What do the Labour party need to do to stop their slow death?

[flashbac]

I'll start:

Starmer needs to stop acting like a rabbit in the headlights and actually stand for something. He has no charisma or gravitas. We want someone with a personality. Stand for something Starmer!

Stop pandering to the 'red wall'. Inspire people to vote for the party with some good policies instead of flip flopping about.

Have some inspiring and uplifting policies like:

• Free childcare for working parents
• making public transport normal and affordable
• subsidised green energy initiatives to help householders lower energy bills eg solar panels etc

And they NEED to distance themselves from that anti science TWAW stance. I'm all for being kind but a blanket dilution of what 'woman' means is regressive.

Labour need to move to centre left rather than far left IMO. It’s obvious that if they want to attract floating voters or conservative voters, they need to ditch all the hard left and compromise. Compromise is really the key to most things.

The Labour Party emerged from the trade union movement to represent the economic interests of working people in Parliament. Now, it represents the cultural & ideological attitudes of an unrepresentative ‘woke’ middle-class metropolitan sect.

This. And they're only 'woke' about some people. Jewish people and women can go whistle as far as they're concerned.

Another lifelong Labour voter who just can't.

@Bearnecessity the CPAP ventilators were a joint venture between UCL and Mercedes, Dyson didn’t actually produce any ventilators for use in UK hospitals in the end.

Politics is about competitiveness. The politicians we have in all parties have 'won' their place over other contestants.
Until we get someone better in the Labour Party the Tories will continue as they are.

If we had a better Labour Party we would get better Conservatives and a better SNP. Without another voice Scotland will be in real trouble.
When Cameron quit we had the worst PM and the worst Leader of the Opposition. The Lib Dems have just hibernated.
Labour and Lib Dems think that slogans on a Tshirt are equivalent to a manifesto.
Wokeness will destroy us all.
As a country we merely stagger on.

[btw, I vote Tory]

@randomlyLostInWales Very good, well said.

No we all know that Mother because the order was cancelled...

I really wouldn’t know who to vote for at a GE. I’m a middle class, educated woman but also a raging socialist in that I would pay more tax if it meant a functioning NHS, plenty of affordable council housing, investment in schools and childcare for working families and free uni education for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The environment/climate change is also very important to me.

I used to vote Labour but haven’t done for years because there’s no point where I live. I don’t know what they stand for any more, I don’t think they know either. The infighting and schisms have been really ugly and undignified and they would not get my vote as they are now. I had high hopes for Starmer initially but despite the Tories giving him chance after chance to tear them apart, he seems to be a damp squib. I feel like the Labour Party as was is dead and it’s time for a rethink. Like someone said upthread, the left vote is split across many parties, whereas the options are limited on the right.

How did that end up here? I was posting on a covid thread!

My apologies.

So many things I agree with on this thread.

Labour embrace divisiveness and crappy identity politics, without having even the brains to apply logic, look at statistical evidence or even recognise facts. They want to level down, not encourage everyone to move up. They want to hurt (and I do mean hurt) those who’ve done well, while failing to provide anything (and i don’t mean handouts) to the less well off to support them in their efforts to improve their lot.

They are a nasty, misogynistic echo chamber.

So I vote Tory.

Stop pandering to the 'red wall'.

I'm sure people in those constituencies are thinking "if only".

The labour party aren't listening to their traditional voting base never mind pandering to it. Their voter base is now made up of ideologically driven, identity politics obsessed middle class people, their concerns are very different to the immediate practical needs of working class communities.

The Conservatives are only party main who know what a woman is. I've never voted for them and have been spoiling my ballot since 2015 in the hope that one of the other parties will offer something better, if they can't get it together for the next GE I will hold my nose and vote Tory.

The Tories have cut police and almost every defence cut in 60 years has been under them.

Support for both and a fair properly funded justice system would be something everyone could get behind.

Women are the 51%.

So they could start there.

How about they give something back to women rather than expect to take women's unpaid time, ideas and labour towards the furtherance of other people's causes, for a change?

I doubt they will though. Labour simply has too many men with entitlement borne of their own self assessed "goodness".

Ditch identity politics.

Students and metropolitan types will always vote Labour. You don't need to pander to them (us!). De-emphasise all the ID stuff and talk about an actual vision for a better society, like Blair did. That is the only way to persuade people to vote Labour.

Oh yes @MrsPeacockInTheLibrary Labour need to form an electoral pact with the other left of centre parties. The Conservative Party is actually a massive umbrella for a range of right wing and centre-right views.

The Conservative Party is actually a massive umbrella for a range of right wing and centre-right views.

I'm not sure it is any more, not since Brexit anyway, and the day they kicked out Ken Clarke.

