To think that Turkeys Voted for Christmas?

[StormzysHat]

NC. This could appear goady but honestly it's a genuine confusion to me.

According to what we are led to believe by the media / some people on MN, "northerners" (as a generic group) voted for Conservatives because they are disadvantaged and fed up with the north south divide among other reasons.

How come disadvantaged Londoners voted Labour? I work in support sector and many people in my care will be in shelters this Christmas, and others rely on food banks. They were saddened and disheartened by Labour's loss and felt the Conservatives in no way represent them. This is on top of the Tory devised hostile environment and Windrush scandal making peoples' lives hell.

I understand that people are / have been pissed off and wanted to have their voices heard. But WHY would the very communities ravaged by the Tories in the 80's vote for them?

Why is it that Corbyn who lives in a very modest way, in Upper Holloway and who went to grammar school is seen as less acceptable than an old Etonian millionaire proven liar? How can Boris Jonson be seen as someone who can help the north south divide or to champion the working class FFS??

I completely accept Corbyn's leadership has been poor and don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan. BUT, given the alternative, I can't understand HOW working class people could vote for Johnson?

AIBU to think the turkeys just voted for Christmas?

I am a Northerner and would rather put pins in my eyes than ever vote Tory!

Your anecdotal data didn't really help labour on thursday though did it.

If you are chasing likes its the wrong forum.

SarahNade

The following could also be mentioned.
Closed shop factories.
Violence against non union members.
Violence against members of other unions.
Violence and abuse against "scabs"
Only producing a set amount or product per day (not work to rule)i.e working to fast.
Only being able to do one job, no cross competency training.

I will say the real Turkeys voting for Christmas was Labour remain supporters, after spending the last 2 years listening to big banks and multinationals, worring about GDP and wanting to bring in vastly 'not costed' manifesto which those same Banks and Multinationals where warning against.

The late pledge of Waspi talking 58 bn of the fully costed manifesto that said it would cost 80bn was a cherry on top.

Labour pretending they can nationalise industries paying below the market value (whilst being in the EU)

People being bribed by thinking they were getting shares in a company with over 250 employees.

The 4 day working week and pretending they can force companies not to reduce pay.

The turkeys have been saved from voting for christmas.

They voted as they did, because whatever they thought of the conservatives, they thought some combo of Labour/ its leadership was even worse. Labour supporters, the electorate just aren't that into you.

Apart from the turkey comment, I do agree with you OP. I think we're in this mess because Corbyn dithered on the fence too long over a second referendum (we could have had one by now and the election could purely have been about everything else). Leaving Brexit in the mix and hoping for an election so Labour could have a shot at getting into government at the same time was greedy and a reckless gamble with our futures. They lost (Tories had clearer messages, charismatic and media-savvy leader). If they had knocked Brexit out if the park with a second referendum beforehand, even if a later election was lost, most stuff is reversible 5 years down the line. But not Brexit. No wonder the more sensible Labour politicians like Watson and Starmer, plus the rebel Tories MPs all saw the bigger picture....alas all acted too late. Corbyn seems to have walked straight into the trap. We should have better leaders than this...on all sides.

It is pointless telling them they are thick because they don't think they are. That's why I haven't taken that stance. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also the ones who are normally labour but couldn't vote for Corbyn- why not green or lib dems?

Justanotherlurker
Most of them went to Brexit, just like UKIP gained more from Labour than Cons years ago

Where did you get your information from? Seems unlikely since the Brexit Party only put up candidates in 273 constituencies and had an agreement not to contest 317 Tory seats. Presumably that was a big factor in some Labour (Leave) voters voting Tory.

Out OF the park....sorry, frozen fingers!

@StormzysHat

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that JC did anything that was anything like the ET tweet, but other than a bit of reverence for the miners in days gone past, I can't really see any affection for the majority of people JC is supposed to represent in JC. Pity, yes, but not real affection. JC's natural tribe are campaigners on big issues, who want to talk about ideologies and wave placards and I don't think he really wants to canvass his democratic or listen to others to refine his own views (you can see this in his guardian column today), so you are either part of the inner circle or purists or you are out. Not exactly relatable is it? I think people thought there was affection there in 2015 but now they have seen through it and realised that he isn't really that interested in their actual views, just what he thinks their views should be.

Sorry got my years wrong, 2017 not 2015!!

Apart from the turkey comment, I do agree with you OP. I think we're in this mess because Corbyn dithered on the fence too long over a second referendum (we could have had one by now and the election could purely have been about everything else).

You do realise that those that turned was heavy leave areas, when could we have had a referendum.

And "this demographic" not democratic. I should stop now I have had a glass of wine!!

@MellowBird85

The miners didn’t get greedy. That’s more right wing Daily Mail type bullshit.

Thatcher wanted to invest in Nuclear power not coal and was happy to have cheap coal imported from Poland etc. This meant that the mine owners (privatised so no longer the National Coal Board) couldn’t compete profitably enough (for them) so they started reducing the amount of coal being mined with a view closing the less profitable Pits.

Obviously, the miners Union (NUM) wanted to save all the jobs rather than a few because they knew that if the mines closed a lot of men would be too old (over 40’s) to retrain and would end up being redundant and living off benefits and be bloody miserable doing so.
There were a few big factories - Metal Box and Coates Viyella but there weren’t enough suitable jobs available that they could do.

In Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, Thatcher’s people tempted young PG that if he set up a rival Union (UDM) to thwart the NUM, their pit would be kept open and he’d be handsomely rewarded. I know this as I lived 5 doors away from him (long road between Sutton and Kirkby with a tiny roundabout at the bottom).

