) codifying Roe v Wade into US law, but they didn’t. They could have reformed how justices are picked (none of these justices would even be allowed on the bench in most other countries, as justices are supposed to be impartial and not biased towards one party), but they didn’t.

And there are measure they could still take to reign in the republicans. In Ireland for example we resolved the abortion debate with a national referendum. Why don’t the democrats do the same? There’s a massive majority who are pro-choice, even among republicans. Even a non-legally binding vote would be very damaging to the republican party, as they would have to campaign on a single issue at odds with the views of the majority of their supporters (this was one of the factors in the collapse of labour support in Scotland, the party backed a no vote in the indyref and Corbyn hid in his shed during the brexit referendum, destroying their support base). But nope the democrats aren’t going to do that.

The democrats could also exploit the fact that it is mostly democrat voting states like California or NY that fund the US federal government. In fact even with red states you’ll often find the major cities (who also pay the bulk of the taxes) are firmly blue. America’s welfare queens are the GOP. So draw up budgets that cuts funding to anything that benefits republicans, such as farm subsidies, mining/oil exploration, rural road construction, military defence contracts & bases (often awarded on the basis of pork barrel politics rather than what delivers the best value for money, so such cuts won’t even necessarily impair America’s defence, just save money). Gut it all and starve the beast. This would very quickly force the republicans to change course, as such cuts would literally destroy the republican party, by eliminating their natural majority in rural areas.

And another factor in the politically motivated timing of this announcement was how it happened in the middle of the January 6th hearings. It looks like Trump might have led an insurrection and broken the law (nooo! really??? well no $hit Sherlock!). Which raises the question – why isn’t he in jail? Maybe I’ve watched too many cop shows, but my understanding was that if a crime is alleged to have occurred, the police (or in this case the justice department) investigate. If they find sufficient evidence for a prosecution they make arrests and only then do we get a public hearing (otherwise known as “a trial”), where we get to hear all the evidence. A jury then decides on the verdict. If congress does get involved, its usually after the trial, as part of a postmortem to avoid this happening again.

But no, instead we are getting it ass backwards, which likely means Trump and the republicans will get away with it, and will be free to take their revenge after they win again in 2024 (and they will win, I don’t see how the democrats are going to avoid that given the pig’s ear they are making of things right now). But how would we avoid these mistakes? Well by political reform. Introduce proportional representation, to counter GOP gerrymandering. Amend the constitution so that neither justices nor politicians can alter it (only the people via a referendum) and de-politicise the supreme court. But again, nope none of that’s going to happen. Its not even on the agenda.

Instead the democrats master plan is to piss in the wind and hope they can guilt trip the republicans into doing the right thing. Well, you can’t guilt trip someone who has no guilt, shame nor a shred of honesty. Republicans see thousands murdered yearly as a result of their pro gun policies, yet do nothing about it. Do you honestly think appealing to their better nature is going to get you anywhere? Instead republicans see this stance of the democrats as a sign of weakness. Like Putin (who must be very happy with this ruling) the republicans think they can get away with anything and they will continue to test the limits of that up to the point of ending democracy altogether.

The problem with the left is they don’t think strategically. Instead they seem to assume everybody else feels the same way as they do and will do the right thing (how’s that been working out for you?). They don’t even seem to realise they are effectively in the middle of an undeclared civil war with republicans for the very future of the US as a democracy.

And there’s a certain lack of ruthlessness. Yes good politics is about good compromise. But a compromise requires both sides to make concessions….and its certainly not going to work when one side’s is trying to destroy democracy itself. In such situations, you have to give them a reason to come crawling back to the negotiating table. Else they’ll just keep walking all over you.