Britons, can you explain the Labour Party?

So the two biggest political parties in the United Kingdom are the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.

My first impression of the Labour Party was that it was based on championing the working class. Even members who come from the bourgeoisie and other classes would be expected to empathize and identify with the working class, like Karl Marx. However, as the years go by, I read more and more news that makes it sound like Labour M Ps, civil servants, and journalists neither relate to nor like working class Britons.

Two years ago there was the admission by a former Blair adviser that Labour's immigration policy was not about filling labor shortages, but rather a secret strategy to "rub the Right's nose in diversity", kept secret for fear of alienating the "core working class vote".

Now we have the Left's reaction to working class whites defending themselves from rioters, complete with the double standard that armed Turks and Sikhs are heroic while working class whites are budding fascists.

So a question from an American: do Labour government officials and the party's representatives in the Fourth Estate have anything to do with the native proletariat? Do they go to the same public schools and universities are their Tory equivalents, or different elite schools where no proletarians set foot? Why does it seem that they relate to white proletarians like anthropologists to an alien and dangerous tribe, rather than like democrats to their demos?

You, uh, do mean "rather like" instead of "rather than like", right? Because the way it is now it looks like you're complimenting Democrats.

He used a small 'd' for democrats. He's not talking about the party.

As for the topic, political parties shift in emphasis over time, as any pro-slavery US Democrat from the 1800s could tell you. In Britain's case, the divide between rich and poor has been slowly increasing, resulting in a greater distancing between richer politicians and poorer constituents.

If you're wondering why so many politicians tend to be rich, it's because you usually need a decent amount of cash or good social connections in order to successfully run for election. Low-budget campaigns just tend not to do as well.

edited 15th Aug '11 12:10:57 AM by Iaculus

New Labour right shifted to somewhere near the Tories(including going from anti to pro nuclear weapons right after the Cold War finished) and as IHG has said in another thread, both the Tories and Labour are variants on a similar theme.

Well it might be because quite a lot of the "defenders" happen to be part of the English Defense League, who actually openly identify as facistic and who were using the "defense" angle to rough up anyone with a different skin colour as opposed to anyone who was actually rioting. But the police did issue calls saying ALL vigilantes would simply get in the way of their operation (fat chance).

And I can explain the labour party very easily. They has essentially been out of power since the 70's due to a concentrated smear campaign against them by a great number of the red top newspapers just prior to election days and having the curse of far too ambitious leaders who publically wanted to actually change a lot about Britain during a time when people were reactionary against it.

So, for the most part, labour stopped representing the working class and instead invelleged itself into the areas they thought the working class would want them to, because they needed to get elected. They wooed red tops and spoke out against the tories and in general changed into a far more PR based political party than one based on politics. They also refussed to publically associate with Unions because that would make them look "too left wing" to get a majority vote.

And in general the "working class" stopped being represented as a political force when it's members decided they hated people from other countries more than they liked stuff changing in their own country. A far greater number of working class people turned against labour due to them being "lefties" and associated with femininity and they lost force as a political movement when it turned out that people didn't NEED a large working class anymore. People either stopped voting, or turned into the people doing the rioting.

That's how I explain the Labour Party. Its amazing what a few decades out of power will do for a party desperate enough.

edited 15th Aug '11 12:33:27 AM by JosefBugman

you know what rott i'm not going to even try to explain whats wrong with this,

edited 15th Aug '11 1:23:46 AM by joeyjojo

I don't understand. Are you claiming former Blair adviser Andrew Neather never said the words the Telegraph and other news sources reported him as saying?

Considering that immigration was higher at other times (specifically after the 50's) and that there has been a mass exodus from the UK since our economy started circling the drain (bar people who are forced to remain here) well you can see why people are a tad suspicious.

Not only that but there is more than one reason, not least of which is actually mentioned in the Telegraph article, its that "there was a gab in the labour market" that Britons were not filling. There is also the fact that he says "from what I felt" thats the equivilent of saying "Oh you can tell she's a bitch, just look at what she's wearing" territory. Its inferring something that may or may not be there based on personal assumption.

And actually this thread ISN'T about just immigration policy, its explaining the labour party.

edited 15th Aug '11 2:09:17 AM by JosefBugman

i think andrew neather is about as reliable as using bubblegum as birth control. i'm don't like 'new' labour's idea of a multicultural britain but saying they losen immigration to "rub the right's nose in diversity" heading into tin foil hat territory.

edited 15th Aug '11 2:03:54 AM by joeyjojo

Labour's landslide victory in 1997 was due in no small part to Tony Blair effectively demolishing that image.

