Corbyn - connecting with the traditional labour vote...

[treelover]

Corbyn isn't interested in the 'traditional Labour vote'.

He was carried to the leadership by a different support base - the other Labour tribe. Young, possibly middle class, possibly university educated, liberal and located in the city centres. It's that base that will be mobilised to re-elect him.

Pete Wilsman(strange guy) at the mass pro Corbyn rally here yesterday said as much, "not connecting with working class guys"

 

[treelover]

My wife comes from a very working class northern labour voting family and town. All voted exit. Facebook pages of "taking country back" and "guarding borders" etc. They always vote labour, like a natural impulse, but are very socially conservative. They don't want to see their town change, like the royals, suspicious of foreigners, think the family is the bedrock, tough on crime, etc etc. All of this, but life long labour. I a have always felt that ukip, not the tories, could steal them away

The new study of working class(which apparently is most people!) points out the social conservatism, I suspect we are going to have US style culture wars, the left rarely win elections when that happens.

 

[no-no]

I don't get this line that ALL immigration is good...or that ALL immigration is bad.

A massive part of the Corbyn re-election will be to defend immigration, make the positive case, Mark Serwotka was on V/Derbyshire and argued this.

Defending immigration is fine but to pretend that ALL immigration is good makes no sense logically or politically. Everytime I read about immigration it says that it benefits the economy which I don't doubt but does it benefit every part of the economy?

Am I reading this wrong, when I talk to people about it I feel like I'm missing something. I get told "English people won't do these jobs".....Maybe they aren't paying enough then?

Looky, bank of england report.....
Mass migration driving down wages offered to British jobseekers

 

[no-no]

I'll get my coat

 

[Wilf]

Corbyn isn't interested in the 'traditional Labour vote'.

He was carried to the leadership by a different support base - the other Labour tribe. Young, possibly middle class, possibly university educated, liberal and located in the city centres. It's that base that will be mobilised to re-elect him.

I'm a bit of a broken record on this, but with a tweak this is the heart of the Corbyn project. HIs support base in the party - party itself and 3 quidders - is predominantly professional (and young) - along with a good few Labour lefties who drifted away from the party over the last 20 years.

His problem is he thinks that is connecting with the working class. He's repeating the mistakes of the 80s Labour left, in thinking you don't need to go out into communities, engage with people, do some organising. This is partly a long standing problem of left labourism but its also about party structures. Its all 'come to us, join', not going out, mobilising, taking risks.

It was always going to be a big ask for the corbyn faction to do this, it breaks the habits of a lifetime. I was never part of it and thought it unlikely they would really engage. However I'm critical of them now for not doing it - because in a sense that was just about the only thing they could do after the defeat of 2015*. For Labour to succeed they need to not so much recreate their relationship with the working class, but actually have a relationship. The impasse corbyn is now trapped in is a long way from being his fault and I hope he wins. However it is still being played out as a internal party battle rather than a battle of social forces (for example, his best hope is now the '60,000' - people who have joined the party and might ride to his rescue. Impressive numbers certainly - as much inspired by brexit as corbyn's plight I imagine - but it's still about people only getting a voice when they step inside).

* You could reasonably point to the attacks the blairites have made on him from day 1 with regard to why he hasn't really engaged. However, 10 months on there should really be some signs of it if he was ever going to move out beyond Westminster.

 

[Ole]

 

[Wilf]

Turning to track 2 of my broken record... that's interesting. Corbyn's comments on immigration in the ref were just what people 'like me' instinctively wanted to hear (traditional, middle class lefties). However they didn't come out of conversations with working class voters or working class experiences.

I'm not by that suggesting anything like there's a well of working class racism that corbyn needs to embrace. He/Labour needs a better position on migration, shaped by the notion we are currently living with a bosses model of free movement. It should have been easy to enter into that debate and the way in was by understanding working class experiences of globalisation and de-industrialisation.

 

[Rob Ray]

His problem is he thinks that is connecting with the working class. He's repeating the mistakes of the 80s Labour left, in thinking you don't need to go out into communities, engage with people, do some organising.

