[News] MPs defecting to The Independent Group in parliament

The Antikythera Mechanism said:

[YT]Kt9zGiQuLzc[/YT]

Can’t they just go back to being the Silly Party?

Click to expand...

attila said:

Labour got 40% of the vote at the last General Election, one of the highest in our history. We'd have won if Scottish Labour hadn't been so useless (advocating people vote Tory against the SNP for instance)
We have the biggest membership of any party in Europe. If there is a new style SDP that will split the vote and keep the Tories in for ever in the first past the post system, which is what some of you want, isn't it? Just be honest and stop trying to be all 'moderate' and 'reasonable'
It's ludicrous to say we have 'stolen' the party - the centrists borrowed it, we've got it back!
I do find the right wing bias on NSC amusing given that we have wiped the floor with the Tories in all the local seats and even my local East Worthing and Shoreham is now a marginal. I guess it's that old chestnut, 'age'. Never understood people becoming less radical as they get older, surely we should respond to what we see around us, and what I see is division, poverty, homelessness, complacency on one hand, misery on the other........

Click to expand...

1066familyman said:

I'd argue we would have won if Corbyn had purged the party of the Blairites once and for all and come out strongly for a Socialist Brexit. He should have stated his Leave position quite clearly from the off and continued with giving us our party back.

Click to expand...

Weststander said:

Would be a honest thing to do.

But would that have secured enough votes?

A mass of Labour voters in London/SE England are passionate about the EU project (quite a few of them NSC members), including a majority of the 18 to 25 demographic.

Click to expand...

Weststander said:

But would that have secured enough votes?

Click to expand...

1066familyman said:

They're passionate about the EU because they've been sold the cultural argument on 'Internationalism' and fallen for the lie that wanting a break from the EU is only the wish of little Englanders. I mean, they even believe all our workers rights are only thanks to the EU! They are sadly deluded.

Click to expand...

clapham_gull said:

2) Want to see the railways re-nationalised.

Click to expand...

beorhthelm said:

nationalised or cheaper fares?

Click to expand...

1066familyman said:

They're passionate about the EU because they've been sold the cultural argument on 'Internationalism' and fallen for the lie that wanting a break from the EU is only the wish of little Englanders. I mean, they even believe all our workers rights are only thanks to the EU! They are sadly deluded.

Click to expand...

Weststander said:

Labour, even Corbyn’s Labour, will always have a good chance of returning MP’s in Brighton, Crawley and Hastings. But incredibly hard elsewhere in southern England, except for an attractive centrist package (such as Blair’s).

Click to expand...

clapham_gull said:

Unfortunately a left wing anti EU view is very much in the minority in this country.

The vast majority of young people I talk to at work are very difficult to place in a box politically if you simply draw your lines by the existing parties.

1) Want to get on the property ladder and resent their generation has been f#### by London house prices.

2) Want to see the railways re-nationalised.

3) Want to remain in the EU because they like the idea of a common market and the freedom to move around.

4) Want to get paid more.

5) Wish they weren't burdened by Student Loans.

In my very simplistic view, they are actually quite "Thatcherite" (don't tell them that) who briefly went through a brief "socialist" period at University.

If a centre party was available (and not one that lied to them about student fees) they would vote for them now.

Click to expand...

Southern Scouse said:

Problem with Labour is that their silent majority, that includes me, simply could not vote for a party with JC as leader, and as long as he remains leader, the party spends most of its time trying to put on a brave front, while being ineffective.
I’m not sure when the last time was that both HM government and the opposition have both been so pathetically inept at the same time. I would love to see a new central party, made up of some decent MP,s from all sides, lead by that Wollaston lady or similar who genuinely wanted the good of the country before anything else.
I am a strong remainer and would say that to all the leavers, have you never ever made a mistake and changed your mind on receiving information you were unaware off? It takes a strong person to evaluate and change their position.
Something I’d also like 5he Labour Party to consider if they really ever want to be considered as a realistic alternative in the future.

Click to expand...

The Spanish said:

I would be interested to see the figures on full time employment of British nationals overseas, especially EU over English speaking countries and/or commonwealth countries (perhaps taking ROI Malta and Cyprus figures separately, although I cannot imagine they would distort massively.

Is the ability to work elsewhere in the EU really a genuine opportunity that is pursued because of ease of movement, or are UK citizens skill sets more suited to the Anglosphere and pursued there more often despite visa and work permit restrictions?

Click to expand...

clapham_gull said:

Nationalised is the common view. I'm quite nuanced on it and often annoy them, asking whether they would be happy with a Tory Government running the railways

Basically I've gleaned that ownership of the railways transcends politics in their minds, a view that even Peter Hitchens takes.

Click to expand...

