The Labour Party today has a Commons majority of 165 seats, slightly down from the 174 majority on election night. This was almost identical to Tony Blair’s 1997 majority of 178. But extraordinarily, the 178 majority was won on 43.2% of the vote, while Starmer’s 2024 174 majority was won on just 33.7% of the vote — the smallest vote share for any single-party majority government in British history, and yet producing one of the largest majorities.
The system is throwing up perverse results as never before. The reason is that 2024 saw the lowest combined Conservative and Labour vote share since 1910, at 57.4%. This is fundamentally different from the threat to the two-party dominance by the Liberals and Social Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s, when the combined Labour-Tory vote share never fell below 70.0% (1983). So if you are thinking you have seen this before, you are very wrong. This is a far greater shift in voter behaviour.
In the 2010 general election, the combined Labour/Tory vote fell to 65.1%, but 2024 was a further step-change down. Every single opinion poll since has shown that this is a systemic decline, not a blip.
Then we get to the local elections held in England last Thursday, where the combined Labour and Tory vote was 37%, with Labour at just 14%. While these were predominantly (but by no means all) non-metropolitan English elections, Labour suffered near wipeout, losing 65% of the seats they had held under Starmer’s leadership in 2021 in an already devastatingly low performance.
It is important to note that these results for both Labour and the Tories were much, much worse than their local election performance in 2013 at the height of UKIP success, the previous low point for Labour and Tory performance in local elections. Again, you may think, “Oh, I have seen this before. It will pass.”
You have not seen this before, and it will not pass.
The BBC and Sky both made psephological projections for how the local elections would reflect in a general election. These are complicated calculations based on voter movement and with calculated compensation for the kind of seats being fought. It is not a simple projection from irrelevant types of Tory areas to the whole nation. The BBC projection to general election vote share was Reform 30%, Labour 20%, Liberal Democrats 17%, Conservatives 15%, Greens 11%, and Others 7%. The Sky projection was Reform 32%, Labour 19%, Conservatives 18%, Lib Dems 16%, Greens 7%.
Neither the BBC nor Sky projected this to general election seats, but it is undoubtedly the case that both Labour and the Conservatives are steering into the abyss, the tipping point where first-past-the-post massively punishes those who have substantive support but are not winning constituencies (the Liberal Democrat and, to some extent, the Green position for decades). Which of Reform, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Green parties will emerge on top in England is a genuinely open question. Before going on to institutional and policy questions, I might say that my own thought is that the tendency of first-past-the-post everywhere to encourage two-party systems may well lead to Reform and the Liberal Democrats being those two parties; and that is certainly as probable as any other combination.
Institutionally, the Labour Party seems very strong, in that it is rooted in the trade union movement which created it and still funds it. Even under the lurch to the right under Starmer, the Labour Party retains some progressive policies which relate specifically to the rights of those in employment, and increases in the minimum and living wage and the Employment Rights Act reflect this. These are the inescapable tribute to the union paymasters, and a good thing too. Starmer’s right-wing economic policies rather focus attacks on those receiving benefits (some of whom are, of course, in work).
But institutional backing does not in itself ensure continued primacy. The Liberal Party had the active backing of a great many of Britain’s landed and industrial magnates. It did not founder for lack of institutional finance and muscle. Let us merely note that the Conservatives are in more jeopardy than Labour as their finances are reliant on contributions from wealthy individuals and companies which are ad hoc rather than institutional and susceptible to frictionless switching to Reform.
So what are the actual politics of this? Well, Reform voters are primarily motivated by dislike of immigration. While there are respectable economic arguments over the desirability of immigration, the simple truth is that most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners. I know that I have commenters here who like to deny this, but frankly, I do not live under a rock, I have fought elections, I used to live in the then-UKIP hotspot of Thanet, and I do not have a romanticised regard for the working class, and I have no doubt that Reform primarily channels racism.
But the interesting thing is that does not mean that Reform voters are “right-wing” in an economic sense. Opinion polls have found that most Reform voters favour renationalisation of public utilities, for example, and Farage has appealed to this by advocating for the nationalisation of the water industry and backing the nationalisation of the steel industry. Reform voters also favour rent controls, employment protections, and minimum wage legislation. On the left/right axis in economic policy, Reform voters are very substantially to the left of their party leadership, who almost certainly do not really believe in any of those things at all, though they may sometimes pretend.
George Galloway with the Workers’ Party has attempted to provide the mix of social conservatism in culture wars, including anti-immigration messaging, combined with left-wing economic policy, which might define a kind of left-wing populism, but failed miserably in Runcorn. It is only fair of me to make my own position clear, having stood for the Workers’ Party in the General Election on the issue of stopping the genocide. I do not support the culture wars agenda of the Workers’ Party and would not associate myself with the “Tough on Immigration, Tough on the Causes of Immigration” messaging the party used in Runcorn, even with the second half of that message emphasising an end to imperialist destabilisation of vulnerable countries. It is still too dog-whistle for my taste.
It remains my belief that Starmer has always been a deep-state operative and that he is deliberately driving the Labour Party to its own destruction. Among the strongest evidence for this, in my view, is the fact that all of the documentation on his involvement in the Assange case, the Savile case, the Janner case, and other high-level paedophile cases while he was Director of Public Prosecutions was allegedly destroyed by the state while the Conservatives were in office and Starmer in opposition. The Deep State was protecting him and preparing his way to power.
It is also interesting that the only time the mainstream media really turned on Boris Johnson during his premiership was in attacking Johnson for referencing Starmer’s involvement in the Savile case, which brought a torrent of media abuse of Johnson in defence of Starmer, even though it was one of the rare occasions where Johnson actually told the truth.
But even if you do not accept my theory that Starmer may be destroying the Labour Party on purpose, perhaps you might accept that Starmer would prefer to see the Labour Party destroyed than see it in power as a left-wing party. The Thatcherite agenda of austerity, benefit cuts and attacks on the non-working and disabled, monetarism, militarism and jingoism, with anti-immigrant policies allied to unquestioning Zionism, is perhaps a true reflection of Starmer’s core beliefs; as these align precisely with the Deep State agenda, the question of whether Starmer is a true believer or a blank cipher for the Deep State is moot.
With Labour emphasising “stop the boats” and deportations, there simply is no left-wing party among the complex five-party pattern emerging in English politics. It is also worth noting that under John Swinney, the SNP is firmly under control of its own neoliberal right wing in Scotland.
It is tempting to believe that a left-wing party must emerge to fill the gap in what is offered to the electorate, but that is not automatic. We may simply have a position where there is no left-wing choice of any stature. Jeremy Corbyn, for whom I have respect, has never indicated the dynamism and toughness required to drive a new party to success. Furthermore, he remains surrounded by the “soft Zionist” crew who convinced him as Labour leader that his best course was to continually apologise for non-existent anti-Semitism and speed up the expulsion of left-wingers from the party.
While a time of great political change is a time of great possibility, my own view is that what is going to emerge in England is going to be a dark period, with the extraordinary authoritarianism of the UK government, as already witnessed in the Public Order Act, Online Safety Act, and major police harassment of dissidents, becoming even more pronounced.
In Scotland, I am ever more confident of the prospects of Independence to escape from this. Scots do not want a right-wing government, and Reform will only split elements of the Unionist vote — it is no real threat to the Independence vote. As it becomes obvious that Westminster rule is going to be authoritarian right-wing rule for the foreseeable future, Scots will increasingly wish to quit the Union fast. Farage is an English archetype which is deeply unappealing to Scots, and, unlike Sturgeon, Swinney does not have the charisma to lead the Independence movement away from its goal.
My own focus in the coming year is very much going to be in moving forward on Scottish Independence. I hope to be adopted by the Alba Party as a candidate for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2026.
