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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that Turkeys Voted for Christmas?

847 replies

StormzysHat · 15/12/2019 13:45

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?

OP posts:
MarshaBradyo · 16/12/2019 09:11

There are so many centre left. It’s frustrating to be politically homeless when centre left position has shown it can win a huge landslide and stay in power for over a decade.

Jillyhilly · 16/12/2019 09:13

People need to pick up an economics textbook every once in a while.

Or be taught basic economics from an early age in a way that is relevant and relatable. I agree that there is a shocking lack of understanding around these issues.

Anyway, it turns out that posting endless Facebook memes about people being racist, stupid bigots for even thinking of voting Tory turns people off. Whoever would have thought it?

thefluffysideofgrey · 16/12/2019 09:15

@Expo

Well if you plan on persuading anybody of your argument, writing it out is generally a good strategy.

Or, you could flounce and imply that your opponent is a bit thick?

It's up to you Smile

C8H10N4O2 · 16/12/2019 09:19

I agree with PP who say read the Janice Turner article but also watch this all the way through:

Momentum founder Jon Lansdown, (another pale, male and stale middle class, privately educated, political bubble type) explains why the working class got it wrong, why its all the fault of the media, the voters, in fact anyone else except Corbyn and Momentum. Because They Know Best.

Followed by Alan Johnson. Actual working class, lives in the North, actual governement experience. Alan Johnson is spot on in his assessment.

I knew people door knocking in northern areas, the Midlands, the SW. Consistently on the door step Corbyn was a massive issue over and over again. In northern areas Brexit was often a close second. Self ID came up too but less than Corbyn and Brexit. There was also confusion about Labour's message generally, the campaign was pretty shambolic. Its also absolutely true that the assumption that working class voters will also be fiscally and socially liberal is false.

The day after the election the Momentum media mouthpieces were blaming the Jews (all rich tories who own the media apparently), the evil MSM, the stupid voters (oh sorry, "confused" and "misled"), the weather. In fact absolutely everything except the leadership and the brocialists.

Based on the outpourings from Momentum spokespeople and the speed at which moves are taking place to stitch up the leadership I have limited confidence in Corbyn's replacement being more than another puppet for Milne.

As a lefty remainer I just despair that the party is in the hands of purists and idealogues utterly devoid of pragmatism. I despair for what it means for our health care, social care, education etc all of which will face ten years of defunding and privatising.

thefluffysideofgrey · 16/12/2019 09:20

researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06193

6.9%

That's the contribution of the financial services sector to GDP.

Tourism is more I think.

Jillyhilly · 16/12/2019 09:23

Boris loves adulation too much to move anywhere other than the centre. Smile

BovaryX · 16/12/2019 09:24

Anyway, it turns out that posting endless Facebook memes about people being racist, stupid bigots for even thinking of voting Tory turns people off. Whoever would have thought it?

Labour have been decimated in the North and instead of asking how the party failed its voters, it’s just double down on the insults that have dominated social media since 2016. Labour has become the party of intolerant ideologues and insufferable snobs. This is the upshot

MIdgebabe · 16/12/2019 09:27

The people voted. Most people voted against boris yet boris now has a significant majority, and that is democracy?

Deathgrip · 16/12/2019 09:30

Corbyn is unlikeable and standoffish. No one wants to have a beer with him. No one relates to him. He pretends he’s one of the people but isn’t and couldn’t give a straight answer re Brexit preference.

This is just revisionist nonsense. I wouldn’t have picked Corbyn to lead Labour because I’m well aware that the British public is far too right wing to support him. But if you watched videos of Corbyn out meeting people, listening to them, helping them and spoke to the people he’s met and listened to, then you wouldn’t say this sort of nonsense. Compared to the great fridge hider himself, the man who when faced with difficult questions from the public simply lies to them or runs away, there’s no comparison. Johnson is detestable. Stand offish? Unlikeable? Pretends to be one of the people but isn’t? I think you’re describing our current PM.

