The Labour party has won over 400 seats (out of 650) in the 2024 UK General Elections, and Keir Starmer is expected to replace Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. The Conservatives, in power for the last fourteen years, have suffered a rout, losing over two-thirds of their seats. The SNP has collapsed in Scotland, mostly to Labour, and the Liberal Democrats have gained over sixty seats.
let me guess, they will do nothing and fascism will come back again…
I get what a lot of you guys are saying about Starmer and the Labour government not being as left wing as Corbyn. I would also like someone who would use this majority to implement some really hardcore leftist policies.
But please can we just take a step back and look at what he wants to do:
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Massive amounts of NHS funding
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Nationalised green energy
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Tax private schools
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Allow regulators to hit company executives with criminal charges
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Nationalise the railways
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Increase the minimum wage to a living wage
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Free school meals
I don’t know about you, but that seems at the very least, left of center. Sure, he’s not making drastic sweeping changes right off the bat. But this country needs an era of stability, whilst we make small but consistent steps in the right direction, and that’s what Starmer will give us
Starmer and the Labour government not being as left wing as Corbyn
It goes a lot farther than that. From the Cass Report to the HS2 to the genocidal approach towards migrant refugees (deliberate sinking of boats in the Mediterranean), Starmer’s Labour party has demonstrated very little interest in reversing Tory policy.
They campaigned as moderate administrators of Tory extremist platforms and they are positioning themselves to continue to looting of the UK with a liberal demeanor.
Still let’s not forget the right-wing policies from their manifesto:
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Increasing military spending by 13 billion
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Increase police funding
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More border security force to “stop the boats”
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Build more prisons
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Pour money into polluting industries (car gigafactories, steel production, “carbon capture”)
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Keep oil and gas production in the North Sea for decades, with the only focus on jobs and none on environmental issues.
So yeah I guess it’s better to have an authoritarian social-ish democratic state than an outright fascist one but that’s not a very high bar and will only work until the climate crisis boils us all alive :)
That’s a great wish list, but I’m not sure how many of those will happen. Increased NHS funding is sadly unlikely given your economy and xenophobia against immigrants. I’m hoping you get increased support for green energy, free school meals and rail nationalisation, and at least a modest raise in the minimum wage. Cheap, clean energy, educated and healthy children, and an affordable and reliable transport system can do so much for the economy.
Good that the Tories are out. Starmer is the most middle of the road centrist thou. Would be nice if the elected a left wing party
Fuck yeah!
watching from abroad it seems that keir has got no incentive or menace to make him go more to the left, which means he won’t do it and sees this victory as a reward to his positions. meanwhile tory tactics of incorporating farage’s discourse has finally broke down, and the votes they made out of it have returned to their rightful (pun intended) owner. libdems did their homework. sad for the snp and well deserved for the dup.
The problem is presuming someone needs incentive or malice to do that. The guy was soft-left and known to be so for years, right up until the very second he ran in the leadership election against corbyns heir Rebecca Long Bailey. At that exact moment, as if by magic, he became a neoliberal.
Its almost as if people made it up.
Not sure what you mean. He’s well known for having one stance under Corbyn and another when leader. The first being quite radical and socially progressive, the second being essentially Tory but a bit better. Which bit did they make up: the before or after?
Well known by who? Where are these people? Are they in the room with us right now?
There isn’t anything to corroborate that he was ever either one of those, let alone switched. The people who didn’t want him to win the leadership simply declared it to be thus and such. Despite their claims, that not the same thing as it being true.
The “he switch after he won the leadership” is the part they made up. You have to realise that the label of neoliberal was given to him not only by his enemies within the party but by people who also don’t actually know anything at all about neoclassical economics and simply use the term as a slur to throw at anyone right of the socialist campaign group that they dont like. In fact, the term has all but lost its meaning due to them.
You’d have thought that there was something in-between being a socialist and a neoliberal but, Apparently, were to beleive thats not the case.