Anyone else longing for a new political party?

[HelloMrBond]

I’m early 40s, have voted conservative all my adult life but the latest offering of conservative MPs makes me wonder if they could ever form an effective government. They have lost their way. On the other hand, they have been allowed to loose their way by a completely inept opposition, I believe a strong party opposite keeps the party in government on their toes. If there was to be a GE tomorrow, for the first time in my life, I’m not sure how I would vote. The Labour Party do have a handful of good quality MPs with good ideas, but the current shadow cabinet are nothing short of a rabble, the idea that their leader doesn’t know what a woman is and the thought of Angela Raynor being deputy PM sends shivers down my spine. In my view, there is a current huge gaping hole in modern British politics for a centrist party who could potentially cause huge ripples at a future GE snd would stand up for and represent the average hard working, tax paying families and individuals of the country.

All that stuff has already happened @WahineToa. It happened under the Tory government.

Yes it is. It’s a manifesto promise to implement sex self ID which would remove the rights women and girls have in the equality act as it changes the meanings and definitions of words, like women or girl. If a male can be a woman or a boy a girl then there’s no such thing as protections for women and girls. The leader of the Labour Party thinks it’s wrong to say only women have a cervix. Labour MPs have called women who believe in biological sex ‘TERF’, a slur, and Rosie Duffield couldn’t even go to the Labour conference because of threats against her for her position on this. She has received no support from her leader. Does that sound like a party that will protect women and girls? Not at all.

TooBigForMyBoots not because of a change in law, because of lobbying and pressure, and the tories have listened to women and started to rectify these things. They’ve clearly stated their position on this. Why do you think Mordaunt didn’t win the leadership? Her TWAW stance.

It’s a manifesto promise

It can’t be. The manifesto for the next election hasn’t been written yet.

Mordaunt was narrowly defeated as a result of a blatant and vicious smear campaign.

There's certainly room for a party that isn't the Conservatives, and isn't totally taken in by identity politics, and does actually listen to the voters.

I think the biggest problem the LP has now is that it tends to take an ideological stance and push it, rather than take a pragmatic view around being elected, listening to voters. It also has little interest in representing the voices of working class voters. Which isn't necessarily wrong, they maybe are just a middle class party now, but it does leave a bit of a gap for many of those voters.

I don't know that a new third party dividing the vote is the most desirable option, what would really be better would be for a new more viable party to ultimately replace the LP in a similar way that the LP supplanted the Liberals.

I certainly agree OP that in order to work well the system needs two parties that are really trying to govern, and push each other.

It happened because of the Tory policy of Self ID, introduced by Theresa May.
Sex offending men are still being put in women's jails. GC women are still being arrested by the police and reported to their employers. Penny Mordaunt came a very close 3rd in the leadership election because Tory MPs don't give a shit about women.

They make the right noises in interviews, but when it comes to the Despatch Box, they have condemned HoL commonsense views on removing gender woo from draft legislation and stated TWAW & TMAM.

It also has little interest in representing the voices of working class voters.

absolutely agree @MangyInseam not WC people, nor women, and plenty of people will probably pause due to their history of issues with racism- despite the tories also having that problem, LP is held to a higher standard because they see themselves as righteous on that issue. I don’t. Labour Party in NZ is the same, they expect us Maori to vote for them, like we owe them despite them being just as problematic as the others on race issues. Anyway… we are dreaming, we won’t get a new fabulous party that could actually stand a chance of winning. I was such a fan of Tony Blair and Labour until… god damn it!

Tory policy of Self ID, introduced by Theresa May.

it was proposed and then they held a consultation and based on that feedback, binned it. It never became policy or law. The issues you just mentioned would all be worse under Labour. I’m not supportive of the tories on this either but at least they listened. Labour don’t at all.

It did become policy and law as the Tories made it so. They wrote it into their policies. That's why the MoJ issued a statement last week saying they couldn't anything about a paedophile man being put into women's jail despite not even having a GRC.🤯

The issues you just mentioned would all be worse under Labour.

Would they? And you know this how? Is your crystal ball normally reliable?

And the SNP are effectively a dictatorship, and most people can't vote for them anyway, so they are irrelevant. PF for them would be a disaster, as they have disproportionate representation versus population.

Like them or loathe them, the SNP are a democratically elected party who have swayed public opinion to the point where they have managed a majority government in a system designed to deliver coalitions. They are categorically not a dictatorship. They actually are an example of a tiny party who managed to change the political landscape, both in Scotland and UK wide (as the third biggest party in Westminster). I don't know whether that could be replicated across the UK - perhaps the artificial number of MPs in Scotland make it difficult to achieve the same thing on a broader scale. But it is relevant to this thread because that's what we're talking about - a new party (or a re-invigorated existing one like the Lib Dems) gaining sufficient support to overturn the old order.

Oh, lord. Another OP trying to blame the catastrophic shower of shit in government on the fact that Kier Starmer was born. Yaaawn.

It's possible they will sort themselves in the end. Both the LP and the CP need a renewal.

The racial politics element is interesting. I suspect that we are going to see a fall from favour of the kind of racial politics that are found in the LP, or with the Dems in the US. You can already see this happening to some extent in those places. Not in the next six months, but say, the next five years I think more and more attitudes will change. In many ways prospects seem better for racial minority individuals within more conservative parties at the moment, and I think different communities increasingly are resentful of being taken for granted, and are also starting to question the whole approach to policy they see, and whether it has worked for them. You can certainly see that in the US with the Hispanic and black community, and I think more and more in the UK as well.

