Labour was all too willing to expel the ‘entrists’ of the Militant Tendency in the 1980s; not so willing to tackle the Blairite ‘entrists’ of progress. This is how the Labour party drifts rightwards; gleefully culling the left of the ‘broad church’ whilst giving the right an easy ride and empowering wonks and career politicians.

Without some sort of fundamental redress, be it through ‘winning the intellectual argument’, proscription or expulsion, I can’t see me (and many others) being motivated to vote Labour. Right now I’m split between voting Green (a wasted vote under FPTP; I may as well burn my ballot) or spoiling my ballot (with some rather choice curse words).

“Dave Parentis from Unison told the Guardian yesterday that Balls and Miliband’s support for pay restraint was “naive in the extreme”. He added: “If they continue with that stance there is no way whatsoever that our members will vote Labour and the sooner they open their eyes to this the better.””

Hot air. Unison members don’t vote Labour, who will they vote for instead? The Tories? Prentis is the naive one if he thinks anyone will fall for such a weak bluff.

“Hot air. Unison members don’t vote Labour, who will they vote for instead? The Tories?”

How about nobody? There’s a huge amount of political apathy out there, and I would contend that much of it is on the left. Labour stand to lose yet more of their core base.

I know a fair few life long Labour voters who could barely be bothered to vote in 2010. I myself opted to venture a vote for the Liberal Democrats (never again). If Labour doesn’t start to differentiate itself from coalition I can see a substantial drop in the turnout, much of it from traditional Labour voters. I can’t see a similar drop-off for the Conservatives, although maybe I’m wrong and UKIP will erode their core.

It’s more than a little naive to assume that the only threat to Labours electoral hope is defection. I suspect that Prentis and the other union leaders are well aware of the threat apathy poses.

“How about nobody? There’s a huge amount of political apathy out there, and I would contend that much of it is on the left. Labour stand to lose yet more of their core base. ”

“I can see a substantial drop in the turnout, much of it from traditional Labour voters. I can’t see a similar drop-off for the Conservatives,”

You have just made my point for me. If they abandon Labour (be it by defection or simply refusal to vote at all) and Labour loses, then they lose the one chance of having a government which is broadly sympathetic to public sector wage and pension demands. Collectively they have much more to lose than the PLP. That is why they are bluffing.

It’s like sinking the boat you are on, because you feel you aren’t getting paid enough to row it. Genius it ain’t.

Yeah but you can’t really motivate people to go out and vote or campaign for you with the slogan ‘You can’t find anything better than us’.

It’s a bit reminiscent of battered wife syndrome.

Also if Unison, a union that has regular witch hunts for people with left wing views and led by someone who was having private meetings with George Osbourne during the pensions dispute allegedly to undermine the position of the unions, wants to ban your right wing ‘party within a party’ then I don’t know where Progress will get support from.

Lamina – 5:30pm, June 19th 2012
“You have just made my point for me…”

I don’t think I have. You’re point is predicated upon the assumption that the following statement is threat, rather than a warning (I maintain it’s a bit of both).

“If they continue with that stance there is no way whatsoever that our members will vote Labour and the sooner they open their eyes to this the better.”

Union chiefs do not have control over how their members vote , but they are on the whole Labour loyalists and are (as you allude) gripped by this ‘Labour is the best we’ll get’ mentality*. The union leaders may well be tribalist to a fault, but their members aren’t, not after 15+ of Tory-lite policies and a complete lack of spine/innovation post 2010.

* These Labour leaders ought to remember, the labour movement created the Labour party and continues to bankroll. They have the nuclear option at their disposal (i.e. remove funding and create/back a new party) but aren’t leveraging it to great effect (either because they themselves are as ‘captured’ as the Labour party as a whole, or because they lack the courage of their convictions).

Ben2 – 10:16pm, June 19th 2012
“Yeah but you can’t really motivate people to go out and vote or campaign for you with the slogan ‘You can’t find anything better than us’.

It’s a bit reminiscent of battered wife syndrome.”

Spot on! The PLP** might be able to convince the party loyalists and union apparatchik with this kind of blackmail, but that won’t motivate people to go out and vote for Labour (negative campaigning might work, but only if the opposition candidate doesn’t look, talk and act just like you). No matter how much some on the left loath the Tories, the abject failure of Labour to differentiate itself from them and the years of outright betrayal have created swaths of apathetic non-voters.

Labour ought to be fighting to win these dejected masses back, instead of squabbling over the centre ground. I suspect that the former group is much more lucrative than the latter. Although it may take some time to regain their trust (perhaps more than one election cycle).