We are at the beginning of the biggest change in the UK political system for over a century. Get ready to play your part; inaction is not a sensible option in these dangerous times.
———————————
My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.
Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.
Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.
Click HERE TO DONATE if you do not see the Donate button above
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address NatWest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Allowed HTML - you can use:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Leave a comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Sadly, tragically even, I think your analysis is on the money Craig, but I think the (temporary?) rise of Reform UK is down to two things; firstly, the failure of the Labour Party, since its inception, over 120 years ago, to offer a real alternative to capitalism and second, the failure of the left to produce a viable socialist alternative and its inability to separate itself from British imperialism, in spite of all its pretensions to revolution.
The rise of the Right here, is a direct result of the above, Reform UK fills the vacuum created by exploiting, on the one hand, the abandonment by the Labour Party of its traditional base and on the other, the deliberate exploitation of the fears of the ‘other’ by the British state, something it’s been doing for decades. And all of it taking place within the structural crisis of capitalism, leading us to Fascism.
Yes, good comment.
“the failure of the left to produce a viable socialist alternative and its inability to separate itself from British imperialism, in spite of all its pretensions to revolution.”
Also its inability to separate itself from a stultifying bureaucracy, leading to the impression that Socialism = bureaucrats everywhere. Socialism should be about making sure the more fortunate in society help the less fortunate, not creating a large bureaucratic structure that largely fails to do this effectively, which has been what has tended to happen.
The ‘Labour’ Party was crippled from its inception, with roots in the Fabian Society, which advocated ‘reformism’ rather than ‘revolution’. Revolution is difficult to achieve while avoiding shedding too much blood, but reformism leads to absolutely nowhere except eventual defeat.
There has always been a socialist element in the Labour Party- ILP, Militant, Momentum- but they have never exerted the influence they hoped for. When the binary decision has to made whether to support Labour or Capital the Labour Party has opted to defend Capital. So it has never been truly a socialist never mind a revolutionary party.
The Communist Party in the early 1920s was committed to international revolution and attempted on a number of occasions to ally with the Labour Party but was rejected on every occasion. Agreements about not competing against each other in parliamentary elections sometimes succeeded at local level but the different approaches to confronting capitalism was a circle that could not be squared.
So the Labour Party has never been Socialist. The Communist Party in the UK was never committed to revolution after 1951 when it published ‘The Parliamentary Road to Socialism.’ What has emerged as a result is a political language where terms like ‘marxist,’ ‘socialist,’ or even ‘liberal’ can be freely used by right wing commentators as insults, ‘insults’ that are rarely thrown back in the face of the Andrew Neils or Laura whose second name I can’t spell.
The term ‘separatist’ used to be spat out by the George ‘Bomber’ Robertsons of this world as an intended insult aimed at SNP supporters but given the present state of the party that is hardly required these days. The fact that the three aforementioned along with Ken McCallum, Head of MI5, describe themselves as Scottish shows that much hard work lies ahead for Craig and Alba.
Yes, Barofsky. Absolutely.
If the progressive needs to be founded in the social, in the holistic sense rather than just marketplace, surely it needs a firm foundation in what humans are. Which is from evolution. With some cultural/neuro diversity. Which can surely tie in with an environmental agenda. While needing to studiously avoid naturalistic fallacies, neoludditism (or overhyped technocracy), social status reification etc.
Why does Farage always seem to be gurning in some way, does he switch it on for cameras, or is it just jollyness due to whatever?
I wouldn’t worry too much about ‘Neo-Luddism’ – nature will be implementing its own version of that within the next 20/30 or so years. See:
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/2025-a-civilizational-tipping-point
for a short summary.
An interesting read, but it fails to take into account the massive distortions of the world economy caused by the low cost of oil-based fuels, such as the decline of local industries because it is cheaper to ship manufactured goods from the other side of the world.
“I hope to be adopted by the Alba Party as a candidate for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2026.”
Mr. Murray, I certainly wish you good luck.
Meanwhile, it’s a little unclear what you exactly mean by “adopted”. Who do you think may become your foster parents?
I’m fully aware you often refer to the “Deep State”, which conveniently doesn’t need to be linked to individuals. Does this omerta also apply to Scottish political parties?
Perhaps the realisation that a 2 party system might not include the Labour party as one of the favoured two could lead Starmer to rethink his refusal to countenance PR? The rank and file of labour mostly support it as far as I can tell.
Excellent article as usual.
Oh, two-faced Starmer will just “see the light” and join reform.
They wouldn’t have him. They have heard about the Trojan Horse. And they wouldn’t want his millions of bitter enemies, either.
PR, in the eyes of the established parties, is something they could try and bend to make it work their way, i.e. advocating AV and AV plus, both merely different forms of FPTP, not proportional at all.
Even the AMV system used by Germany can be manipulated by the existing parties.
PR without the carrerist party politicians having their list system, influencing the voters via the media, is unacceptable to them.
They believe that power belongs to those who have governed for a long time and no change in voting system can change this.
If a PR system can not guarantee to work for voters representations, when corporate agendas change manifestos at a drop of a hat, it is not working.
If one would like to see important issues coming to the fore and be dealt with by a Government, party politics has to be neutered to allow representatives to group around issues they stood in elections for. Long lying election campaigns, media pundits working establishment and corporate finance agendas during elections should be a thing of the past, shunned for the distaste they create in voters.
I prefer a much cheaper and exiting voting system, a lottocracy, were people are randomly pulled out of a hat of NI numbers in a constituency, ask wether they would like to serve for one or two years, with no voting at all, no expenses for a count and or campaign, superbfluess flim flam thats wasting time and money.
Corruption of representatives is tackled by a recall system and a short period in power, until a serving representative gets exchanged a new one. Those who pipe up with preconceived racist or corporate agenda would stick out like sore thumb in a crowd of randomly selected reps that would automatically groups around important issues that matter, not prechewed or media induced fears and fake news.
But hey, saving over 300 milion for running an election might be a step too far for some. The current prevalence of being governed by a clique of lawyers/ solicitors would change drastcally.
The civil servants currently enacting Starmers Zio fascism would only be too happy to helping a normal person and their socio political/environmental agendas and issues currently ignored.
Many thanks to Craig for another excellent article on the lowest point in stunned democracy, politics and sloganising Government.
Quite, the entrenchment of party politics, itself a corruption of the extremely limited form of democracy that we “enjoy” in the West, is a disadvantage of PR that is not mentioned enough. As you say, sortition would be better, but, failing that, a return to multi-member constituencies is the only reform that militates against the party system.
“austerity, benefit cuts and attacks on the non-working and disabled” – you mention these as being part of the Deep State agenda. Why does the deep state have a position on these things?
“Why does the deep state have a position on these things?”
Perhaps as a useful distraction from their actual program.
Why would the ‘deep state’ not have a position on these things? They cost money which could be better spent on swimming pools, champagne and air miles.
Yes loads to agree with there.
Reform as Craig indicates, shows how the deep state parties crowding the centre has lead to most voters who want to reject the elites going to Reform which media claim to be right wing, but really is much more decent than that.
And the Corbyn rush shows much the same – voters forced out to the extremes to avoid the interchangeable Blairs and Camerons who simply governed extremely badly.
On racism & immigration. The fundamental force for modern western politics is the impact of enormous wealth inequalities. That is what upsets people, that is the motivation to kick out the old parties. There are many inter-related issues here. Education, Tax rates, Housing, QE, inflation policies (redistribution to the poor generates inflation – they spend it, distribution to the rich doesn’t), and Immigration.
Of all of these potential policy reccommendations only one is made clearly and consistently and allows Reform to stand out from the crowd on inequality – Immigration. No wonder that is the one that gets picked up on, criticised by the outgoing elites and media, and perhaps gets over concentrated on by a minority of voters. Solution = Talk about 70% Top Rate of Tax and an end to asset holder subsidies (QE).
