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Politics

Why does England not shifting left like other countries?

98 replies

Hairbrush123 · 28/09/2021 19:24

Germany, USA, Scotland and other nations have been voting for left wing parties but England appears to be the exception. Any reason why?

OP posts:
ivykaty44 · 28/09/2021 20:47

due to the media in uk and they choose who governs and thats one man in particular and he doesn't want the left in, as its not suitable for him now - so he paints a picture of the left that is very unpalatable

RuleOfCat · 28/09/2021 20:47

It's really not as simple as a 'shift to the left' in Germany. The largest (by a whisker) party is now centre-left, while the Greens are also pretty influential. Sure they (Greens) are socially and economically pretty progressive too, but the environmental agenda is unsurprisingly pretty central, and the Greens have formed successful coalitions with the centre-right quite a few times - there are some surprising policy overlaps).
What's just happened in Germany was less an active shift leftwards and more an active rejection of Merkel's centre-right CDU/CSU. And a large part of that was a rejection of the main candidate to be chancellor: he's an absolute twat who nobody respects , so people were looking for any other options to prevent him becoming chancellor(I'd say at least 5% of the traditional CDU voters went to the free-market liberals instead, rather than parties on the left). It's worth bearing in mind that there are at least 7 major parties in Germany (unlike what is essentially a twoparty system in the UK) -and coalitions are pretty important, so even the most popular party SPD only got 26 % - it's a long way from a landslide victory. But it's certainly more of a democratically representative process than first past the post.

MilitantFawcett · 28/09/2021 21:07

I’m naturally left leaning but like others here politically homeless. Mostly due to the stance on women’s rights from all the leftish parties but also because I really think the UK left is eating itself. This business with the National Minimum Wage today for example does not instil confidence that a Labour govt would be any more competent than Johnson’s. I’m astonished to say any of this - I really thought Starmer would be a great choice as leader.

EdgeOfACoin · 02/10/2021 07:28

After Brexit, I thought I would never vote for the Conservatives.

Then the Left started throwing women's rights under a bus. So...

WishingYouAMerryChristmasToo · 02/10/2021 07:31

@Chicchicchicchiclana

No woman who cares about women's rights can vote Labour atm.
Didn’t Sandy T set up a women equality party - I want to vote for that
PronounssheRa · 02/10/2021 07:39

Didn’t Sandy T set up a women equality party - I want to vote for that

Sadly the WEP aren't great on protecting women's rights either

DazzlePaintedBattlePants · 02/10/2021 07:41

A lot of Europe isn’t particularly left - leaving aside Poland/Hungary, France can be pretty conservative
.

PersephoneJames · 02/10/2021 07:50

Left leaning people won’t vote for labour because of antisemitism, the definition of women etc, right leaning people may not like things about the tories but vote for them anyway.

Other countries don’t have FPTP either. Isn’t Belarus one of the only other western countries to have it?

JosephineDeBeauharnais · 02/10/2021 07:52

@Duchess379

I'm right leaning but think Boris Johnson is an utter buffoon! And some decisions the conservatives make are laughable. But the thought of Kier Starmer running the country makes my blood run cold. We should abolish the government & hand the reigns back to royalty. That'll shut up those who thing the royals are a burden & save us money by not having to pay for all those losers who call themselves MPs!
Good heavens! right-leaning? If you think your comment is only right-leaning, I’d like to see what you regard as “right” or “far-right” Grin
NewBeginning39 · 02/10/2021 08:04

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman

Because the current left and centre parties are so dramatically shit, esp on the matter of women's rights.

They don't seem to know what a woman is, so fuck 'em, I'm not voting for them.

Don't respect my sex, don't expect my X.

This ☝🏻
EnidFrighten · 02/10/2021 08:05

We're living through a technological revolution that will put huge numbers of people out of work and the Labour party is still geared towards a working class that doesn't really exist any more.

We have a disproportionate number of pensioners, many of whom are asset rich. They will vote Tory and the Tories have done a good job of scooping up younger voters through the brexit patriotic bullshit.

Progressive parties get more votes than the Tories but it's split between labour, green and lib Dems. If there was a progressive alliance also involving plaid cymru and snp, with a platform to abolish FPTP, it would romp home.

PermanentTemporary · 02/10/2021 08:14

We have got a kind of hidden nationalism here. We don't think of ourselves as being like Hungary or Poland but after all the most cohesive block in Parliament is the Scottish Nationalist Party and the current government, at least when it was voted in, was effectively a Britain First message. It's not that we haven't gone left, we have explicitly gone nationalist/populist.

