Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
not the last time chuk pegged i'll be bound
Political polling
- Thread starter brogdale
- Start date
not the last time chuk pegged i'll be bound
I think they'd fucking love to be able to construct an engaged working class politics. They don't have the resources or the roots, rather than the inclination.
How do you construct an engaged working class politics? I'd guess it would most effectively be done through community organising around resisting cuts to services, or creating groups and activities within working class communities that fill a gap left by the state retreating from them. On a local level, for the vast majority of working class communities, the people doing the cutting, and the state retreating from them is run by... The Labour Party. That, more than anything else, is what hamstrings Labour from making more inroads back into the working class.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Yes, I absolutely agree with this. And while I accept it's a hard issue for Labour members to resolve a lot of the time there doesn't even seem to be a recognition of the problem or a discussion of how to deal with it. At least not one beyond, elect a Labour gov at Westminster and the Tory cuts will be stopped.
I don't think this is really true, though. There's a lot of discussion and debate about what Labour councils can do (cf. the recent heavy pushing of the Preston Model etc), and internal battles between party factions (cf. Haringey). It just moves very slowly.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I was going to mention Preston as a counter example. But whenever I've tried to discuss this issue with Labour members either on here or offline I've got nowhere. I admit that YMMV though.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Well, I agree with that, which is pretty much my/a reply to your earlier post.
If you take resources as simply people and money there have certainly been enough to make a difference and to do some organising. Hundreds of thousands came in as supporters/members and little was done to create something different with/through them (and now many have left). But there's also your point about roots. Not just these new members, but the membership more generally are more middle class. But I suppose my point was really about the still dominant Labourism and what Corbyn thinks of as an engaged working class party. That still seems to be 'join a union, join the labour party, win elections and do A-B marches'. A party where the working class are invited to come to Labour, not the other way round.
Edit: when I've made similar points to the underlined on here before, Labour members have reminded me it's been hard to shift the old bureaucracy and lots of time gets spent just ticking the machine over. I accept all of that. Same time, as redsquirrel says, there doesn't seem to be acceptance on the Labour left of the need to build something different, something beyond labourism. Equally, if you want to go out and resist evictions or closures, just get on and do it (even if, that would often be closures undertaken by your own councillors). Get the issue right, get the politics right and use that to change the structures/party.
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redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Whole of Preston is up for election this time right?
As with many other things it's an institutional issue. Individual members for the most part don't have a clue how to deal with it. Why would they?
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
I suspect I've dragged this thread away from the issue of polling. However I think this discussion is relevant. As Butchers said, Labour's current poll rating may represent a soggy mixture of remainists and traditional Labour voters. The party needs to think about what it can do to attract positive votes, inspired by a new politics for the post-brexit era, but also one that escapes from and goes beyond remain vs leave.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Depends when you are going from. There's been a downward trend since the aftermath of the 2017 GE but that's not to be unexpected. Current lead over Tories is mostly due to sharp drop in Tory vote rather than a increase in Labour support.
This is very salient, I found this particularly with Momentum and more recently the Labour Party local membership: many are quite affluent and don't really know what is it now like to struggle(regardless of possibly WC origins.) While they will vote on motions on say Universal Credit, or Social Care, it is not largely their interests or what motivates them, IMO, it has been Palestine, Refugees, increasingly Climate which engages them, though the L/P structures ensure mundane issues like local transport gets a hearing. But, overall not so much. One motion on social care while voted unamiously in support was pushed to the end of a CLP meeting(meaning no discussion just a vote), due to various 'emergency motions which could only really be gestures,in some ways, many of the new members seem to be replicating the ways of the SWP, jumping on media friendly issues, etc. Unite Community also crashed here, partly because it spread its resources too thinly, global issues, etc, when its focus at first should have been on basic issues where people are hurthing badly.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I think the worse outcome is probably for Plaid. 60% of people don't know where they stand despite their strong opposition to Leaving. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of those figures for Wales.
I don't think it really matters nationally tbh, and I think that it's a national poll is all that's reflected in those numbers.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Well the fact this is a UK rather than Welsh poll clearly doesn't help PC, but the level of the difference between them and the SNP does say something. I do think the data above reflect the fact that PC seem a bit devoid of a home at present.
I guess its how you interpret "Neither". You can argue that Labour's message is much clearer to than the LDs, Grn, SNP, PC and ChUK
All is says is the SNP have a much larger presence in Wesminster, and get a lot more coverage as a result. Scottish independence also remains a live issue which is regularly in the papers and in the news bulletins, and right now it's all related to their Brexit position. Whereas PC have close to zero purchase outside Wales.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I think we'll have to agree to differ on this KB, certainly that's a large part of it but I'm not sure its the whole story.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Indeed; the D/K figure of 25% is amazingly low given the media narrative.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
How so? These figures are obviously about what people think the party stances are, not whether they agree with them. But they don't suggest Labour has a clear position, which in turn suggests they are not well placed to push a particular solution, particularly to go for any kind of lexit (or perhaps socdemexit...). There's certainly no sign there that Labour have been connecting with leave voters/areas. Some of the other parties have a similar perceived lack of clarity, but the Labour figures reflect their ducking and diving non-committal approach - as well as the genuinely split membership.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
I get that, really. But that's also the problem isn't it? They don't have a clear position, which may be good for getting occasional victories in brexit votes in the commons, but it's pretty dreadful when it comes to actually relating to leave voters and leave areas. It's a poor politics and does nothing to develop an engaged working class politics. It's probably something Butchers was alluding to yesterday, Labour's polling numbers being based on them being seen as the remainers best hope. It's not enough and it's not a good politics.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
It's in the commons in as much as they want to maintain the line that they wish to honour the ref, whilst also voting against May's deal, whilst never committing themselves to a 2nd ref. When they edge in one direction, as with the draft leaflet, they then get the response of 100 MPs/MEPs sending an open letter. It's there when Corbyn and Starmer come out with different views on referenda in real time. It's a fairly successful exercise in creative stonewalling, but again, in terms of a more ambitious left politics, that's the problem.
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