Jeremy Corbyn's time is up
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It isn't that huge, it's focus group results in two very specific areas - (maybe) useful for gauging the views of people in those areas, but I don't know if you can really extrapolate it much beyond that.
Either way, I think it looks like overall a reasonably positive picture for Labour with that, and a really shit one for the tories.
shitloads.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
If New Labour had been characterised as quinoa in a focus group it would have been viewed positively as representing middle class aspirational politics etc, but of course because it's Corbyn it's a disaster.
Suspect the average working class millennial is more likely to sometimes eat quinoa than play bingo, but polling companies prefer cultural class signifiers to be fixed somewhere around 1962.
Suspect the average working class millennial is more likely to sometimes eat quinoa than play bingo, but polling companies prefer cultural class signifiers to be fixed somewhere around 1962.
binka
!!!!!!!!!
Yeah I thought so. I've had someone tell me they can't be working class because they work in an office
And vice versa?
Not as many as people think, I suspect. It isn't just office workers that think office workers can't be working class.
fair enough - yes, plenty of those too.
Totally, and this cultural understanding of class with it's borders diligently policed is a massive barrier to building class solidarity IMO
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
When the BBC did their Class season a few years back they featured a bloke ( looked and sounded classical w/c) who argued that he couldn't be w/c because he'd been on an aeroplane.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Yup, handily.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
And it's not just the media / right that does this - I've often seen posters here / left twitterers sneer that such-and-such issue is not of concern to the working class, when actually they mean a narrow conception of working class as unemployed / manual labourer. Whatever you think of Paul Mason, I've found his whole concept of the new rising networked working class useful in helping to rethink what the working class is today.
rekil
to menny cranks
Nakba! - 48. There should probably be a lefty bingo caller thread.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
I've done that myself a few times, must say - while it's a pretty crude analogy, it's also true that many of the priorities of the metropolitan left are pretty alienating to wide swathes of the wider working class.
So I dunno. it's all very difficult.
Plenty of people who would probably qualify as the "metropolitan left" are working class (including culturally), and not all of them live in a metropolis. Tbh I think the term is pretty useless, it seems to serve a similar sort of function to "ultra left" - ie. "people whose political perspectives I find annoyingly inflexible/judgmental" except applied to liberal social values.
The main meaning it tries to go for is as a signifier of the stretched cultural spectrum Britain's experiencing, framed by deriding effete city liberals against common sense folk. But that spectrum is way more complex than a simple Big City/Rest of Britain divide, to the point where I think it's actively misleading (and frequently comes from an insultingly condescending position - eg. banking scion and MEP Nigel Farage pretending he's standing up for traditional rural working class values of little England racism).
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ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Most of the people expressing pain have only ever experienced a ghetto as a tourist attraction. Their pain, while real to them, is spurious. It's like the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people who lived through the death camps claiming to be "holocaust survivors". It's the appropriation of real suffering to wear as a badge.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
There really is, honestly, no cult around Corbyn. He's just the front man, and can - and will - be exchanged for a better one, should the time come.
There is, however, a renewed vitality, dynamism and sense of mission about Labour that is little short of remarkable
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
agreed entirely. I rate her
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
pretty much all, if you go by a purely economic determinist definition of class
I know there's plenty of working class people who qualify as part of the metropolitan left - perhaps read that post in context with the other posts I've made in this thread today. TBH I probably qualify myself.
I'm not trying to dismiss anyone, but it's impossible to ignore that the dominant strand of the left in the UK right now does struggle to get any kind of hearing among a large section of the working class. I'm interested in discussing that, not having another row about terminology.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
Sure I wasn't accusing you of dismissing people, more thinking through what it is about the term that discomforts me. I guess it's that we quite often reach for sort of broad sweeps to help structure an idea of what's happening in politics, which can sometimes get in the way of the more difficult reality.
In this case for example, I think there's elements of the UK left (specifically drawing from the activism of the New Left) which actually have achieved gains among the working class as a whole but by not means across all of it (eg. the remarkable shifts over social issues such as certain women's rights, LGBT recognition, the withdrawal of corporal/capital punishment as a concept etc).
