If Labour don't want to win what is the point of them?

[kellyandthecat]

www.politicshome.com/party-politics/articles/story/labour-should-not-compromise-election-victory-cwu

The head of the union that endorsed Corbyn yesterday said on R4: “I want to see a party that stands up for workers again, that stands up for the disadvantaged in society and puts those principles first, without compromising those principles just in pursuit of an election victory."

Isn't this completely contradictory?? How do you help anyone if you don't win? It's alright for him with a nice union job whatever happens but all the nice principles in the world aren't worth a hill of beans if you can't actually put them in to practise. Now personally I don't mind Corbyn, I would not support him because I remember the 80s but I think people have a right to vote for him and to have lots of ideas presented to them that's how democracy works but a lot of his supporters irritate me. The kind of people who scream and cry about Tories being EVIL and the WORSE THING EVER and then don't actually really care about winning are just posers and malcontents who will be sittinf pretty whoever is in power. I come from a working class background and I owe a lot to policies done by Labour but you don't care about normal people if you aren't willing to compromise to win and I would rather vote for a Conservative with good intentions than a privileged person crying about the sufferings of the poor but actually its all a game and they don't care enough to actually do something about it. There I said it. AIBU?

Tony Blair had his problems but anyone who thinks he was 'just the same' as the Tories needs their heads examined

Well apart from being a war criminal who helped to set in train problems such as Isis and the Calais refugee situation, I'm sure he was wonderful for the country.

I don't see the point in the Labour party as it now stands. Does it stand for anything. I never noticed the supposed left-wing tendencies of its electoral platform during the last election that we are being led to believe "proves" that the electorate do not want left-wing policies.

I think the situation in the Middle East pre-dated Tony Blair.

Do people seriously not know this?

I'm sure he was wonderful for the country.

Were you not here?? Do you not remember what it was like under Thatcher and Major? Blair won three times (still the only living Labour leader to have won at all!) and those were great years he must have been doing something right. Honestly even the Tories are so much better today because of Blair. They passed gay marriage for goodness sake! A lot of student union types don't know they're born and it's all about Iraq as if they know anything about it

People keep harping back to the Left Wing of 1982 and Michael Foot having lost the General Election.

It really wasn't the fact that he was a left winger that was the problem. There were two reasons, as I see it.
The first was Michael himself. Intelligent and principled he may have been, but it wasn't enough. He wasn't in the best of health, was asthmatic and had a lung complaint. Like Gordon Brown, he was also blind in one eye. He was too easy a target for ridicule and the Right Wing press of the day took full advantage of this.

However, the biggest reason for Labour's defeat was their Disarmament policy. It scared an awful lot of people. This was at the time of the Cold War when Russia and East Germany were terrifying World Powers with nuclear weapons at their disposal. Most British people believed that throwing away our own nuclear deterrent was akin to suicide.

That's really what lost them the 1982 election.

Also I love how all the same people who were telling us a few months ago to vote for Ed Milliband because he was a radical alternative are now saying actually he wasn't very left-wing at all (and yes, I did vote for poor old Ed)

No point to Labour at all. I suppose there might be some point to them if they became much more left wing, but then there doesn't seem to be much evidence that the majority of the country want a left wing government. 4million voted UKIP and 11.3 million conservative. Only 9.3 million voted labour, so overall it looks like the UK as a whole is more right than left leaning.

that's a good point tanith easy to forget what that climate was like. i think i voted sdp that time round.

i suppose it would be great if corbyn could win its just hard to believe it if you lived through the 80s. i mean thatcher was literally barking mad and the left couldn't beat her and these tories are far more slippery

I don't think we can declare we are a righr leaning country when quite a few didn't vote. No idea of their political leanings

Don't get me started on people who can't bother to vote, but I will say I think its a big assumption to think all those people are on the left. For all you know they could all want to have voted for the BNP or UKIP or something if there is a silent left-wing majority in this country its been silent for decades

i will say that if corbyn wins I think it will be helpful for exposing the SNP as the charlatans they are

i am not completely against corbyn i just think as a political party you have to want to win first and foremost and i think its a privileged ivory tower position to say you can wait until you have your ideology just right or the centre moves back to you when people are homeless and using food banks

That's a fair point Iggly, but as kelly said there's no evidence that people who don't vote would vote left/labour if they could be persuaded to vote.

I read somewhere this week that there are over 1 million people in the country who have been diagnosed as having dementia - I think it's fair to say that a large number of those didn't vote becuase (like my mum) they forgot.

If Labour don't want to win what is the point of them?

They allow the left wing (especially those living in London NW3) to sleep easy in their beds because they can vote for "social justice" with a "clear conscience". The fact that by remaining out of power they leave the weak and vulnerable that they claim to represent at the mercy of the Tories is a side issue.

I agree that the country needs a party that has a policies which are significantly different from the Conservatives and which can form a strong opposition and, in due course, a majority Govt.

I just don't think Labour is that party any longer.

I go up and down about this. I do believe that if david milliband had been leader we would be looking now at a different political landscape - a left leaning coalition or a left wing government - and we would not now be facing the anti-trade union bill - an unbelievably authoritarian piece of legislation. Everybody knows about the strike ballot thresholds and the plan to allow agency workers to replace strikers, but that's just the start. The picketing consultation says the government intends to eg require unions to tell their employer in advance the content of any blog or other material they propose to write on social media about a strike, and to make picketers wear armbands with their name and mobile number available for inspection by the police etc etc - and if they don't, it's injunction, criminalisation, sequestration - I mean, fucking hell - sorry - I don't want to sound like Godwin but sajid javed is doing a bloody good impersonation of Mussolini it seems to me.

But then again, we are here because 15 years of labour government failed to reverse the five anti trade union statutes enacted by margaret thatcher.

Where am I going with this - round in circles - very depressing.

But it's a valid round in circles. We could say that those 15 years didn't push that window/centreground back to the left enough.
The trade union legislation is extremely worrying.