Britain risks shift to far right if Labour fails to enact ‘radical change’, says John McDonnell
Britain risks shift to far right if Labour fails to enact ‘radical change’, says John McDonnell
Former shadow chancellor says public disillusionment could set in and calls for ‘real strategy’ on wages and incomes
British politics risks an unprecedented shift to the far right as a result of public disillusionment if a Labour government fails to enact radical change, the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell has warned.
Writing in the Guardian, McDonnell said the threat would come not just from Nigel Farage’s resurgent Reform UK but from the return of a Conservative party “shorn” of its moderate wing and dominated by populists.
McDonnell, who served in the shadow cabinet under Jeremy Corbyn, reflected the views of others on his party’s left who are impatient with what they regard as Labour’s too-cautious approach. “The central messaging of Keir Starmer’s electoral strategy is that he’s not Jeremy Corbyn and that Labour is not the disaster that is the Conservative party,” he said.
McDonnell pointed to the polling figures of Reform UK, reaching as high as 11%, as evidence of “how a far-right populist programme can pull the major parties on to a rightwing agenda”.
There's a lot of people who don't like the label fascism but just fucking love what fascism does. I think the problem is that a lot of people don't understand how complex the world is and fascism always tells them that their stupid, lazy thinking is correct. Universal suffrage is the only way to that democracy can work in this day and age and I would literally fight to save it... but boy does it come with some downsides.
The definition of fascism is a society where the needs of the individual are subsumed by the needs of the state. I'm not sure I understand how you are using the word here.
This is a bit rich really. Firstly, he's had two opportunities to get the Tories out and failed. And second, their lurch to the right in 2019 was made easier by his and Corbyn's desertion of the centre.
And, again, not that this needs repeating, but I voted for Corbyn as leader twice.
Labour pulling left didn't have the effect I hoped it would when I voted for them to lead the party, if anything, it had the complete opposite one.
Exactly this.
As much as people on here bitch about Starmer, it's not like Corbyn didn't already have a go and gave us fucking Boris.
The lurch to the right will continue until it actually hurts. At the moment it just keeps circling the drain, as much as the Tories are cutting the NHS and benefits nothing has actually collapsed. Sure some businesses didn't make it past Brexit, but we don't have mass unemployment. There is a delicate balance and it could all go really wrong fast and I don't see significant change until it does.
nothing has actually collapsed
Respectfully, I think this betrays your privilege / position.
Things very much are collapsing, and it isn't limited to the poor and destitute anymore.
A friend of mine was telling me recently how the foodbank they volunteer at has had an absolute explosion of demand and is now being used by people who previously would have been donating food. This is because they are spending every penny they can on their mortgage.
Granted, we are not in the middle of a great depression or anything like that, but things are very bad for a lot of people.
It's not like the fact that Corbyn was leader was what pushed voters away from Labour. The press were pretty merciless with him while his policies themselves were popular, I seem to recall.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
British politics risks an unprecedented shift to the far right as a result of public disillusionment if a Labour government fails to enact radical change, the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell has warned.
Writing in the Guardian, McDonnell said the threat would come not just from Nigel Farage’s resurgent Reform UK but from the return of a Conservative party “shorn” of its moderate wing and dominated by populists.
McDonnell, who served in the shadow cabinet under Jeremy Corbyn, reflected the views of others on his party’s left who are impatient with what they regard as Labour’s too-cautious approach.
McDonnell pointed to the polling figures of Reform UK, reaching as high as 11%, as evidence of “how a far-right populist programme can pull the major parties on to a rightwing agenda”.
Farage has continued to keep people guessing about his intentions of a return to politics, which could involve coming back as the leader of Reform or joining the Conservatives.
Our five bold missions will spark a decade of national renewal, to make working people better off and give Britain its future back.”
The original article contains 543 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Guess we're risking a shift to the far right then lol
I'd think they would still be a little sour from how their last shift to the far right worked out for them when they decided to tell all their trading partners to fuck off and gave up their ability to travel freely in exchange for the ability to be more cruel to immigrants.
We need to ditch FPTP. It's the right who have been benefiting from it. We are quite a progressive country, it's just that is split over multiple parties. Even a tip of a wing of the Conservatives. On the whole, the right is more stuck together in the form of the Conservatives.
Only 2015 that didn't have a progressive majority of the vote. I'd argue that was because people mistakenly thought Cameron's "hug a hoodie" Conservatives were progressive.
I think we need some thing like Mixed Member Proportional Representative or Range voting.
They should wait until after they win the election before they start squabbling like this.
lmao red tories arent going to radically change anything, except maybe go more to the right than the actual tories
starmer's labour could probably avoid that if it wasn't for the fact that the monster raving loony party had a more consistent and coherent manifesto then them.
Of course John McDonald would say that. He probably things labour is rather right wing.
He wouldn't be wrong.
Worst country. I hope we get nuked by Russia.
Get in the sea you spakker.
spakker
The traditional insults are the best. 🥲
More govement spending.
Voter reform. Fptp is trash.
Vastly reduce immigration from countries that don't have very similar cultural identity.
Those are the most important things for the country to focus on and labour is only dealing with one, maybe.
They aren't going to get my vote.
How many of those are the Tories, Greens or Lib Dems focussing on?
Tories. Don't know they won't push for ending FPTP and that's a line that I won't cross. So they won't ever get my vote.
Greens and Lib Dem. Two I guess.
Vastly reduce immigration from countries that don’t have very similar cultural identity.
So the best way to fight the fascists is to give them what they want?
Are you saying that fascism is exclusively about not having open border immigration? I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make.
Let me break it down just for this example and excluding the other three. The British people want less immigration, that's shown know the studies. Admittedly this is based on my own perception, but people have issues with parts of the UK being full of immigrants (or their children) from say the indian subcontinent or from Nigeria and not integrating. Almost no one, if any are complaining about the towns and communities full of Australians.
Now if you care about immigration you are going to vote for a party that cares about immigration. If the left doesn't do this then they will go to the right as it is the only option.
The right party for me would be:
Pushing for single transferable vote
Lowering immigration from the third world.
Massive restructuring of cities and towns for higher density and public transport.
Higher taxes and more govement spending.
Free education.
Monetary allowance ideally or more realistically low interest government loans for young people to start their lives.
More protection for workers with things like unpaid work.
Push towards less work per hour.
Eventual UBI
Externalities.
That's left leaning policies, in some waves very left. But for some reason in the uk immigration is seen as far right policy, it's not but for some reason people incorrectly think it is. Plenty of left parties have been for less immigration to boost wages for example.
I will not vote for a party that wants FPTP. Then the next biggest issue is immigration so I will vote based on that. All the other issues can be fixed in the future.