So we had a miners strike and Thatcher brought in new powers to allow the Police to randomly stop cars to prevent miners travelling down from Yorkshire on the M1 to picket the open Notts mines. I was regularly stopped in my knackered old car and my car boot was always searched (!!) even though I was a lone female as I was travelling on the M1 to attend Nottingham University. It actually felt very scary at times as some of the Police were rather full of themselves and spoke very unpleasantly knowing that you couldn’t say or do anything to stop them.
I also saw Police brutality first hand and it’s made me wary of the Police ever since, even though I’m in my 50’s now.

I thought Thatcher was pretty cold hearted but she’s a pussy cat compared to Boris the Liar. He will sell the U.K. down the pan but the right wing press will support him and blame the EU/China, someone else.

I’ve seen it all before but lessons haven’t been learnt.

Where did you get your information from? Seems unlikely since the Brexit Party only put up candidates in 273 constituencies and had an agreement not to contest 317 Tory seats. Presumably that was a big factor in some Labour (Leave) voters voting Tory.

Those that had no contest from BXP cons only gained in a couple of seats, Lib Dem and Green gained the most whilst labour just dropped.

Places where BXP was in show, labour dropped BXP gained a comparable amount.

It's all in the voter breakdown.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000915

A lot of labour tried to pretend that UKIP gained more from Tory as well, whilst the Tories did want to head them off at the pass, it was labour heartlands that they gained ground, that's why it was stupid to pretend it was a simple right v left issue and has turned politcs to american style shit for the past few years.

The other point I would make - last point - is that Britain is essentially an economically conservative but socially relatively liberal country. Excluding the Blair years (which is what JC and his allies would prefer you to do because they are ideological purists and have disowned Blair as a red Tory), there has not been a proper left wing government since the 1970s. Nearly 50 years. And those who were around in the 1970s remember what the 1970s were like and often say they don't want to return there. Then have a look at the labour manifesto that JM says "won the debate and proved the whole system needs to change" - really?! People don't want to shake up capitalism, they just want better healthcare and education and a system that meets the needs of those who can't work. That is my view.

But Brexit is indeed a decent part of it - no clear policy for over three years and using an issue of national importance to try to seize power at every turn is greedy greedy greedy, particularly if there is no obvious plan as to what to do if you get power.

I did not vote at all, my town was red but turned Blue because people were tired of our MP voting against her constituents over Brexit.

So my point is, that anti-Tory Northern embedded mindset may be dying out a bit and we’re not all sheep.

I heard someone interviewed (I can’t think who it was) who made the point that traditional Labour supporters up north voted that way because of their work and involvement with trade unions, but socially and fiscally they are conservative. Now the work and the unions have gone/ changed they don’t have the same affiliation with Labour; especially with what is a progressive and radical Labour Party.

Tony Blair was from a privileged background and was absolutely not a man of the people, but every election he used to celebrate victory in his local working men's club in Sedgefield and made sure he was filmed doing it. It was a powerful signal.

I can't remember seeing any pictures or footage of Corbyn in any working men's clubs. I think it says something about the difference in their priorities.

No-one seems too concerned about Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’s appearance in working men’s clubs.

@CoalnotDole - very interesting to read your experience, thank you.

My point was that the whole “Labour til I die” Northern attitude is maybe a generational thing that is slowly dying out. As pointed out by @Justanotherlurker, the days of sticking a red rosette on a donkey just isn’t good enough anymore.

seen through it and realised that he isn't really that interested in their actual views, just what he thinks their views should be.

it was realised when Brown called the woman a bigot and everyone sided with him instead of trying to address the concerns, hence the rise of UKIP and then the sodding referendum

There is a lot of 20/20 hindsight going on and pretending things would be different if David M would have won, but as he is a staunch neolib he would have ran on a policy similar to Ed where he agreed austerity was still going to be implemented.

The problem is that labour has become a middle class party larping as for the working class without actually wanting to listen to the working class.

Everyone who is staunch tribal and would never vote for x isn't the people they need to win, hence why they voted for moon on a stick manifesto and pretend it's only the less enlightened cannot see any nuance of argument.

It's some weird paternalistic socialism, I'm a socialist in some aspects because I believe it will help me and my fellow being, not this weird situation that being socialist is a moral standing.

Labour appealed to the latter instead of the downtrodden, and because they haven't listened to the downtrodden it come across as arrogant, condescending and ignorant, spending the last 5 years condeming any and all who were critical with increasingly vicious rhetoric, there was likely to be a tipping point.

There have been many shots across the bow of labour the past decade, still trying to double down now is almost guaranteeing another decade of Tory rule. Sticking the collective head in the sand hasn't worked, and no it isn't because of right wing MSM either.

Labour haven't given a damn about it's heartlands for decades.

Did it reopen the heavy industry? No. Pretty much validating the original decision to close.

Labour stopped being the party of the workers and instead is seen as the party of A) shirkers B) the London echo chamber.

The referendum was in part a protest vote and also genuinely a lot of people in my heavily leave area really couldn't think of a damned thing the EU had done for us.

Labour then totally ignored the result and called the people who voted thick racists and then wonder why they turned elsewhere.

@Baldcrusader I could not agree with you more.

@Justanotherlurker

Excellent post. Agreed - you are right, it has been a long time coming

I heard someone interviewed (I can’t think who it was) who made the point that traditional Labour supporters up north voted that way because of their work and involvement with trade unions, but socially and fiscally they are conservative.

The country has always been small c conservative economically, hence why Blair was what he was.

Now we are a globalised society to pretend we can implement some straight out of the 70's socialism economic policies shows it isn't those voting against it who are thick and uneducated.

With or without brexit, thinking you can impliment shares that mainly go to the government on all companies over 250 employees and not have an impact is insane.

Ignoring the shambles of the costings of free broadband, most people can see the slippery slope of having a government controlled internet access.

The turkeys have been saved as Labour didn't win.