I'm pretty idealistic with this sort of stuff, but I like to think that of the Greens got a decent vote, the main parties might take notice.
What makes you think a new left party or community minded independents can win a cluster of constituencies at the next election from nothing?
Not if you look at each constituency individually. We do NOT have a national election. So if you don't attempt to spread your resources evenly over 650 seats and only pick the 50 or so most likely ones the picture looks entirely different. Take Blackburn as an example. The Labour vote is more than double the Tory vote. The electorate are over 40% Muslim, over 20% students, have an average age of about 41. So it's likely that at least half the Labour voters are extremely unhappy with the Party right now, and if just over half of them vote for a left candidate they win with the Tories third. Add in the fact that in the last few weeks a large part of the constituency Labour Party have resigned including a lot of the organisers. That is even without taking into account non-voters. There are loads of constituencies like that. General elections DO NOT take place on a national basis purely on the telly.
As far as I can tell the Green Party is basically concentrating on trying to hold on to Brighton Pavilion and take Thangam Debonnaire's seat in Bristol. Their leadership don't appear to have any interest in doing anything else, much to the consternation of Green Party members around the rest of the country. As it is currently set up I think the Green Party is practically finished. A shame since I was hoping for a red versus green political future. They blew it with Green 2000.
No new left party has tried to run in 650 seats, also why would the Muslims and students vote for the same candidate? Are they pissed off with Labour for the same reasons?
Don't doubt any of that. Sounds horrific! but what if tens of thousands joined? Also possibility for a generational switch. There needs to be some kind of electoral vehicle....
Looking it up, the Labour vote in Blackburn last time round was 29,040. What's the plan to get 15,000 people in Blackburn to vote for a party they've never heard of before? How many activists are committed to going out and campaigning in Blackburn to speak to these 15,000 people?
I did that earlier at this thread
Sorry you are living in a fantasy, getting a couple of thousand votes would be about the best possible a few hundred more likely.
Effectively yes. It's also the same reason they are pissed off with the Tories. Every "minority" should be on the same page on this. What the political establishment are doing is looking at each policy decision this way. "It only hurts a minority of people but it will play well in the media, so lets go with it". Except that every single one of us can be labelled as being in several minority groups. We are at or at least close to the tipping point at which a majority of the electorate have been shafted by the established political parties often enough that they just want something different. Also there is a single issue that unites almost everybody. Housing. Something that is screwing up the lives of huge numbers of people, and yet in policy terms is only dealt with according to what is good for property developers and landlords. They key is to stop treating labels as if they actually define people and look at the individual human beings and how they are affected by politics, then present them with potential answers that can work for them.
How many election campaigns have YOU run? I'm on my 5th. My counterpart at Transform is looking at his 8th. I've failed to win twice, he's failed once. The fantasy is the supposed national presidential election between Sunak and Starmer. No such choice will be on anyone's ballot paper.
I've run or been involved in around 10 or 11 in two different countries and under several different electoral systems for both a far left party and more centre left parties / candidates but I don't need that experience to tell me you don't understand how people operate politically.
Is that not exactly what you are doing though when you talk about the percentage of Muslims or students in a constituency? Like that is what defines them and how they'll vote?
You're not in Kansas any more though. Running a campaign for an independent candidate is very, very different from running one for a very established political party.
I've been involved in a few, including in Blackburn as it happens.
This! It might be possible to target some council seats and win if enough work is put in, but even that is HARD comming from nothing. Keep it up and you might build enough presence to one day challenge the mp years down the line.
Maybe, maybe not.
Council seats in Blackbird Leys (x2), Greater Leys and Wood Farm at our height (on the back of long-term hard work). But council seats/votes didn't translate to parliamentary votes -- people may enthusiastically vote one way in council elections but will likely vote differently in general elections. (I'm also not sure 'fell apart' or 'having found' are quite right but hey.)
Having a base there is part of the targeting. There are currently a whole load of Labour constituency parties in exile. For example that is exactly what the LCI are. Getting them to stop moaning about how horrible everything is and get on with actually doing anything about it is the problem. Some have already mobilised, more haven't, but that doesn't mean they can't. It seems like 99% of people on the political left only want to complain that other people aren't doing what they want rather than lift a finger to change anything. A Labour Party that won't allow any form of internal democracy or even policy discussion is effectively dead. So what is everyone waiting for? TUSC are seemingly lost in their fantasy that if they can stand 100 candidates they will miraculously become major players for no clearly explained reason other than getting to put out a party political broadcast that almost nobody else will watch. The Labour Party was founded in 1906... 20 years after its first MPs were elected as independents. If we all just settle for politics entirely being something that happens nationally in the mass media then we may as well hand the government over to Murdoch and Rothermere directly.
Blackburn has changed in one way over the last two decades. The proportion of non-white voters there is now 50%, and not every white person in the town is racist. Nobody is a "vote for the taking". However what you look for is where you can get leverage. Then you try to give the groups you have some leverage with a degree of involvement in what you are doing.
The problems with housing as an issue are that property developers are very generous political donors and that the political orthodoxy is that creating house price inflation is essential to getting the votes of middle class home owners. Yes it doesn't appeal to the stereotyped floating voter in marginal seats. However they aren't the only possible target groups, especially if you are opposing all the established parties. It doesn't matter if an MP has a massive majority if most of it is reluctant voters holding their nose and voting for somebody they abhor to keep out a party they hate even more but has no chance in their constituency. Somebody targeting non-voters and the nose holders have every chance if they have enough people to leaflet and knock on doors. Marginals aren't where it's at for the left.I tend to agree that housing is a real uniting issue (personally I’ve always thought it the biggest one this country has) across a huge proportion of the electorate, and fixing it would have a lot of benefits in other policy areas.
I suppose it’s not seen as critical enough for a party to really get behind though. Perhaps it just doesn’t appeal enough to whatever the current journalistic shorthand is for those who live in marginal seats. I haven’t run any election campaigns though so perhaps I’m wrong
There's a difference between assuming demographic labels totally define people and using demographics to see where you might get some leverage.
