Read on Twitter
1/ I had a great chat this weekend with a friend on Starmer's strategy... https://twitter.com/dasvee/status/1358764527375024131
2/ I raised the point in the first tweet in this thread - Labour feels it has to ape the Tories to win power just as Blair thought he had to in 1997. https://twitter.com/dasvee/status/1308732563448565761
3/ Blair felt he had to copy the "spending promises" of Labour to assuage fears in Tory voters that Labour wouldn't "waste" public money with a spending splurge.
4/ Once in power, Labour could implement actual policy agenda.... Brown used the awful ruse of private finance initiatives to hide actual spending off the balance sheet, however they did run a budget surplus too (not sure this was net of PFI though).
5/ Cut to 2021 and Starmer, Claire Ainsley clearly thinks Labour can only win power, not by copying economic policy (though both copy each other with "levelling up" agendas that never actually happen, and both are economically "populist" in pandemic-Britain)..
6/ But 29% of population voting for the Tories in Dec 2019 was enough for Liberalism to die in the UK: because the seat majority of 80 under FPTP was what mattered, not the fact that 55% of the popular vote went to 2nd ref parties.
7/ I.e. the death of liberalism: the mass-consensus in the media and major parties, including the Lib Dems from what I can see, that FoM is out of the question in post Brexit UK, was predicated on the distortions of first past the post yielding the Tories a big majority.
8/ Liberalism may not have died on the ground, but it's died as a political force. The opposition parties may not be in power but they help to make the weather. And the distortions of FPTP have made them pivot to making very bad weather indeed for liberal thinking progressives.
9/ Anyway - my friend and I disagreed. Here's my friend's position: Starmer's social conservative pivot (hard leave, legalised torture, spy cops, remembrance day, flags etc.) is purely an act to win power by gaining social conservative votes.
10/ Once in power, he will pivot back to social liberalism. Starmer is not a social conservative (e.g. video of him saying he used to advocate abolishing the monarchy). He ran as leader on a pledge to restore FoM.
11/ He got a standing ovation in conference for saying there should be a 2nd ref with an option to remain. I think this was unscheduled/unscripted - i.e. he probably had not run it past Corbyn first.
12/ Starmer is therefore not the real deal and is playing leavers in a political game: after all that's what politics is: a game as to how you win power. Once in power you can start implementing what you believe in. The path to power can be whatever it takes to get power.
13/ This strategy relies on Starmer deceiving social conservatives now that he is socially conservative,& deceiving social liberals too that he is socially conservative, with the presumption that despite this betrayal of their values,under FPTP they have no choice but to back him
14/ In this theory, once in power Starmer's plan is to double cross the socially conservative leavers and implement some socially liberal currently unspecified and that won't be mentioned in the manifesto because if mentioned, the socially conservative voters would be alienated.
15/ So basically: deceive leavers now and betray they later, stringing along remainers but eventually give remainers some sort of damage limitation for brexit.
16/ Theory continues that over time, demographic shifts mean that social conservativism dies more and social liberalism in ascendency means that the pivot back to liberalism will coincide with a change in consensus opinion in the country.
17/ I responded with "that could all be true, but there's a lot of deceit going on". Also look at the LD's and tuition fees to find out how a post-power pivot on core policies can harm the NEXT election's chances. This level of deceit is not a sustainable multi-GE strategy.
18/ Though it might win one term.
I think more likely is that Starmer won't pivot back even in power. I think he won't be able to deceive leavers. I think Labour is just stringing along its base.
I think more likely is that Starmer won't pivot back even in power. I think he won't be able to deceive leavers. I think Labour is just stringing along its base.
19/ I'd welcome feedback on who is right? Will Starmer ever pivot back to the values he believes in? Or does he believe in nothing? Is he like Karl Hungus in the Big Lebowski: an actual Nihilist?
20/ NB Nietzsche's concept of nihilism is an observation on the death of religion, rather than actively believing in nothing? - but the Big Lebowski's definition is more fun.
21/ Re-reading the thread I referenced earlier, I considered the idea that Starmer's current pivot is a ruse. I thought of it like a Trojan Horse. But worry it's a Holy Grail Trojan Rabbit. https://twitter.com/dasvee/status/1308753964649844738
22/ Great comments coming in on a DM: "The big fallacy in equating Starmer with Blair is that Blair aped Tory economics because, in part, Tory economics had some value to it - or at least more to say than the bankrupt pieties of the hard Left. "
23/ "He basically did a deal with the City, which was "I'll leave you alone as long as you give me lots of tax revenues with which to implement by redistributive improvements to health and education." The country boomed and this made Blair's social liberalism easier to sell too "
24/ "(it was also part of l'air du temps, with anti-discrim stuff rising up the EU agenda).
What is Starmer aping and to what end? Patriotic box-ticking is ok at a push but it is not a substitute for wider economic or social policy."
What is Starmer aping and to what end? Patriotic box-ticking is ok at a push but it is not a substitute for wider economic or social policy."
25/ Me: "so there's a danger in Labour thinking that because Blair succeeded with this Tory-copying approach, it will work again, even when the thing they are copying is [dysfunctional in terms of policy - and is just values:] outright bigotry and nationalism"
26/ reply "And if you don't got the money, you don't got the social redistribution."
Me: "right. And Starmer has no policies...
and by advocating hard brexit for ever he has an even harder uphill struggle to get the money"
Me: "right. And Starmer has no policies...
and by advocating hard brexit for ever he has an even harder uphill struggle to get the money"
