Labour accused of betraying the working class

[johnofgwent]

Spot on. What happened to the ole Brexit mantra DD? Let's stay in and fix it from the inside 😂. Looks like it doesn't apply to Labour voters.

Not my argument, but it seems to me that the string of party leaders, and switches between them, over the past half century or so do not lend themselves to members staying inside and fighting...


Michael Foot's supporters for example particularly caused a schism that deprived the party of moderate voters inside and out.


Corbyn's rise was heralded by a wholesale outsourcing of policy to a third party organisation.


I have developed a habit, as the date by which prospective parliamentary candidates must hand over £500 or butt out, of going to find and download the manifestoes of the parties I believe likely to gain some success, so I can mock their subsequent hypocrisy without mercy ...


In 2017 the official labour party website had no manifesto nor policy statement pages..


Labours manifesto and policy committments were put up on the JC4PM website, run by Momentum.


Nothing says "f**k You" to long term party members than having a Johnny come lately third party protest group run the party political campaign, manifesto and all

[Nick]

I see, so you'd prefer to stay and fix a party with two leaders in a row

Firstly I'd like to thank you for posting two, it's very lazy to stick a 2 in the middle and most people do it. GENUINE 😊

Now back to battle. There is one leader and a former Leader, not two... Limping off to lick his wounds in the long grass, hoping the Hyenas don't pick up his scent and turn him into lunch. As usual the ones loyal to him have to fall on their swords, or face a public flogging by the new kid in town.

The point being, how many times have we been told you can't change it from the outside? Well my guess is there will be a new party in town trying to save all the lost souls, which is great, it just splits the left and gives Capitalism many more glorious years of rule. 

[cromwell]

It is because I include myself as one of Labour's left, hence the "we". Royalty has naff all to do with it, it is all about comradeship.

And it is right wing populist politicians who have exploited migrants by fueling malice towards them, so that so many now blame them for crap pay and high rents rather than the employers and landlords. This is a Labour failure too for abandoning such legitimate working class concerns as workplace exploitation and extortionate rents. All the better to pursue middle class bollocks. And Starmer wants to lead Labour back to that. It won't wash.

Royalty has naff all to do with it? Freudian slip methinks  https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1362814/princess-anne-news-the-crown-netflix-royal-family-queen-elizabeth-ii-spt
And voting brexit or wanting immigration controlled does not make you either right wing or populist.

[srb7677]

And also lot of Royal we's in that

It is because I include myself as one of Labour's left, hence the "we". Royalty has naff all to do with it, it is all about comradeship.

And it is right wing populist politicians who have exploited migrants by fueling malice towards them, so that so many now blame them for crap pay and high rents rather than the employers and landlords. This is a Labour failure too for abandoning such legitimate working class concerns as workplace exploitation and extortionate rents. All the better to pursue middle class bollocks. And Starmer wants to lead Labour back to that. It won't wash.

[cromwell]

No one, including Corbyn, has said that anti-semitism in the party was invented. What we said was that the scale of the problem has been greatly exaggerated by enemies both inside and outside the party. And Corbyn clarified by acknowledging that concerns about the problem are very real and not exaggerated, though the problem itself clearly is.

And there are many of us in the Labour party who do not buy into the middle class obsession with identity politics because we recognise that economic inequality is the bigger problem. As for gammons, some of them did themselves no favours with their stupidity, but I admit that in former years I was too ready to tar all with the same brush. No doubt there are thickoes on the Remain side too. So I regret that and apologise for it. I do though think that to some extent ageing members of the working classes are mistaking an age divide on certain issues for a class one. We have moved on since the 1970s, but not everyone wants to, particularly some of the older generations.

And yes the majority of us tend to be tolerant of people we meet from all walks of life. But some can still be phobes in the abstract, friendly with the foreigners they know personally yet objecting to them more generally coming here. It is because most of us include them amongst our friends that EU nationals living here were never going to be asked to leave. Would have made the abstract too real for too many people. Xenophobia and racism have always been far more virulent in the abstract, as a theoretical argument, than when it comes into contact with real people in the flesh, where our default setting tends to be to take people as we find them. This is why concerns about such things as immigration and multiculturalism tend to be highest where migrant numbers are lowest, much of the time.