What we're seeing now in those spheres is a complex phenomenon of certain left ideals becoming Establishment concepts, at least in writ, which have been adopted by perhaps a majority of the public but with a very substantial fractured minority not following suit (I say fractured, because some people may accept women's rights but not LGBT, or be an out and proud gay misogynist, etc) and even acting as "rebels" against the new norm. Then on top of that you have the phenomenon of continued leading edge "wokeness" on concepts like decolonisation, which as ever are characterised by some very clever, useful thinking and some ludicrous nonsense, both of which are projected by reactionaries as being outright mad because they go even further than the already suspicious Establishment liberalism (often deliberately conflated with "metropolitan leftism" etc by chancers looking to capitalise on resentment against primarily urbanised elites).
That's before you get into the economic aspect, the half-finished collapse of the neoliberal consensus, the questions posed by both current and future trends in migration, the continued numerical decline of unions and organised left groups (with the notable exception of left Labour/Momentum) etc etc.
In this case for example, I think there's elements of the UK left (specifically drawing from the activism of the New Left) which actually have achieved gains among the working class as a whole but by not means across all of it (eg. the remarkable shifts over social issues such as certain women's rights, LGBT recognition, the withdrawal of corporal/capital punishment as a concept etc).
What we're seeing now in those spheres is a complex phenomenon of certain left ideals becoming Establishment concepts, at least in writ, which have been adopted by perhaps a majority of the public but with a very substantial fractured minority not following suit (I say fractured, because some people may accept women's rights but not LGBT, or be an out and proud gay misogynist, etc) and even acting as "rebels" against the new norm. Then on top of that you have the phenomenon of continued leading edge "wokeness" on concepts like decolonisation, which as ever are characterised by some very clever, useful thinking and some ludicrous nonsense, both of which are projected by reactionaries as being outright mad because they go even further than the already suspicious Establishment liberalism (often deliberately conflated with "metropolitan leftism" etc by chancers looking to capitalise on resentment against primarily urbanised elites).
That's before you get into the economic aspect, the half-finished collapse of the neoliberal consensus, the questions posed by both current and future trends in migration, the continued numerical decline of unions and organised left groups (with the notable exception of left Labour/Momentum) etc etc.
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Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
The issue is that the left has been visibly at the forefront of winning and leading battles around gender, LGBT, racism (not saying there isn’t a lot further to go or that it’s a bad thing obviously) while failing to win or being seen to be effectively leading the battle for economic justice, and indeed the centre left seems to have given up at least some of that fight altogether while the further left has simply been incompetent.
Of course that’s because the former battles are winnable as they don’t challenge the prevailing economic system in the way that economic justice must do.
Of course that’s because the former battles are winnable as they don’t challenge the prevailing economic system in the way that economic justice must do.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
Yeah there's a lot to that, the ability of capitalism to co-opt social cultural change (the pink pound etc) is in part what made it a fight the left could win even when in economic terms it had been blasted off the map.
Meanwhile for economic actors who were also social reactionaries (your Labour-Ukip drifters, for example) it really would feel for quite a large number of people like the left had abandoned its post protecting their economic interests to fuck off on a doolally quest to play back-up band to degenerates (including in some cases people who are outright economic elites), because the very obvious decline in economic fighting force the left had been organising coincides with the rise of focus on progressive social values.
On the flip side of that though, one thing I think is likely with the resurgence of membership in Labour is the hope that the left can finally provide economic muscle will be drawing people regardless of wokeness, in the same way as socially conservative/reactionary people will join effective trade unions. Distrust and anger against the left tends to dissipate if it's doing the "core job". The best way to silence critics is to win, etc.
Meanwhile for economic actors who were also social reactionaries (your Labour-Ukip drifters, for example) it really would feel for quite a large number of people like the left had abandoned its post protecting their economic interests to fuck off on a doolally quest to play back-up band to degenerates (including in some cases people who are outright economic elites), because the very obvious decline in economic fighting force the left had been organising coincides with the rise of focus on progressive social values.