There was nothing extreme about Corbyn.
By contrast, Reform, the Conservatives and Starmer’s Labour all subscribe to an economic dogma that was considered extreme and dangerously right-wing within my lifetime.
Michael’s description of Corbyn as extreme showed how avaricious vulture capitalism has been normalised and accepted as mainstream. A similar trend is also happening with the normalisation of genocide
Within your lifetime? Enoch Powell and ‘Rivers of blood’. Okay, maybe you’re not old enough to remember Powell and his fear-mongering but my point is, there’s nothing new about Farage and his opportunist scape-goating in British politics. It’s because of the myth about Britain being ‘reasonable’ and ‘moderate’, yeah for as long as it’s convenient to do so and whilst the Empire exported its racist, genocidal shit to its colonies.
Exactly right, zoot. Corbyn was no more ‘extreme left’ than Harold Wilson, who at the time was generally regarded as being on the right of the ‘Labour’ Party.
Harold Wilson is rarely referenced by the Labour Party of Blair and Starmer. No wonder: he kept Britain out of the US Empire war in Vietnam. Contrast that with Starmer’s Boy Scout attempt to rally a coalition of the willing to fight Russian troops inside Ukraine, something the US has rejected.
Cabinet papers from the time suggest that Wilson was unable to send troops to Vietnam because of opposition within the PLP.
Politics in the UK, much like elsewhere in world, has reached a nadir, a low point, the likes of which I never thought I would see in my lifetime – and it is very depressing. We move from parties that at least had some point of view, a manifesto or creed that gave some meaning to their existence. However their descent into corruption and takeover by money motivated donors, the implosion of the tories and the self immolation of labour leaves us with rudderless parties, loose groupings of purely reactionary chancers and grifters, defenceless against abuse and eventual take over by authoritarian sociopaths.
Domestic policy reflects foreign policy – a casual disregard for morals and ethics, attacking minorities at home and conniving in genocide in Gaza and prolonging an unwinnable war in Ukraine, all contributing to the pollution of our society, just as failed policy contributes to the pollution of our waterways.
You can put all of that down to the pernicious doctrines of Liberalism, which for 200 odd years has encouraged both unfettered capitalism and the atomisation of all aspects of society.
Interesting. The UK is in the same stream as the rest of the West. Globally, we are experiencing the beginning of a paradigm change. That takes time. The more so due to the fact that the majority of voters everywhere, with a few exceptions such as, say, Denmark, are not switched on politically. That means control is firmly with the old guard. Electorates are played like a piano. The Establishment has several thousand years of experience in its DNA and is always sharply focussed on updating epigenetically. Ruling is an art, apart from all else.
The small Right is beginning to make itself felt, but its base and potential voters are not au fait with the system. Like the rest of Joe Public, they have no clue how it works. As for the Left, they have always been used, controlled, for various purposes. During the true influence from the trade unions, the Left was largely supportive as it allowed it to work on its march through the institutions. The Left seem to be blind to its astounding success here. Mainly because the majority on the Left have been imbued with the weaponised political rhetorical and analytical tools and the propaganda with which it sought to undermine western democracy. Other than follow the Soviet or China model, the Left in the West had never a clue how to rule once it had acquired power. It can be seen that where there are truly socialist (read, communist) states in the West, they are still controlled by the international powerbrokers. Since the trade union movers and shakers were brought on board with the Establishment, the social democratic model was on the ropes, slowly being strangled, though few people noticed. Only lately more politically attuned people have come out and gone public with their concerns. Of course, almost always fine-tuning their message according to their own position in the scheme of things. This has created the interesting phenomenon where the truth is out there for those who want to see it, but however clear as day, and regularly on the news box and in the mainstream mediums as well, people, by and large, are comatose to the fix they are in.
Psychological, yes, but there are higher levels at work. To see what we believe to be reality, in this world, a sound moral compass is not enough. One needs to make the effort to suss out how it works. This takes will and application. Few are motivated thus. So nature takes its course. The majority will only wake up, with a start, of course, when the crisis hits them. The establishment is always busy steering events, looking way ahead, and putting off the day that the majority wakes up at once- which would result in utter chaos. So, unless people take a hand in it, nature will take its course, the global neo-feudal Establishment will keep tightening control judiciously, enough, but not so much as to spark a conflagration which it cannot control. No opposition which sees it coming will want to be in charge. Look at Dutton in Australia. He clearly campaigned for his Coalition to lose. No stomach to stand up to China. Well, what will they do, anyway. But for the US, Oz is beholden to Beijing. The US, at the moment, is a dark horse. Not that the Democrats were any better- Worse, one would think. So, let nature take its course.
The Left have done their march through the institutions. First on the back of the successful trade union movement, which was Centre-Right, by and large. Subsequently, the Left were the attack dogs for the globalists seeking to destroy the social-democratic nation-state. Well done! Democracy in the West is become a farce, a sham. The Left are now of no further use to the globalist neo-feudalists, that I can see. Except for true stalwarts, the Leftist political operatives are scratching for a (paying) role to play, soliciting for subsidies and support as the funds from the taxpayers are gradually turned off. Trying to keep a seat on the gravy train controlled by the Establishment is getting harder. Interesting times. However, it is what people have wrought; the majority have voted for it, time and again. The Left should move to the centre, but to be effective against the system, it has to become independent from the system, which it never was. Besides, the Left has no agenda worth voting for. It’s Utopia or the abyss. I think if the West were to be ruled by the Left, it would be the abyss.
” where there are truly socialist (read, communist) states in the West”
and where are they again?
You got me there. Hmmm… Iceland? No. Finland? Now part of the West. No, not really. East Germany? Now merged, sort of, in with the West. Slovakia? Canada? Maybe none. That’s why I left it open. I couldn’t think of one.
” No stomach to stand up to China.” Well then, we can see where you are coming from.
Pray tell us, why is there a need to “stand up to China”?
Follow what’s happening in the Far East, to answer your question. Ask the Vietnamese, or anyone around the “Chinese seas”. However, it may well be that Australians really want an anschluss with China, but I didn’t think so.
No. Follow what all the propaganda outlets are saying about the ‘Far’ east. China inescapably had immense economic power, but countries such as Vietnam are accommodating themselves to this reality. It is the US and the ‘west’ who are unwilling to give up their hegemonic position who are creating this ‘problem’. As for the Australians, China is their largest trading partner – but unfortunately for them, they are now just slavish vassals of the US, and they are cutting off their nose to order.
Meanwhile, re George Galloway – I had started watching his podcasts, appreciating his astute observations and views on world events, and the guests he had on – but I gradually started to see, as you do Craig, that behind this lay a deeply troubling mindset – a petty use of personal insults, and the skewed populist position on immigration. However I have stopped following his internet activities since he made his position on the recent high court ruling on trans issues clear. He is completely wrong on this, denying science, biology and social history and contributing to the ugly spread of trans phobia and hatred. It reveals a part of his character that completely undermines trust in his other opinions, reducing his sharp rhetoric to empty blustering designed to appeal only to his established audience, to proclaim, and not to debate.
Okay, but this strangely reminds me of someone else?
“wrong on this, denying science, biology” – rubbish.
As the Law has now made clear, Trans people are not and never can be of a different sex than that in which they were born. The most important aspect of this ruling is that women will not be subjected to the imposition of men into what should be single sex spaces. Also, the ruling did not say that trans people should lose any necessary protection through the ruling. They require equivalent security to both biological men and women, and they should have this as a human right.
To say that the above ‘denys science or biology’ displays a deep ignorance of both science and biology.
From briefly searching up what Galloway’s opinion is, I’m unclear, because he seems to have said he uses a person’s preferred sex pronoun, even if it’s different to what he understands to be the sex.
