Labour won decisively by playing to 2024 conditions. It shifted to the right, took advantage of Conservative implosion and division. It told its left leaning urban constituency - young voters and ethnic minorities - to get lost, and gambled correctly that losses in urban areas won't matter.
1/
That's a very different game from the US - where the success of the Democrats depends on keeping a coalition of liberals and progressives; very different from France, where a hard and soft left coalition may block Le Pen from a parliamentary majority.
2/
and while it worked well in 2024, it's very unlikely that it would work again in 4-5 years, when the memory of the Conservatives government will start to fade, and the right wing may well run on a joint hard-right ticket.
3/
Left wing challenge in inner cities probably won't win many more seats in 2024, but it could prevent Labour from winning them and open the way to Conservatives. We've seen examples of this now, and may well see more if Labour disappoint and don't offer a progressive horizon.
4/4
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Starmer shamelessly weaponize the fight against antisemitism to purge basically the entire left from Labour and cow the remaining lefties into silent submission? It's not my problem since I'm not a Brit, but it doesnt inspire confidence in Starmer
Their antisemitism policy reflected imo 1) the fact Corbyn's Labour had an actual problem that many genuinely wanted to solve 2) understanding it harmed them in 2019 and not wanting to repeat it at any cost 3) but sometimes also a factional instrument to get rid of potential opponents.
Agree but (3) was really overused. It seems liking a pro-Corbyn post was grounds for being labeled an antisemite. It became guilt by association. They also banned someone for liking a tweet from a Green politician IIRC, so it just seems like the antisemitism policy is an excuse by now
Labour did not win this election. Conservatives lost it. LAB only got 1.7% more votes than in the "historic" rout of 2019 for which Corbynites were thrown to the dogs. They won just because in this democratic system, after 14 years incumbency is a weakness.
I somewhat disagree. Vote share in FPTP system matters less than 1) where these votes are 2) relative to other parties. So the distribution of votes made landslide possible, as was the fact that Labour/Starmer were widely seen as credible ruling party/PM. Tory weakness isn't enough
Clearly Tories were very weak, but Labour had a clear strategy that prevented typical Tory anti-Labour scaremongering from working. That came with a price of very centrist platform and very boring and uninspiring message.
Blair and mandleson had an ideological alignment with Thatcherism and a strong left wing (brownite left, Prescott etc.) bringing progressive ideas.
Starmer has no ideology & is currently listening to the labour right which has no ideas. If that doesn’t work he will shift to whatever he thinks will.
I'd add that, as opposed to 2019, Labour did not run on re-litigating Brexit. In 2019, Corbyn's biggest mistake IMO was calling for a new referendum on Brexit. It seems to have cost LAB the "Red Wall" more than any favourability rating or even the antisemitism controversy