Ernest said:

Because these idiots have been on the verge of leaving for years, most of them are about to be deselected anyway or have been

Click to expand...

attila said:

Labour got 40% of the vote at the last General Election, one of the highest in our history. We'd have won if Scottish Labour hadn't been so useless (advocating people vote Tory against the SNP for instance)
We have the biggest membership of any party in Europe. If there is a new style SDP that will split the vote and keep the Tories in for ever in the first past the post system, which is what some of you want, isn't it? Just be honest and stop trying to be all 'moderate' and 'reasonable'
It's ludicrous to say we have 'stolen' the party - the centrists borrowed it, we've got it back!
I do find the right wing bias on NSC amusing given that we have wiped the floor with the Tories in all the local seats and even my local East Worthing and Shoreham is now a marginal. I guess it's that old chestnut, 'age'. Never understood people becoming less radical as they get older, surely we should respond to what we see around us, and what I see is division, poverty, homelessness, complacency on one hand, misery on the other........

Click to expand...

larus said:

We must have a country which has 40% plus of the population as thick and evil according to the left-wing posters on here. One thing I’ve noticed is that the left-wing seem to need to continually attack the moral character of voters who see a different way to run the country. That says more about them than those who vote Tory as they have to attack the person and not the argument.

You left-wing posters really need to wake-up and accept that the country is not left-wing. There has not been a ‘left-wing’ government since the 1970’s, so you’ve been out of power for 40 years. (Bliar was never really left-wing as generally accepted on here). The last Left-Wing general election win was in Oct 1974.

Regarding why do so many people become less radical as they get older - they grow up and see that there world is not some kind of utopia. It’s not perfect and they see the failure of many left-wing/communist countries around the world and realise that, even with the many issues with capitalism (which moderate conservative voters would readily accept), it is far better than communism/Marxism. Who’d want to live in N Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela?

And yes, why isn’t Corbyn/Labour streets ahead in the opinion polls? I would be viewed as a likely Tory voter and I think that May is disasterous (not just because of Brexit) and I would not be inclined to vote for her. But Corbyn leads a divided party, only leader due to the momentum members (i.e. the more extreme/vocal left-wingers) and they have tried to sit on the fence throughout the whole Brexit debacle but, IMO, this has shown them to be weak and playing party politics with the most important issue for a generation.
Incumbent parties are nearly always behind in the polls as they have to make decisions which invariably annoys one group or another. But even with this, and dealing with the after effects of austerity due to the financial crisis (which happened on Labours watch), Corbyn is still behind.

The traditional labour heartlands are better educated now and have better job opportunities than 40 years ago, so the influence/power of the unions has waned, so the guaranteed seats from the industrialised areas are shrinking. There are less manual jobs in heavy industry/coal mining etc. and more in services. More people go to university etc so have greater aspiration.

However, the Tories are not in a much better place, but this may come down to the continuing erosion of trust between the voters and the politicians. If Brexit is thwarted, there will be repercussions for this, as many on the left and right will no longer want to vote for the traditional parties where politicians think they can override the will of the people as expressed in a plebiscite.

Click to expand...

attila said:

Yes, we lost - albeit by such a small margin that at least this whole Brexit bollocks is getting a far better scrutiny than if the Tories had won by the landslide they were expecting. (NB: I don't actually have a coherent position on Brexit myself, so I'm not disappounted that we're not in charge of that festival of smegbuckettry, though I am angry beyond belief about everything else that they've done since the election)
But the idea that we'd have done better with someone like Yvette Cooper in charge is, seriously, really misleading and wrong. The reason we confounded the pollsters is because of the thousands of dedicated canvassers up and down the country arguing on doorsteps, bypassing the Tory media bias. They wouldn't have been involved with a centrist leader: they weren't before. Face -to face contact is the best way to conduct politics, not tabloid editorials or social media smear campaigns, and we now do that very well. If we went back to the old days of snuggling up to Murdoch and kow-towing to the bankers who totally trashed the economy - as Brown did - 90% of us would give up, and there would be few to replace us.....with conviction comes passion, and with passion comes activism.

Click to expand...

The Spanish said:

My point is not without 97. Labour in 97 is like euro 96, you get bods voting Labour still who wouldn’t have done, like you get people going to football who wouldn’t if the whole mid nineties clean up hadn’t happened. Very similar.

I don’t buy for a minute that Brighton is some sort of inner London constituency on sea. Was always true blue until Blair and co came about. Probably won’t return to that, but I still won’t for a minute believe it’s a natural constituency (in the broader sense) for traditional Labour, except in some certain wards.

Click to expand...

Thunder Bolt said:

I'm not a Labour supporter. I'm very much centre although slightly left of centre. Not all the Labour MPs are proBrexit, and I agree the Labour leadership is playing both sides to try to get elected. They don't care about people imo.
I tend to vote for the candidate rather than any party, & have spoiled my paper in some votes.

Click to expand...