I’m curious about this phenomenon. It doesn’t seem like Galloway is someone who would think everyone’s sexual orientation should be open to bisexuality. So why would he contribute to verbally misleading society about what sex someone is. The more so as hormonal and surgical procedures can make the appearance less clear, such that verbal clarity is more needed, not less.
Perhaps he’s got bigger fish to fry than confronting every trans activist that comes his way.
Excellent overview of dark times.
Worth noting that now we have 3 very right-wing main parties there are no longer endless newspaper columns by grown-up centrists claiming to be Politically Homeless, as there were every day between 2015-19, when there was actually a meaningful difference between the parties.
Interesting too that now Starmer is destroying Labour there isn’t a peep from any of our sensible moderate Labour MPs. Remember all their votes of no confidence, mass resignations and hosti!e media briefings when Corbyn made Labour the largest political party in Europe, had the overwhelming backing of the members, a popular manifesto, highest vote share, etc?
“Worth noting that now we have 3 very right-wing main parties there are no longer endless newspaper columns by grown-up centrists claiming to be Politically Homeless, as there were every day between 2015-19, when there was actually a meaningful difference between the parties.”
An astute observation. For almost all of my lifetime, thanks to the example set by Triangulatin’ Tony, it has seemed that liberalism is increasingly just a flavour of conservatism, with any differences constrained to a wafer of policy issues, many of those largely cosmetic. We only have to look at how the vast majority of ‘liberal’ commentators have cheered on the wholesale dismantling of individual rights and liberties in this century to see how far through the looking glass we’ve gone.
As far as electoral reality goes, the last battleground of substantive difference now lies to the right of conservatism. The fash are coming in from the long cold of eighty years, as electorates across the world desperately cast about for any kind of alternative to the package deal of managed decline and total absence of imagination purveyed by the mainstream. Well, I don’t think they’ll like the change they’ll get.
Meanwhile, the actually politically homeless – those for whom the choice between facism and Thatcherism is no choice at all – are left to watch on with detached amusement – or horror…
RD
Yes, absolutely. The last decade has dispelled all lingering illusions about liberalism. The depths plumbed to stop Corbyn, the steadfast support for the pitiless Starmer and Biden regimes.
Case closed.
A propos your theory about Starmer…
I wonder what his mentor, Lord Mandelson, was doing during 1997/98?
Apparently he was a Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet Office.
Minister without Portfolio. Doesn’t that mean that he has no (official) job?
In the Cabinet Office. That’s the Executive Office of the Privy Council. So he was working directly for the monarch.
I think he was busy destroying the Labour Party by setting two important segments against each other.
And look at the state of the country today.
Job done!
Mandelson, yes, a very dark horse; friend of Epstein and visitor to his island paradise, as was Trump of course, gay, not that that matters, but close relationships not disclosed. His close lockstep guidance to Labour leaders is now matched by his determination to be the representative of the British Government in Trump’s sphere of influence. He and Blair are determined to stifle any acknowledgement of their influence in the timeline since Bush made it clear: ‘you’re either with us or you’re against us’.
Cowardice, opportunism or pragmatism?
Thank you for this very timely article. The Labour Party having ditched the left can only go further right and in doing so fall into a political black hole.
The trades union movement is too divided, too weak and too faint – hearted to exert any real pressure on Labour. Its money only helps to preserve a marginal influence against much more powerful external forces that are driving its policies.
Reform is filling a political vacuum in much the same way that Labour did on 1945 with its bold radical for the time platform of welfare state, nationalisation of public utilities and break up of private monopolies, full employment, housing for all and commitment to solving international problems through diplomacy and not war via a strong Unite Nations. The Liberal Party of the time was not far behind with the two parties having enough in common to suggest the possibility of local pacts to keep the Tories out. Economically this also made sense to people with more money in people’s pockets to drive growth. There is no doubt that the mood of the country was to the left.
The current Labour Party more than the Tory party must bear the blame for the rise of Reform.
Excellent, balanced, insightful article. Learned a lot. Thanks, Craig.
“(T)he simple truth is that most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners.”
This is absolutely true, and the article would have much more punch if this was stated in the headline and lede. Best to state it succinctly and offensively too.
Never mind the Liberals of 1902 or voting figures from 1910. Psephologists are completely up themselves and can do one. The key points are as follows:
1. Reform are SendEmBack-ist and StopEmComing-ist.
2. The reason why Reform seem to be taking most of the Tory vote is because the leader of the Tory party is black. Not only that, but Badenoch is the second non-white leader the Tory party have had in a row. Racist f*ckwits can’t hear what a person says if the person is black. What they notice first and foremost, and this dominates how they view the person, is that the person is black. They assume that blackness is the most important determiner of what the person says and does. Their ears glom up when someone says it isn’t. They won’t hear you. A white person who tells them this will just be seen as a white person who “likes the blacks” (or the “P***s”).
3. Reform appeal to white native voters who are either petty bourgeois, mortgaged up proletarians, or not-in-debt proletarians who are as thick as two short planks and unable to realise that the ruling class don’t have the slightest bit more respect for them than they do for non-whites or non-natives. The sheer level of stupidity can be hard to get one’s head around. I have met people who were in favour of Brexit because they said the EU parliament was unelected and kept telling them what to do. When I told them the EU parliament is elected and actually it doesn’t have much power, they went “Oh yeah”. I mean they accepted what I said. They hadn’t been articulating the real reasons why they supported Brexit. Because really they don’t give a sh*t about foreign trade, or about the relationship between branches of the state, and half of them probably couldn’t identify Poland on a map, let alone tell the difference between one branch of the state and another. What they don’t like is people who aren’t “from here” – or whose ancestors weren’t, as for example might be indicated by their skin colour, religion, clothes, surnames, first names, or what kind of food they eat. Talking of religion, a similar point can be made about Islamophobes, most of whom couldn’t tell you even three things that Muslims believe, except maybe they might tell you that Muslims believe in some weirdo god with an Arabic name. And this is no exaggeration. Most white British people really are this f***ing ignorant and stupid.
4. The Powellite vote, which used to go almost entirely to a party called UKIP, rose and rose in elections that weren’t considered to be about which bunch of c***s got jobs as ministers. I mean in local elections, in EU elections (the irony!), and then in the Brexit referendum. The f*ckers thought they were giving the politicians on the telly a chance. A chance to put their white hoods on and sort out the supposed foreigner problem.
5. Now the voters feel betrayed, because they haven’t got what they wanted. It’s been downhill since the Powellites won 52% in 2016 and it’s only going on one direction.
Mostly a good article, but.
“most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners”
Racist bollox IMO based on hearsay and opinion, smells very much like the brexit smearing campaign. Obviously anyone who might be some form of english nationist is a racist (!) but the hypocrits say it’s perfectly okay to be a scottish, irish or welsh nationist. Would be nice to hear some factual based discussions rather than this daily mail style ranting. Farage might be a grifter but I don’t see anything, anywhere else that is worth a citizens vote but if he disrupts the establishment that’s good because disruption is the only solution to such a f*cked country, but carry on doing the same thing and hope you’ll get a different result.
3Agreed, just because someone thinks net immigration of 750k+ a year is way too high and unsustainable doesn’t make you racist.
One thing that is reassuring is there seems to be an appetite for radical change among the public, what with the support Corbyn had and now Farage. The public seem well aware of how politicians have been acting in ways that are contrary to the benefit of most. We just need a decent, uncorruptable, principled candidate to stand behind.
“What they don’t like is people who aren’t “from here” ”
The problem is that in the UK, ” foreigner”, or “not from here” can mean ” from the next village”. It really is that granular. It seems it is in the British cultural DNA to be suspicious of anyone not in your immediate community. It’s not just people of another race.