I don't get this line, of any Labour leader over the last 20 years I struggle to think of any who have adhered closer to to the traditional outreach tactic of doing walkabouts talking to the general public and engaging with campaigns (actually going to protests and strikes) than Corbyn. He does it instead of press conferences, it's one of the reasons everyone talks about him as being likeable. He can be accused of many things but being ungenerous with his shoe leather isn't one of them.

 

[Ole]

Turning to track 2 of my broken record... that's interesting. Corbyn's comments on immigration in the ref were just what people 'like me' instinctively wanted to hear (traditional, middle class lefties). However they didn't come out of conversations with working class voters or working class experiences.

I'm not by that suggesting anything like there's a well of working class racism that corbyn needs to embrace. He/Labour needs a better position on migration, shaped by the notion we are currently living with a bosses model of free movement. It should have been easy to enter into that debate and the way in was by understanding working class experiences of globalisation and de-industrialisation.

It's very interesting indeed. McDonnell is no fool.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Does it even make sense to talk of a 'traditional labour vote' without the context of traditional labour movement?

Not just a bunch of atomised CDE consumers who get to vote in a Daily Mail compered popularity contest every few years.

The traditional Labour vote is dead and gone, the collective working class identity is just gone. It was gutted in the 80's with the demise of unions and the rise of "fuck you got mine" capitalism and has effectively withered to a stump.

You have several different groups you need to appeal to in its place. Chief among them those who are low wage, (I don't want to say low skilled but going to have to) and members of communities effectively ignored since the 70's and 80's with no jobs, no benefits, and always squeezed by the Westminster bubble.

Doesn't mean Labour can't appeal to those voters again.

 

[chilango]

I don't get this line, of any Labour leader over the last 20 years I struggle to think of any who have adhered closer to to the traditional outreach tactic of doing walkabouts talking to the general public and engaging with campaigns (actually going to protests and strikes) than Corbyn. He does it instead of press conferences, it's one of the reasons everyone talks about him as being likeable. He can be accused of many things but being ungenerous with his shoe leather isn't one of them.

But where is he doing this? and with who?

 

[Wilf]

I don't get this line, of any Labour leader over the last 20 years I struggle to think of any who have adhered closer to to the traditional outreach tactic of doing walkabouts talking to the general public and engaging with campaigns (actually going to protests and strikes) than Corbyn. He does it instead of press conferences, it's one of the reasons everyone talks about him as being likeable. He can be accused of many things but being ungenerous with his shoe leather isn't one of them.

Well, yes, he is more willing to walk round without coppers or an entourage, but that's not what I'm on about at all. I'm confusing matters by talking about him personally. I really mean whether the party is willing or able to think about actual communities and working class experiences, whether it even knows how to operate in working class areas. And again, I don't mean simply recruit.

 

[Rob Ray]

But where is he doing this? and with who?

Over the last 30 years? Practically everyone. Dave Smith (construction blacklist campaigner) is defending him in the Star today saying Corbyn showed him solidarity when he needed it and now he's returning the favour. That's loyalty you can't buy, you have to earn it.

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm confusing matters by talking about him personally. I really mean whether the party is willing or able to think about actual communities and working class experiences, whether it even knows how to operate in working class areas. And again, I don't mean simply recruit.

Yep, very much agree with that, I think because he's the focus of the entire shebang people often end up thinking of it as his personal failure, whereas in fact it's the party's ongoing failure.

 

[butchersapron]

Over the last 30 years? Practically everyone. Dave Smith (construction blacklist campaigner) is defending him in the Star today saying Corbyn showed him solidarity when he needed it and now he's returning the favour. That's loyalty you can't buy, you have to earn it.

That's the point though isn't it? The activists are the ones he's meeting and class interests are articulated to him through them - through the remnants of the labour movement rather than directly from the class. Of course, how to do the latter is the key. Corbyn sold out a very large hall here last night at extremely short notice (and plenty of over-spill) , but i can guess the types who were there and who weren't. And when he did two walks around here he was meeting the long-term labour members and the younger uni types + seemingly every shopkeeper in the east of the city.


(and that's not to knock these activists and the things they are trying to do, it's to suggest that this alone is not enough)

 

[Wilf]

I was pretty astonished by the numbers corbyn got out for his tour at the time of the leadership election, seeing around 900 at Middlesbrough town hall was amazing. At the time I had a nagging little voice thinking, 'so where have you fuckers been for the last 5 years, in terms of the fight against austerity etc.'

