If it's true that Labour wants to fight the next election on the basis of "Look, it's us or the far right", as Macron did, then they're going to have to start explicitly denouncing the far right, as Macron does
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... and maybe having some policies that aren't far right?
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They'll lose.. The only way to save the uk from reform Ltd is Proportional Representation.. That will end any political party gaining absolute power.
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Instead of being them? But then they'd have to generate, realise and generally have to make their own policies and manifesto AND have to be able to explain it to people.....
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Maybe denouncements ring hollow because with their Ed Stone and their anti immigration mugs they are not actually that different in some areas.
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They’re going to have to stop indulging them,which Cooper seems happy to do.
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How can they denounce the far Right by getting as close to them as possibly without being as fascist as Jenrick and Farage? At the same time as their anti-immigrant rhetoric, they are also increasingly cracking down on free speech and still won’t denounce the genocide.
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If all Labour have got is "Look, it's us or the far right" then they're not good enough to run the country! We want hope, We want positives, We want policies in the National interest, We want investment, We want strategic policies..... "Us or Farage" can fuck off as an election strategy!
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It's shaping up to have nasty echoes of Cameron and Osborne's "the EU is to blame for all of the UK's problems, don't vote to leave it" strategy.
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When I have my conspiracy hat on, I believe that Labour MPs would be much happier to see them succeeded by a Reform govt than by their more natural bedfellows in the LibDems or Greens. All that matters is that the approved politics win out; the party that gets to implement them is mostly irrelevant.
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They tried it here in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. It didn't work.
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Seems to be a running theme. Centrist party keeps tacking right and threatening us with a worse time unless they keep getting power to keep tacking right. See also: Liberal Party (Canada), Democratic Party (USA)
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Doesn't help that Labour are also going to be too frit to say anything critical about MAGA/Trumpism until January 2029. It will look disingenuous to turn around then and say "look at the state of the US" as a warning (and that's if the US is having a free and fair election in 2028).
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Give it a rest mate, the next election isn't for another 4 years.
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Lmao macron lost to a militant left. Also how tf is he still in power btw?
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(And maybe stop pursuing far right policies too; I bet that would also help).
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Perhaps they rather like them. Which would be…bad.
Or maybe they’re afraid of them. Which would be…worse?
(not sure I’ve got these the right way round)
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That's a cocking awful strategy. How about some hope? How about some solutions to inequality, the cost of living, the climate crisis... instead of all this bollocks about immigration being a massive problem when it really isn't. I mean it really, really, really isn't. Not compared to the rest.
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that might work for England but how will they compete where alternative progressive parties exist such as SNP and Plaid Cymru
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Doesn't matter to mainstream Labour voters but there are a significant number of people pissed off by the OSA.
Torry policy and Labour passed it without any thought of the side effects.
Some will want to send a message to Labour regardless and Reform are the only party talking about examining it.
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Agreed. I think it's also somewhat complacent of Labour to portray this binary option here. LibDems and Greens are nominally progressive alternatives that could surge in the polls with the right leadership, much like Reform are doing now (outsiders last yr). 4 years is a long time in politics...
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Waaaay too late for this.
they are turning themselves into pathetic shadows of the far right - nobody with a shred of empathy is going to support a government that has actively colluded in the atrocities in Palestine.
So then the question is: where will we all go?
Greens? #YourParty? LibDems?
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The problem is I think fundamentally Macron believes (rightly or wrongly) in the ideas of liberalism and that everyone will if given sufficient opportunity and (French) education, but the current Gov/entire UK political establishment essentially has a deeply pessimistic view of the electorate.
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Agreed. If no one calls it out, the threat will not be visible until it is too late.
99-percent.org/what-is-far-...
What is ‘Far-Right’? - 99%
Why we need to be able to call it out now There is no simple, agreed definition of far-right, but we urgently need one: We know what ‘right-wing’ means – […]
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Nearer the election, yes.
Will immigration numbers fall significantly by 2028 campaign time? Highly unlikely.
Even if Labour delivers on a multitude of other things, and inflation falls and interest rates fall, immigration will still be the dominant topic at next GE.
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Hear hear. They just aren’t opposing them at all. They’re not even trying to win the argument. Of course the reason is that they can’t do that while simultaneously singing Trump’s praises. Not fighting the far right is the price of the trade deal and it will give the UK a Reform government.
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Starmer was anointed by the press to welcome the Far Right in, not to fight them off.
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I'm fed up with political parties trying to win elections by basically saying 'vote for us or else you'll end up with something much worse' What a terrible state UK politics is in.
