Brexit Thread V - The Final Countdown?!?

[Traitorfish]

Also he does not want to just be leader of the Corbyn appreciation society.
He has to engage with non members to gain power.

Why do we take it for granted that "engagement" means appealing to well-heeled middle class liberals, rather than to non-voters?

Labour won 30.4% of the vote in 2015, and 40.3% of the voter in 2017, an increase of around 3.5 million votes. Part of that may represent some of the 3.8m now-homeless UKIP voters, but as the Tories increased their vote by 2.3m, we can reasonably assume that these would have represented a maximum of 1.5m. We can plausibly say that half a million represents voters returning from Green or Scottish National dalliances. That still leaves 1 to 1.5 million votes, which mostly seem to have come from voters who sat out 2015.

Given that Blair-Brown lost the party around five million votes between 1997 and 2010, and that most of these votes were lost to non-voting (allowing the Tories to record a higher share of the vote in 2005 than 1997, despite receiving less actual votes) that seems like a not-bad first go.

 

[Silurian]

Why do we take it for granted that "engagement" means appealing to well-heeled middle class liberals, rather than to non-voters?

Labour won 30.4% of the vote in 2015, and 40.3% of the voter in 2017, an increase of around 3.5 million votes. Part of that may represent some of the 3.8m now-homeless UKIP voters, but as the Tories increased their vote by 2.3m, we can reasonably assume that these would have represented a maximum of 1.5m. We can plausibly say that half a million represents voters returning from Green or Scottish National dalliances. That still leaves 1 to 1.5 million votes, which mostly seem to have come from voters who sat out 2015.

Given that Blair-Brown lost the party around five million votes between 1997 and 2010, and that most of these votes were lost to non-voting (allowing the Tories to record a higher share of the vote in 2005 than 1997, despite receiving less actual votes) that seems like a not-bad first go.

Corbyn increased voter turn out in the under 24, voter turn out from 2015 to 2017 was 2.5%, 1.5m votes. Labour increased its share of the votes in 2017 by 9.6%, 3.5m votes. Labour should try to further increase votes from the young but it has to maintain and hopefully grow its vote from well-heeled middle class liberals.

Blair-Brown inflicted the worst defeat on the Tories since 1918 it is not surprising that the Conservatives recovered.

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7529#fullreport
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8060#fullreport

 

[Hrothbern]

You expected the guardian of blairism to write something different?
You know, britain is messed up, not as much as my own country but messed up nonetheless, and this tribalism and opportunism will not end well.

Guardian is Blairite... anybody writing in the Guardian is a Blairist... Varoufakis is writing regularly in the Guardian... Varoufakis is a Blairist

Here an article of him in the Guardian on the EU and the need for a Green New Deal:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-europe-macron-piketty-green-new-deal-britain

 

[Traitorfish]

Blair-Brown inflicted the worst defeat on the Tories since 1918 it is not surprising that the Conservatives recovered.

Well, that's why "less actual votes" is important. Howard won less votes in 2005 than Major did in 1997, yet despite an increase in the number of eligible for voters, won a large share of votes cast. Whether or not Labour did poorly, The Tories don't need more votes to succeed, they just need less people to vote for their opponents. Correspondingly, Labour doesn't simply win when people vote for them instead of the Tories, they win people vote for them instead of simply not voting.

The left doesn't win by winning the centre, it wins by mobilising working class voters. Obama proved this, however dubious his "left" credentials turned out to be. Even the stillborn "Blue Labour" phenomenon seemed to grasp that, even if thought that this mobilising could be achieved by appealing to racist grannies rather than non-voters.

Guardian is Blairite... anybody writing in the Guardian is a Blairist... Varoufakis is writing regularly in the Guardian... Varoufakis is a Blairist

The Guardian itself has a very moderate editorial line, but is prepared to allow quite a wide range of opinion from its contributors. There's a strong tradition in the liberal press of providing a platform for opinions that otherwise may not be herd, not because you agree with those opinions, but to ensure that a wide range of opinion is heard.

 

[Hrothbern]

The left doesn't win by winning the centre, it wins by mobilising working class voters

Turn out... yes

Could it be that this effect is strong because the more centre Labour votes are anyway more in Tory districts likely be won by Tories.
And it is all about winning those districts where Labour can win... and wins there mainly with high enough turnout from the working class ?

 

[brennan]

The only major flaw in TF's analysis is that there isn't really a working class any more. In fact there hasn't been for a couple of decades. Whenever you hear some pundit on the news banging on about the vote in 'Labour Heartlands' their basic assumptions are hopelessly out of date. Labour doesn't have a core vote of manual workers because they don't exist in any great number.

I was reading an Orwell essay yesterday from 1940 in which he points out that the British working class was shrinking and becoming bourgeis in outlook "British workers have a great deal to lose besides their chains". This became much more true in the post war period as the miners Orwell wrote about in The Road to Wigan Pier went from living in condemned slums and being literally worked to death to living in council houses with central heating and health and safety legislation. Much of our current political position in the UK (i.e. the disdain many feel for the left) stems from the fact that the left essentially won in the 1940s and 1950s. Whole generations have grown up benefiting from mass socialist healthcare, housing and education and so most people today make two mistakes - they take these things for granted and they believe that these things were gifted them by capitalism.