Now he seems to be pulling the same numbers in for his defence campaign, but the same voice is nagging away: 'so, what have you fuckers been doing for the last 9 months?'

Edit: a slightly more generous way of asking that question is 'what did you think project corbyn was going to be and what did you think it would require you to do?'

 

[Rob Ray]

The activists are the ones he's meeting and class interests are articulated to him through them - through the remnants of the labour movement rather than directly from the class. Of course, how to do the latter is the key.

(and that's not to knock these activists and the things they are trying to do, it's to suggest that this alone is not enough)

Yep. Which brings us back to it being a problem with "activism" generally (not just in the Labour Party) and how the general public does or doesn't interact with people who do it habitually.

 

[JimW]

But where is he doing this? and with who?

He turned up at my work to launch their workplace campaign, our engineering division on same site.

 

[Wilf]

He turned up at my work to launch their workplace campaign, our engineering division on same site.

I do think he's actually better at that kind of thing than Lord Stansgate Tony Benn. There's some advance from the politics of the 80s left, certainly, but he's still in the same paradigm. It's the difference between workplace 'visits' and being in the workplace anyway as a worker. Ditto in terms of communities.

 

[chilango]

...and here we start arriving at the crux of things .

 

[Wilf]

I'm probably being not so much unfair as unrealistic in all this. It isn't easy for political parties to drop the idea of paternalistic representation. To do so in part would undermine what a political party is. But with brexit, working class ukip voting and the bigger feeling that a generation of politicians have abandoned whole areas and communities, now would be a good time to give it a go.

 

[free spirit]

Is he? I'm not too sure. From what I've seen it's that city liberal young base that's his main, perhaps only, support. I had a student come into work yesterday who I used to chat to and I brought up the topic, she was very loud in her defence of him and in attacking these plotters. I kinda felt attacked by her myself and I'm not even against Corbyn! He does have very strong support but only in that base, I've not seen any evidence outside that other than a kind of 'well, he's a nice bloke' but not loads of enthusiasm for him. Having said that there's even less support for the plotting cunts, why they think otherwise is a mystery. Either way I think labour are pretty much finished, especially amongst it's traditional support. Won't stop me chucking 3 quid at it's dying corpse for a laugh and voting for Corbyn though.

According to the latest yougov polling of labour members...

His strongest level of support in the 50-64 age bracket in the midlands and north, where he's at 56% still think he's doing well vs 49% in the 18-24 bracket of members. Though the younger age bracket are the ones that think it slightly more likely for labour to win under corbyn than under another leader, the differences in that are a couple of percent either way.

I suspect the younger members are more easily swayed by the media crap than the older corbynites many of whom are rejoiners having left in the blair era or earlier so more used to this factional shit and more determined to stick it out and force the blairites out this time around.

The figures seem to show that a significant portion of the party are prepared to back corbyn despite not thinking he's likely to win the next election, possibly because they don't see that anyone else is going to have a significantly better chance, but could also be more about those returners to the party (and newbies) viewing it more as a longer term project to win the party back and build a longer term platform to win with a more socialist / social democratic platform rather than just trying to boost the numbers of MPs sufficiently to end up with another neoliberal led labour government next election. Just my interpretation of the figures mixed with conversations over the last year or 2 with fairly involved red labour / momentum people, but if that's the case then the PLPs current tactic of attempting to paint it as being necessary to oust corbyn to win the next election is doomed to failure with the membership.

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.n...ogs4gmc/TimesResults_160630_LabourMembers.pdf

 

[Doctor Carrot]

According to the latest yougov polling of labour members...

His strongest level of support in the 50-64 age bracket in the midlands and north, where he's at 56% still think he's doing well vs 49% in the 18-24 bracket of members. Though the younger age bracket are the ones that think it slightly more likely for labour to win under corbyn than under another leader, the differences in that are a couple of percent either way.

I suspect the younger members are more easily swayed by the media crap than the older corbynites many of whom are rejoiners having left in the blair era or earlier so more used to this factional shit and more determined to stick it out and force the blairites out this time around.

