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The left-wing party in the UK has only just won its largest majority in history and we don't have another election for 5 years. That is largely because the rig

by kypro 2y ago

The left-wing party in the UK has only just won its largest majority in history and we don't have another election for 5 years. That is largely because the right has split into populist right and centre-right parties though.

boringg 2y ago
Yes but that isn't at all reflective of Canada and things in the UK aren't looking that great.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  > things in the UK aren't looking that great Sure they are. No election for about 4 years. Left wing party with 100% of the actual power.
OJFord 2y ago
Yes that's what GP is describing. Fractured Conservative party with splinters that can't command a majority.
- argsnd 2y ago
  The combined right did not get remotely close to a majority. The combined left did.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    Only if you define “combined left” to include the centrist liberal democrats, who were part of David Cameron’s Tory-led coalition from 2010-2015. “Membership is primarily made up of middle-class professionals and the party's composition has a higher proportion of university educated members than the other major political parties of the United Kingdom.” These folks are far afield of the traditional Labour working class base, many of whom have defected to Tories or Reform. They are what we’d call the “Acela Class” in America. Luckily for Labour, they don’t have to make any policy concessions to these voters.
  - vidarh 2y ago
    The Lib Dems are not considered left-wing. Growing parts of the UK left do not consider Labour left-wing any more, for that matter.
rayiner 2y ago
Labour won the election, but Starmer’s approval rating is already down to 27% after just six months. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/dissatisfaction-starmer-reaches-61-his-highest-labour-leader https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/dissatisfaction-starmer-reaches-.... That’s not surprising given that Labour got half a million fewer votes than it did in 2019, when it lost in a landslide, but won anyway because of infighting among the right wing. That’s what I meant when I said nationalists have rendered ruling parties impotent even when they can’t outright win the election. Similar things have happened in Germany and France. In Germany, it took the right splitting and a stoplight coalition of greens, neoliberals, and socialists to cobble together a majority. In France, it took a coalition of communists, socialists, and centrists. It’s hard to actually govern when the winning side has little in common other than opposition to nationalism. And any leftist/centrist coalition is fragile, relying on infighting among the right. If Tories became a strongly nationalist, anti-immigration party, they could probably win. Same thing for CDU. That’s already happened in the U.S. GOP.
- argsnd 2y ago
  There was an objective left-of-centre majority in the 2024 UK election if you combine vote shares of all left-of-centre parties. The combined right managed only 38% vote share.
  - vidarh 2y ago
    Only if you - unlike most people in the UK - consider the Lib Dems, who have governed in coalition with the Tories - as a left-wing party. Something most of the UK left, and quite a lot of Lib Dems would find mutually offensive.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Also Austria. The phenomenon of bizarre unworkable coalitions forming to try and keep out right wing parties is found everywhere in Europe. The left and old right (now usually themselves centre left) would rather have no government at all than one that includes anti-migrationists. But the UK doesn't really follow that trend. Labour isn't a coalition, it's a unified party with a large majority that can do what it wants. It's deeply unpopular but that doesn't translate to weakness.
hellgas00 2y ago
You last point is the most pertinent. Labour didn't win a majority because they offered compelling platform ideas, they won because the Cons failed to deliver on their platform and Reform UK exploited that failure to split the conservative vote. Opinion polls already have Labour and Cons at an even tie with Reform UK doubling their overall popularity in just 6 months. All this to say I wouldn't want to suggest that the trend towards nationalist politics ended with a Labour majority but rather that the Conservative Party wasn't sufficiently nationalist enough to entice public sentiments away from Reform UK

by kypro 2y ago

boringg 2y ago

Yes but that isn't at all reflective of Canada and things in the UK aren't looking that great.

philipwhiuk 2y ago
> things in the UK aren't looking that great Sure they are. No election for about 4 years. Left wing party with 100% of the actual power.

OJFord 2y ago

Yes that's what GP is describing. Fractured Conservative party with splinters that can't command a majority.

argsnd 2y ago
The combined right did not get remotely close to a majority. The combined left did.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Only if you define “combined left” to include the centrist liberal democrats, who were part of David Cameron’s Tory-led coalition from 2010-2015. “Membership is primarily made up of middle-class professionals and the party's composition has a higher proportion of university educated members than the other major political parties of the United Kingdom.” These folks are far afield of the traditional Labour working class base, many of whom have defected to Tories or Reform. They are what we’d call the “Acela Class” in America. Luckily for Labour, they don’t have to make any policy concessions to these voters.
- vidarh 2y ago
  The Lib Dems are not considered left-wing. Growing parts of the UK left do not consider Labour left-wing any more, for that matter.

rayiner 2y ago

Labour won the election, but Starmer’s approval rating is already down to 27% after just six months. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/dissatisfaction-starmer-reaches-61-his-highest-labour-leader https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/dissatisfaction-starmer-reaches-.... That’s not surprising given that Labour got half a million fewer votes than it did in 2019, when it lost in a landslide, but won anyway because of infighting among the right wing. That’s what I meant when I said nationalists have rendered ruling parties impotent even when they can’t outright win the election. Similar things have happened in Germany and France. In Germany, it took the right splitting and a stoplight coalition of greens, neoliberals, and socialists to cobble together a majority. In France, it took a coalition of communists, socialists, and centrists. It’s hard to actually govern when the winning side has little in common other than opposition to nationalism. And any leftist/centrist coalition is fragile, relying on infighting among the right. If Tories became a strongly nationalist, anti-immigration party, they could probably win. Same thing for CDU. That’s already happened in the U.S. GOP.

argsnd 2y ago
There was an objective left-of-centre majority in the 2024 UK election if you combine vote shares of all left-of-centre parties. The combined right managed only 38% vote share.
- vidarh 2y ago
  Only if you - unlike most people in the UK - consider the Lib Dems, who have governed in coalition with the Tories - as a left-wing party. Something most of the UK left, and quite a lot of Lib Dems would find mutually offensive.
mike_hearn 2y ago
Also Austria. The phenomenon of bizarre unworkable coalitions forming to try and keep out right wing parties is found everywhere in Europe. The left and old right (now usually themselves centre left) would rather have no government at all than one that includes anti-migrationists. But the UK doesn't really follow that trend. Labour isn't a coalition, it's a unified party with a large majority that can do what it wants. It's deeply unpopular but that doesn't translate to weakness.

hellgas00 2y ago

You last point is the most pertinent. Labour didn't win a majority because they offered compelling platform ideas, they won because the Cons failed to deliver on their platform and Reform UK exploited that failure to split the conservative vote. Opinion polls already have Labour and Cons at an even tie with Reform UK doubling their overall popularity in just 6 months. All this to say I wouldn't want to suggest that the trend towards nationalist politics ended with a Labour majority but rather that the Conservative Party wasn't sufficiently nationalist enough to entice public sentiments away from Reform UK