And incidentally, you acknowledge that Labour has abandoned the economic concerns of the working classes. Well what the hell do you think I have been banging on about with my concerns re piss-take rents and piss take terms and conditions and pay? Do you not think I recognise that? And uncomfortable reality though this might be to you, it tends to be we on the left of the party who acknowledge such concerns and want to address them. We know for one thing that unscrupulous employers exploited cheap foreign labour to keep pay down, whilst landlords exploited their numbers to drive up rents. Where we differ from the populist right though is that we don't blame the immigrants for that. We blame the unscrupulous employers and landlords who exploited them directly and want to address the problems for the benefit of all - migrant and home born alike.

And wrong again,the majority don't blame the migrants but do the politicians,ergo labours decline.

And also lot of Royal we's in that

[Borg Refinery]

Spot on. What happened to the ole Brexit mantra DD? Let's stay in and fix it from the inside 😂. Looks like it doesn't apply to Labour voters.

I see, so you'd prefer to stay and fix a party with two leaders in a row who are especially good at covering up abuse in the child home system? That says a fair bit when you reapply it to your Brexit argument, still it's better than your Cheshire cat thing..

[Nick]

You're not alone. The tragic irony is that the party's staunchest fan on here while trying to defend it, then goes on to categorically prove the article is spot on by lampooning himself. You couldn't make this up     

Spot on. What happened to the ole Brexit mantra DD? Let's stay in and fix it from the inside 😂. Looks like it doesn't apply to Labour voters.

[srb7677]

You're not alone. The tragic irony is that the party's staunchest fan on here while trying to defend it, then goes on to categorically prove the article is spot on by lampooning himself. You couldn't make this up     

I might be a party member but I am hardly it's staunchest fan when it comes to it's middle class bollocks, and neglect for the genuine concerns of the struggling classes. I see you have yet to lampoon yourself with one of your stereotypical, Daily Mail informed, rants. No doubt it is only a matter of time.

[srb7677]

No Steve its you who a while back started with all the derision of gammons,most ex labour voters really don't care who married who but they do worry for their jobs and communities,and concern over economic migrants and criminals who set up business here.

You must have missed the bit too about how this country is one of the most tolerant,but hey you just paint people as xenophobes,homophobes and gammons because it suits your argument.

Did you get round to acknowledging Jeremy admitting that the anti semitism wasn't all in our minds who were the phobes there then?
For the many not the few eh? The many being gammons racist and worse because they don't like where labour has gone and tired of being taken for granted and fools in to the bargain,the few are those left in the Labour Party and deluded that they are right and .all others wrong,even more deluded that they believe they'll gain power deriding once loyal labour voters

No one, including Corbyn, has said that anti-semitism in the party was invented. What we said was that the scale of the problem has been greatly exaggerated by enemies both inside and outside the party. And Corbyn clarified by acknowledging that concerns about the problem are very real and not exaggerated, though the problem itself clearly is.

And there are many of us in the Labour party who do not buy into the middle class obsession with identity politics because we recognise that economic inequality is the bigger problem. As for gammons, some of them did themselves no favours with their stupidity, but I admit that in former years I was too ready to tar all with the same brush. No doubt there are thickoes on the Remain side too. So I regret that and apologise for it. I do though think that to some extent ageing members of the working classes are mistaking an age divide on certain issues for a class one. We have moved on since the 1970s, but not everyone wants to, particularly some of the older generations.

And yes the majority of us tend to be tolerant of people we meet from all walks of life. But some can still be phobes in the abstract, friendly with the foreigners they know personally yet objecting to them more generally coming here. It is because most of us include them amongst our friends that EU nationals living here were never going to be asked to leave. Would have made the abstract too real for too many people. Xenophobia and racism have always been far more virulent in the abstract, as a theoretical argument, than when it comes into contact with real people in the flesh, where our default setting tends to be to take people as we find them. This is why concerns about such things as immigration and multiculturalism tend to be highest where migrant numbers are lowest, much of the time.

