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Samizdata quote of the day According to the activist I was with, that had been the reaction wherever he went. He had knocked on 100 doors in a council estate earlier that day and all but three people he’d spoken to told him they intended to vote Conservative—and this in a city where 26 per cent of the population are among the most deprived in England. I asked why, if these electors disliked Corbyn, they didn’t simply abstain? Why were they planning to brave the elements on a cold day in December to vote for a party led by an old Etonian toff?
“Because they hate Corbyn that much,” he said. “The biggest message they can send to him is to elect a Tory government.”
It’s the same story across England—working class electors deserting Labour en masse.
– Toby Young
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“It’s the same story across England—working class electors deserting Labour en masse.”
Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
“What’s wrong with Kansas?” bleat the pro-welfare folk.
Why would the poverty-stricken hicks in the sticks vote against people who want to throw money at them?
Sounds as if you folks have a similar problem.
Tsk.
Now that those former Labour voters have voted Conservative once it’ll be much easier for them to do it again.
I remember the first time I voted Conservative, having been a Labour voter for a couple of decades.I was talking to myself as I walked to the Polling Station – ‘Good Heavens, what am I going to do? I’m going to vote Conservative.Can I do it?’
Subsequent votes: piece of cake, no worries at all.
And now, in the former Red Wall, people will be able to admit in public that they voted Conservative (this was not an easy thing to do in even the recent past).
The Labour Party is f***ed.
No – it is Labour deserting the working class for the shirking class and immigrants.
The quotes from the dear leader and his subordinates show they are still in denial about this, it is mind-boggling how they can believe anyone over 50 who remembers eating dinner by candlelight and who suffered the shame of their country once begging the world bank for cash would want a return to those days, yet Old Major and Napolean still think their barn door manifesto was “popular” – which it probably was to anyone who hadn’t experienced it yet.
So what changed between 2017 and 2019? Everything about Corbyn was known in 2017, yet over 40% voted for him then.
@ Rob.
In 2017 Labour were promising to respect the result of the EU referendum and subsequently did everything to block it.
Interesting video pimped by Turning Point UK here, this chap might have some polar opposite view from most of the commentators on this site, but at least he sounds sensible, and I think it is that kind of sensibility that won it for Boris, also mixed with a a good dose of bravery considering the thugs that die-hard Corbynistas are.
As Julie knows some of the most poverty stricken people still know that money has to come from somewhere – and the socialist answer “the rich” only convinces lunatics.
The spending promises of both Labour and the Lib Dems were too big to believable – I used to worry that the Conservative spending promises could not be safely delivered (that is not my problem anymore), but the spending promises of Labour and the Lib Dems were utterly insane, they might as well have promised everyone gold leaf toilet paper.
But there was another factor…..
Mr Corbyn and co clearly HATE Britain and the British. Not just “the rich” – the British people in general, their history and (yes) their ethnicity.
That Mr Corbyn is himself English just added SELF hatred to the general hatred.
British (especially English) history is, to the Comrades, one long crime against all other peoples – the British Empire was nothing but “exploitation” and “oppression” – with no good side at all.
The British (especially the English) have never done anything good to anyone else, they have only done harm and British (especially English) culture is wrong and evil in every way – that is the core message of Mr Corbyn and co, just as it of the “SJW” Marxist Democrats in the United States – with their constant drumbeat that Americans have only done evil.
Why vote for people who say you are evil and must be destroyed? Why not vote AGAINST such people.
In the United States the left has a plan to deal with people voting against them – taking the playwrite Brecht literally, they have decided “the people have failed the Party – so we must have a new people” and have been pushing mass immigration (legal and illegal) for decades – and not indiscriminate immigration (it has not been made easier for, say, British people to become Americans), but immigration from countries whose history and culture is known to be hostile to the United States of America (and that already existing hatred of America is carefully nurtured by the education system and the “mainstream” media). But in Britain the demographic position is still somewhat different to the United States.
It is not yet possible to win a majority of English constituencies if you make it obvious that you hate the English – and the left have made it obvious that they hate the English. It may one day be possible – but not yet.
It is NOT “English Nationalism” (there is no great emotional surge of any such thing) it is just a natural decision not to vote for parties who obviously hate you.