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And not parroting them
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Its looking very likely that no one party will win an overall majority. So for the first time ever its going to be absolutely fine to vote for whoever you want. Greens, Corbyns party or LD. You dont have to vote Labour anymore.
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Explaining things to the electorate isn't one of their strengths, sadly
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Seems like that’s not compatible with the decision to toady up to Trump and Vance
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They want to do what America did in 2024? Do not recommend.
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They are the far fkn right
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And stop playing to irrelevant far right immigrant issues.
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What rather than acting like the far right?
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Us or the far right is hardly an inspiring vote winner. Green is a far better alternative. Vote Green get neither far right nor neoliberal PR managers.
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Macron, like corbyn, has posh boy's privilege. In the former's case he uses it to great effect in calling them out.
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Their strategy seems to be "Look we can be further right"
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Their argument of “we can’t change the PM or his staff because of the instability it’ll cause” is seeming more and more insane by the day. If the PLP were semi conscious of what’s happening they’d do something. The longer they stick with Starmer/McSweeney the lower the polls will go. Maddening.
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It might have helped if they’d managed to not spend a year unable to unpick the ideas of denouncing the far right from ‘free speech’. I get that they’ve an intl agenda that needs careful management but they’ve created a big hole by being unable to do that.
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Labour will fight elections the same way as they always do under right; they're the slightly more acceptable alternative. They were the slightly more acceptable alternative to the Tories at the last election, and will be the slightly more acceptable alternative to the far right at the next one.
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For decades Tories AND Labour have accepted the demise of mass secure well paid employment of low -educated men. There seems to have been very little attempt to help the victims of de-industrialisation, their kids & grandkids, to adapt to the new economy.
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Yes, except they look so much like the Tories. Can't distance from the right if you seek to appease them on immigration.
They also need to handle Brexit once and for all.
"Brexit screwed us, let's move on."
Unfortunately you'll only get more waffle.
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Yes, as opposed to what they're doing now which is copying them
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Macron doesn't denounce the far-right. He nurtures it. Thinking that Macron's two consecutive mandates have quashed the French far-right is either not following anything since 2017 or living in a parallel reality.
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But Macron didn't. De facto by pushing away the left, he invited the far right in. They make the rules as we speak. If current UK labour leadership wants to stay, they are going to have to bring up the red and green artillery (Which won't happen, as current leadership is centre right)😞😞😞
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We're a long way off fighting for election. There's plenty of time for that and in the meantime there's a deeply broken country to fix in the middle of an international crisis aka Trump and Putin.
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It’d be even more interesting if they ran on a Rejoin the EU platform High risk; high reward
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Labour appears to want to go into the next election trying to appeal to the far right. It's difficult to know quite whether they think this is actually going to start working or the intention is to deliberately destroy the party.
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To be honest I don’t actually see much difference between the two of them.
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Giving too much credit to Macron here... He's actively governing with the votes of the far right.
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By then they will have replaced the far right. From the Starmer promises when he wanted to become leader of the Labour Party to the way they are now, a fair old bit of drift to the right. "An Island of strangers"...
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Absolutely agree. You don’t defeat someone like Farage by telling voters that “yeah, he’s actually got a good point there….”
People who think like Reform are going to vote for Reform 🤷🏻♀️
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Yep that’s what they should be doing, but having the same policies doesn’t help Labour at all.
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📌
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But that would mean attacking some of their own policies....🙈
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Also, that's just lame. What and whom do THEY represent, what are they prepared to fight for?
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As a recently ex labour member, that was the message of an email received from LPHQ recently, which was intended to lure me back. It's like being held to ransom.
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"I'm not Donald Trump" wouldn't have won Biden the election if he had stuck with it. People want policies and clear answers. And it isn't Labour or the far right. Corbyn is right there and I'm backing him to win the next election.
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Not really what Macron "did", "us vs the far-right" is just the automatic choice for French citizens in the two-round electoral systems with modern political dynamics
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With 4 parties in double figures, according to the polls, we need electoral reform now! It was just Macron or the far right in France, very different in a Parliamentary election under FPTP.
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True - one of the problems is that it’s extremely easy and effective to fight from a nationalist/populist platform. The worse things get the easier and more effective it becomes.
It’s not easy to make things better - especially after decades of decline.
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Other than stating the direction to turn, the term left and right has lost all meaning in UK politics. There are rampant capitalists and then the random token parties.
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We have 3 right-wing parties fighting in a sack for the same steak. You can argue the toss over which one is worst. Until Labour makes a serious change of policy, any denoucement of the far-right will look hollow and disingenuous.
