I'll give the last word today on the Gorton & Denton by-election & its implications to Ben Ansell (UOxford).
The combination of Zac Polanski's reshaping of the Green Party of England & Wales' rhetoric & positioning, and the Labour Party's abandonment of the Left have opened up a space which may be a lot larger than many commentators think, for the Greens to walk into!
@ChrisMayLA6 I don't like the analysis that people are now voting Green (merely) because they are voting against Labour; perhaps, who knows, they are actually voting *for* something they believe in, but that had previously been characterised as a "wasted vote" under FPTP. GPEW policies always rank very highly when anonomised.
Actually it can also be both; people want to vote against Reform, then looks at which of the apprise they'd prefer to vote for (as well as making a judgement about whether or not that party *can* win - which is where polling for insurgent parties becomes very important!)
@ChrisMayLA6 The Federal NDP in Canada should be looking at this, especially as we choose our next leader. Liberal-lite wont cut it. The big issues—climate, fascisms, worker’s survival—call for new, long term answers.
@ChrisMayLA6 Sarcastic shortening:
“Vote tactically to get what you really want!”
“Ok then”
“Not like that!”
My dear Keir, every sword is two-edged.
@ChrisMayLA6 I strongly disagree with the last paragraph. The implication seems to be that voters are voting Green with the hope that Labour will return to being the left-leaning party they remember it being in the seventies.
But. Like.
I wasn't even alive in the seventies.
@ChrisMayLA6 I am now above the median age in this country. And voters tend to skew older, but not that old. I'm probably just about a median age voter.
I have never witnessed a left-wing Labour government in the UK
@ChrisMayLA6 the politics I'm being promised by the Green Party have never belonged to Labour as long as I've been alive. Sure, I read in history books how they used to be, but that's history, not reality. I have always associated genuinely progressive and socialist politics with the Green party. (With watered-down versions being promised by the Lib Dems and SNP).
No vote in my lifetime have I ever considered a "protest vote" against Labour because I never even seriously considered voting for Labour in the first place.
I think your's is a perspective that is increasingly clear & evident... the sign of a shift in how politics is understood?
@ChrisMayLA6 I think if I were to point to a moment where things truly shifted, it would be over two decades ago— the Stop The War protests, and Blair's ignoring of them.
That solidified what I had been seeing for all of my voting life: that Labour were authoritarian, war-hungry centrists beholden to the forces of capitalism.
Of course, a certain Jeremy Corbyn was at those protests on the side of the people, and Labour did have an opportunity to reclaim its soul many years later. When Corbyn was ousted and ejected from the party I think that was truly the end of any starry-eyed hopes of a left-wing Labour re-emerging from the history books.
Yes, I can see that; the long gestation of political change is not unusual - but then suddenly it all comes together....
@Tattie @ChrisMayLA6 It also completely centres the Labour Party as the focus. But loads of us on the left are simply not interested in Labour. We don’t vote to try and influence Labour or to send a message to Labour.
@BarneyDellar @Tattie @ChrisMayLA6
And many of us who were interested in Labour, and at times very interested indeed, have given up on it because the endless emphasis on navel-gazing and internecine warfare has become intolerably self-indulgent in the face of domestic Austerity and race-baiting, corporate economic hegemony, the collapse of the old socio-political orders, and global environmental hazard.
@BarneyDellar @Tattie @ChrisMayLA6
The irrelevance of the Labour Party to many people of the Left is now inescapably apparent. As is the redundancy of the mantra that we must vote Labour or get a Reform government.
@Stevenheywood @BarneyDellar @Tattie
Which is exactly why the Labour Party 'establishment' is in a tiz!
@ChrisMayLA6 people greatly want to be able to affirmatively vote for a party that is in line with their values and their ideas on how society should be structured. Neoliberal parties have fallen into the trap of thinking of people as "their voters" and pandering to them with empty words while largely moving to the right on any number of issues.
@ChrisMayLA6 I disagree left leaning voters are voting against Labour. They're voting against Reform yes, but I think they're voting *for* a left party because Labour aren't that (currently) and have left lefties feeling meh about them.
@ChrisMayLA6 the policies that Zack is talking about have always been Green policies but we just didn’t talk about them much.
@ChrisMayLA6 I think that second paragraph is off the mark. Left leaning voters have been voting against rather than for parties *until now*. And only some of them. Others have not wanted to vote at all. But now both of those groups have someone to vote *for* and they are doing so enthusiastically.
Maybe so; but for political scientists there has been a default position for a long time that democracy is essentially about voting against, not for.... my guess is he would find it difficult to see that change (if that change as you suggest is happening)
The Greens have also shown that being overtly pro minorities is not electoral suicide, contrary to what the legacy parties would have us all believe
@alexadeswift @ChrisMayLA6 I think this is key. Labour (and the Tories) are so bound up in the Westminster bubble that their understanding of political views is just a dialogue between front bench MPs and the political lobby.
The Greens aren't affected by that because they've never been allowed into that bubble.
yes, I think that's fair; RefromUK Ltd, but taking in start Tories are of course confirming that, in reality, they are not insurgents but just a different wing of the political class.... the very thing the Greens are (at least currently) not
I think we are seeing the beginning of a shift away from the Labour - Tory binary, with Greens taking votes away from Labour and the Tories imploding. The problem with Tories imploding is it is leaving a political vacuum which is being filled by a fascist party, albeit the Tories are arguably proto fascist themselves.
yes, that does seem to be the direction of travel