And incidentally, you acknowledge that Labour has abandoned the economic concerns of the working classes. Well what the hell do you think I have been banging on about with my concerns re piss-take rents and piss take terms and conditions and pay? Do you not think I recognise that? And uncomfortable reality though this might be to you, it tends to be we on the left of the party who acknowledge such concerns and want to address them. We know for one thing that unscrupulous employers exploited cheap foreign labour to keep pay down, whilst landlords exploited their numbers to drive up rents. Where we differ from the populist right though is that we don't blame the immigrants for that. We blame the unscrupulous employers and landlords who exploited them directly and want to address the problems for the benefit of all - migrant and home born alike.

[cromwell]

An you are misinterpreting me. Of course I read the piece in full. It included statistics re the dominance of middle glass graduates in Labour which I acknowledged. But the quoted sources of discontent include a dislike of same sex marriage and a dislike of immigration. These are not bread and butter working class concerns in my view, but often ones fueled by homophobia and xenophobia. After all, who but phobes are really that concerned about who marries who? Live and let live is itself after all a typically working class expression. Pick better examples if you want to highlight the very real disconnect, not ones that focus upon the imagined concerns of a minority of often ageing phobes whose moral compass is still stuck in the 1970s, if not the 1950s.

And you yourself are either being dishonest or never read my post properly if you think it is a defence of Labour, whose abandonment of the working class I acknowledge and myself abhor. But I mean the real concerns such as piss-take rents, zero security of tenure, crappy work contracts, rubbish pay, whilst all the while bombarded by middle class nostrums about the ideal of home ownership, or university attendance, and a middle class vision of "aspiration".

No Steve its you who a while back started with all the derision of gammons,most ex labour voters really don't care who married who but they do worry for their jobs and communities,and concern over economic migrants and criminals who set up business here.

You must have missed the bit too about how this country is one of the most tolerant,but hey you just paint people as xenophobes,homophobes and gammons because it suits your argument.

Did you get round to acknowledging Jeremy admitting that the anti semitism wasn't all in our minds who were the phobes there then?
For the many not the few eh? The many being gammons racist and worse because they don't like where labour has gone and tired of being taken for granted and fools in to the bargain,the few are those left in the Labour Party and deluded that they are right and .all others wrong,even more deluded that they believe they'll gain power deriding once loyal labour voters

[patman post]

Is it certain that Embery is not just one more one-individual faction within Labour that's currently tearing the movement  apart?

When I read the book I'll be interested to see if he recognises the impact of Brexit and the real changes it's forcing on the UK — culturally, economically, and technologically — and realise it's not going to return to some halcyon past where all his neighbours were old school blue collar.

His support for McDonnell is enough for me to recognise the bitterness and envy that's been in Labour since I first took any interest in politics...
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/paul-embery/john-mcdonnell_b_8133124.html

[johnofgwent]

An you are misinterpreting me. Of course I read the piece in full. It included statistics re the dominance of middle glass graduates in Labour which I acknowledged. But the quoted sources of discontent include a dislike of same sex marriage and a dislike of immigration. These are not bread and butter working class concerns in my view, but often ones fueled by homophobia and xenophobia. After all, who but phobes are really that concerned about who marries who? Live and let live is itself after all a typically working class expression. Pick better examples if you want to highlight the very real disconnect, not ones that focus upon the imagined concerns of a minority of often ageing phobes whose moral compass is still stuck in the 1970s, if not the 1950s.

And you yourself are either being dishonest or never read my post properly if you think it is a defence of Labour, whose abandonment of the working class I acknowledge and myself abhor. But I mean the real concerns such as piss-take rents, zero security of tenure, crappy work contracts, rubbish pay, whilst all the while bombarded by middle class nostrums about the ideal of home ownership, or university attendance, and a middle class vision of "aspiration".

But it is no longer a case of not caring where person a sticks their dangly bits is it
It is a requirement that one openly welcomes the public display of such and that behaviours which were until recently considered THE NORM are NOT.
Where is the "Pride in grandparents whose grandchildren are only here because they, and their children were heterosexual" marches ?

