Has the British Labour Party reinvented itself?

Did the British Labor Party just agree to Brexit, talk of family, nation, and chuck out the anti-semites?

UK FlagJust when democracy looks dead, comes this.  The British Labour party got savaged in the last election, but they appear to have quietly decided to aim for the centre.

The new leader, Keir Starmer, has apparently “set his sights on the Red Wall seats that Labour had lost.”

Keir Starmer, a true conservative

Maurice Glasman, UnHerd

Brexit was the fault-line that destroyed the Left and created a one-nation Conservatism that would push Labour back to its progressive comfort zone in the big cities, sealing it off from the small towns and working class heartlands forever. The Conservatives would be in power for a generation and when Keir Starmer was elected leader, it sealed the deal. A Remainian lawyer could never heal the wounds.

They [the Tories] didn’t notice when he said that the issue of Brexit had been resolved and Labour supported leaving the EU by the end of the year. The biggest issue in British politics had dissolved into a previous era and the Covid response was centre stage. They didn’t notice when Rebecca Long-Bailey was sacked and all links with the Corbyn camp were severed. They didn’t notice the hundreds of letters of suspension that went out to people who had said strange things about Jews. They didn’t notice that he was writing articles on VE day in the Telegraph, on Memorial Sunday in the Mail and whenever he liked in the Sun — an act considered treachery by Labour leaders for more than a decade. They didn’t notice that he was tapping into a form of modest Labour patriotism that once had deep roots in the Party, and still does in the country.

All this seemed impossible to imagine under Jeremy Corbyn not so long ago. But will this last?  And if the US Democrats lose decisively is there any chance they will quietly drop the Green Marxist cult of overreach, and reinvent themselves at the centre?

Could it be that the voters do matter?

h/t David E.

9.7 out of 10 based on 42 ratings

38 comments to Has the British Labour Party reinvented itself?

  • #
    Jojodogfacedboy

    The majority of time when you vote for change, no matter the promises, they just follow the same script worldwide.
    Do I believe they changed?
    Not at all. Just pandering to the masses.

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    • #

      Is pandering to the masses all that terrible though? Isn’t that what politicians are supposed to do in theory. As long as pandering means doing things the voters want, as opposed to just pretending to do them…

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      • #
        Jojodogfacedboy

        Politicians learned from Brexit never to allow any other countries citizens to have a choice.
        You never see anymore referendums as they learned to tighten your rights away with trade deals that your not allowed to have any power to change.
        Before President Trump, all deals were forever and ever. Now he has put terms to renegotiate after certain amount of years.
        Decades of new regulations and laws has taken away everyone’s freedoms for government involved restrictions.

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  • #

    The new leader dresses in a suit and looks respectable. We must not forget he fought tooth and nail to frustrate brexit , agreed with many of corbyns policies and has a somewhat chequered history.

    The guy is also very wooden.

    It’s much too early to tell if labour has changed its spots and how inspirational a leader he will turn out to be. But he is better than Corbyn.

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  • #
    Just Thinkin'

    BEWARE, the wolf in sheeps clothing…

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  • #
    MCMXLIII

    Wikipedia: ‘… Gavin Millar, a former legal colleague of Starmer’s, has described his politics as “red-green”, a characterisation Starmer has agreed with’.

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    • #
      MCMXLIII

      Red and green should never be seen except with a colour in-between.
      Historically the combination of red and green policies and politics conflict, Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan was intended to rapidly industrialise the USSR and the ‘de-kulakisation’ campaign was designed to eliminate peasant farmers, a class that would nowadays be a green utopian model.
      The rapid industrialisation of China and maybe N.Korea follow a similar path.
      I’m not sure whether the ‘green’ is merely a means to achieve the ‘red’ or the ‘red’ the ‘green’, historically it’s a strange and shaky amalgam.

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  • #
    Penguinite

    Will the Australian Labor Party follow suit and back Liberal policies? Especially on coal?

    20

  • #

    that would be British Labour. Unless there is some branch of the Australian Labor party.