Where would Reform be if Gordon Brown hadn’t been so busy with being a war criminal and instead had said
1. Britain is signing up to ever closer union.
2. Britain will join the eurozone on such and such a date.
3. Rupert Murdoch is under arrest for X Y Z and his assets are hereby seized – because there is no doubt that the rightwing press have been a major factor in keeping Powellism alive, what with the racist nudge-winking they always do with their stories about “knife crime”, the “inner city”, etc. etc. etc. – every f*cking day. If the goddamned USA could jail Conrad Black, the British state could conceivably have jailed Murdoch – I mean theoretically it would have been possible.
One nation under ZOG, wise up, the plan is working.
If Gordon Brown had done 1 & 2, we’d be no less f*cked than we are today, probably more so.
You mean ‘ever closer union’ with the then Neo-Liberal and now Neo-Fascist EU. I voted remain, as it was clearly the economically sensible option, but the increasingly deluded, aggressive and war-mongering rhetoric from the EU is not attractive (to say the least). The EU needs a revolution in its political orientation before I would vote for re-joining.
Yes, I fear so. All this goose-stepping around is, of course, exactly what Trump wanted. To make money out of the Ukraine while the Europeans further beggared themselves re-arming (having already beggared themselves shutting of their energy supply): the arms manufacturers are rubbing their hands in delight. The EU has betrayed its founding principles.
Bramble. It was always the case, as I see it, that the EU was always about creating a ‘united States of Europe’, along with a european justice system, european military forces and a loss of sovereignty for members. I see nothing to change that viewpoint and the last five years appears to show an acceleration with that agenda. I believe a lot of Europeans don’t and didn’t want that. So, I don’t believe the EU has betrayed its founding principles , I believe the monster we see was always the plan.
I was a big Eu fan (less now).
Your assessment is 100% right.
It really annoys me the prominence of Ursula and Kaja Kallas on the world stage!
It has become ridiculous IMO but fits with your assessment.
As a left winger it is heartbreaking.
They are all semi fascist grouping (EPP)
Thanks, Bramble (21.32, 5 May). As a not-too-scrupulous businessman and part-time realist Trump can see that Russia is not going to collapse and that its resources are not available for asset-stripping. Whereas what is left of Ukraine will be there for the grabbing, while the EU-UK axis will have knocked itself out banging its head against Russia.
Not joining the euro was Gordon Brown’s most valuable contribution to the UK.
Entry into the eurozone effectively entails using a foreign currency over which the UK govt has no control, ceding power to bankers and unelected bureaucrats.
Whilst Reeves’ fiscal rules are damaging and pointless, at least having our own currency, she or her replacement can ditch those rules at any point.
The EU’s Stability and Growth Pact, otoh, is hard wired into Treaty law, and breaking its terms of >3% budget deficit and >60% national debt, relative to GDP is punishable by fines imposed by the EU on transgressing nations, which is not only undemocratic, but worsens their existing economic problems.
The power inherent in the ability to issue the nation’s currency cannot be over-emphasised, and the current govt’s reluctance to fully use that power for the benefit of ordinary people is an appalling dereliction of duty.
Good old days
under 3% deficit and under 60% of the GDP debt!
🤣
Nicely expressed MrShigemitsu
It seems to be the case in a few different spheres of financial life that those who need money the most are the ones who get financially punished for not having enough of it.
Unfortunately the overwhelming majority in the west (including most of the left) drank enough of the neoliberal Kool-Aid to believe that responsible economics requires governments to run a budget surplus and reduce the national debt. How to persuade people that currency-issuing governments can do so much better with different policy choices?
Love the quote about
” Those who need the money….”
Orwellian!
Re: ‘there simply is no left-wing party among the complex five-party pattern emerging in English politics’
*Ahem*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_England_and_Wales
Also worth noting that, reportedly, over half of households in England & Wales now derive over half of their income from the state. Sounds fairly left-wing if you ask me.
If I get time, I’ll try to come up with an eclectic local elections round-up for you all tomorrow. In the meantime, I see that at least one of the new Reform councillors is literally pointing at aeroplanes:
https://x.com/reformexposed/status/1919309746214928492
It depends. I am not sure what the England & Wales Green party’s position is on the Ukraine war, but I suspect it is unfortunately aligned completely with the establishment and not what I would regard as the ‘left’.
Jams O’Donnell
Not possible to be of the left if you support Ukraine in the present conflict?
I’d be interested to see a justification for that claim.
Jams O’Donnell
Any thoughts on this? Thanks.
Yes. The Ukraine war was engineered by the US and UK governments and their ‘secret’ agencies, and NATO – no-one on the ‘left’ should be supporting anything carried out by these entities.
Rather than going through the arguments, which would require a post here as long as an article, I refer you to Jaques Baud, who “is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan.” – etc.
https://labourheartlands.com/jacques-baud-the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine-update/
Thanks Jams.
However the Russian invasion of Ukraine was implemented by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Using the word “engineered” implies that Putin was merely the tool of Western interests.
Denying him agency, as it were.
JK Redux, your last comment seems to suggest that if a person acts in response to something done by others, he has no “agency”.
If you think about it, you will perhaps see that almost everything human beings do is a reaction to things other humans have done.
Mr Putin has agency, and he uses it to defend Russia and make it prosper. Certain Westerners decided to use the Ukraine as a weapon against Russia, by engineering a coup d’etat in 2014, persecuting (including murdering) the citizens of Donbas, and building up massive armies and stocks of weapons. It was obvious that Russia could not stand by and watch this for ever – many were surprised it took so long to respond. The SMO, when it came, was launched in the hope that the Kiev mob would give up or be overthrown. When, as the Russians no doubt expected, NATO doubled down again and again, Russia always had superior force thanks to the 8 years Mr Putin used for preparation.
Fundamentally a pack of self-deceived, comfortably off liberals willing to ignore the clearly fascist nature of the Ukraine regime lest they break ranks with the respectably self righteous anti Putin chauvinists.
”Not possible to be of the left if you support Ukraine in the present conflict?”
You would to define what you mean by ‘Ukraine.’ Is that the Ukraine post Maidan coup which removed the legitimate government? That Ukraine? I cannot see how anyone who describes themselves as being on the ‘left’ could possibly have supported such a regime with all its Banderite iconography.
The majority in the East of Ukraine have already cast their votes and decided they did not support it either. Why would their vote to become absorbed into the Russian Federation be a problem for anyone of the ‘left?’
https://greenparty.org.uk/2025/02/22/standing-in-solidarity-with-ukraine/
Ukraine held free and far elections in 2019.
” Why would their vote to become absorbed into the Russian Federation be a problem for anyone of the ‘left?’ ” Because the result was fixed?
“Ukraine held free and far elections in 2019.”
How do you know they were free and fair, because The Telegraph agreed with the result?
Over two thousand international observers from 17 countries and 19 organizations were officially registered to monitor the elections. A record number of 139 non-governmental Ukrainian organizations were also registered as observers.
International observers saying that an election is free and fair are generally ignored if the result is not what the West likes, no matter how many of them there are. How many of those 17 countries were aligned with the US?
“A record number of 139 non-governmental Ukrainian organizations were also registered as observers.”
I wonder how many of these NGOs have now disappeared since the funding from USAID was cut off. Numbers don’t mean a damn thing. If the US can set up one NGO in Ukraine, it can set up 139, given the funding.
“” Why would their vote to become absorbed into the Russian Federation be a problem for anyone of the ‘left?’ ” Because the result was fixed?”
If you were going to rig a vote what result would you go for? 55% in favour? 65%? 85%? or 95%? Wouldn’t you want a result that looks reasonable?
“Ukraine held free and far elections in 2019.”
Pears Morgaine.