On the wider subject of the party's ability to attract "the working class"  - I've never considered Labour or the Unions to have my best interests at heart but that view was reinforced whilst an undergraduate in oh so any ways.  But as has been said by others outside this forum and in it, a number of those people, skills and trades are no longer there. When did a man last bang the end of a rivet on the Clyde ? When did a man last take a pickaxe down a pit ?
I mentioned in another thread my two great uncles who went to North Africa, one fo fight Rommel the other to pick up the bits left behind and try to keep them breathing. Both men returned to this country, one direct from the war, the other about a decade later after spending time in India. Both got jobs in the council direct labour organisation, one as a plasterer, the other a carpenter. Both were union men.

Today, the White Van Man with his van full of tools, his smartphone with his cloud based accounts and his website offering his services either as a sole trader or a ltdco is the direct decendant of the men such as my two great uncles, yet one can see just what the party think of them by searching the twatting of Emily Thornberry ....
It's THAT sort of contempt that I think the op, and the article, speak to.

[DeppityDawg]

I'll never vote Labour again, it's very likely I'll never vote for anyone ever again. As I doubt the two party FPTP system will ever change in my lifetime, but you never know.

You're not alone. The tragic irony is that the party's staunchest fan on here while trying to defend it, then goes on to categorically prove the article is spot on by lampooning himself. You couldn't make this up     

[Borg Refinery]

An you are misinterpreting me. Of course I read the piece in full. It included statistics re the dominance of middle glass graduates in Labour which I acknowledged. But the quoted sources of discontent include a dislike of same sex marriage and a dislike of immigration. These are not bread and butter working class concerns in my view, but often ones fueled by homophobia and xenophobia. After all, who but phobes are really that concerned about who marries who? Live and let live is itself after all a typically working class expression. Pick better examples if you want to highlight the very real disconnect, not ones that focus upon the imagined concerns of a minority of often ageing phobes whose moral compass is still stuck in the 1970s, if not the 1950s.

And you yourself are either being dishonest or never read my post properly if you think it is a defence of Labour, whose abandonment of the working class I acknowledge and myself abhor. But I mean the real concerns such as piss-take rents, zero security of tenure, crappy work contracts, rubbish pay, whilst all the while bombarded by middle class nostrums about the ideal of home ownership, or university attendance, and a middle class vision of "aspiration".

Labour largely held the working classes down as Thomas has oft poibted out. They really did F@@@ Glasgae right up you know, he's not wrong.

I salute Attlee though, he was a good man. But you point me to any other decent Lab govt and I will laugh heartily.

Labour are best summed up by that traitor Ramsey Mcdonald IMHO.

I'm not too pleased I voted Corbyn since it came out that he helped Margie Hodge do nothing about child abuse in Islington care homes, but I really disliked Lab before him, but that was simply the last straw for me. F@@@ sake.. what was Corbo thinking?

I'll never vote Labour again, it's very likely I'll never vote for anyone ever again. As I doubt the two party FPTP system will ever change in my lifetime, but you never know.

The only solution now is probably feckin extremist stuff - like JoG said, the sufragettes only got the franchise for lasses through extreme tactics. The only way these folk might get Brexit is with enough violence, hate to say it. Maybe the only way we'll get better housing, pay etc is with the same thing and lindsey oil refinery strike type stuff... shich Gordo Brown said was xenophobic as I recall.

We're doomed I tells ya, doomed.

[srb7677]

The Labour party doesn't mind the working class, it is that it finds it a bit, well, common.

There are many working class members amongst the grass roots membership, myself included. Senior middle class types in the party fear us because we mean what we say when we talk of policies to help the struggling millions. Because we are of them and share their concerns. The middle class triumphalist types in charge, often Blairites with few principles they would not trade for office, think we will scare off potential wealthy donors or the right wing media they want to have onside. Power for it's own sake their primary goal, rather than power for a purpose.

I don't know why you so hate the middle class Blairites, Bor. In any class war they'll be on your side, .