What is wrong with 'Vote Labour without illusions'?

[Puddy_Tat]

dunno really.

I think one of the left parties used to say something along the lines of "vote labour, build a fighting socialist alternative"

Realistically, the outcome of the next general election is likely to be either a tory or a (new) labour government, possibly with support of a minority party or two.

On the evidence of recent years, a labour government is likely to be shit, a tory government is likely to be even more shit.

And for the last 20 or so years, the labour party has taken a bad poll / election result to indicate they ought to move to the right, and a good poll / election result to indicate they are doing the right thing in moving to the right.

There was a school of thought in the run up to 2010 that some people on the left wanted a tory election win, I think the logic being that the election of a tory government would remind people just how shit the tories are and would encourage labour to ditch all the new-labour bollocks and return to its traditional values rather than keep moving right to try and attract undecided and poorly informed floating voters.

Experience so far of "red ed" has not led me to be all that hopeful of this idea.

I think I've said all this before on here.

I'm still buggered if I know what the answer is.

 

[The Pale King]

Vote labour is an illusion.

 

[DotCommunist]

dunno really.

I think one of the left parties used to say something along the lines of "vote labour, build a fighting socialist alternative"

Realistically, the outcome of the next general election is likely to be either a tory or a (new) labour government, possibly with support of a minority party or two.

On the evidence of recent years, a labour government is likely to be shit, a tory government is likely to be even more shit.

And for the last 20 or so years, the labour party has taken a bad poll / election result to indicate they ought to move to the right, and a good poll / election result to indicate they are doing the right thing in moving to the right.

There was a school of thought in the run up to 2010 that some people on the left wanted a tory election win, I think the logic being that the election of a tory government would remind people just how shit the tories are and would encourage labour to ditch all the new-labour bollocks and return to its traditional values rather than keep moving right to try and attract undecided and poorly informed floating voters.

Experience so far of "red ed" has not led me to be all that hopeful of this idea.

I think I've said all this before on here.

I'm still buggered if I know what the answer is.

orders from the kremlin from nearly 70 years ago.

 

[muscovyduck]

I see entirely what you mean, and you've made some good points there. I should have explained that what I meant is that I didn't think that the rerduced chance of Labour hijacking & smothering a movement or campaign will lead to alternative progressive voices being heard more, or more likely.

It won't be on a national scale, but a local one, and local politics can be more important that national politics - it's local politics that gives the best education to activists. It's not so much of a bubble, and you learn about the practicalities of organising, rather than the theories we get from the Russian Revolution. It's also local campaigns that attracts potential activists, as the national stuff is reserved for people who can spend 10 years in education/internships/volunteer work.

So then say local groups are more hostile towards Labour. We both agree on that general point. But the fact remains that if no one is trying to stick up for Labour, the general consensus quickly becomes "They're shit" and groups move on to discuss how to tackle the issue. This means the campaign doesn't have to deal with Labour trying to hijack it, and there is freer discussion about the issues with Labour, because there's not a massive row and the shier ones feel more able to speak etc etc I think we agree on this

But then they organise a demonstration. There's always someone who knows a local radio presenter and there's people who know how to contact the press. Is this group going to let Labour Councillors on a platform? Nope. The loss of one Labour member speaking means there's room for someone else. And so Jane Bloggs gets her photo in the local paper where there might have usually been Dick Face MP in these type of situations. And although this may not directly give Jane a stronger voice (Although it means that some of her friends will be thinking highly of her as a source of information about politics), it gives the campaign itself a stronger voice. It's its own thing, run by normal people.


Idk I basically just said the same thing in a different way but I've been up for like 33 hours and I'm not actually tired enough to go to sleep now but yeah I swear I do actually have a good point in there somewhere

 

[Puddy_Tat]

orders from the kremlin from nearly 70 years ago.

I'm not that sodding old



I can certainly remember this being used by one of the parties within the last 20 years or so. Can't remember if it was SWP, WRP or someone else.

 

[snadge]

Vote labour is an illusion.

