Comments on: Attracting Labour Supporters = Doing Something Wrong

By: KeithML

KeithML — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:59:43 +0000

“In Ireland, the Progressive Democrats were a bunch of economic liberals. I’d quite like ‘progressive’ in that sense.”

And of course, they were so successful electorally that they wound up the party earlier this year…

Frankly, as long as people who sign up accept our general political position as outlined in the constitution, I don’t care which party they come from (and I suspect there will be more from the Blairite section of Labour who are closer to the libertarian wing of our party than most of the current members!)

By: DavidNcl

DavidNcl — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:03:08 +0000

On the off chance that someone might be interested in exploring what progressivism is you could do worse than start here (lefties will find much of this material upsetting): The American Roots Of Fascism

By: MatGB

MatGB — Sun, 03 May 2009 01:04:36 +0000

I agree with Andy and Tristan, unsurprisingly. Socialism got co-opted by marxists, statists and social democrats. It used to be a lot closer to anarchism and has strong liberal roots, what with JS Mill unfortunately dying before he could finish “On Socialism”, which he planned as a rebuttal to Marxism (and told Karl such IIRC).

Also agree with Oran Jepan—if the Co-operative Party were independent of Labour, I’d be a mmember, but it’s not, as FPTP requires large parties. I’d love to argue it should disaffiliate and join us instead, but I think we’d need to get electoral reform first.

Overall, as I said at LDV, a few more “soft Labour men” won’t hurt us, half the ones we’ve got were rump Liberals anyway—the more seats we’ve got, the closer we are to electoral reform, and that’s the real goal.

Worth noting the planned timing is after a General Election, for some obscure reason I don’t understand.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Sat, 02 May 2009 21:04:43 +0000

James, yes, some rules are pretty important. I’m not an anarchist

You abuse the term anarchist – anarchism is consistent with rules, it depends upon them. It just does not support the arbitrary rules of the state. Locking people up arbitrarily is something states excel at thanks to the massive concentration of power and inequality of authority they necessitate.

As for the socialism/liberalism thing – socialism as the term is used for the most part today is not compatible with liberalism, but socialism as it stood originally had a liberal wing. For example Benjamin Tucker was both a socialist and a ‘consistent Manchester liberal’ and stood firmly against the authoritarian socialisms of the Marxist – see his essay State Socialism and Anarchism (incidentally this copy is at the Molinari Institute, Molinari being one of the great French liberals).

By: Shaun Pilkington

Shaun Pilkington — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:00:21 +0000

“Doubt whether the BNP can make that much inroads into the socialist vote”

Why Asquith? The BNP offer a socialist economic platform of nationalisation of the economy’s commanding heights. Even the Nazis were National SOCIALISTS which tips people off to their broadly leftist outlook, just with a racial credo grafted on for sh*ts and giggles.

By: Darrell

Darrell — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:08:42 +0000

It depends on what happens to the economy and how long people are actually prepared to live in an ‘age of austerity’….if the economy turns round relatively quickly and people start to feel good (and there are indicators of some kind of feel good returning even now, though I think thats more ‘the worse is over’, rather than things are great) …this isnt 1983…if the economy spikes pretty quickly peoples toleration for ‘austerity’ will quickly vanish (in relative terms, im thinking more this is a second term problem for the Tories) and there will be a clear space for a centre-left opposition….

By: Charlotte Gore

Charlotte Gore — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:01:33 +0000

Actually the ‘one term only’ factor of Labour – where their failure to achieve Victory For The Workers could be merrily put down to lack of time, or unfortunate circumstances.

There was always that sense of, “what would happen if they got a proper run at it?” and unfulfilled potential.. now they’ve had a proper run at it and still managed to bring the economy to its knees (again).

A fast swing left post-General Election as the Blarites are felled will leave a party appealing to less people than they appealed to in 1983.

Who emerges as the proper voice of opposition to the Conservatives depends entirely on what the Conservative Government ends up being like, I think.

By: asquith

asquith — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:52:27 +0000

Doubt whether the BNP can make that much inroads into the socialist vote- Labour will prove as resilient as they were in the 80s in areas like this. I see more or less zero chance of my seat & those like it falling out of Labour hands.

It is at the very least 150 for them- probably not even as bad as the Tories in 1997.

Now, a party which really should be bricking it is the Republicans in the USA

By: Charlotte Gore

Charlotte Gore — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:47:40 +0000

Oh don’t, you’ll get me excited. Labour with 100 seats is still 100 seats too many though.

By: Shaun Pilkington

Shaun Pilkington — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:31:18 +0000

With the perfectly foreseeable SNP cleanslate in Scotland, a Lib-Dem/Tory wipeout in central and southern england with a pushback in Wales and the BNP hollowing out the traditional white working class socialist vote (they do, after all, want to nationalise everything in the name of the – white – workers!) in northern England, I consider it quite foreseeable that Labour are reduced to a rump of 60-100 seats. And then, as the liberal party found in the 20s, it’s goodnight. And, frankly, good riddance!