The Frankfurt School of Marxism de facto (without admitting if) gave up on the “working class” – industrial workers had “failed” Marxism, so now they turned to new (supposed) victims of “exploitation” and “oppression” – women (at least those women who accept the feminist brainwashing), homosexuals (again those who accept the Marxist “exploitation and oppression” message – NOT the ones who do not) and ethnic minorities – who the Marxists work to turn against the local population and seek to “radicalise”.
But there is a price for all this – if you seek the support of everyone apart from the “white working class”, you risk losing them. NOT because they believe in any theory of racial superiority (racialism is bunk – it is TOTAL NONSENSE, and most people know that), but because people do not like to be targeted because of their “race”, “gender” and “sexuality”.
To which the Democrats in the United States have an answer “these people are now becoming a minority – and they are KILLING THEMSELVES anyway” and it is true, white heterosexual men in the United States are killing themselves in despair and the left (the “mainstream” media and the education system) welcome their deaths. But again the demographic position is somewhat different in the United kingdom – and NOT just in England.
The vast majority of people in Wales and Scotland are not from “ethnic minorities” – and so the Welsh Labour Party has been resistant to adopting Mr Corbyn and co’s Frankfurt School of Marxism position (which, these days, is more the position of universities – mostly in the United States, but in Britain and elsewhere also, and of the “mainstream” media), and in Scotland the Labour Party has been replaced by the SNP. Saying nice things about immigrants (and their children and children’s children) is one thing – but showing hatred for the native population (as the Frankfurt School people do) is quite another.
Of course the Frankfurt School people are not just going to go away – they look at places such as London and they see evidence that their strategy may work in the long term.
Last point – which people here will know, but other people may not.
Marxism is NOT beneficial for women, or for non white people, or for homosexuals or whatever. No more than Marxism would be good for West Virginia coal miners or industrial workers in Britain.
Marxism is good for NOBODY – other than a small group of power mad rulers. And, in the end, it is not even good for them.
The Frankfurt School of Marxism (and French “Post Modernism”) missed the basic point – Marxism did not fail because “the workers betrayed us” – Marxism failed because it is WRONG. So finding new groups and convincing them that they are the victims of “exploitation and oppression” just misses the basic point. Marxism does not fail because it uses the wrong tactics (to be fixed by adding the tactics of the Frankfurt School to the ideas of Classical Marxism) – Marxism fails because it is just wrong, the basic ideas of Karl Marx and his followers are total nonsense. Just as racialism is nonsense.
Too true, Paul! Zero marks for Marxists!!
Here is a simple proof that even a dedicated Communist can understand. If I make mud-pies, and try to sell them as though they were as good as food, at the same prices as chocolate cakes, would anyone buy them, no matter how much work I put into them?
If I had land in which I found gold, however, I could charge almost anything, and people would probably pay it, even if the work done was similar to the work of making mud-pies! They’re not paying for the work, but the desire for the product, and desire is subjective, not objective.
A final failing is that Marxism is materialistic, but Marx seems to assume that consumers and customers have ESP when it comes to knowing costs. If I go into a cakeshop, I have no idea of the profit margin of the capitalist exploiter behind the bar. I just know if I want to buy a cake at the offered price. Is it double production costs? Triple? Is there a Communist Choice magazine to tell me all these things before I buy, or would I die before I worked out all the costs of everything in life?
“So what changed between 2017 and 2019?”
It’s only my hypothesis but in 2017 Labour were so far behind in the opinion polls that nobody thought that they stood the remotest chance of getting voted in. So they were a good bet for a cheeky protest vote that wouldn’t have much effect. Add in the millenials who didn’t bother to vote in the referendum and suddenly realised that not voting has consequences, some of whom voted twice and you have Labour getting within a whisker of getting into power. This time around it was perceived that there was a real danger of it actually happening. Anyone who actually understood what the dire consequences of this would be had little choice but to vote Conservative.
Paul, good comment. Nicholas, ditto.
I understand that if the election had been decided by the votes cast by 18 to 24 year olds, Labour would have won every seat in England. Of course young people have always tended to be more left wing but this does seem remarkable and suggests that the long march through the UK’s institutions, particularly the educational ones, continues. Whether it means that we are going to get a succession of left wing governments down the road seems to me unclear though. A few brushes with the rough and tumble of real life may alter their views. Here’s hoping!