Voting is an illusion.

 

[The Pale King]

Voting is an illusion.

Yes.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm not that sodding old



I can certainly remember this being used by one of the parties within the last 20 years or so. Can't remember if it was SWP, WRP or someone else.

technically the message was never rescinded. AFAIK.

I read something about it ages ago. Alexi Sayles bio I think. When it became clear that the western side of europe was not going to throw off the yoke leftists were told to work within soc/dec parties as deep entryists.

Seems so quaint now doesn't it? Must have seemed like valid thinking at the time

 

[shagnasty]

I suposse with a labour goverment you can put pressure on them ,where as with the tories you have not a cats chance in hell,not that i saw much of it when the labour were in power

 

[muscovyduck]

I suposse with a labour goverment you can put pressure on them ,where as with the tories you have not a cats chance in hell,not that i saw much of it when the labour were in power

People are desperate. I have no idea if things were this bad under a Labour government - I was barely paying attention - but the general way people speak suggests that it was part of a slippery slope that the Tories fleshed out. Meaning things are worse now.
I can't see that the extremely small amount of momentum parts of the left have right now (thinking more about trade unions like what's going on in Brighton) will be lost. Yeah, there'll be the same implosions but people who have become more angry now aren't going to stop being angry when Labour come in.

 

[treelover]

yes, people are desperate, more killing themselves all the time, yet at the Peoples Assembly climate change was one of the most popular sessions of the day, priorities...

 

[SaskiaJayne]

I can certainly remember this being used by one of the parties within the last 20 years or so. Can't remember if it was SWP, WRP or someone else.

It was longer ago that, in the 70s when we did actually believe revolution was possible, some reckoned a right wing government would indeed hasten the 'glourious day' & said all lefties should vote tory, the dope & speed fueled discussions went on all night. I've always voted Labour ever since I was old enough to vote though.

 

[phildwyer]

Is it in Great Expectations?

Dante.

And Dartmoor prison, if one believes the fevered dreams of the deranged Hocus Eye.

It reminds me of the sign over the door of Dartmoor Prison. It says "Abandon hope all ye who enter here".

 

[ViolentPanda]

Now that Miliband has come out and stated that Labour will not change any of the cuts made by the coalition that leaves us free to not vote for him.

It reminds me of the sign over the door of Dartmoor Prison. It says "Abandon hope all ye who enter here".

It says "parcere subjectis", ("spare the vanquished", roughly) if you mean the carving on the lintel of the main entrance.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Dante.

And Dartmoor prison, if one believes the fevered dreams of the deranged Hocus Eye.

Fuck off, dwyer.

 

[treelover]

It says "parcere subjectis", ("spare the vanquished", roughly) if you mean the carving on the lintel of the main entrance.

Is there anything you don't know

 

[Garek]

The whole deluded line of thinking that the Labour are marginally better is what keeps us in this sorry mess. Fuck Labour. Fuck voting.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'm not sure Labour are the lesser of two evils. On the one hand you've got the party of the middle classes and toffs doing everything they can to stitch up the working class, as you'd expect, and then you've got what is supposedly the party of the working class supporting all the same policies.

Miliband has capitulated to the tories on everything that matters. He's refused to stand up for the disabled, the unemployed, the heartlands of his own party where the tories are disproportionately butchering local authority budgets. He's failed to call out the tories on their NHS 'reforms' or even attempt to hold Cameron to his election promise of not reorganising the health service. He's actively helped the tories by backing up their claims that there is no alternative to austerity.

Miliband and labour have been a willing part of creating the narrowest political landscape in living memory. The only debate still running is the one about how we should blame the poor, the sick and the helpless and punish them accordingly; not whether it is necessary or fair to do so in the first place.

So no, I'm not going to vote Labour. They are not the lesser of two evils, they are the same evil. Exactly the fucking same.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is there anything you don't know

I worked for the Prison Dept of the Home Office. They used to publish loads of pamphlets awash with useless info about prisons (including the tonnage of granite rubble Dartmoor used to ship per annum!). The pamphlets made perfect poo-break reading.