Corbyn’s personal Brexit preference wasn’t relevant, ever. A good leader represents the interest of the country, not their own preference. Come to think of it, Johnson was a declared supporter of remaining in the EU before he saw an opportunity to benefit from supporting Leave instead. I know which of these stances I trust more.

People have very short memories. Labour under Corbyn exceeded everyone’s expectations in the 2017 election. I remember the shock in the media the following morning. Best gains for labour in decades, and now the worst performance in nearly a century. So it’s patently ridiculous to say Corbyn was the main issue.

This was all about Brexit - the referendum may have had an almost even split in terms of Leave / Remain, but constituencies didn’t. Once you take Scotland out of the equation, which the SNP essentially have done here, the majority of English constituencies voted to Leave, so in the GE they’ve voted for the only party guaranteeing Leave.

Corbyn was the only party leader with a responsible Brexit plan - giving people the chance to vote on the actual plan vs remaining, rather than the existing vote which was based on hypotetheticals, many variables and lies. Some voters wanted a no deal Brexit (even though this was never described as a possibility), some wanted hard Brexit, some soft Brexit, some had no concept of the difference. Many voted based on promises which were then retracted as soon as the morning after the vote and yet many constituencies still want it (a second referendum may have had a very different result).

Unfortunately there’s clearly a large section of the U.K. who don’t want nuance - they want snappy sound bytes, “oven ready” and “get Brexit done”. If Johnson had respected the public enough to tell them what “get Brexit done” actually means (that his deadline is impossible, as revealed last week, and the impact of getting it done and how long this will last) I doubt he would have fared so well, but Johnson does not think the public are intelligent enough to handle this. Corbyn tried, and look how that ended up, so perhaps Johnson had a point. I’ve seen so many people describe Corbyn’s very simple Brexit policy as unclear or unfathomable. That in itself is worrying.

Farage, Johnson etc did an excellent job of convincing people that the EU was to blame for their problems, rather than government policy. There’s a good reason that many of the Leave lies pledges focussed on properly funding the NHS and other public services with the money paid to the EU - that’s not why the NHS isn’t funded properly, though. This government is why. How much has been spent on Brexit so far? Add that to the DUP buy off, and you realise that the government manages to find plenty of money when something is a priority.

Who’s profiting from “getting Brexit done”? It’s not the general public or the economy, that’s for sure, so someone clearly is.

I don’t think that everyone voting Tory is stupid. Plenty of Tory voters know precisely what they are doing, but generally they’re not the people who will be directly impacted by the cuts and damage to services.

Deathgrip · 16/12/2019 09:31

Labour has become the party of intolerant ideologues and insufferable snobs.

So much of this thread is the epitome of irony, but you might just win.

BovaryX · 16/12/2019 09:35

How else do you explain the visceral contempt for Leave voters in the left wing media? The Guardian? Twitter? The echo chambers whose occupants are still struggling to grasp why Labour has been obliterated? And who are still bleating about turkeys and stupid proles?

thefluffysideofgrey · 16/12/2019 09:36

@MIdgebabe

Some posters on here seem to have forgotten that. Most voters didn't vote Tory.

Yet they're dismissing the majority of the voting public as economically illiterate Grin

Some people on this thread are certainly historically illiterate.

It is not necessary to be good, just be seen to be good. Machiavelli.

That's what Boris is doing and he's doing it very, very well. The loveable buffoon! Wiff waff etc.

BovaryX · 16/12/2019 09:41

Some posters on here seem to have forgotten that. Most voters didn't vote Tory

The Conservatives have an 80 seat majority. Northern constituencies that have voted Labour for a hundred years have voted Conservative. Do you understand the paradigm shift? But hey. Keep trying to spin decimation as victory.

Jillyhilly · 16/12/2019 09:43

Deathgrip, you are not listening. You’re so attached to your ideas that you can’t even for a second imagine that sensible, ordinary people have good, understandable reasons for not liking the man or the policies. You can’t even bring yourself to say, “well maybe it was at least something to do with us”.

