To ask what you think of new (potential) Centrist party

[Mightymucks]

Reported in the Observer today:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/07/new-political-party-break-mould-westminster-uk-brexit

I think it sounds like potentially quite an exciting idea. Fairer tax system with the rich paying more, but liberal on wealth creation, more funding for public services.

It’s quite sketchy at the moment but it sounds interesting. Would be good if they could form a credible party to cover the centre ground. I live in a working class Labour area and there seems to be a lot of frustration here that Labour have abandoned us to play university politics with the middle classes but there is no credible alternative. I think there are a lot of working class votes could be up for grabs if they could harness voters who feel Corbyn has disenfranchised them.

@Sandsnake

Fair enough, it was more of a signal boost from myself and I picked on you.

But most people do add a caveat of "could never vote tory", whilst wanting the tory centrist policies.

It really depends on where you personal overton window is, but it does get blurry a lot when tribal politics come to mind, eg: Labour not running on policies at the last election of eliminating ~75% of established benefit cuts and running on a pro brexit strategy.

If the centrist owned the position properly with all the "I'm alright jack" accusations then we could have some proper political debate rather than what colour tie they are wearing.

I don't think the overlap is that massive, lurker. Yes there's the energy prices thing, and there may well be others, but there are also plenty of areas where the two parties are poles apart. And there are elements in the Tory party that scare/repel most left of centre types (JRM etc), and that obviously goes the other way too.

So its a Labour proBrexit party. That will just split the Labour/Momentum vote and give TM another 5 years. But will its policies be 'Have you cake and eat it', like Corbyn espouses? I cant see it going anywhere, we already have a remainer as PM, a new proBrexit party will have to go hard core Brexit to beat her.

If it was pro- Brexit it would be the biggest disappointment/ waste of time ever

You ve inadvertently hit nail on head.... so how can any new party, be centralist?
Brexit has spilt the nation roughly 50/50 and as such a party has to be pro or anti (so not centralist) or as the Tories are showing us, you get division.
Brexit will be a huge issue for several years and no party can avoid this.

So, will never work UNLESS there is a some very big defections from Lab/Tory and is pro brexit, the anti's have UKIP.

There wont be ANY defections to a new 'centrist' party. A few MPs already defected to a proBrexit party, UKip and look what happened to them. No one already an MP will risk their job after that failure.

@Theduchessstill

The overlap is a lot more than you give it credit for, the last labour government had success by essentially following on from Majors government policies for a few years and the conservatives are just as culpable in our contribution to the global financial crash, playing the man and not the ball of using JRM is not really understanding the fact that we have been running a neoliberal agenda for a couple of decades now.

If you are a dirty centrist then own it, there is an inherent "Im all right jack" motive to it, that is the problem for the left of center to deal with, before corbyn they could cloak it under of guise of helping those worse off

justanotherlurker

Yes, there are some conservative policies I agree with :

Large, above inflation, year-on-year increases in the minimum wage.
Large, above inflation, year-on-year increases in personal tax allowances.
The pension triple-lock.
The fuel duty freeze.

There are plenty of other policies with which I fundamentally disagree, in particular the Hard Brexit which Corbyn and his allies also support.

Fairer tax system with the rich paying more
We already pay 45%. Excluding NI. How much more must we pay?

We already pay 45%. Excluding NI. How much more must we pay?

As was evident in the run up to the last election the "rich" who could pay more excluded those who virtue signalled about willing to pay more tax to help fund the NHS etc. Once the boundary of "rich" was statistically analysed there was a lot of caveats that was irresponsible to exclude. Luckily though Dear leader back tracked on those policies that would affect them personally even if it came down to inheritance that they could sling the blame on the "rich right wing", essentially its some 4d chess

Large, above inflation, year-on-year increases in the minimum wage.
Large, above inflation, year-on-year increases in personal tax allowances.

Both Lib Dem policies in the coalition.

I have considered voting Tory in the past, but I never will now due to them blowing our country apart by having the referendum to try to resolve their own party issues.

Prior to the referendum, 86% of people didn't prioritise the EU as an issue thru cared about.

Austerity is also killing people, particularly universal credit.

There are no policies they could announce that would make up for those 2 things.

I'm in a bit of a hard position though because I also feel similarly about Labour due to Iraq and now their misogyny and antisemitism.

FPTP politics is broken and harping on about how we should all pick red or blue, doesn't help.

I’ve generally been a labour voter - but until he bromentum and their shocking misogyny is booted out hen they will not be having my vote. I’m reluctant to vote Tory due to austerity and their constant drive to asset strip the country. However the recent GRA issue has made me decide that if the rotors oppose it I would vote for them. I’m not wedded to tribal politics, I will vote for whomever I feel is capable and has policies that will benefit the country (not just me - I am indeed doing alright but I do t want to live in a society where people who aren’t are left to rot.)

There doesn’t actually seem to be anything new here - I’d have preferred a reinvigorated Lib Dem’s minus their slavish devotion to the GRA. Never mind.

Unfortunately I can't see how this is going to work. Isn't this what the Lib Dem's are, unsuccessfully?

There wont be ANY defections to a new 'centrist' party

Of course, which is why i highlighted "unless" why would any politician in a safe (ish) seat move to a new party?

the whole thing is just designed to get even more Labour in-fighting, giving the tories even more of a free ride.

Macron appears to be more akin to David Cameron than Tony Blair, for the sheer sake that he wants to take France to a more capitalist economy, which Blair never did (even if he stagnated to some).