    [Point taken. Thanks. – Jo]

    30

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Boris is floundering around trying to be Green while making stupid decisions about Covid, so there is a lot of room for his opponents to manouvre in.
    Example Boris backs the very fast train, why I don’t know when the existing system could have been up-graded (to lesser performance) and the digging up of lots of farms, parks etc. not to mention the cost. Also the constant driving up the cost of electricity to benefit renewables, which will result in the UK becoming dependent on Russian gas.
    And as the Cons. damage the grid they want everyone to switch to electric vehicles which won’t have much range with the amount of electricity available.

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    • #
      Peter C

      Boris is floundering around trying to be Green while making stupid decisions about Covid, so there is a lot of room for his opponents to manouvre in.

      Boris has the best mandate possible, He is elected PM direct from the party rank and file voters, yet he seems unable to make the most of his opportunities. As Jo says at #1.1, listen to your supporters.

      ScoMo is floundering around trying to be Green while making stupid decisions about our energy supplies. At the moment I don’t think that Labor will capitalize on them but it is a fascinating possibility.

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      • #

        ‘Boris has the best mandate possible, He is elected PM direct from the party rank and file voters, yet he seems unable to make the most of his opportunities. As Jo says at #1.1, listen to your supporters.’… And don”t listen ter yr wife!…
        You might try looking at the evidence. Some week-end reading.

        30

        • #
          Peter C

          Thanks Beth,

          Is there anything that you think I should read?

          10

          • #
            Gerry, England

            Yes, the British parliamentary and party system.

            The lying oaf Johnson was elected by the members of the Tory party to be the party leader. The members number around 25,000 out of an electorate of nearly 46 million. Under the British system the party leader becomes the PM if the party wins the election – as long as they are an MP. The oaf is MP for Uxbridge & Ruislip South having received 25,351 votes from an electorate of 70,369 which amounts to 36% – so just over a third of those who could vote did so for him. The Tories won the election because the opposition was worse than them – not exactly a ringing endorsement of his party or of him. Having an unelected PM in terms of not being subject to a national vote is one of the many shortcomings of our system that is addressed by The Harrogate Agenda. Having an elected PM would be a step forward. Strangely, when this is put forward many tiny minds then confuse it with being a vote for the Head of State and fail to grasp why it is possible to have an appointed Head of State and an elected head of government.

            10

            • #

              Gerry

              Ah a remainer and corbyn supporter!

              The Tory party membership is 190,000 . The head of the party then become PM if his party wins the election. Sounds reasonable to me.

              Boris won because he promised to deliver Brexit and after having been frustrated by the great and the good and the labour party and the delusional lib dems for four years the electorate voted overwhelmingly for Boris, crossing many party lines in the process.

              Presumably Jeremy is busy with his allotment and gathering in his autumn fruits?

              Mind you I agree Boris has been hopeless, presumably not helped by coping with a pandemic, brexit, getting divorced, getting a bew fiancee, having a new baby, not forgetting the small matter of almost dying.

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          • #

            Well Peter, re those green agenderists and globul warming evidence, reread yr classics, Richard Lindzen, David Evans, Ross McKitrick et al… ( not Al Gore.) https://beththeserf.wordpress.com/2019/05/17/special-edition-global-warming/#comments

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  • #
    Old Goat

    I think it will pay to remember the old joke “when do you know a politician is lying – his lips are moving”. Just look at Theresa May – say one thing , do something else.

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  • #
    Deano

    30 years ago, political parties only had to keep a handful of media outlets on side to keep their public relations tidy. But that meant a handful of media owners had disproportionate power. Now, thanks that the internet has given a voice to we vast unwashed, they are blessed/cursed with being able to/forced to appeal more directly to the voters. UK Labor might do surprisingly well if Boris stumbles too many times more.

    And I say that as a Boris fan.

    10

  • #
    Gerry, England

    There was also mention of a degree of fiscal prudence one doesn’t normally associate with modern Labour who love to chuck other people’s money at everything and particularly every minority bunch of moaners. It could be that this time when they take over it will be an economy bombed out by a Tory government as opposed to them bombing out the economy.

    If you go right back to the roots of the party you will see it was founded on conservative values and has lost its way badly since then. If Labour did really want to get elected then they could look to the wide open spaces to the right of centre where a huge swathe of unrepresented voters – like me – reside.

    20