The Yanks couped the country in 2014, and installed – yes installed there most obedient puppets – Nuland was caught discussing who would serve US interests best.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-made/
Currently Ukraine is a Neo-Nazi dictatorship – and the British regime can’t get enough of it.
Piers
139 NGO.?
Bayard reply is worth 2 likes.
It’s insane!
No wander the West is going down.
Everyone is in NGO or think tank
“there simply is no left-wing party among the complex five-party pattern emerging in English politics.”
Perhaps its a conspiracy.
Left wing, right wing, centre-ist, it’s all bollox, ‘we’ all know they are all the same and will jump on whatever bandwagon is currently in fashion and feathers their nests. Reform is potentially the current bandwagon.
How about politicians with morals, with convictions, with loyalties, with beliefs in the country and it’s people’s. The current crop of professional politicians are an absolute abomination, this country is doomed if we continue with this class of politician. As I see it, the only solution is a mass gallows, the burning of Westminster to the ground and a complete restart. I can dream …
That is the truth. “Left wing” and “right wing” ceased to have any real meaning long ago. Indeed, it’s quite hard nowadays to create any kind of taxonomy of politicians and parties. Mainly because it has become a career like any other, in which the only important things are getting ahead, getting rich, and getting power. “Left” and “right” used to be ideological labels, and today’s politicians have long discarded ideology.
Their favourite slogan is “he who dies with the most toys wins”.
“As I see it, the only solution is a mass gallows, the burning of Westminster to the ground and a complete restart. I can dream …”
Where are the Huns and the Mongols when we need them?
Yes, welcome to radical leftism, Craig. I agree heartily with most of what you say. Whether or not Starmer is a plant to destroy the so-called ‘Labour’ party, he is certainly doing his best to bring about that end – and no-one in the party seems inclined to stop him. And I hope you are right about Scotland, but I’ve been disappointed too many times to believe in independence til it is signed and sealed. Anyway, keep fighting the good fight on behalf of us all. I really appreciate it.
Our host’s premiss is based on the assumption that the people of Scotland want ‘independence’ – whatever that means. Perpetual disappointment looms !
Stevie … After all this time it can only be your own negligence of the subject if you don’t know what independence means to those Scots who seek it. And the current disappointment is not necessarily perpetual … in a poll within the past fortnight support for independence was 56%, rising to 60% if Farage becomes PM. Polls go up and down, of course, but it is the slow but sure upward trend in support for our freedom from Westminster that you ought to be aware of.
Indepence will mean whatever maximises the required votes. There is probably a world of difference between what independence means to Scots and what it means to the parties pedalling it: SNP, Alba, etc.
NATO, Currency, EU, Trident, Health, Education … to mention six issues.
As I’ve said before, if Farage is the answer, what’s the problem ? Reform and Farage will have morphed into something different before the next GE. Why would Scots vote for such an obvious trojan horse ?
Yes. They may get a measure of independence from Whitehall, but they won’t be independent of the corporations, NATO, the EU… (whether Scotland is formally a member or not).
As the Athenian herald told the Melians, “The strong do what they will, and the weak do what they must”.
“But even if you do not accept my theory that Starmer may be destroying the Labour Party on purpose, perhaps you might accept that Starmer would prefer to see the Labour Party destroyed than see it in power as a left-wing party.”
I think Hanlon’s Razor (Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity) is pertinent here, although “incompetence” is more appropriate than “stupidity”, although I would accept that Starmer’s upbringing might have inculcated a hatred of the left, or perhaps he’s just another unprincipled opportunist.
Or perhaps Starmer is both, and also, as some of his fellow party members have said, believes he is the driver of a remotely controlled train.
“Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice”.
– Comment posted on Slashdot by Pig Hogger (10379).
Presumably, that works the other way, too: any sufficiently retarded malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
Craig Murray
You proclaim you are “pro-Scottish independence”, “pro-republican” and that “Scots are sovereign” so how do you reconcile those views with your goal of becoming part of the Holyrood / Westminster British political Establishment which upholds the “sovereignty” of (England’s) Crown in (England’s) Westminster Parliament which involves swearing fealty to England’s King Charles Windsor / the UK head of state?
The world for Britain has changed in this post-Empire era.
The wealth accumulated during the ‘great days’ of Empire has substantially diminished.
Many of the former colonials have come over ( both rich and poor – but mainly poor seeking a better life).
Post- World War 11 class based confrontational politics was ( for a while) replaced with Thatcherite revisionist politics accompanied by a ‘trickle down’ economic theory accompanied by a significant degree of nationalism ( i.e. the type which Churchill would have approved of).
Enter globalisation, the EU and a fast changing world and Britain finds herself conveniently embracing a reborn version of ‘Britain first’ ( so enter Farage).
But how really does Farage, Labour, the Conservatives compete effectively in this much changed/changing world and economic environment?
A cogent set of economic policy prescriptions for modern times – would be a good start.
Starmer has long since shifted to the right – so Nigel over to you ( with precious little viable economic policy to date).
In real life, economic “growth” for most of the population in Britain stopped decades ago.
Real people’s lives are increasingly hit by
* landlordism
* debt
* price rises
* getting bossed around more and more
* being made to act as if the most ludicrous lies are true, such as that
– – tightening your belt and working longer hours is to stop climate change
– – genocide is protection against terrorism
– – terrible conditioning of school pupils is “education”
– – smartphones make you free, etc.
* massive degradation of social life to an extent that most of it now depends on submission to advertising and surveillance companies
* large-scale deterioration in intelligence
* large-scale deterioration of, and precarisation of, mental health
Strange use of the term “social democratic” here.
Look what has happened to social housing, personal debt [*], basing the economy on finance capital (this is the real “London” story, not the Scottish nationalist thing about “Westminster”!), police rights (e.g. at ports of entry), and the whole 2020-2022 experience that mustn’t be mentioned, the lack of opposition to “stick it up your a*se” changes in the state “health” system, etc.
If Britain is thought to have been “social democratic” until 2025, is Singapore still “social democratic”? 🙂
I guess one could say the ruling class are changing the social contract, but it’s not really a contract given that one supposed signatory party is disorganised, not right in the head, and essentially not “present”.
Note
* On personal debt, is there even an official statistic on what % of adults in Britain are in debt, and how this % has changed over the years?
Brian Red,
As I just posted :-
” A cogent set of economic policy prescriptions for modern times – would be a good start.
Starmer has long since shifted to the right – so Nigel over to you ( with precious little viable economic policy to date).”
Which is seeking answers to much the same problems/questions which you posed.
Courtenay
“* On personal debt, is there even an official statistic on what % of adults in Britain are in debt, and how this % has changed over the years?”
Personal debt is the big unmentioned change in our society in the last fifty years. We have gone from a society that saved money and earned interest on it to a society that borrows money and pays interest on it, to the obvious and vast benefit of the bankers and their shareholders. This has driven another big change, which is that economic growth has become essential in order that borrowers can afford to pay the interest on their debt. However economic growth needs an equivalent growth in consumption of resources, most of which are by their nature finite, whereas continuous growth tends towards infinity.
Some figures on personal debt in UK up to 2024, including & excl mortgages:
https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/average-household-debt-uk
Mortgage debt: £198K
Personal loans: £5.5K
Student debt: £9.0K
Credit cards: £2.5K
These are just averages though!
Wouldn’t disagree with the vast majority of what Craig has said.
But No Man ( or Woman ) is an island and the state of the world is reflected on each country.
Trump – Starmer – Macron – Mertz and so on, have not ‘ risen ‘ to the top because of their political genius – they have risen because they reflect what the rich and their paid puppets want to do.
I don’t agree with the Bilderberg – Freemasonry and the worship of a Wooden Owl stuff neither.
The powerful part of the world is a capitalist world and despite its slow decline it is very capable of causing great harm.