**The PLP has far too much power within the Labour party, an opinion which I’m aware runs counter to the media consensus that it’s the Unions which have too much power over Labour. No matter how you spin it, it’s difficult to justify giving a couple of hundred career politicians the same weighting (1/3) as tens of thousands of paid up Labour party members and millions of affiliate members (members of unions etc…) for whom the party was originally established and whom continue to bankroll it indirectly through their dues.

If the Tories were clever they’d change the union laws in such a way that all unions had to have referendums on affiliation with Labour.

How many unions would vote to keep funding a party that operates against their and their members interests?

Various members of Progress didn’t hesitate to support witch hunts and show trials of alleged members of militant and a general purge of the left wing of the Labour party, so it’s a bit ironic that we get all this crying and moaning when people who are, lets face it, still pretty right wing, want to purge a neo-liberal entryist group with no grass roots support.

If the Labour party can purge thousands of grass roots members who did enormous amounts of work and campaigning for the party, then a few hundred people who spend most of their time pissing and moaning that Labour don’t have enough common ground with the Tories (only 95% the same, why not 99%?) and briefing against their colleagues to the right wing press.

The members of Progress, if they do get the boot, will quickly find a home in the Conservative party or even UKIP.

If Labour is reorientating itself to piss weak social democracy, which I personally doubt, then ditching a bunch of completely out of touch ideological loons who bleat about how tough the rich have it and how we shouldn’t crack down on tax avoidance would be a good state.

I don’t think any of it would be sincere. I’d expect them to try and pull a Nick Clegg and put out a manifesto with stuff in lots of people broadly agree with and then tear it up and pretend it never existed within a week of the election.

So the key to Labour’s fight back is to persuade or even force centrist members to bog off and support the tories instead?

Have you ever considered the possibility that there may be a reason why the leadership ignores you?

I wouldn’t call them centrist. Some Progress members have followed Tony Blair into becoming the public face of the dictator of Kazakhstan, acting as apologists for things like boiling people alive and gunning down trade unionists in the street.

If taking money from someone who actively murders trade unionists isn’t enough to get you kicked out of the Labour party but expressing a socialist or left wing view and trying to do something about it (like voting against cuts) immediately gets you kicked out, then the Labour party is an absolute lost cause for anyone on the centre or left of politics.

@ Ben2

“…wants to ban your right wing ‘party within a party’”

A faulty assumption. I am not anything to do with ‘Progress’ or any other part of the Labour party. It was a comment on the self-destructive reasoning of Prentis, that’s all.

“out of touch ideological loons who bleat about how tough the rich have it…”

Not an ironic reference to Prentis and co getting irate about pay freezes for top paid public sector employees, I take it?

@ anubeon

“Union chiefs do not have control over how their members vote , but they are on the whole Labour loyalists and are (as you allude) gripped by this ‘Labour is the best we’ll get’ mentality*”

But it IS the best they’ll get. No other mainstream party will be as sympathetic towards them.

If you really think the best way for union members to get what they want is to issue ‘warnings’ to the Labour party leadership, fine. But it’s (1) ‘the government’, not (2) ‘the Labour party’, which sets public sector pay and pensions, and if the two are not identical then there is not much use in getting the Labour leadership to agree to their demands. I might as well grant you a payrise. It doesn’t mean anything.

Parties do not win national power by focusing on their core support. Core supporters of any party tend to feel the country should be run in their own interests primarily, especially if they’ve paid financially to secure special influence over government policy, but you probably won’t get sufficient numbers of the larger voting public who are likely to go along with that.

Labour was enjoyed the most successful period in its history since the right took over. All this talk about people deserting the party – you do realise that Labour never managed even two full terms in governnment before Blair? It’s only because of the right that the party has enough support to create stable long-lasting governments in the first place.

Ed knows this and he’s appointed Progress Chair Lord Adonis to oversee his industrial policy.

I’m looking forward to beating the Tories in 2015 and watching Mr Miliband form a compassionate New Labour government (not that he’ll actually use the term I know).

Some of you seem to prefer the idea of being a left wing party – in opposition. Sorry, but it ain’t going to happen.

11

You are correct about Labour only managing two terms before Blair but this is a very simplistic analysis – From 1945 (a landslide win for Labour) to 1979, it was a period of concensus politics, and this concensus was driven mainly by the ideals of the Labour Party (usually referred to as the post-war settlement) Consequently, the question was not about what party policies would be, but which party would be the better managers.

Labour lost three elections after 1979, there is no doubt that the eighties belonged to Thatcher’s neo-liberal ideology, by 1997, the country was ready for Labour again except it got New Labour, another neo-liberal party.

Just look at Labour’s lost votes after Blair’s first term, and I would bet that a considerable number of those lost votes are from those who supported the ideals of the old Labour Party, although they may not have described themselves as ‘lefties’

“Labour was enjoyed the most successful period in its history since the right took over. ”

And the left will never forgive them for it.