@ChrisMayLA6 well, this government has clearly decided that the "working class" now consists solely of white van men and raging retirees who spend their days shouting at the Daily Mail comment section.

This Labour party has decided that the only voters they care about are the ones they can peel off Reform and what's left of the Tories, and they don't care about what they're losing on their left flank to the Greens. We'll find out in a few years if it was a viable strategy.

@thecasualcritic

Suspect that Labour are still convinced that the disaffected left can be convinced to vote Labour to 'Keep Reform out'.

@ChrisMayLA6

@thecasualcritic @ReggieHere

But as a strategy its pretty high risk.... given the ever rising Greens

@ChrisMayLA6

The Greens have an FPTP issue to overcome, but if they can stretch their polling lead to look more viable countrywide then it's quite possible that Labour voters will switch.

@thecasualcritic

@ReggieHere @thecasualcritic

Yes, the key, as you suggest, is whether in the next three years they can reach the FPTP tipping point.... at which point Labour could be in pretty big trouble (of dear /s)

@ChrisMayLA6

Agreed, altho FPTP is weird and doesn't play well in multi-party elections with heavily split votes.

Labour might end up being caught between a rock and a hard place, with the rock being a potential wipeout of centrist parties under FPTP, and the hard place being a huge swing to the Greens if Labour try to protect themselves by switching to PR.

@thecasualcritic

@ReggieHere #FPTP is in effect a system for coercing voters into two big blocs. D'Hondt systems also coerce voters into blocs, but tolerate smaller blocs. Only #STV avoids coercion, and retains voter choice of candidates as well as parties.

So a lot depends on what replaces #FPTP.

E.g. in Ireland it took voters 70 years to start dismantling a 2½-party system, and another 20 years to really use STV effectively. So it's hard to predict the effects of ending FPTP.

@ChrisMayLA6 @thecasualcritic

@ReggieHere In the case of UK Labour, its possible that Labour might shed say ⅓ of its vote to rivals. Also possible that its vote could entirely fragment, like #PASOK.

Labour's biggest problem under PR would be that PR rewards a culture of active openness to other parties and their voters, of building bridges and seeking alliances. Labour's silo culture of tribalism and active hostility to other parties and groups leaves it very vulnerable in a PR system.

@ChrisMayLA6 @thecasualcritic

@2legged @ReggieHere @thecasualcritic

Yes, agreed; for Labour to survive under PR there would need to be a major culture change... which some might see as betraying (what's left) of Labour's history?

@ChrisMayLA6 @2legged @ReggieHere

But under PR you could break Labour into a centrist and a social democratic party. Those could still go into a coalition, but wouldn't need to all be under the same roof.

I'm sure an argument can be made that those two parties in coalition would still be healthier than the current setup, because they wouldn't need to waste so much time infighting over control of a single party.

@thecasualcritic

That sounds sensible, but I think the purpose of the New Labour project was not to create a new centrist party (we already had the Libs), but to keep the traditional Labour Party and its socialist voters safely wrapped up in centrist policy that didn't threaten Thatcher's economic reforms.

Splitting the party would release the left-wing voting block and a coalition with the centre-right would be as unlikely as a Green-Labour alliance is now.

@ChrisMayLA6 @2legged

@ReggieHere @thecasualcritic @ChrisMayLA6

#NewLabour project was to continue Labour's 70 years of exclusive control of the left in parliament, whilst dragging the Labour bloc firmly into Thatcherite territory and winning power for that milder Thatcherism with a light sprinkling of Labour vibe.

#NewLabour largely succeeded in both those goals. It governed for 13 years, and controlled Labour for 21 years (1994–2015).

@2legged

Entryists and wreckers. Blair's goal was to merge Labour and the Libs and return democracy in the UK to it's 19th century state.

@thecasualcritic @ChrisMayLA6

@ReggieHere @thecasualcritic @ChrisMayLA6 That was a #TonyBlair / #PaddyAshdown idea in the mid-1990s, known as "The Project". It seemed to offer a remedy to the problem of #Tory electoral dominance on 45% of the votes.

Its fatal flaw was that it misunderstood the #LibDems. A big chunk of LibDems really were liberals who hated Labour's authoritarianism. Another chunk of LibDems are ideological anti-socialists, who in 2010 were comfortable in the #ConDem coalition with the #ConservativeParty.

@Mickft @ReggieHere @thecasualcritic @ChrisMayLA6 Those were indeed some of the immediate post-1997 points of disagreement.

But fundamentally, Blair had a stonking majority in the Commons, and calculated that he no longer needed to make concessions to the LibDems, who most of his party hate. The LibDem party grew increasingly hostile to "The Project", and as #Ashdown's star waned, Charles Kennedy's opposition to Blair propelled him to the top.

The Project was just a Blair–Ashdown bromance

@2legged

Suspect Blair also recognised that English devolution would have cut Westminster off at the knees.

@Mickft @thecasualcritic @ChrisMayLA6