LadyWithLapdog · 02/10/2021 08:18

Because they identify with winning the war and are gagging for restrictions and rationing. The Tories and Brexit are bringing the penury they want so much.

MatildaIThink · 02/10/2021 08:32

@Hairbrush123

Germany, USA, Scotland and other nations have been voting for left wing parties but England appears to be the exception. Any reason why?
Well that depends what you mean "shift to the left", in Germany whilst the SDP is now the biggest part the differences between them and the CDU are far smaller than between Con and Lab, also overall the position in Germany might be regarded as a slight shuffle to the left, not even a step.

In the USA there is no leftwards shift, Biden won by a tiny margin, just as Trump won by a tiny margin before him (and actually lost the popular vote), the US is hugely politically divided and both left and right have dogmatically entrenched positions. Parts of the right in the US are going further right, attempts to ban gay marriage in certain states, Texas trying to ban abortion etc.

Scotland has always been somewhat to the left of England and Wales, but not in a huge way, the SNP, and Labour won a lot in the past, but the landscape is more shaped by nationalism than left and right.

In England you have what has always been a fairly centre right electorate, they will vote for centre left over to right as a mass, though with divisions across groups.

Many traditional Labour voting areas were traditionally very socially conservative, but economically left wing, they have not changed that much, but are being influenced more by their conservative social side than their economically left side.

Traditional Conservative areas were economically liberal and mildly socially conservative. Most are now socially liberal, whilst remaining economically liberally.

People say Corbyn would have been regarded as normal on the continent, but that is hugely wrong, whilst they are usually somewhat to the left of the UK, most western and northern European countries are roughly centre left, pretty much where New Labour were, but without Brown's piss poor fiscal management. They are also generally accepting of higher taxes for everyone, to fund better services for everyone.

Compared to most European countries the UK is probably more socially liberal, we are consistently the most welcoming of foreign nationals of any EU country, the least racist (which is still a huge problem in most of Europe), and on LGBT rights. Germany and Scandinavia tend to beat us hands down on women's progress (not rights) and that is largely because their higher taxes mean free universal childcare.

Most of our problems come back to taxation, which in the UK is incredibly low, the bottom two thirds of earners have the lowest effective rate of income taxation in the EU, whilst the top third has the fifth highest. Most other countries have higher VAT rates and charge VAT (at a reduced rate) on food. Almost every Eau country requires people to pay extras, from compulsory health insurance in Germany, to employment insurance, to higher pension contributions. If you earn £0-60k pa in any other country EU country you pay pay more in taxes than you would in the UK. If you earn £60k plus you would pay more tax in the UK than in 18 to 22 of them, depending on exactly how much you earn.

This is where the UK ends up seeming and in some ways being more right, we are a low tax, low government spending economy, where as most of Europe is high tax (some bits are just about medium). In the UK public services are not great, but we don't pay enough for them to be great. The Conservatives tell people we do not need higher taxes and we can just live with it, Labour dishonestly tell people it can all be paid for by "someone else".

Until the electorate grow up and accept that if we want better services then we all need to pay more tax, not just "someone else" or "people who earn more than me" can pay for everything, then things won't improve.

FanGirlX · 02/10/2021 08:36

@Duchess379

I'm right leaning but think Boris Johnson is an utter buffoon! And some decisions the conservatives make are laughable. But the thought of Kier Starmer running the country makes my blood run cold. We should abolish the government & hand the reigns back to royalty. That'll shut up those who thing the royals are a burden & save us money by not having to pay for all those losers who call themselves MPs!
Princess Anne - yes.

Prince Andrew - no.

That's the issue with royalty, we get even less choice than we do with our current politics.

Labour either need to get their act together, or we need a new centre left party.

MatildaIThink · 02/10/2021 08:43

@EnidFrighten

We're living through a technological revolution that will put huge numbers of people out of work and the Labour party is still geared towards a working class that doesn't really exist any more.

We have a disproportionate number of pensioners, many of whom are asset rich. They will vote Tory and the Tories have done a good job of scooping up younger voters through the brexit patriotic bullshit.

Progressive parties get more votes than the Tories but it's split between labour, green and lib Dems. If there was a progressive alliance also involving plaid cymru and snp, with a platform to abolish FPTP, it would romp home.

The Conservatives did not scoop up young voters, they have have lowest vote share amongst the young of any party barring the Monster Raving Loony Party and a few other fringe parties.

The problem with a so called "Progressive alliance" is that it is not, the SNP and Plaid are nationalist rather than anything else, Labour is regressive on women's rights (if they can even agree on what a woman is). The Lib Dems are equally messed up on women's rights, the Greens make Labour and the Lib Dems look sane on women's rights. Labour's tax plans fix nothing etc. It would not be a Progressive alliance, it would be a "Not the Conservatives alliance" and that is too negative to win elections.