In fact it is causing great harm and will cause more harm in an attempt to continue to exist in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.
There is no Meritocracy or American Dream – just a general Nightmare for the vast majority of the world’s population.
The collapse of Democracy is not surprising as most of the Western populous (possibly even Reform voters)? are not as keen to flatten Palestinians – support more arms to Ukraine and Israel and are not in favour of bombing Iran.
This the real world imposing on the unreal world of the politicians who, ( and I suspect that they don’t even know why they are doing it) ? stand on their principles in the defence of Sovereignty and then give their Sovereignty away to the US and Israel.
Some defence that is.
BRICS and its co- followers is the main aim and every democracy is dancing on ice trying not to feel the wrath of the US and its sanctions/penalties/tariffs and so on for making a bad move.
Anti – Semitism included.
This is no visitation this is a result of ‘ Doing The Right Thing’ when everything for the past 20 -30 years has been ‘ Doing The Wrong Thing’ such as wandering up to Russia with NATO – pretending that Trickle Down economics would work and Privatising near everything that moves as the answer to grow an economy.
All gone really well there grovelling to the US hasn’t it?
The thing is is that Ukraine has received its invoice for US support ( the EU daren’t send its invoice yet) but Europe and the UK have been sent an invoice by the US as well.
If the EU goes along with shelling out 800 billion Euros in Military weapons etc instead of the US paying for Security Guarantees that’s as good as paying the US for past protection.
Even Al Capone at his peak wouldn’t get away with that.
In both invoice cases it’s basically the continuation of Privatisation and this time it concerns Ukraine and The EU and UK.
It is the ‘ Meritocracy’s ‘ job to make sure all this happens and to ensure that the real owners of the world never lose out.
I suspect in the UK that PR will come back onto the Agenda pre- next election.
Many voters will not like 33% converting to a 165 seat majority.
The main thing in 2017 and 2019 was to keep a Corbyn led government out and that succeeded.
I also suspect that the Ruling Class will toy with Reform but actually may back PR in some form in the end.
They don’t need Fascism or Neo – Fascism yet – they will keep that one in the drawer in case it becomes necessary.
Not much of a left around at the moment so no danger.
Only an opinion though.
Seems a pretty reasonable opinion to me. I share it.
How many Reform voters have you heard express that?
I’m sure that there are racists who support Reform, just as there are racists who support the Tories and racists who support Labour.
Yes, but ‘Labour’ and marginally, the tories, don’t actually have racism as a part of their programme.
I consider explicit support of zionism, Israel, Ukraine as racism, all supported by the uni-parties.
The ruling class in Britain seem to be wanting us to forget something else too, by celebrating their stinking royalist military’s “Victory in Europe” day on what used to be a public holiday based on Labour day (International Workers’ Day) – without announcing this is a change.
Previously VE Day was always celebrated on the anniversary of the German regime’s unconditional surrender in 1945 to the Kremlin plus allies in Wall Street etc. – on 8 May, whatever day of the week it fell on.
According to The Guardian the Union Jack flag has been draped over the Cenotaph for the first time since it was built in 1920.
Back in the 1970s we used to laugh at the National Front’s cheesy political broadcasts which had some angry ex army sergeant propped up at a desk with the Union Jack behind him. We’re not laughing now.
Apparently, although I didn’t see any follow up on this, a unit of Ukrainian troops/nazis were going to March in London to celebrate VE day. No idea what happened, but does beg the question what has this country become in the last 80 years ?
SB, it helps to realise that the UK was fighting Fascists in WWII by accident. It was not fighting Fascism, our enemies in WWII just happened to be Fascists. The examples of the Blackshirts and the Spanish Civil War show that the UK Establishment had no problem with Fascism. They did have a problem with Communism and, again, it was an accident of history that the UK ended up on the same side as the USSR in WWII. Now that all the veterans of the two world wars are dead or dying, the Establishment can go back to cosying up to the world’s Fascists once again.
Stevie, I seem to recall that there is a word for people who will do anything for money.
Maybe many Reform voters, like Leave voters during Brexit, were also frustrated that foreign policy has always been off-limits to the British electorate in elections, but are unlikely to be clear on what these active royal prerogative (or deep state, or permanent government) areas are. It seems that Reform voters are particularly keen on having a British Empire, but may be less aware that the British Empire still exists, which the EU was trying to end before Brexit.
Well I’m glad there is some hope of independence. I had always thought the “Deep State “ to be an American thing and Britain had “The Establishment “? I’m not sure either actually exist. Any help?
Here are two older articles which should be enlightening, on the term’s original use and origin in Turkey; the other, a more general description given by an African author writing for the World Bank. The term has lost much of its meaning in its use by e.g mainstream American politicians; in its original, it refers to authoritarian power-elite formations that maneuver to set the political rules and influence the state from behind the scenes.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/tu-deep-state.htm
https://archive.is/wxXlo
‘The deep state is shady, vague and ill-defined. […] The heart of the Deep State is the presidency (which on paper has limited powers), the military (which formally reports to the P.M.), and the (formally independent) judiciary. The elected government is only the Deep State’s servant. While the Deep State influences government activity, the government has virtually no influence on the Deep State; if the Deep State really wants to keep someone out of power, that person will stay out. […] Weak rule of law and the impunity with which privileged operators were long been able to subvert Turkey’s legal system created an environment in which rumors of the deep state’s existence have been enough to give the concept a life of its own. Fear of the deep state’s omnipotence combined with an unshakable belief that it exists, imparts much of its power.’
‘Here is how it works. You think your country has undergone a transition to democracy. You have had roughly free and fair elections. You have new leaders in charge. Yet you begin to realize that, as the French say, the more things change the more they remain the same. You realize that there are powerful elite formations bequeathed by years, even decades, of authoritarian rule still able to block progressive change and protect their interests. […] there is a sense in which you cannot understand the politics of that country without focusing on the maneuverings of our very large posse of super-wealthy ex-generals (we call them ex-this, ex-that, and ex-everything else!) Democratization—such as it is — is taking place, I believe, largely on their terms. One notable indicator: nobody is asking them how come they are all so wealthy. Were they earning millions of dollars in salaries in the armed forces? Prediction: nobody is going to ask them.’
“The elected government is only the Deep State’s servant.”
I learned early in life that in what we call a “democracy”, the government consists of two parts, the legislature, which makes the laws, and the executive, which runs the country. Only the legislature is elected*. A small part of the legislature, ministers, also forms part of the executive, but they are not elected to fulfil that role, only to be part of the legislature. The bulk of the executive, the Civil Service, does not change with elections. It is ludicrous to suppose that the unelected part of the executive live behind Chinese walls and are unaffected by the other people who form the top of the societal tree. This is what is called the “Establishment” in Britain.
* In the UK, only part of the legislature is elected, the House of Lords being almost 100% appointed. Of the two Heads of State, one is hereditary and the other is elected, but not to be Head of State, by a tiny proportion of the population. So much for democracy.
Deep State: That part of the sociopolitical iceberg under the surface and out of sight.
All modern states are oligarchies. They have to be, the modern state is too complicated for one person or “the people” to run. The difference between an “autocracy” and a “democracy” is that in the former, the oligarchs are visibly in charge and in the latter they are invisible, but still in charge.
And as it is out of sight, its inner workings are a “black box”. We can infer its existence only by its effects on those things we can observe – like Neptune before 1846. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune
“Every contact leaves a trace”.
Thanks for the links, Emma.
@Alexander Gavin, these are different things. Wikipedia’s description of ‘the UK Establishment’ (a much broader, more social and nonvocational concept than the functional ‘deep state’) might help:
but not all professionals by any means: BBC management yes; state-employed teachers generally no. You can be an Establishment child or senile retiree, but these are generally not deep state operatives (although the latter is an interesting case, explored in fiction like Slow Horses). What do you do when a deep state retiree wants to write their memoirs or loses their marbles?
