THREAD:
@ChrisMayLA6 rightly questions UK #LabourParty's "mistaken expectation of continued entitlement" wrt the #EU.🇪🇺
From my Irish perspective, that #entitlement is in most of the UK's 🇬🇧 pro-Europeans as strikingly as the #Brexiteers' mendacity. Domestically, their entitlement imposed #EUenlargement & centralisation through 6 major steps without referendum to ensure public buy-in. No public campaign to win their argument, allowing #eurosceptics to build unchallenged. #democraticDeficit
..
The #europhile entitlement poisoned #UKpolitics by defiance of the referendum result. The appallingly-named #PeoplesVote campaign was a toxic attempt to make people vote until they gave the desired answer.
Even worse, #JoSwinson's #LibDems wanted to simply ignore the 2016 referendum. That era of #Europhilia poisoned their own cause for a generation, and turbocharged #Farage.
Zac Polanski (being interviewed on the BBC) said (among some other important stuff) that:
'I think it is legitimate to say paying tax is something that's actually patriotic, we should be proud of contributing to this country'!
This shift in political emphasis is vital: tax is not a 'necessary evil', its not something we should seek to avoid.. rather it is how we fund the society we want & value!
Its good to see a political leader make this vital point!
@ChrisMayLA6 Back in the 1990s, the late Paddy Ashdown as leader of the #LibDems made the same point very well: that tax is a vital part of a civilised society
Q. is the problem for the LibDems that Ed Davey by adopting positions both to the left & to the right of the Labour Govt. seems to be working on the basis that the old Left/Right distinction should not pattern political strategy (or perhaps as cynics observe its just cynical opportunism), when actually inequality & the shift right suggest actually class politics (and the old Left/Right distinction) is resurgent?
Not sure I have an answer but thought I'd pose the Q.
For those of you interesting in what's going on at the LibDems conference this weekend, the BBC has a summary of the action... including Tim Farron reclaiming the Union Jack for Lancashire!
Labour has lost the majority of its switch in 2019 voters to the Liberal Party and the Green Party. This paper from The British Election Study shows that its strategy of trying to appeal to Reform voters has plainly not worked. Reform's increased support has mainly come from ex Tory voters and previous non voters.
I've missed out on covering a bunch of council by-elections since the general election, but I'm going to start trying to resume coverage soon and also try to go back and cover what I missed.
Here are the overall council by-election results since the GE:
OK, the first thing to say about #GeneralElectionUK 2024 is this: #Labour lost, and lost badly. They lost, in fact, HALF A MILLION VOTES compared to their 2019 result.
All the major parties, including the #LibDems, lost. Labour just lost less badly than either the #Conservatives or the #SNP.
Spreadsheet of votes cast for each party in the 2019 and 2024 UK general elections, sorted by percentage change. Only Brexit/ReformUK, the Greens, Plaid Cymru, and Sinn Fein (in that order) increased their vote.
If you're a #UK resident, please use our site https://voteoutcovid.org.uk/ to lobby candidates to commit to our public health pledge to reduce risk and harms from #LongCovid and other conditions!
Political party manifestos don't mention the ongoing pandemic, so we need to lobby directly. Please boost!