Yep, I saw that...and the complete absence of a dissenting voice (from the obvious anti-Labour position) was a pretty clear pointer to an underlying agenda...particularly in an area with a long history and a diverse political base. But yeah, get those wc identifiers in early (miners, bingo, workingmens clubs) then the killer reveal - WOW, ex-Labourites support Tories. Pffft, lazy reporting with huge bias.
Jeremy Corbyn's time is up
- Thread starter hash tag
- Start date
Yep, I saw that...and the complete absence of a dissenting voice (from the obvious anti-Labour position) was a pretty clear pointer to an underlying agenda...particularly in an area with a long history and a diverse political base. But yeah, get those wc identifiers in early (miners, bingo, workingmens clubs) then the killer reveal - WOW, ex-Labourites support Tories. Pffft, lazy reporting with huge bias.
Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
Some of those mining constituencies up north also include large rural areas that are quite Tory, so not always as clearly red as expected.
Once spent several hours trying to hitchhike from the M1 Barnsley junction and a lot of that time was spent being ignored by cunts in Volvos (as was the Tory car of choice back in those days), horseboxes etc. Bit of an eye opener for me.
Once spent several hours trying to hitchhike from the M1 Barnsley junction and a lot of that time was spent being ignored by cunts in Volvos (as was the Tory car of choice back in those days), horseboxes etc. Bit of an eye opener for me.
not a trot
Well-Known Member
Gary Glitter was all the rage.
Wish this thunder and lightning would fuck off as it's frightening the dog and I want to go back to kip.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
The last batch of posts on this thread are priceless. Ex mining constituencies voting Tory is a process that’s been 40 years in the making.
Here is the recipe:
1. Close the mines, destroy communities, carefully and ruthlessly destroy all collective organisations of the community.
2. Add drugs and other markers of social despair.
3. Stir for 15 years and allow to rest.
4. Elect a labour Government that does fuck all to assist these areas.
5. Add this mix for over a decade.
6. At this point the mix is likely to be peripheralised and angry.
7. Once the mix responds by voting to leave the EU condemn the lot of it as racist and backward.
8. Continue to ignore it’s grievances and, as a finishing garnish, allow your leading cultural commentators to wonder if the mix shouldn’t be put in the bin and a new recipe of students, ethnic minorities and possessors of cultural capital in the cities might make a nicer project.
Now how about we stop slagging these people off or mischaracterising them further as all UDM members, middle class wankers or hunting types eh?
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Wasn’t it David Marquand’s seat with massibe labour majorities in the 1970’s?
Edit: Belboid is right. I’ve just checked It went Tory for 16 months before the 1979 GE (presume a by-election). But it had huge labour majorities through the 1970’s
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
Bit simplified and hardly explains why anyone would vote Tory now. It was the Tories that closed the mines, the EU and Labour that provided at least some regeneration.
Things were different pre and post the crash. The structural precariousness of people’s lives became evident post crash, which the Tories then hugely exacerbated. It’s certainly Labour’s fault for squandering the chance to build houses and a more equal society, to encourage the forces of the market, but it did more than just neglect.
Since then we’ve had relentless campaigns about people on benefits, immigration and asylum and how the Labour Party is for ‘them’ and not for ordinary folk. That core vote has absorbed these messages or ignored them in proportions we will find out. My hunch is they will be fairly loyal to Labour whatever Brexit policy it takes.
Who is arguing to put the traditional vote in the bin? This is a madly simplified reading of the Brexit dilemma facing Labour. A traditional vote wanting something Labour cannot deliver that it does not believe in and which it’s core support can’t really articulate why it needs so badly.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Read the first line of my post. This is a process and a long run one of cultural and economic detachment between labour and its old heartland areas.
As for arguments about binning these people - see Paul Mason.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Absolutely. The decline of Labour in seats like Ashfield, and the rise of national populism both go back much further than 2008.
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
Labour took nearly 50% of the vote in 2005. But there was apathy, with only 57% voting.
Where was national populism being expressed pre-crash? Everyday now is a post crash day.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Yes, rather backing up Smokeandsteam's point that this was a decades long process.
The BNP had swathes of council seats and a few MEPs in the early 00s.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Electorally, in every single euro election from 99 onwards.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Just seen this edit. What KB said, at it's high point (before the crash) the BNP was the most electorally successful hard-right party the UK had had. UKIP was highly successful in the 2004 EU elections. Going abroad Le Pen made the final round of the French Presidential election in 2002, after a long slog through the 80s/90s.
EDIT: Also add in London Mayoral elections
Last edited:
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
That’s always been so back to the NF in the late seventies. We may as well just agree that there have always been racists. National populism is a bit different.
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
And yet in the 2010 General Election Europe barely made the top 10 of issues voters gave a hoot about.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Is it, how many council seats did the NF have? How many councillors did the NF have elected? How many MEPs did the NF have?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
No it's not - they never had anyone elected anywhere ever.
The BNP of the 00s was a different beast to the NF though - they worked very hard on softening their hard right edges to make themselves more electorally attractive: it worked, and is obviously a precursor to the sort of national populism we're seeing today.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Damn, you were too fast
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
When given a chance to show utter disaffection with the status quo in a clear protest vote they did so time and time again - maybe you think the breixt referendum wasn't a win for leave, and for those disaffected then? Maybe there simply isn't an ongoing crisis of legitimacy wirth challenges to the status quo in many forms taking place across europe right now. Maybe it was all a bad dream.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The labour party your grandparents voted for - a clever slogan that perfectly fits the national-welfarism of what i will also call national populists for now is centred on.
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
They got a lot of votes.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
So you are now saying that support for national-populism extended right back into the 70s then? And their vote at it's absolute height was half that of the BNP. So this meaningful vote you point to to (at a time when they were pretty much openly fascist) was doubled (and given much more geographic/cultural depth - was normalised for a time) by a group more in the modern national-populist mould, but that doubling of the vote and the winning of elections was meaningless? Didn't show anything about the direction of travel and the motor?
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
I think it’s a simplistic reading that is quite beneath you. How did the dissaffected vote in Scotland, Liverpool or Inner London? How did the disaffected vote if they were not white? How did the disaffected match their sentiment with huge swathes of comfortably off Middle England who wish for little more than to shrink the state further?
You can consider there is a crisis of legitimacy and come to the conclusion it shouldn’t be conferred on Farage, JRM and Boris.
But in any case, for the Labour Party, Brexit as a way of engaging with that vote is quite dead. It must argue for redistribution, within or without and hope the message sticks.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
In the 1994 EU elections the NF took 12,469 votes (compared to 150,000 for UKIP), in 1999 the BNP took 102,647 (UKIP ~700,000).
The NF did not have the same electoral success as the BNP (let alone UKIP).
The NF did not have the same electoral success as the BNP (let alone UKIP).
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Similar threads
