GMB plan move against (Blairites) Progress

[Streathamite]

the NO vote has meant that politicians have - quite cynically - been able to claim that FPTP has had a ringing endorsement from the public. Not true, of course, but it's now received wisdom that there's "no appetite for voting reform".

ermm, 'received' amongst WHOM, precisely? And since when did 'the public' - or any part of it - put that much faith in the claims from the politicians of either the red, yellow or blue Tory parties?

 

[articul8]

from the politicians, of course. But unless you appeal to at least a section of them, you're effectively making PR conditional on some revolutionary movement. If we're at that stage the debates on how democratic institutions are configured is going to be much more comprehensive than looking at changing the electoral system.

So - short of a (pre?-) revolutionary movement under what scenario do you see PR coming?

 

[butchersapron]

Appeal to a section of them? You've just made an argument that the only way you can get PR is through greasing up all MPs. What other scenario do you see than this top-down introduction by MPs? Do you think they're going to be won by political principle?

 

[Streathamite]

from the politicians, of course.

I'm pretty sure a clear majority of the British public have little faith in the 'wisdom' - received or otherwise - of the political classes, and the last thing we should do is look to them for leadership, or humbly beseech them, if they wouldn't mind, to do this, that or the other. Bugger parliament. and Parliamentary cretinism for that matter

 

[articul8]

Appeal to a section of them? You've just made an argument that the only way you can get PR is through greasing up all MPs. What other scenario do you see than this top-down introduction by MPs? Do you think they're going to be won by political principle?

This is another reason why AV was a necessary transitional step. The biggest problem MPs have with PR is not philosophical or even about their party interests, but more narrowly territorial - PR means you no longer have a monopoly of representation, the Commons isn't some gentleman's club where no one is in normally in direct competition with anyone else - but you get someone else on your patch with a rival claim.

A yes vote on AV would have shown
1) FPTP is an immutable part of elections in Britain
2) People like voting reform, there is an appetite for it
3) Political preferences are less clear cut and less sewn up by the big 3 than FPTP makes it appear.

But AV was such an inadequate reform the process wouldn't have stopped there. As it is, it will be hard to start up again for a generation.

 

[butchersapron]

I don't give a shit about your lost AV vote, i'm on about you now doing the same pleading to MPs for PR. Nothing learnt.

 

[articul8]

Bugger parliament. and Parliamentary cretinism for that matter

this is not about parliamentary cretinism - it is an instrumental bid to open up that space and allow more favourable conditions for the left to build. Despite your waffle, turnout at general elections is still easily a majority of those registered to vote. It does still have a legitimacy in the popular imagination, however weakened and tarnished this has become.

 

[articul8]

I don't give a shit about your lost AV vote, i'm on about you now doing the same pleading to MPs for PR. Nothing learnt.

Hardly - because it's off their agenda. For a generation. It's no less desirable for the left as a transitional step, but I don't see it happening.

 

[butchersapron]

this is not about parliamentary cretinism - it is an instrumental bid to open up that space and allow more favourable conditions for the left to build. Despite your waffle, turnout at general elections is still easily a majority of those registered to vote. It does still have a legitimacy in the popular imagination, however weakened and tarnished this has become.

And you're going to get it by pleading to the people that you reckon it will help destroy to do it for you. Fantastic.

 

[articul8]

Oh, silly me, the ruling class only ever do things which are in their long term interests.

 

[butchersapron]

Oh, silly me, the ruling class only ever do things which are in their long term interests.

Sorry, i forgot that clever chaps like you can often trick them and their long long experience.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

this is not about parliamentary cretinism - it is an instrumental bid to open up that space and allow more favourable conditions for the left to build? Despite your waffle, turnout at general elections is still easily a majority of those registered to vote. It does still have a legitimacy in the popular imagination, however weakened and tarnished this has become.

Why would MPs from any of the three Tory parties want to allow a space where the left can build. They see the left as a threat and are only too happy that it has disappeared in practice from the parliamentary scene. Even the Libdems who wanted electoral reform are now probably too busy licking their wounds from the coalition blunder to bother with it.

 

[articul8]

Of course that wouldn't be their reasoning. The LDs would do it out of self-interest (they'd have to drop catastrophically to make it work against them), Labour from a mix of self-interest, coalition building, right wing motives, left wing motives, and general Tory-baiting. The Tories are v v unlikely to ever bite.

 

[Streathamite]

Despite your waffle, turnout at general elections is still easily a majority of those registered to vote. It does still have a legitimacy in the popular imagination, however weakened and tarnished this has become.

yes but the proportion of the total electorate who voted for the 3 main parties only just clears the 50% bar

 

[articul8]

That's a relatively high figure given the MPs expenses crisis. Let's face it (bar the nats) no other party is getting close to challenging to break into the 3 party oligopoly. UKIP will do well at the next set of Euros I'd expect. Not the same thing as breaking into Westminster in any numbers (look at the Greens/ Lucas to see how difficult it is to sustain a presence, even if you do make a breakthrough). Respect are going to find it incredibly hard to repeat Galloway's success.