I voted Labour in 2017. I was a passionate Remainer who thought Labour would do something - anything - about stopping Brexit. I also didn’t know much about Corbyn and was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

This time around I voted Tory. Do you have any interest in knowing why, or do you just assume that I’m a thick racist who can’t understand nuance?

thefluffysideofgrey · 16/12/2019 09:44

I understand history, I really, really do.

The outlook is not good.

thefluffysideofgrey · 16/12/2019 09:50

@Jillyhilly

Did you vote Tory, or vote against Corbyn?

Expo · 16/12/2019 09:56

@thefluffysideofgrey I’m sorry. You are right I should be more clear. But I really thought people knew that our economy runs on the financial and services sectors. We killed off our manufacturing a long while ago. My point is that I genuinely believe we can only help people with lots of rich people paying lots of tax - much of which comes from outside the country.

Expo · 16/12/2019 09:57

My centre left position is to keep the rich sweet so they pay their taxes and then distribute it where needed. But JC went too far to the latter of that. We would have gone bankrupt

Expo · 16/12/2019 09:59

And in an attempt to try and heal rifts I do think there are a lot of people who voted Tory because they wanted to keep the country afloat so that it could help the more needy. So I really want people to stop calling others selfish and stupid. And have trust that this country is full of decent working people who are not nasty and may well have voted against a bankrupt country (people were genuinely scared of Labour policies) and yet are still kind people who will help out.

Waspnest · 16/12/2019 10:19

One thing I disagreed with in her article was labelling people lefty remoaners etc. I felt that was doing exactly what she criticised the Labour Party of doing.

JT is from a working class background in Doncaster (or Rotherham, I can't remember which). As I recall she reluctantly voted for Remain so she wasn't criticising people who voted Remain, she was criticising Remainers who refused to accept the ref result and were calling for another vote.

But OP I don't believe that you are genuinely up for understanding why people voted Tory. It's a real shame because no matter who I vote for (and over the years I've voted for just about everyone other than the BNP in the various different types of election) I think it's important to have a strong opposition party and one run by Momentum is never going to provide that.

Davros · 16/12/2019 10:20

It was unfortunate that the banking crash happened under the last labour government as that is held up as being ' their fault'
But if they hadn't put the country into deficit and sold all the gold we would have been in a much better position. Child Trust Fund for all ffs!!

ReadtheSmallPrint · 16/12/2019 10:27

This was all about Brexit

If Labour wants to stand any chance of winning in 2024 then this is a very dangerous assumption to make.

I’ll use Bishop Auckland as an illustration. I used to live in a neighbouring constituency, so I kind of understand the demographics and attitudes of the people there.

Look at the election results history for the Tories for every election since Tony Blair swept to power in 1997. In every general election since the Tories have increased their share of the vote in the constituency. In 2017 it was a very tight Lab/Con marginal. The balance has tipped only slightly, but it is enough.

So, why did the Tory vote share increase in the mid noughties when the word Brexit hadn’t even been invented and UKIP were nothing? Something about social attitudes in these places is changing. Labour needs to understand what and why if it wants to win these voters back. Assuming the vote has been ‘lent’ to the tories is very risky indeed.

This pattern is being repeated in many constituencies in England and Wales. My sister lives in a Derbyshire mill town. It was a ‘safe’ Labour seat right up until 2010 when it turned tory with a majority of 2,000. This year the tory majority rose to about 11,000. It is now a ‘safer’ tory seat than Wokingham. Again, this is not just about Brexit.

The biggest risk for Labour now is that they continue to bleed support in white, working class areas and then lose support from the former tory remain voters.

avocadotofu · 16/12/2019 10:29

I'm totally with you!!

beethecrackon24995 · 16/12/2019 10:33

Apparently Corbyn owns more than one house. The other house is somewhat larger 😊

StormzysHat · 16/12/2019 10:56

@DowntownAbby as you clearly haven't RTFT I'm not going to engage with you

OP posts:
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