Canada is further behind, I don't see them breaking away from id pol within five years, and I get the sense NZ might be similar?

It also has little interest in representing the voices of working class voters. Which isn't necessarily wrong, they maybe are just a middle class party now, but it does leave a bit of a gap for many of those voters.
@MangyInseam What evidence is there for this ? Seems to be an oft repeated comment on MN with no evidence. Most folk on here are middle class southerners. What do they know of life up in left behind areas. I agree that the LP fixation with gender issues is frustrating but I've heard Starmer and Rayner (and others) talk passionately about how to create a fairer society with more equal distribution of wealth as well as encouraging aspiration and talent.

@MangyInseam hmm hard to say about NZ, we are different culturally to Canada and there is a lot of pushback happening these days, in Polynesian communities in particular. But that’s always been there anyway. I think you’re probably right about here, things are changing and yes we’ll see a difference in 5 years or so.

I think that this idea that because they talk about a fairer society, they are representing those voters, is where people get a little mixed up.

It's all well and good to say we need a fairer society, but that isn't actually the same as representing the voices of those individuals, or listening to the specific concerns they have. It's very possible to look at a group and say, we will look out for you, but it's actually about doing the things you think they need, rather than what they think they need.

The biggest evidences of this are all of the things that have meant the LP have not been able to rely on the w/c vote in the same way. Even simple things like their discomfort with national pride, the flag, singing God Save the Queen. Mostly those aren't fraught political questions, but they represent a way in which the party is very out of step with the way the people they supposedly represent see the country. A lot of the time they seem to feel deeply embarrassed by them.

Comments about white vans, calling convern about communities changing due to immigration racism, calling people gammon, dismissing anyone who wanted to leave the EU as a racist. And actually the bizarre assumption you get from many that any concern with movement of labour is racism. There seems to be no understanding that free movement of labour has always been a wet dream of the capitalist elite, and it makes a lot of sense for w/c people to be much more skeptical about it.

You then get the LP saying the Conservatives also like movement of labour - well, yeah, but you aren't really representing the w/c position either, LP, you are calling them racists instead. Nor do they seem to understand that stable jobs and communities have been traditionally more important to workers than state supports.

What the LP mainly seem to represent is a very m/c view of what would help workers, mainly being forms of redistribution of income.

If they actually respected the w/c you wouldn't see all the gammon/racist bullshit, even if they wanted to argue for the same policy ideas.

Even simple things like their discomfort with national pride, the flag, singing God Save the Queen

That would be why their conference hall was festooned with union flags and they opened with the national anthem? I can’t be bothered to argue with the rest of that misguided rant.

It's all well and good to say we need a fairer society, but that isn't actually the same as representing the voices of those individuals, or listening to the specific concerns they have.

yes, this exactly.

Not at all. Just one that will have things in my favour. They always get voted in then do whatever they like to further their own agendas and their families. So I vote for whoever ensures my family and I are comfortable - sounds awful but that's how the world is.
I have seen during covid nobody cared if my family and I were ok.

Just one in 100 Tory MPs came from a working-class job, 13% Labour.
Institute for Public Policy Research study also shows proportion of working-class Labour MPs has halved since 1980s - this is a huge problem for our democracy.

It's useful to read what AR says about working in Parliament for a working class woman.

“When I first went into parliament it was like going into Hogwarts,” she said. “It can be intimidating to think of all the people who have stood at the dispatch box before me, as well as mixing with people from huge wealth, privilege and with expensive education.

“Those working in insecure or low-paid jobs are less likely to have an employer who will give them flexibility or to be able to afford to take time off work. Putting yourself forward for public life is not only daunting, it can be a big commitment in time and money that is inaccessible for many. We need a genuine cross-party discussion about how we can enhance participation in our democracy, and give ordinary people who are juggling inflexible work with other commitments more opportunities and support to run for office.”

It's Angela Rayner not Raynor.
Sorry, had to do my pedant bit first

Anyway, OP, I don't accept your idea that the government are not effective because of an inept opposition; the Tory party always, throughout history, tears itself apart.

I'm not sure I think you really want this centrist party, either; your 'hard working, tax paying families and individuals' are straight-up right-wing cliches.

What I don't disagree on is your general point about the state of politics in terms of the current parties and voting options. I'd like an end to polarised politics and to have instead a grand coalition of the kind where everyone is always compromising a bit and no one totally gets their way.

And as for potential MPs having to be '50 years old minimum with a proven track record in life' – no fucking way. As someone else said, there are plenty of people – men mostly – in politics already who fit this profile.

I think that to stand as an MP they ought to be required to do what Michael Portillo once did for a TV programme and live for a week as a single mother, on a household budget of £80 and working two jobs.
He came out of it having learned a few valuable things.

Why do you think they felt the need to do that? Because people already had the impression that was the kind of thing the LP represented?

It was news for a reason.

It's good that they have realized this is an issue, but it's representative of a gap between the people they claim to represent and those who are actually there.

They can’t win with you, can they @MangyInseam? Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

No they can't.

There's quite a contingent of not-in-Britain posters who love the Tories. I'm guessing they love them because they're not-in-Britain so aren't living with disastrous Tory policies and don't fully understand the damage the Conservative have done to the UK.