The figures seem to show that a significant portion of the party are prepared to back corbyn despite not thinking he's likely to win the next election, possibly because they don't see that anyone else is going to have a significantly better chance, but could also be more about those returners to the party (and newbies) viewing it more as a longer term project to win the party back and build a longer term platform to win with a more socialist / social democratic platform rather than just trying to boost the numbers of MPs sufficiently to end up with another neoliberal led labour government next election. Just my interpretation of the figures mixed with conversations over the last year or 2 with fairly involved red labour / momentum people, but if that's the case then the PLPs current tactic of attempting to paint it as being necessary to oust corbyn to win the next election is doomed to failure with the membership.

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.n...ogs4gmc/TimesResults_160630_LabourMembers.pdf

Interesting as that is it is only a survey of labour members, I know there's strong support for him there but I am surprised older people support him more than the young. I'm very interested in his support outside in the general electorate.

 

[Rob Ray]

if that's the case then the PLPs current tactic of attempting to paint it as being necessary to oust corbyn to win the next election is doomed to failure with the membership.

Yeah it's a superficial line and only works so long as the Blairites can persuade people their person will be any better - every day that goes past without them being able to even field a candidate pushes this idea more into the mire.

 

[free spirit]

Interesting as that is it is only a survey of labour members, I know there's strong support for him there but I am surprised older people support him more than the young. I'm very interested in his support outside in the general electorate.

ah ok, my current interest is mainly in his support within the labour party to see if he's to survive. As the new membership are probably mostly coming via social media and mates of mates route anyway it will also probably roughly reflect the same demographics as his current support base.

 

[Mr Moose]

Turning to track 2 of my broken record... that's interesting. Corbyn's comments on immigration in the ref were just what people 'like me' instinctively wanted to hear (traditional, middle class lefties). However they didn't come out of conversations with working class voters or working class experiences.

I'm not by that suggesting anything like there's a well of working class racism that corbyn needs to embrace. He/Labour needs a better position on migration, shaped by the notion we are currently living with a bosses model of free movement. It should have been easy to enter into that debate and the way in was by understanding working class experiences of globalisation and de-industrialisation.

What he needed to do was to begin a dialogue that was one part love in, one part row. The vulnerable and disaffected need to know that Labour is on their side. Unequivocally. That Corbyn may prevent foreign adventures, but my God will he stand on the deck of a carrier and salute our boys if they need it.

That he will put their jobs, their wages, their housing first and have a fucking good row about stuff like racism/immigration that we don't all agree on. That would get respect.

At some point, now or later, you will have to accept Corbyn isn't that person. What depresses me is how evident the failure around the referendum was weeks out and how a lack of communicable political ideas created a vacuum. 1m people on council waiting lists, 350k immigrants per year. An answer Remain couldn't give. That was the time for Corbyn to say to Cameron, 'I will back remain vigorously if you announce massive social housing plans, restrictions on buy to let and a freeze on further social housing sales'. If you don't I tell the world why.

 

[DotCommunist]

Yeah it's a superficial line and only works so long as the Blairites can persuade people their person will be any better - every day that goes past without them being able to even field a candidate pushes this idea more into the mire.

they can't find anyone stupid enough to stand either. They all realise its political suicide on a constituency level and in WM if they lost. Even the eagle has realized what a shit idea it was. These people.

 

[Wilf]

Even the eagle has realized what a shit idea it was.

Claws on pause.

Actually no, I won't fuck this thread up with puns.

 

[Rob Ray]

they can't find anyone stupid enough to stand either. They all realise its political suicide on a constituency level and in WM if they lost. Even the eagle has realized what a shit idea it was. These people.

What's really telling is no-one in the entire lot of them is prepared to fall on their sword to try and get rid of him. Not one of them is prepared to sacrifice or risk to get the thing they supposedly care most about. It's not just about stupidity, it's monumental, blanket and very obvious self-serving cowardice.

 

[DotCommunist]

Claws on pause.

Actually no, I won't fuck this thread up with puns.

to be serious, re your points upthread. You've experience in organising, in 'agitation' and you know the ropes. How many of the momentum members have that learned experience? How does a connect happen with a society as rent and move to new job or live in shared accomadation with strangers etc foster the ability to grow links. You have to walk a mile in another mans shoes and for him to see you doing it right? Or mybe its wearing the same shoes anyway but being able to put down roots and get a community response to things active. I have no answers