Labour don’t get it because of ideology over practicality.

[LouiseTold]

AIBU that the remaining Labour supporters simply don’t understand why Labour are so unpopular because they’re too caught up in the ideology ?

Job tax, farmer tax, education tax, pension tax, salary sacrifice scrapping, employee legislation, landlord tax, renting legislation. All ideological policies that are economically illiterate and are having negative impacts across the board, yet we see Labour saying it’s because they’re not far enough left.

Its all ideology, its just that theirs is different from yours.

The problem is where is there a realistic alternative?

Rayner and Streeting seem the front runners (which shows just how shallow the pool of talent is) and Burnham isn't even an MP*!

[*His decision to leave Westminster speaks volumes, IMO, for his total lack of political ability. He should have hung onto his seat like glue!]

The ideology doesn’t help, particularly with regard to many of the more left leaning backbenchers. Back down on major reforms , particularly to welfare , because of threats from the back benches and unions. Most sensible people know welfare is unsustainable as it is, but the planned reforms were halted.

It's so so ignorant to think that state schools are full of the deserving poor and independent schools are only for the rich.

Labour still has the stench of antisemitism and I would never vote for them.

"From his perspective it is all our fault for not seeing how right and wonderful he is."

I just read that on a news site, and I have heard variations of it before now too - that the Labour Party think we are simply too thick to vote for them etc. Not an ounce of self-reflection.

That there is no better alternative doesn't mean we should put up with the man who cant stop sacking other people to prop himself up, while bleating that he didn't know/wasn't told/wasn't there/didn't do it, in between changing his opinion as often as his socks.

All of those.

Endangering our food security, enabling totally unnecessary development of agricultural land - solar farms etc. Damaging our economy. KS is beyond selfish and incompetent.

I'm a single mum, work flat out, full time, don't get any benefits, yet don't earn enough to pay higher rate tax.

I'm heartily sick of everyone else getting huge handouts. I've been working since I was 13, yet keep being told I'm priviledged. I'd paid two qualifying years of NI before I left school. I'm in my 60s and I'm so tired of the freeloaders and bullshit.

I'm not a Labour voter but attributing UK problems to their ideology makes no sense. The economy took three major hits, 2008 credit crunch which mostly recovered, Brexit which mostly didn't and then COVID which ran up huge debts which are now being repaid. By most metrics Labour are doing OK but Starmer is uncharismatic and doesn't sell the successes, that leaves a vacuum open to the usual charlatans to step into.

The political landscape is now so fractured that the old two party system is likely over, anyone's guess what comes next but if Labour had any sense they'd introduce PR while they have the majority to pass it.

Do people really think that a new leader will result in an abandonment of Labour's existing policies? I can't see a new leader making any difference. Keir Starmer is not leadership material but will anything actually improve if he is replaced? It could, in fact, get a whole lot worse.

It's not just Labour. The quality of politicians generally is pretty poor these days.

Disagree that the uk recovered from the 2008 crisis. The uk debt doubled to 2 trillion even under austerity. The austerity cut services and meant underinvestment in schools, prisons, hospitals etc. . The tories were just about to start spending less than the income and then Brexit happened and all goes to shit. We now have nearly 3 trillion debt and the interest payments are crippling the UK.

But I’m sure Nige will sort it. Maybe that is what harbourne expects nige to do with his £5 million gift - to do the best for the hard working British population and make life better for everyone

I totally agree OP. I’ve lived through many a government and Labour fuck it up every single time they’re in power, because all they can think about is punishing success.

On paper Labour principles sound great. I can’t argue with them. But in reality they just don’t work and the country goes down the pan every single time they’re in power. Unfortunately young people haven’t lived through these cycles so they think anyone voting anything other than Labour (or Green) are inherently evil. And I do get that.

Do tell us what your qualifications are to state it's "ideology", against MPs, ministers, special advisors and Treasury civil servants?

It's so shameful and terrible and Raynor things nmw needs to be raised

@FairCat @Theolittle people have short memories and forget what Blair did to us before the credit crunch he had allowed in millions of undocumented or counted Eastern European nationals.
Slough memorandum to parliament at that time clealry documents all the services hit .it's an absolutey shocking shocking read . The county was dealing with that before a global fire

Politics is ideology though.

Labours issue is that they are trying to be everything to everyone and landing no where. I hope they use the next couple of years to decide on a direction and both deliver and most importantly seen to deliver on improving people's lives.

I agree, Labour back benchers wouldn’t let them do even the bare minimum and now we’re screwed.

I think Keir is pathetic, but Angela Raynor will be a disaster. If you think the economy is bad now you haven’t seen anything.

Welfare needs reform, that was blocked. Instead the 2 child benefit cap was lifted.
Add the ongoing antisemitism. They seem naive and moving further left will be a failure.

Absolutely! It is because of ideology.

How do independent schools take money from state schools? They ease the burden of state school places and therefore increase state funding per head.

@FatEndoftheWedge @Theolittle People have short memories indeed but Slough is not the UK and migration produces a net gain for the economy, that's why governments claim to control migration while keeping the doors wide open. Labour initially made an error at the start of free movement but historically Labour and Tories failed to regulate unsustainable levels of migration, even though EU rules allow control.

Demonising migrants is the standard schtick for populist parties such as UKIP/Brexit/Reform Ltd but actions don't match rhetoric. Ironically, Brexit boosted migration because we could no longer return asylum seekers to the previous safe country (Dublin Regulation) and because Johnson, afraid of harming business with loss of access to cheap EU labour, pushed the door to RoW immigration wide open. 'Taking back control'?

Net migration in 22/23 was 944,000, in 23/24 728,000 in 24/25, Labour's first year, it was 204,000 - (ONS). Labour's ideology isn't the issue, the Tories have no intention of regulating migration and neither do Reform, their mates in business won't allow it. Given that Starmer tries to out-populist Reform/Tory you'd think he'd brag about Labour reducing migration, but he doesn't have the political or personal presence.

I'm not averse to migration, healthy economies need it but it reached unsustainable levels, I'll never vote Labour, but given the catastrophic economy they took over they're making reasonable progress, it's a shame they aren't a bit bolder with their large majority.

They made a massive mistake by bottling welfare reform on their first budget when they still had a big mandate for change

They may have had a mandate in terms of the votes a thoroughly corrupt Tory government handed them, @Nogimachi, but there was never a hope in hell of the backbenchers allowing welfare reform to get through

Ditto "smash the gangs" and various other promises they'd have known they wouldn't be able to deliver for the same reason

So politicians lied for the sake of votes ... who knew?

But there is no way that this government could in any way be described as socialist. In any event, nobody actually understands what socialism is these days.

We live in a aggressively capitalist society. The calls for renationalisation of water and railways won’t change that. The stock market dictate everything.

Private enterprise is allowed and the state does not own all the resources.

I can’t think of a single socialist policy that’s been introduced since the 60s, unless you count the minimum wage, I suppose.

Labour are suffering from the typical problem suffered by all governments. First you promise the electorate and your party all sorts of things you can't deliver. Then you get elected, fail to deliver what you said you could and everyone hates you.

How much a government struggles with this depends on: how populist they are (ie how unachievable their promises are); how cohesive the party is; what the macro economic situation is doing; how competent those in government are. Labour are unfortunately struggling on all counts. Keir is having huge problems just holding the party together, as the failure of the benefits reforms showed.

IMO, lifting the 2 child benefit cap was their biggest mistake. Their second-biggest taking Granny's WFA away, that and saying they would smash the gangs.

And the personal allowance which amounts to roughly the same as the minimum wage at the time it was introduced, although introduction was staggered.
Also railway nationalisation.