On the flip side of that though, one thing I think is likely with the resurgence of membership in Labour is the hope that the left can finally provide economic muscle will be drawing people regardless of wokeness, in the same way as socially conservative/reactionary people will join effective trade unions. Distrust and anger against the left tends to dissipate if it's doing the "core job". The best way to silence critics is to win, etc.
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pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
With the greatest respect, I don’t think “the left” can claim to be the impetus for advancement of LGB rights, it’s been the centre, together with some of the “liberal metropolitan elite” or whatever terminology you prefer.
Cameron pushed for gay marriage, perhaps cynically, and Blair introduced civil partnerships. The “historical left” really didn’t care. Trans rights are interesting as they are exposing faultlines between the trans-accepting folk and the TERFs and both groups probably see themselves as “left”.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
I think it does the left a massive disservice to attribute the advancement of LGB rights to Blair and Cameron, they jumped onto bandwagons which had already been rolling for the best part of three decades. With Freedom Press (just because I've been researching it recently) I can point you to articles strongly pushing for gay rights from the 1950s onwards (and sympathies going back to Edward Carpenter with his gay free love commune just outside Sheffield in the 19th century).
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
Surely back in the 80s gay rights was part and parcel of the menace of the ''loony left" and all good centrists wanted nothing to do with such nonsense? Unless I've missed the bit in the Limehouse Declaration about lesbians?
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
dunno.
i'll certainly agree that it isn't quite as simple as left / right on equalities issues.
the (old) liberal party was probably more pro-equalities than the labour party in the 60s.
and there have been some voices on the right wing / libertarian front who have argued that the state shouldn't police consenting sexual activity.
but it was labour governments that legislated to (partly) decriminalise homosexuality, and also to introduce the race relations act and equal pay act in the 60s, then expand race / sex discrimination laws in the 70s.
not all the trade union movement was entirely behind this - some bus workers (for example) were hostile towards continued employment / recruitment of women conductors after the end of the war in 1945 and towards the employment of ethnic minority workers in the 60s. and london dockers (union members) marched in support of enoch powell.
but i think it's fair to say that the 1980s wave of 'equal opportunities' - womens rights, LGB rights (not so sure that the T was mentioned often then) and anti racism - was very much part of the 'loony left' thing - with politicians like ken livingstone being pilloried in the press over it, the labour leadership giving the general impression that they wished minorities would just shut up, and ultimately the tories bringing 'section 28' to try and silence the gay rights end of it.
the mainstream of the labour party didn't commit to improving gay rights until the 1985 conference - while probably not the whole story, this was with block vote support from the NUM after the lesbians + gays support the miners campaign during the strike.
the blair government did - in the face of tory opposition - do a lot to remove laws discriminating against LGB people, equalising the age of consent, equalising sex crimes (a lot of things were either illegal or were considered a much more serious offence if between two men than if between man and woman), removing the ban on serving in the military, and the fudge that was civil partnerships - itself opposed at the time by the tories, but a political fudge to get something on the statute books rather than have hysterical opposition to 'marriage'.
i find it hard to give hamface that much credit for his sudden conversion to the cause of gay marriage (i'm not convinced that he actually believes in anything or would know a principle if he fell over one), and even less to those tories who tried then to argue that the labour party was homophobic for not having introduced gay marriage...
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
Im sorry - but you are exactly wrong. The ground work, the campaigning and the struggle that led to the popular opinion shifting was done by LGBT people and supporters on the left - and they were vilified for it. Ken Livingstone and the GLC were regularly lambasted by the press for supporting things like gay switchboard. The miners accepting support from gay and lesbian groups during the strike was seized on by the tabloids as further proof of their extremism/evil. The NUM showed their appreciation by leading the gay pride match in 1985 (have you not seen the film "pride"?) overturning years of indifference - and outright hostility - from the wider labour movement and the rightwing of the PLP.
The likes of cameron and blair didn't go near gay rights until the battle to win over hearts and minds was already done . The advancement of LGBT rights is something that "the loony left" can be justifiably proud of.
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