It is true that people might be racist. We are tribal in nature. What could possibly go wrong if racist immigrants are arriving into racist communities?
Maybe there is a difference between someone who dislikes foreigners and someone who dislikes having their whole way of life and community smashed by government dictat ?
And maybe that’s just a difference of degree.
We know what the word for someone who dislikes foreigners is , it is a ” racist ” which is what Craig says the majority of working class people are.
What is the word for someone who dislikes the working class ? The only one I can think of is a ” Snob ” .
Try ‘classist’. Works both ways.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/classist
“Try ‘classist’. Works both ways.”
A useful word that doesn’t get enough use, perhaps because classism is so prevalent amongst the British that it is not noticed.
“We know what the word for someone who dislikes foreigners is , it is a ” racist ” ”
No it isn’t. There is a perfectly good word that describes people who dislike foreigners, it is “xenophobe”. Racists are people who dislike people based on their race or ethnicity. A xenophobe will dislike anyone not from what they consider as their geographic grouping, regardless of their ethnicity. Foreigners who come to our shores will be disliked regardless of their ethnicity if there are sufficient numbers of them, as the example of the influx of US soldiers before D Day showed, “Over fed, over sexed and over here”.
A person who dislikes foreigners is more accurately called a “xenophobe”. Note the “-phobe” part, which means “fear”. If you want to provoke violence in any animal, including humans, the best way is to make them afraid.
If you can then blame them for their fear, so much the better.
The Strange Death of Social Democratic Britain
I have next to no doubt that just as Thatcher was primed to to overturn postwar social democracy and replace it with neoliberalism, so Starmer is an establishment plant/tool placed to destroy the left in the Labour Party to make sure that the left can’t make a comeback and overturn that neoliberal orthodoxy and return to a social democratic model as Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour so very nearly did.
Neoliberalism is the new centrism but is the cause of virtually all the economic problems we in the UK and ‘the west’ face. The centre has no answer to our problems because it is the problem. But the establishment will brook no alternative.
Simply put, we need a new political party that will honestly and fearlessly address the problems we face. As Corbyn found out to his chagrin, to do so will incite the full enmity and opposition of the combined establishment – not a nice place to be, but that is what is needed.
Thatcher said she could run the country with “six good men and true”.
Any takers?
“six good men and true”. So, even Thatcher realised that politics and women are not an optimal mix 🙂
“So, even Thatcher realised that politics and women are not an optimal mix”
Not sure that that was her view but she was certainly no feminist, indeed she was avowedly anti-feminist.
At that time the house of commons was overwhelmingly male dominated. I recently watched Meryl Streep in, and as, The Iron Lady. It is striking in the film how Thatcher is most often the only woman in a world of men.
For most of the ’80s there was never more than 5% women MPs in the commons and up until 1997 only ten women had ever served as cabinet ministers throughout parliamentary history.
For sure we need more women in politics and power imho, but just not the kind who simply want to jump the gravy train and to follow and copy the useless men.
Feminism isn’t compatible with the values of the Tory party.
If anything, Tories hate working class women even more than they hate working class men, because it’s the women who give birth to working class babies. They really hate working class fertility and reproduction. Hence all the sayings about only having a baby to get a council flat, or that somebody couldn’t organise a pregnancy on a council estate, and other such expressions of fascist-style hatred that Tories think are true or witty.
I am not saying feminism is particularly great, just that it isn’t compatible with the Conservative party. (Gay rights, though, are.) Even someone like Penny Mordaunt – not a feminist.
“Neoliberalism is the new centrism but is the cause of virtually all the economic problems we in the UK and the West face”
I would disagree. The cause of virtually all the economic problems in the UK and the West is the bleeding out of all the spare cash and economic surplus into the pockets of the bankers and other financial institutions and thence into the pockets of the super-rich through the general indebtedness of all parts of society from the government downwards. Whilst a more left-wing government might address this, it is not, in essence, a political problem.
Bayard,
Thanks for you reply.
“I would disagree. The cause of virtually all the economic problems in the UK and the West is the bleeding out of all the spare cash and economic surplus into the pockets of the bankers and other financial institutions and thence into the pockets of the super-rich … ”
Respectfully, I think you don’t understand the meaning of neoliberalism, because, although its proponents would argue otherwise, that is exactly what neoliberalism is designed to do.
Suppressing or neutering trade unions, privatisation, deregulating business and banking, non-interventionist government, slashing government spending (thereby facilitating tax cuts), cutting welfare support and promoting austerity economics – the standard neoliberal programme – are all designed to syphon cash upwards to those who already have the most. Hence the 1%-99% situation we have now. These are all policies which the banks wholeheartedly support.
I agree that predatory banking is a huge problem but it is the neoliberal polices supporting them that enables them to be so. Just as they do likewise across the economy and for the whole corporate and international capitalist system.
Peter
It’s a testament to the power of ruling-class media that the hegemonic political ideology for over four decades – a brazen manifesto of the rich – is barely acknowledged let alone understood.
Consumers of ruling-class/ neoliberal propaganda are very well primed however to regurgitate attacks on socialism, or anything mildly approaching it.
“Respectfully, I think you don’t understand the meaning of neoliberalism, because, although its proponents would argue otherwise, that is exactly what neoliberalism is designed to do.”
I think you are using the tail to wag the dog. Bankers don’t do what they do because they are neoliberals. Neoliberalism isn’t a creed which you sign up to and promise to abide by its tenets, it’s simply a descriptor of a particular method by which the wealthy are able to appropriate a very large proportion of the economic surplus of the world, something that has been going on in one form or another since civilisation began. Neoliberalism isn’t designed to do anything, it’s just a handy label for this latest manifestation of an age-old problem. It’s very tempting to apply a name to a group of people who are acting similarly as if they were a race or a nationality and then say the world would be a better place without them or that they are responsible for 90% of all our ills, but it is a fallacy. The problem is not neoliberals or capitalists, or “the elite” or “the 1%”, the problem is greed and we are all guilty of it, to a greater or lesser extent. Some people can control it, some people can’t, but are limited in their opportunities to indulge it and a very few are able to give it free rein.
“Suppressing or neutering trade unions, privatisation, deregulating business and banking, non-interventionist government, slashing government spending (thereby facilitating tax cuts), cutting welfare support and promoting austerity economics – the standard neoliberal programme – are all designed to syphon cash upwards to those who already have the most. ”
These things didn’t happen in a vacuum, nor were the Western nations invaded and taken over by another race, a la Norman Conquest. We, the people, elected the politicians that did all this and a large proportion of us cheered them on while they were doing it. To go back to the corrosive effects of debt, we, the people voluntarily entered into debt, mainly because we were greedy. We wanted to “take the waiting out of wanting”, as the old Access credit card slogan so aptly put it. We wanted to cash in on the Ponzi scheme that was rising house prices. I am old enough to remember when housing transitioned from being somewhere to live to something to make money on. We wanted to “invest” and “expand”, but above all, we wanted to make money without the long hard slog of working and saving. We voluntarily allowed moneylenders to insert a sucking-pipe into our private and commercial finances because we thought it would make us richer than if we didn’t. Now we have discovered it has only made the super-rich richer, we are casting around for a scapegoat, but we did this to ourselves, either by action or inaction. To quote George Carlin:
“Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks’.”
Bayard,
Thanks again.
You think the public are to blame for Starmer?
Interesting, it’s certainly a novel view. I’ll give you that much.
“You think the public are to blame for Starmer?”
Well, unless you think that The Establishment massively rigged votes in the last election, it was the public who voted for him and enough of his minions to give him a huge majority, so they are the ones responsible for whatever he does now he has his hands on the levers of power. Who else could possibly be to blame?