 

[Dogsauce]

None of them actually work for us anymore - the venture capitalists, wealth funds and private healthcare lobbyists are deeply embedded in all three parties, and the NHS will crumble as easily as free further education did. Most of the public are just not interested anymore, until it bites them they'll happily be herded and distracted by all this divide and rule bullshit, and then, maybe in about a decade, essex man will be grumbling that his health insurance costs are spiriling upwards in exactly the same way car insurance has in recent years. By that point voting won't do anything anyway, because the government won't be in charge of anything anymore, they'll no sooner be able to regulate the cost of the health industry as they can the price of bread. 'Small state' essentially means less assets under collective democratic state control. All they'll be deciding is which Emirates tycoon gets to paint their logo on the side of the Queen's new yacht. The few people who own stuff get to decide what they do with things, who they let access what they own, and the state will own and control fuck all of anything anymore, and choosing which party controls what's left will be an impotent decision.

It's a problem that can only be solved with bullets I fear, and an awful lot of them.

 

[Wilf]

A Labour overall majority at next election will be least worst option one would hope.

My version is that in the wafer thin, fag paper, micro distinctions between the parties, the least bad outcome would be a Lab-Lib coalition. That (not 100% serious proposition) isn't to suggest the Liberals have been anything better than portrayed on urban since 2010, it's just to suggest Labour are still infinitely worse monsters. But that's the problem with all this - it's best to move on beyond the rotation of monsters. Politics and change need to be something else.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

the difference is that the sensible wing of Labour will manage the decline/collapse of what is left of the postwar consensus with some competence and a lack of glee, while the Tories run rampant like toddlers on sugar binges.

 

[Jean-Luc]

Labour are currently shit but the lesser evil still means less evil.

The choice is more like the evil of two lessers.

 

[Sprocket.]

Labour have and are allowed to exist purely because they serve the illusion that they make a difference.
The power of the individual vote and alleged Democracy it brought was undermined from the start.
Powerful people with lots of money and guns backing them up is what determines who is in charge.
Not voting.

 

[Jean-Luc]

Powerful people with lots of money and guns backing them up is what determines who is in charge. Not voting.

Powerful people with lots of money are certainly on top at the moment, but how do they get to have guns "backing them up" if not because they control the state? But this can only be done, in this country, through voting. Which means that they get guns to back them because people vote for parties (including Labour) which accept that they are entitled to their wealth and that the state is there to back up this entitlement. So, while voting might not change things, it does play an important role. Mind you, something might change if we stopped voting for parties that acquiesce in their privileges.

 

[brogdale]

Screenshot from moment Balls tells 'Brillo' that Osborne's cuts are too deep:-

Massive

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Labour have and are allowed to exist purely because they serve the illusion that they make a difference.
The power of the individual vote and alleged Democracy it brought was undermined from the start.
Powerful people with lots of money and guns backing them up is what determines who is in charge.
Not voting.

Labour are allowed to exist because quite a lot of people like them, and quite a lot more think they're OK, and even more think at least they're not the Tories.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

The enforcement of living wage, reversal of Tory NHS privatizations, serious solution(s) to the housing crisis. . . Anything less and there really is no point of talking about 'lesser evil'.

 

[Sprocket.]

Labour are allowed to exist because quite a lot of people like them, and quite a lot more think they're OK, and even more think at least they're not the Tories.

Okay, yes the Tories are terrible but can I accept the party alleged to support workers, the poor, the oppressed acting like Tories. No. Because whenever they get elected to power the first victims are usually the people who voted for them. Because God help them if they rock the boat and actually attack the banks and institutions that keep workers down.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Okay, yes the Tories are terrible but can I accept the party alleged to support workers, the poor, the oppressed acting like Tories. No. Because whenever they get elected to power the first victims are usually the people who voted for them. Because God help them if they rock the boat and actually attack the banks and institutions that keep workers down.

So what? Your post is not a response to mine so I'm not sure why you're quoting it?