Right now of course capitalism is in the process of trying to remove these benefits from many people. The undermining and sell off of the NHS is underway, education has been underfunded for decades and is a shell of its former self and housing is once more moving decisively into the hands of the rentier.

 

[Hrothbern]

they take these things for granted and they believe that these things were gifted them by capitalism.

That is the d***** truth

Too many think that all those nice benefits and rights in their jobs come from benevolent employers
and if their is an issue..."I am insured for getting a lawyer"... not aware that the laws that lawyer uses, are from the pressure and the power of the Unions and the left wing parties of the past.

 

[Silurian]

The only major flaw in TF's analysis is that there isn't really a working class any more. In fact there hasn't been for a couple of decades. Whenever you hear some pundit on the news banging on about the vote in 'Labour Heartlands' their basic assumptions are hopelessly out of date. Labour doesn't have a core vote of manual workers because they don't exist in any great number.

I was reading an Orwell essay yesterday from 1940 in which he points out that the British working class was shrinking and becoming bourgeis in outlook "British workers have a great deal to lose besides their chains". This became much more true in the post war period as the miners Orwell wrote about in The Road to Wigan Pier went from living in condemned slums and being literally worked to death to living in council houses with central heating and health and safety legislation. Much of our current political position in the UK (i.e. the disdain many feel for the left) stems from the fact that the left essentially won in the 1940s and 1950s. Whole generations have grown up benefiting from mass socialist healthcare, housing and education and so most people today make two mistakes - they take these things for granted and they believe that these things were gifted them by capitalism.

Right now of course capitalism is in the process of trying to remove these benefits from many people. The undermining and sell off of the NHS is underway, education has been underfunded for decades and is a shell of its former self and housing is once more moving decisively into the hands of the rentier.

I think there is still a working class but it has changed. Were the car workers in the 70s working class when did they stop. In my town people work in restaurants and hotels in the summer and are unemployed in the winter. What are people who work in call centres. The nature of work is changing but it has not for everyone, for some it has got worse.

I would disagree with @Traitorfish in that the centre and the working class are different groups. There are plenty of working class fascists as well as working class people who are in the centre.

 

[Traitorfish]

The only major flaw in TF's analysis is that there isn't really a working class any more. In fact there hasn't been for a couple of decades. Whenever you hear some pundit on the news banging on about the vote in 'Labour Heartlands' their basic assumptions are hopelessly out of date. Labour doesn't have a core vote of manual workers because they don't exist in any great number.

If you take "working class" to mean flat caps, meat pies and brass bands, then sure. But that reduces "the working class" to a temporary historical phenomenon, a mere subculture, existing only in certain regions from around 1840 to 1980. If "the working class" is understood in its broader and proper sense as people who work, as people who rely on the sale of their labour to obtain the means of material subsistence, then the working class is larger than ever. What has changed is that "working class" is no longer as strong and identity as it once was, but that's something altogether different from saying that "there is no working class".

I would disagree with @Traitorfish in that the centre and the working class are different groups. There are plenty of working class fascists as well as working class people who are in the centre.

I don't mean to claim that being working class and holding centrist views are mutually exclusive. What I would claim, however, is that the working class, as a whole, as an electorate, tends to be non-ideological, that it tends to be pragmatic in its outlook, and that it therefore responds to different sorts of appeals. I would propose that working class "centrists" don't necessarily have much in common with middle class "centrists" except a distrust of stridently left- or right-wing politics, has no particular investment in self-identification as "liberal" or as occupying some sort of enlightened centre ground. The "working class centre" is won by practical policies with demonstrable material benefits, and are not particularly concerned whether these policies are academically identifies as socialist or liberal or conservative. Its moderation, its "centrism", is its scepticism of policies which are proposed because they are socialist or liberal or conservative, and which do not offer clear material benefits. The "working class centre", I would argue, is as readily attracted to socialistic policies which provide obvious benefits to working class voters as it is repelled by liberal policies which offer no benefit, or offer clear detriment.

Strengthening the NHS and selling it off for spare-parts can both be "centrist" policies, depending on whose perspective you are looking from. Labour succeeds when it is able to convincingly advance the former as an alternative to the latter, and the Tories succeed when it is not. It does not succeed when it attempts to make the case that Labour is a better vehicle for zealously market-orientated technocracy. One of the key difference, I believe, between middle- and working class moderates is that while the former vote religiously, the latter are frequently non-voters. "Appealing to the middle", if it is to be a viable tactic, does not mean winning over ideologically-driven middle-class liberals with a promise to do whatever the Conservatives are doing, but better, but by giving non-ideological working class voters a reason to get out and vote. This appears to be what Corbyn is doing.

 

[Kozmos]

The working class should be really defined as people who are one paycheck away from defaulting on debts like the recent US shutdown showed.

 

[Takhisis]

(sidenote) Kozmos, that's dividing society according to income, rather than according to whether one owns the means of production or not. A C-whatever-O in a large corporation is technically a proletarian employee, yet he is far, far richer and far more powerful than a self-employed taxi driver who owns his taxi.

