Why are we drifting dangerously rightwards as a Nation?

Tony Benn: is he stopped clock here (correct by lucky accident), or right on the money? If you are scratching your head wondering why we seem to be drifting scarily ever more rightwards, this is as plausible explanation as any I have come across.

When I was last out canvassing for Labour, the message I got from a lot of voters was: 'I won't vote - they're all the same'. And they had a point: even under New Labour, inequality actually increased. They engaged in some positive tinkering around the edges, but there was no substantive change to the status quo.

When the only real mechanism for significantly improving working people's lives has been airbrushed out, then all they're left with is simplistic, blame it on the so-and-sos (i.e. anyone but the real beneficiaries of the system) propaganda. It's the so-and-sos (Europeans, immigrants, benefits claimants, black people, jews, socialists, Russians, etc.) that are to blame for their increasingly shitty lives.

IF Benn is right (but is he?) and you keep voting Labour no matter how far right they go (btw. Starmer literally just said there's now no significant difference between Labour and the Tories on immigration policy), you are contributing to this rightwards drift.

The answer to the anguished question 'Why is this happening?!' would be 'You are making it happen'.

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EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS

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Aquinas on homosexuality

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Why I won't be voting Labour at the next General Election, not even to 'keep the Tories out'.

I have always voted Labour, and have often been a member of the Party, campaigning and canvassing for them. For what it’s worth, here’s my feeling about voting Labour next General Election: 1. When the left vote Labour after they move rightwards, they are encouraged to just move further right, to the point where they are now probably right of where e.g. John Major’s Tory party was. And each time the Tories go further right still. At some point we have got to stop fuelling this toxic drift to the right by making the Labour Party realise that it’s going to start costing them votes. I can’t think of anything politically more important than halting this increasingly frightening rightward slide. So I am no longer voting Labour. 2. If a new socialist party starts up, it could easily hoover up many of the 200k former LP members who have left in disgust (I’d join), and perhaps also pick up union affiliations. They could become the second biggest party by membership quite quickly. Our voting

Stephen Law

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