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I felt sorry for them (briefly) with this shit storm over asylum hotels (ie Tories and Reform stirring up racism, underfunded councils etc ) then Govt spokesperson said "legitimate concerns" and well fuck them all
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My prediction? The same tragic, normalcy bias-fuelled slapstick continues until 2028, at which point a massive moment of clarity and panic arrives, and they actually start giving voters stuff and denouncing far right talking points.
It will all be too late.
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Instead of trying to out-right them?
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They could start by not trying to out far-righting them and letting them set the agenda.
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Well said!!
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they are the far right now mate.
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Yes. And not toeing the same line as them. Major error of judgement. Like so many of their choices.
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We are genuinely fucked
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Have you not noticed - they have! They have several years to ramp it up! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Keir Starmer: Nigel Farage would crash economy like Liz Truss
The prime minister's comments suggest he sees Reform UK as his principal political adversary.
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Exactly
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From the outside, it appears the British political system has been completely out of ideas since Thatcherism. Hard to see anything changing until you fix the primitive voting system.
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A strategy that worked a treat for the Democrats last year
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do you think this is likely? they're pursuing Farage-ist policies, Labour MPs are saying that the far right rioters have "legitimate concerns", you have a Labour MP (a labour MP!) calling Reform "woke"
joke party. how much worse will things be in 4 years time
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Macron took the largest cohort of votes in the recent election, which were left of centre, ignored them, and installed a right of centre PM, so he’s a disastrous template for democracy.
Also, denouncing has a short fuse if, like Labour, one is still pushing undeliverable promises
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It's not possible to explicitly denounce the far right while simultaneously aping their policies. Most voters are not that stupid and the ones who are will continue to vote for the far right.
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Of course, there is another option, illustrated by David Cameron's 'look, it's us or our swivel-eyed loons...!' campaign.
Labour, having 'stolen the Tories' clothes' on austerity and economic philosophy, appear to be preparing a similar line for Reform: 'Don't vote for him, vote for us'...
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It's trite by now but it really seems their argument is (and will be) "Farage is right, don't vote for him". Idiocy and cowardice in equal measure.
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Letting Farage create & make the news is going to destroy the country as we believed it to be - fair minded & welcoming. He did enough damage with Brexit. To think his merrygang of wannabe ICE agents are getting away with this is abhorrent. Labour need to call out this thuggery before its too late
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They have just as much to fear from my greens 🌿 and the Lib Dems😂
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This "analysis" wildly misses the point that Macron has done more to legitimise the far right in France and is a key reason why RN will likely win the next presidential election.
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Hmm "We'll do whatever we please, because we think this is your only option" .. err no, no thanks and if a government ceases to represent it's population in any way that starts to create many stability problems and politicians being held responsible for their own actions
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Indeed. Moreover, the system for electing the president in France is very effective for keeping out the far right. But our FPTP electoral system could easily allow in the far right, even if, as is likely, they fall a long way short of getting an outright majority.
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“You can’t let these people, whose concerns are of course completely legitimate, anywhere near power”
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And Labour will lose. It was a fucking stupid losing strategy in the USA. It would have lost in Canada too if Trump had kept his mouth shut about Canadian politics & not forced cuck Trudeau to resign and have the Libs coronate an investment banker, returning Canada to #social-fascism.
Marxist Dad
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To be honest, Macron then betrayed his coalition partners of the left by appointing a left of centre prime minister. But yeah, it's the kind of dick move Starmer for sure is capable of as well
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And the longer they leave it, the harder it gets. They're allowing a monster to grow and are seemingly unaware of how it might come back to bite them...
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Unlike Macron, Labour's pitch often comes across as them being the ethical far right - not an alternative to it.
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And stop pandering to Farage by shaping policy around his hideous, vacuous, toxic, far-right bloviating. Show some guts!
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Over 3 years away
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Until there's consequences for failing to uphold manifestos I will never see any party as honest or better than others, Starmer is a hypocrit of the highest order and his cult of Labour more concerned with keeping their power and money than governing.
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Macron & RN (like all far-right parties) are pro-rich. Many of Macron's policies make those of previous right-wing governments look decidedly left-wing: policing women's clothing, filling prisons, militarized police, making citizenship more difficult to obtain, culture wars, anti green energy ...
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It's a political movement designed to destroy the left. It can't swing its gun turrets around to the right. In their heart of hearts, they are the right.
![Why we need to be able to call it out now There is no simple, agreed definition of far-right, but we urgently need one: We know what ‘right-wing’ means – […]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sadiay53llz7xnyua66tdqkx/bafkreiembx5kb2dx6xawgjbognhqh2rknasrhgbxfertxwjqshbroe4qwm@jpeg)