If Labour were proposing changes to ideally like the systems in Scandinavian countries then I would wholeheartedly vote for them, even Germany economic, taxation, social and societal spending would be far better than we currently have. The issue is that they are not, even the most recent announcement about the changes of taxation on private schools makes no sense, it is fighting old battles, showing old hatreds and analysis shows it will cost the state more than it raises in taxes due to behavioural changes.

UK politics needs to grow up, not further infantalise.

FanGirlX · 02/10/2021 08:50

Excellent post @MatildaIThink

RedToothBrush · 02/10/2021 09:00

Because the left in this country are not socialists.

Politics can be socially liberal and socially economic issues.

In recent years the Conservative party was economically neo-liberal and believed that market forces should dominate everything and this was the thing that dominated politics. That changed and the Conservative party have become much more dominated by socially conservative ideas driving policy making (being anti immigration, anti-benefit and more nationalist for example) whilst becoming more economically protectionist (state interventions like furlough, favouring trade barriers and nationalisation of railway).
They've taken on a lot of Labour's economic ideas too (though haven't delivered on many yet)

Andy Burnham had a plan for Greater Manchester in 2018/9 ish. Johnson came along and plagiarised the lot - 'levelling up' is a Burnham invention. Johnson further added salt to the wound by launching his Conservative manifesto for the 2019 in Manchester. The trouble being that Labour's national policy didn't match and this allowed the Conservative to gain this ground and many didn't realise. Labour failed to engage with Northern voters generally and recognise how issues in the north were being overlooked. Northern voters felt these issues were being ignored.

Instead Labour did two things. The first was to fight amongst itself and look like a bunch of hypocrites (we welcome and vakye everyone - well apart from those evil bastards we hate) and the second was to become much more socially neo-liberal. It looked outward towards global social issues whilst neglecting domestic social issues like employment even though they talked about poverty a lot (happy to import rather than produce in the UK and effect on employment).

Yes Corbyn was more socialist than Labour have been for a while, however the problem has been that in the Conservatives have moved economically leftward at the same time as being socially conservative. This always favoured the Conservatives for this reason.

This is the crux - if you do social surveys this country has a massive socially conservative majority. Overall we are socially more liberal than a lot of other countries and how the Labour party frame things, but there is definitely a mismatch between were Labour are on social issues and where the national consensus really is - and the way they are pushing these social issues is getting backs up because its tone is so authoritarian. Its not bringing people along with their agenda - its actively (and argably deliberately) alienating people who don't share those exact values. The focus of the Labour party is on this first rather than domestic infrastructure and poverty - so its more ideologically driven than day to day issue driven atm.

Basically it really needs to get its head out of its arse and align its priorities with the public rather than having massive debates about how definitions of women have changed.

JustSinginInTheRain · 02/10/2021 09:04

Popularism and nationalism on the right.

Chaos on the left.

Three word political sound bites and lies.

Lammysaurus · 02/10/2021 09:06

Germany, USA, Scotland and other nations have been voting for left wing parties but England appears to be the exception. Any reason why?

I'm not sure I agree with your premise.

Scotland: voted for the SNP (in the May 2021 Holyrood elections), who are a broad church but are pushing very regressive neoliberal policies at the moment. Leftists would vote Labour, but Scottish Labour is struggling and has fallen far from the days when it reigned supreme in certain key areas of Scotland, such as Glasgow.

USA: does not have a left wing party; voted for Biden because Trump challenged their core values - and later proved himself unelectable by trying to shut down and subvert the basic mechanisms of US democracy. Biden is also conservative and reactionary, but in a much more establishment way.

Germany: the centre-right has been in power for 11 years via Angela Merkel's CDU. The main further-right party challenging them is AFD. CDU lost seats and AFD gained seats in the recent election.

gogohm · 02/10/2021 09:10

A. The democrats are not left wing, they are similar to many of the conservatives!

B. Plenty of countries have shifted right eg Hungary springs to mind.

C. Labour Party is a mess, (and I vote labour!)

Feelslikealot · 02/10/2021 09:11

Because we do not have a viable left wing to vote for.

RedToothBrush · 02/10/2021 09:53

The left won't win popular support in the uk with authoritarian puritanism. Not yet at least. The demographics don't work.

TheWeeDonkey · 02/10/2021 09:56

I don't think you can compare UK politics with US and most European countries.

For example I have an American colleague who sees UK as a socialist country because we have the NHS, accessible welfare and university education is cheaper than in US. What the see as left wing we see as centre right.

Its very different.