Owen Jones says he is leaving the Labour Party

Can’t stand him anyway. No great loss.

People seem to be missing the point that Labour is a political party. It ultimately exists to form a government. It therefore needs policies to gain enough votes in enough constituencies to get a majority. Historically many of us don’t count: we don’t live in swing seats. The calculation must always be: what do the swing seats want? These are people who might have voted Con for 14 years. Keeping left wing policies might mean Labour doesn’t get their vote. It also now means policies need to have financial literacy. Truss found out you cannot just do what you want. A Labour government would hopefully understand that too!

COVID did mess up our economy. We have low productivity. Our birth rate is falling. We cannot have a fiscally imprudent government. What we might also see is the red wall going Reform. Other constituencies might vote reform because they want the drawbridge they crossed pulled up for others. We shall see but Brexit and immigration will still play a part.

Jones is completely one-sided in the way he discusses things. Maybe that shows his principles but it means I don't trust what he says.

I'm not a big reader of the commentariat but I think they should at least try to see the other side. Otherwise it's just propaganda.

I will be very disappointed if that's the way it goes but what choice is there? I'd take pretty much any government of the last century of the incredible and increasing incompetence of the last 14 years.

Result 😀✅

I don’t mind the wee scamp, but I can see why he grinds people’s gears.

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/why-owen-jones-is-leaving-labour-by-someone-unfortunate-enough-to-sit-next-to-him-on-a-train-20240321246338

Thank goodness for that. I am so sick of him and his whining.

It depends. Here in NZ the recent general election kicked out a Labour government that tried not to frighten the economic horses while being significantly more aggressive about social, ie progressive reforms. The effect was that after six years of Labour government none of the economic reforms we needed have been achieved and the public, annoyed at all the do-gooder social stuff combined with economic hardship, have elected a reactionary crowd who won't sort out the economic stuff either.

I am afraid that Starmer is heading the same way and that even though Labour will win this year they will lose the subsequent general election.

His article says:

Another fellow leftwinger, Kate Osamor – again, a Black female MP – was suspended for describing the assault on Gaza as a genocide on the day the international court of justice placed Israel on trial for alleged genocide. Questions of racism, then, seem to be judged on whether they have a factional use – a sure sign of moral bankruptcy. This leadership style is crude in opposition; with an overwhelming majority, it will be chilling.

But if you go to the linked article you find that Osamor was suspended "for saying Gaza should be remembered as a genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day." She said: "She also wrote that there was an ‘“international duty” to remember the victims of the Holocaust as well as “more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and now Gaza”."

She chose Holocaust Memorial Day to say that. Rather different to the way Jones described it.

You can’t trust a word Starmer says though. We have a fantastic local Labour MP but I just can’t vote for Labour. Starmer has broken every promise on his leadership pledge, I don’t even view him as standing for anything that should be Labour.

At least people like Owen Jones have principles.

I felt the same at the time but, with hindsight, the Blair years were an oasis of light compared to the state of the country before and after.

Starter is not remotely right wing in his principles. I'm OK with him not spooking the horses to end this disastrous government.

It's the failure to even consider higher taxes for the very well off and/or a wealth tax that was the straw/camel's back issue for me.

I left previously over rightward drift under Blair too and then re-joined so I suppose I'm either consistent or fail to learn from experience!!

You can agree or disagree with what LOJ says, but Labour have ditched a lot of the eye-wateringly expensive pledges they had for the same reason that the Tories junked the rest of HS2 - there isn't the money to pay for them. We simply can't afford fancy new railways or the re-nationalisation of utilities or a multi-billion pound Green New Deal. As a country, we're skint and is it any wonder when the government paid 80% of people's wages for the best part of two years and shuttered the economy? IMO Labour is just being realistic and managing people's expectations.

Owen Jones has always been right about every issue.

This is because because he publishes at least one article/video/tweet agressively criticising every possible position on every issue.

If Corbyn were currently unpopular amongst Jones' market he'd be hauling out that article as evidence that he warned us all about Corbyn and always liked Starmer.

The reality of First Past the Post. We absolutely have to vote tactically because of FPP!

much as Starmer is uninspiring, OJ is a ghastly wee man

So you want another five years of a Tory govt, do you Owen? Labour aren't perfect but I hope they'll at least be honest, principled and run the country for the people, not their mates - unlike the current lot.

You won't have left for the same reasons as him unless you've got a YouTube channel to promote and you are an attention seeking cunt.

Same here

He might be “stopped clock” right on this one but it doesn’t take away from him being a bellend.

Honestly, he doesn’t want a Labour government, he wants a loss so he can say “I told you so”. Labour party is packed full of these dickheads at every level.

I read it. I thought, any minute he's going to have to mention the dishonesty and prevarications of the Labour shadow cabinet on gender ideology, women's rights, children's safeguarding ... anything.

But he didn't. And he's going to vote Green or 'independent'.

While he's probably not wrong about how opportunist and dismal Labour has become over so many things, his arguments are hardly fresh and original thinking. In fact the piece is an instructive lesson in how the TRA movement has started to consume Labour from the inside out and are now turning the whole political left-wing into painfully excreted shit.

Btw Owen, my local group of 'independents' is what a bunch of whackjob right-wing nutters really looks like, not women like me. Women like me are politically homeless, and that should exercise the minds of political columnists a great deal. But men like you, Owen, don't give a fuck.

I dislike him intensely, but agree with him on this

I know MN hates Owen Jones, but if you read the article you have to admit he’s not wrong. Starmer lied to gain leadership and has u turned and seems to have forgotten the manifesto he used to gain leadership. He’s abolished all his pledges.

But hey, let’s ignore all that and what he was saying because hate is more fun I guess.