There’s a very good comment from the High Church Anglican and Monarchist Capel Lofft that’s been put up on Twitter. It concerns how the Labour Party could reform itself and return to its roots as a party for the British working class.
I agree with Capel Lofft here. If the Labour Party distanced itself from the Trots, the anti-human green activists, the identity politics obsessives and positioned themselves as a party that was centre left in economics but recognised that many people are to a greater or lesser extent socially conservative, then it might be a party that’s worth voting for again. The problem is that although Labour has always been a coalition between the working class voters of Hull and the middle class intellectual leftists of Hampstead, today the Hampstedites are the faction that is wholly in control of the party. I really cannot see the Hampstead current in the Labour Party giving up power or giving up their cherished ideologies whether these ideologies were based on misanthropic greenery or divisive identity politics.
I’ve been very critical in the past on here about how Labour managed the economy and the nation in the 1970’s but looking at what the Labour Party has become and how thoroughly they are dominated by the middle class left and their concerns, Labour are worse than what they were back then and they are worse because they’ve abandoned the things and the people that created them. In the past Labour did have a concern for the working classes, something that is noticeably absent in the Party today. Capel Lofft’s idea of Labour becoming the party of John Bull crossed with some of the great and good of Labour’s past has a lot going for it. A Labour Party that took that path and genuinely cared about the sort of people that the party was set up to defend, protect and advance would be a Labour Party that I might consider voting for. I’d even vote for such a party despite my reservations about having nationalised utilities as the payoff in terms of being led by a patriotic Labour Party and one that was concerned with the support and the betterment of the working classes would be greater than the potential problems caused by the nationalisation of utilities.
Probably not wrong. Be interesting to see if the SDP make any progress in the next few years given that does sound like their exact platform (electoral system disadvantaging small parties notwithstanding).
I was thinking on similar lines to how this is similar to the SDP programme. I’m seeing growing support for the SDP online but this might not translate into representation due to FPTP. Locally the SDP have a better chance in local govt where they might be able to clear up messes made by the Lib Dems and Greens in places like Hereford for example. I can’t vote for the Tories anymore, fool me twice and all that. So I’m going to plump for SDP/Reform.
I think your right, if the early Labour party returned I feel sure they would sweep to victory but I doubt that’s going to happen. In my view the straws in the wind seem to indicate that Reform will do very well in the mid term. I will certainly vote Reform if they run a candidate in my area, if they don’t I will vote for any party having the best chance of defeating our worse than useless Tory MP. Sad to say he did manage to deceive me in the past but never again.
When I look at Labour’s history especially post 45 and their culture of putting the working person first and foremost I see a party that could be a winner. Whilst the First and Second Wilson governments had problems and bequeathed us problems (crappy housing estates for instance) they did put the British worker first. Today’s Tories and today’s Labour seem to be eager to put the British worker last.
As regards Reform / SDP. They really need to get their arses into gear for next year’s locals. If they do well then they can build on that for the next general election.