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Emrys

(8,417 posts)
3. Yup.
Fri Jul 29, 2022, 10:53 AM
Jul 2022

Even with an outright majority, the ideal of the Westminster system is that through debate, a degree of cross-party concensus emerges. That may seem naive nowadays, but otherwise, why on earth bother with the ritual of debates? Indeed, why bother having more than one party?

I can understand Labour running scared of the old "coalition of chaos" jibes from the right-wing media (well, most of the media, really), but ceding that ground so readily and early is just spineless, and if a Labour government is going to be worth anything at all other than being a change of faces from the Tories, it's going to encounter opposition from the same quarters for many of its initiatives. Starmer's already abandoned any prospect of addressing the problems of freedom of movement and trade with the EU with barely a whimper. Industrial action is seemingly now a no-no unless it's useless tokenism. What's left to make Labour a more attractive proposition than the Tories, other than the personnel?

My patience with Labour had been sorely tested over the years already, but right now I think the best thing that can happen is that a credible rival to Starmer emerges soon and they go through whatever grisly leadership contest results while the Tories are in similar disarray.

Otherwise, we'll see the same old pattern: Labour veers right to satisfy the noisy vested interests, doesn't get elected anyway, and the ratchet effect on the Overton Window means that any future leader will have an uphill battle dragging the party to the left, or at least back to within the bounds of sanity.

All this while heads are being turned by the leadership of the RMT, who aren't shy of a fight and are arguing in terms any Labour leadership should - at least one which seriously wants to get elected in the current climate and faced with the misery that lies ahead of all of us over the winter and beyond.

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