While the British left is buried in factional debate, Reform is rapidly securing a foothold in former socialist heartlands across the country — paving the way for a nightmarish far-right takeover of the British state.
I’m not sure I agree. That’s not me saying Labour’s leadership is competent.
But we keep circling around “the message just isn’t being heard”.
I think the message js being heard fine, it’s just that people disagree with it. Labour’s core philosophy around how we should treat refugees and asylum seekers just doesn’t line up with what many voters believe.
Until we recognise that people, rightly or wrongly (I believe it’s wrongly, but that’s beside the point), feel immigration really genuinely is too high, and “we should take care of our own first”, Labour will, I think, continue to lose (as will the Tories) and Reform will continue to gain.
The social democrats of Denmark “solved” this. And when I say “solved”, I simply mean they adopted a policy on immigration that I personally don’t agree with, but one which has kept the more extreme views out of too much influence. Their argument, at least the public argument, is that “immigration puts pressure on those with few resources first” and “to look after those people, we need to curb immigration”. They call this “good social democratic policy”, and call out that immigration can’t be seen as more important than looking after those we’ve got.
If Labour wants to regain relevance in the industrial ghost-towns, they have to move towards an expressed and inacted “harder line” on immigration.
I don’t think they will, or can, or should. And therefore we are seeing weird FPTP results all around the country (LibDem suddenly have a huge chance of winning my own constituency, where before they were a remote third), but with an overall push towards Reform UK.
If you really want to change that picture, supporting our education system so that people vote backed by data, not by emotions, is the real change we need. But that doesn’t serve anyone - the uneducated can much more easily be told what to believe and thus vote.
Maybe Immigration and asylum seekers are not our biggest fucking problems. By constantly focusing and oscillating the discourse around a false dichotomy like that (immigrants, YES! vs immigrants, NO!), you can only but lose to populists and extremists.
Focus on proactive measures making people’s lives better, state long term goals, focus on education, healthcare, and running a fair and functioning society, and most other ills are either resolved or see great improvement.
Inmigrants are a red fucking herring when we have profoundly and absurdly rich people using their wealth to manipulate democracy in order to get ever more money and power.
I mean, there’s a thing most countries don’t do what you’re describing, and that’s that it’s economic suicide. It’s easy to forget it what with the fascism and all that, but the first world is currently going through a demographic crisis and needs all the labor it can get.
If we can’t do what’s right, or best, for society, because “the economy” says so, then the economy has become the de facto governing principle of our nations. Which is clearly the case, as we can see.
If money is power, then capitalism is a form of government. But capitalism doesn’t say shit about good human life, good human society, it only concerns itself with the accumulation and production of “wealth”, and “good human society” is at best an afterthought, at worst an impediment to that process.
The whole world has become a game of monopoly. The rules suck, it’s unfair, and in the end someone will flip the board and there will be violence.
then the economy has become the de facto governing principle of our nations
Always has been? Like, we tend to abstract this stuff as “the economy,”* but of course the (or at least a) governing principle of any society is keeping its members at least somewhat fed and clothed. Even if cutting immigration was going to curb the rise of the far right (it won’t), it’s not an option because it’d seriously compromise the welfare of society.
*This is ignoring the other economy, which refers to rich people’s yacht money.
I 100% agree. I was talking about what I think Labour should do if it wants to stay relevant in British politics, not what I believe we, as a country, should do.
This would not be a problem if they could fix the economy. Fundamentally speaking, people who oppose immigration either do it out of economic anxiety or racism. The first can be solved by regular socialist policies, while the latter are an irrational bunch of reactionaries that will continue to oppose the left no matter what.
I’m not sure I agree. That’s not me saying Labour’s leadership is competent.
But we keep circling around “the message just isn’t being heard”.
I think the message js being heard fine, it’s just that people disagree with it. Labour’s core philosophy around how we should treat refugees and asylum seekers just doesn’t line up with what many voters believe.
Until we recognise that people, rightly or wrongly (I believe it’s wrongly, but that’s beside the point), feel immigration really genuinely is too high, and “we should take care of our own first”, Labour will, I think, continue to lose (as will the Tories) and Reform will continue to gain.
The social democrats of Denmark “solved” this. And when I say “solved”, I simply mean they adopted a policy on immigration that I personally don’t agree with, but one which has kept the more extreme views out of too much influence. Their argument, at least the public argument, is that “immigration puts pressure on those with few resources first” and “to look after those people, we need to curb immigration”. They call this “good social democratic policy”, and call out that immigration can’t be seen as more important than looking after those we’ve got.
If Labour wants to regain relevance in the industrial ghost-towns, they have to move towards an expressed and inacted “harder line” on immigration.
I don’t think they will, or can, or should. And therefore we are seeing weird FPTP results all around the country (LibDem suddenly have a huge chance of winning my own constituency, where before they were a remote third), but with an overall push towards Reform UK.
If you really want to change that picture, supporting our education system so that people vote backed by data, not by emotions, is the real change we need. But that doesn’t serve anyone - the uneducated can much more easily be told what to believe and thus vote.
Maybe Immigration and asylum seekers are not our biggest fucking problems. By constantly focusing and oscillating the discourse around a false dichotomy like that (immigrants, YES! vs immigrants, NO!), you can only but lose to populists and extremists.
Focus on proactive measures making people’s lives better, state long term goals, focus on education, healthcare, and running a fair and functioning society, and most other ills are either resolved or see great improvement.
Inmigrants are a red fucking herring when we have profoundly and absurdly rich people using their wealth to manipulate democracy in order to get ever more money and power.
I could not agree more. It’s a minor axis dominated by much bigger forces, serving as nothing but a distraction while the rich get richer.
I mean, there’s a thing most countries don’t do what you’re describing, and that’s that it’s economic suicide. It’s easy to forget it what with the fascism and all that, but the first world is currently going through a demographic crisis and needs all the labor it can get.
In that case our democracy has lost all meaning.
If we can’t do what’s right, or best, for society, because “the economy” says so, then the economy has become the de facto governing principle of our nations. Which is clearly the case, as we can see.
If money is power, then capitalism is a form of government. But capitalism doesn’t say shit about good human life, good human society, it only concerns itself with the accumulation and production of “wealth”, and “good human society” is at best an afterthought, at worst an impediment to that process.
The whole world has become a game of monopoly. The rules suck, it’s unfair, and in the end someone will flip the board and there will be violence.
Always has been? Like, we tend to abstract this stuff as “the economy,”* but of course the (or at least a) governing principle of any society is keeping its members at least somewhat fed and clothed. Even if cutting immigration was going to curb the rise of the far right (it won’t), it’s not an option because it’d seriously compromise the welfare of society.
*This is ignoring the other economy, which refers to rich people’s yacht money.
I 100% agree. I was talking about what I think Labour should do if it wants to stay relevant in British politics, not what I believe we, as a country, should do.
This would not be a problem if they could fix the economy. Fundamentally speaking, people who oppose immigration either do it out of economic anxiety or racism. The first can be solved by regular socialist policies, while the latter are an irrational bunch of reactionaries that will continue to oppose the left no matter what.