I don't take any pleasure in this. At all. But insofar as people get alienated from party politics as such (not just the big 3, but voting at all) the far right will be the main beneficiaries.

 

[butchersapron]

Lord, 9 months of arguing that the 3 main parties are now facing a crisis due to taking a continually falling % of the total vote and this could be blown open by AV and today "no other party is getting close to challenging to break into the 3 party oligopoly". Which, of course, was totally wrong when it was pointed out to you during the AV campaign. Just how many times do you want to lost this debate and vote?

 

[articul8]

AV is dead. Not coming back ever. AV could have started to unwind the 3 party aggregation of preferences (at least at the first round stage). That's what I argued, not that AV alone would blow the whole thing open. It wouldn't. But it would have been a significant first step.

 

[butchersapron]

The debate lives on in your mind though eh? I expect one day you'll win it.

 

[articul8]

The irony is that the result you're celebrating has locked in (for a period) the default pull to Labour that is precisely what you say want to see the back of.

 

[butchersapron]

The irony is that the result you're celebrating has locked in (for a period) the default pull to Labour that is precisely what you say want to see the back of.

Oddly enough i said this would be the result of a NO vote and a reason for labour members like you to back it - and you said no, it wouldn't. You were...guess what...wrong. No doubt for the right reasons as per normal.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

articul8 you need to take more water with it; you are rambling.

 

[articul8]

Oddly enough i said this would be the result of a NO vote and a reason for labour members like you to back it- and you said no, it wouldn't. You were...guess what...wrong. No doubt for the right reasons as per normal.

So, let's get this straight, you were cheerleading a NO vote in the knowledge it would lock in support for the big 3 parties (whilst also claiming to be opposed to this situation)?

My WHOLE CASE for a yes was that it would be a significant first step to unwinding it.

 

[butchersapron]

So, let's get this straight, you were cheerleading a NO vote in the knowledge it would lock in support for the big 3 parties (whilst also claiming to be opposed to this situation)?

My WHOLE CASE for a yes was that it would be a significant first step to unwinding it.

Did you read what i said? I said this should have been a reason for you as a labour party member to vote NO - given your endless bleating that there's no way around labour - yet it wasn't. And let's be honest here, the AV vote has had very little effect on the drift back to labour - far more important things are driving that - if you think different then you're even madder than i thought. The point was that you can't even be consistent on your labour stuff. Vote YES to get rid of labour in one breath and then vote labour in the next.

 

[articul8]

You:

I said this would be the result of a NO vote

The point is that there were broadly two camps within Labour on the question:
1) "Tribalists" - people who take Herbert Morrison's attitude, "socialism is what a Labour goverment does".
2) "Pluralists" - people who think, from whatever political perspective (right or left), that as the political system/party structure is *presently constituted* it is necessary to be involved in Labour. But they want to see some kind of realignment or restructuring of party politics. (Progress want no doubt a giant US style Democrat left to swallow up the LDs, Compass some soft left love in between social liberals, Labour and Greens, and I'm not alone in hoping that there could be an independent left worth leaving Labour for!!)

Politics throws up some funny alliances - in this instance Stephen Twigg was on the same side as John McDonnell, I was working with people from Progress etc... - against the GMB.

Now broadly I agree with the GMB about Progress. But that doesn't mean I share the limited political ambitions of the GMB leadership.
And being in Labour now does not imply I want to be Labour forever, unless the character of the Labour party changes very fundamentally.

The contradiction isn't in my thought. It's in reality! Dialectics, comrade.

 

[butchersapron]

Just stop the waffle. Just listen to yourself.

 

[articul8]

I know it's not convenient - you want to write Labour off in a stroke, and say you're all the same. It's not true.

 

[butchersapron]

That's right, everyone who can see though your hypocritical two-faced cant, your various incoherencies, your contradictions, the fact that you say and do different things when you're in front of different audiences - and who can consistently pinpoint them must - by definition - be a simplistic clown saying very simple things "dur, they're all the same", the sort of things that come out of or are put in the mouth of strawmen. Whereas your political sophistication worked so very well on the AV vote.

The irony is that your hard headed realism has led you into the very darkest deepest depths of fantasy world.

 

[articul8]

"you say and do things where you're in front of different audiences".

I don't tend to swear in front of my mam and dad if that's what you mean. More evidence?

 

[butchersapron]

"you say and do things where you're in front of different audiences".

I don't tend to swear in front of my mam and dad if that's what you mean. More evidence?

Oh the form of what you say to these different audiences doesn't change - the content does. Talented team, talented team/neo-liberal scum leading a party that needs to be destroyed

 

[articul8]

The sum total from the world's greatest background researcher - one tweet which you read out of context It is possible to be recognise people who are smarter than the average lobbyfodder drone without actually sharing their politics I take it? Oh no - that would require some measure of thinking.