 

[Hrothbern]

The working class should be really defined as people who are one paycheck away from defaulting on debts like the recent US shutdown showed.

Yes, that is also a characteristic... and add to that the inevitabilty that, because you hit already the ceiling of your wage/salary structure... the lower your skill-set, the faster....this is not going to improve... ever.
For these people the increase in real salary/wage compared to inflation, is the only perspective left.
And especially for the bit older people: They will be wary of the risk of losing their job, and also the risk of not getting a job back anymore at the same salary/wage level.

Being aware of that "being stuck"... that some things will never be for you... as escape available the lottery, the bookie.... your football club hero yes, perhaps your son...but you no..... and accepting that financial reality is almost cruel.... many people push that away... hope dies as last.

And that is imo exactly one of the traditional values of the socialist movements: offering the hope against that "being stuck", with very practical and rather plain targets, and offering at the same time that reality awareness and politicise that in simple terms.
That's also where "education for everybody" comes in as traditional value. If not you yourself... then at least your kids should haver the chance.

For "workers": Simple terms. Not burdened by abstract ideologies, complex analysises or how you get it all consistent.
It's giving hope, direction, practical achievements, protection, in exchange for trust....... and hopefully solidarity from them when they do reach a high income group.


The problem with above is that, although as values still valid, it does no longer dominate the scene in the perception of most or at least too many people.

Left wing affinity, progressive values affinity... it is nowadays mostly coupled to a better education level.
The old "trust system" on a minimum and protected level of material benefits by the union/party is partially broken.
Many people do interpret the benefits that they have as their own achievement, from their own education, from their own smart choices in job hopping, in their own (little) career, up to seeing their employers as quite allright because, after all, that employer supplies, "takes care", of having that job available.

And even if you did manage to get a bit higher salary, you partner up and save together for that big step of buying a small home, your own house, your own place under the sun... but meanwhile fully in the debt trap.
And when housing prices go up, your own house no longer under water, you are happy... and that increasing housing prices is mostly coming from housing shortages for starters... well.. uh... uh.
Where are you now on the political stage ?... a mini capitalist house owner, living from paycheck to paycheck, making banks richer hoping that house prices further go up and...
are you still in favor of public housing projects from government money for affordable rents reducing house prices for owners ???
(is my personal pet: in urbanised areas at least 80% of all houses should be public state owned or state controlled for affordable rents.

Thatcher has caused a revolution indeed... also with her housing program.

 

[Kyriakos]

Surely traitorfish is right re defining the working class as those that are constantly depending on finishing new work so as to make ends meet.
You dont have to move crates at the dock to be working class.

 

[Cheetah]

Yeah, I'd say TF has it right.

Iff the CxO isn't wealthy enough so that he still needs to work to live, then he is working class. If he could choose not to work and live comfortably on the earnings of his capital, he is not working class.

 

[Lexicus]

Surely traitorfish is right re defining the working class as those that are constantly depending on finishing new work so as to make ends meet.

Traitorfish defined the working class as "people who work" tho?

 

[Kyriakos]

@Lexicus: then i was just talking about myself, as usual...

 

[Samson]

Yeah, I'd say TF has it right.

Iff the CxO isn't wealthy enough so that he still needs to work to live, then he is working class. If he could choose not to work and live comfortably on the earnings of his capital, he is not working class.

This is a good definition for the top class, but to class everyone who is not independently wealthy as working class seems to make the word a lot less meaningful that it used to be though. What is middle class by your definition?

I do think these class labels are used a lot these days without anyone having a clear idea of what they mean. Perhaps we should have a dedicated thread to solve this issue for the world

 

[Hrothbern]

For people interested in some average salaries/wages per function type here a link to ONS on that:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2018

In the link you can hoover with your cursor above the dots and get in a top line the function description. Very informative.
The thick orange dot is from workers in car assemply plants (good salary) and the small orange dot there to the right are train and tram drivers (power of that union).
And yes... what you see is that the traditional distinction between blue and white collar has gone.
Do note that the dots are average. Some functions have a wider range of salaries than others.

here a screenshot:

To see where income groups vote here a poll from just before the snap election of 2017:
Do note that the lowest income has many Tory voters, which are likely explained by the many low income pensioners (of which many will have their house owned) and from another graph below: the older someone is in UK, the higher the % Tory vote (very strong effect).
Also: most incomes of the ONS graphh above are in the second income group from 20,000-40,000.

Here the vote as function of age, the most important factor on who people vote for together with education level.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politi...rget-flat-caps-what-labour-voters-really-look

 

[Lexicus]

What is middle class by your definition?

Middle class is a fictional construct invented to trick parts of the working class into thinking they're not the working class

 

[EnglishEdward]

Just in:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47358602

Chagos Islands dispute: UK obliged to end control - UN

This has been predicted since the UK failed to get a judge appointed to the UN court.

The UK is an Atlantic nation, so holding on to a pointless claim in the Indian Ocean
was all nonsense anyway; the UK should have forgotten about them after the cold war
ended, in the 1990s, the UK has merely been fronting for the USA base at Diego Garcia.