@Horacetheexplorer

But the Tories keep winning general elections, so - by definition - they represent a greater proportion of voters/a greater range of views than the other parties.

Labour need to stand down where they are in 3rd place (ditto Lib Dems/Greens), with a view to bringing in a version of PR should they win a general election.

I have no answers but have to say its lovely to read a sensible thread and read honest answers and input with no malice and nastiness. It is a real problem I feel and from my own point of view the damage sustained by JC being leader will take decades to reverse,I live in a northern mining town and whilst my parents and grandparents voted Labour almost as a "its what you do " attitude with no questions our generation needs more,We do not follow blindly the attitude of its what we have done its what we always do,We want more,we have questions and we hold people to account these days and rightly so, Myself though I don;t know what Labour can do,its like watching a Party slowly implode on its self and regardless of my voting Tory its very sad to see.

@CatrinVennastin

I have been a Labour supporter all my life and live in a safe Labour seat. I am really happy with my MP but have no idea what Labour stand for now.

I would like to see more support for very small micro businesses rather than money being thrown at the likes of Dyson who then fucks off overseas.

Something like a grant of £500 for sole traders which could be used for equipment upgrades or hiring a staff member.

Unfortunately a tiny grant of 500 wouldn’t touch the sides. Add a zero and you’re getting there. Micro businesses are currently politically homeless due to Rishi excluding 3 million of them from COVID support. Labour could easily steal those votes if they came up with some good small business policies rather than smothering them with tax rises and employment laws.

Ditch Bromentum
Ditch Identity Politics
Stop trying to censor people with different opinions and decrying them as bigots
Actually listen to the working class

I agree with all of the above and hope that someone at party hw is reading.

One tiny glimmer of hope is the new labour leader in Scotland seems to understand but then so did Keir at the start.

The thing is most of the traditional w/c aren't the slightest bit interested in politics or even knowledgeable about it let's be honest. They haven't got the time or inclination to go out canvassing for a political party. And I know that as someone who has a solidly w/c background and lives in a red wall constituency now tory. That equally explains why so many of the poorest areas voted for an essentially right wing concept - Brexit - which will possibly impoverish them even more. To vote for the same party that stripped those areas of industry and up until now deprived them of meaningful investment is incomprehensible to say the least.

1. Agreed that the labour party membership is possibly very middle class in composition. You go to uni and become politically active. Most young people are left leaning with an instinctive sense of right or

wrong so the labour party attracts them (hence all the woke stuff). You then go on to get a naice stable job in the liberal professions and probably mix with the same type of people. Can't see what's wrong with m/c people being in the LP, many will be like myself from a w/c background. No one complains about the tory party being full of m/c businessmen or aspirational types or wealthy toff types. Don't really know what the answer is...sadly a w/c person without a decent education is hardly likely to become labour leader or pm.

1. All the stuff about the LP not listening to w/c communities. Maybe that's so. Seems to be an oft repeated refrain heard in the media. I think the w/c class just doesn't listen to labour anymore. No admirer of Corbyn but some of his policies were pretty progressive and designed to help the poorest but

somehow they just didn't chime well with those red wall communities. W/C areas were always socially more conservative (hence brexit and all the patriotic, control of immigration gubbins) but economically left wing (hence Johnson and Sumak's clever levelling up promises and massive furlough scheme etc) The trouble is that the Tories have craftily expropriated some labour lite policies which will definitely appeal to relatively well off w/c voters....

1. Lastly the w/c has changed. Not all are poverty stricken, paid a pittance, horrendously exploited and living on sink estates. Many own their own homes and 2 cars, go on foreign holidays and even go to uni...

Labour's message therefore needs to appeal to those people too. Sadly brexit has muddied the waters, it's no longer merely right v left. Those leave voting former labour areas will forevermore feel loyalty towards the tory party for getting brexit done however utterly inept they are....until of course brexit proves to be the disaster it was predicted. The red wall areas

I'm convinced that Corbin was a Tory plant. He did more for the Tories than any Tory MP of the past 30 years.

Corbin effortlessly destroyed Labour. He turned it into a student party on sugar. Embarrassing.

If they can't get "white van man" to vote for them they can't win an election, there are millions of them probably the biggest group certainly larger than the mc professionals group. they don't want better benefits they want a job that pays well enough for them not to need UC or housing benefit, they want their kids in a decent school and to get a decent job afterwards, white van man might even be paying higher rate tax lots of them earn more than nurses or teachers and pay more tax but feel they are looked down on, you can't win anyone's vote by making them feel small or insignificant or stupid, even if they are

@TheSuezCanalTugBoat

I'm convinced that Corbin was a Tory plant. He did more for the Tories than any Tory MP of the past 30 years.

Corbin effortlessly destroyed Labour. He turned it into a student party on sugar. Embarrassing.