Ed Milliband is continuing Labour's move away from the party of trade unions.

Mainly because trade unions have ended up gutted and fillited.

I thought support from the unions was the main reason Ed Miliband beat his brother.

Basically, the question is of how close an adviser Neather was and of how much he wanted to distance himself from his former associates in Labour.

Also, what Josef said about the riots. The EDL = fucking scary. Don't think it's fair to say that every part of the abandonment of the working-class (insofar as you can define such a group) was due to them being dicks, though. Social groups tend to slide into reactionary extremism when their interests are neglected, and British politics has been becoming increasingly disinterested in the poorer members of society for quite a while now.

As for a 'concentrated smear campaign', much of this was due to genuinely incompetent, bickering leadership and an appalling failure to present an engaging, professional public image. See also, Michael Foot - great guy, good ideas, incapable of looking like anything other than a complete and utter idiot on camera. The whole business was a bit of an Old Shame for them, resulting in a drift towards the centre in order to distance themselves from their past embarrassments as well as slicker (and more expensive) media-handling techniques. They had to go corporate to keep up, and corporations tend to lean rightwards. End result - little real representation of the left in British politics other than a few very surprised and awkward Liberal Democrats.

You want gratitude from a politician?

Actually, I think he's doing this over Harriet Harman, aka the only serving cabinet minister ever to plead guilty to a criminal offence. Her cabinet post is being assured by the unions which many believe is harming the party.

edited 15th Aug '11 3:20:45 AM by Michael

Indeed I believe it was. However, my feeling is since some of the tabloids tried running a smear campaign of 'Red Ed' he may be trying to distance himself from that whole image and make himself look more centre-left as opposed to the more left-left image that has been attached to him.

Not sure how I feel about it. I come from a strong union background and will support them where I can, however like any other organisation they shouldn't hold too much sway other politics. Torn between them being one of the few remaining links to old labour but also for need of updating Labour so we're not stuck with the Tories for the next 20 years.

edited 15th Aug '11 3:36:23 AM by PiccoloNo92

I'm mildly surprised, but not really shocked. I suppose I should have known better.

At least the Harman thing means it makes some kind of sense.

edited 15th Aug '11 3:32:57 AM by pagad

Extra, extra! Read all about it! Rott makes a political point I completely agree with!

The Labour Party basically started out as a means of getting political representation for the working class and the unions (the people concerned basically assumed the interests of both were pretty much identical), and moved on to being mostly about redistributing wealth to the benefit of the less well-off.

However, since the late '70s it's gradually been moving away from this, partly because society has moved on and there isn't the kind of mass industrial proletariat there once was to vote Labour, partly because left-wing parties in a system dominated by right-wing media interests are always on the defensive about their ideology and partly because Tony Blair is a tremendous arse.

It has now got to the stage where it's hard to identify much you could call socialism or even social democracy in the Labour programme. This has gone together with the increasing tendency for politicians to all come from a similar, fairly narrow background to create the effect of a Labour leadership that is often made up of similar people to the Tory or Lib Dem one and which is rather ambiguous (to say the least) about the people it supposedly represents.

The Labour Party basically say "oh look, work (not labour, dear, we're Brits.) gaps. Lets raise benefits."

"more people claiming sick benefits, lets raise medical spending"

"more people going to hospital, lets raise medical staff wages"

That's why they look like they're cushy to civil servants (in this case, medical staff) - because many people are just sponging off them.

At least when they were in power.

As someone on benefits, I can cheerfully say that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

... That is a very misinformed opinion, my friend.

As per the thread, Labour is our generic left-wing party, but they're Labour In Name Only. In reality they're the Centrist Party that is a Slight Tiny Bit Left of the Other Centrist Parties Party.

So basically it's a matter of timing,kind of like how the Democrats switched over to Civil Rights and progressively abandoned the fundies from FDR to The '80s and it was Clinton that stopped them from going "too far left"

Or how Republicans were the Civil Rights party until Nixon decided to fill the Southern void with "The Southern Strategy"

I suppose, one could say that. Blair was the Third Way politician, in the same way Clinton was.

The Labour Party is about as far divorced from its original mission as you can get. The key word here is 'New'. They originally championed the rights of the working class, but now they're one of the two main parties, they've been progressively leaning further towards the right (although still quite near the centre).

And by US standards, they're still godless socialists.