A center-left group in the U.S. sees a valuable lesson in the landslide victory of Britain’s Labour Party after nearly 15 years in the political wilderness.
The centrist Democrat think tank Third Way argues in a memo obtained Friday by POLITICO that Labour’s sweeping win shows that “centrism wins elections” and can undercut right-wing populism by appealing to the broadest segment of the population with a credible platform.
Now I understand this article is largely ragebait for this community, but I just wanted to point out that the incredible strength of this centrist approach resulted in one of the lowest turnout elections in 20 years with labour receiving about 34% of the popular vote.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a consistently winning strategy.
Turnout was low because people don’t vote when they already know the outcome. The last landslide in the UK also had low turnout.
And while 34% is a few percentage points lower than other recent winners, the more centrist party, lib dems, got more votes than the previous election.
Sure, but Corbyn’s labour got 32.2 and 40.0 compared to this 33.7 “landslide.” And Corbyn won his seat even though he’s an independent. I don’t particularly find the centrist strategy to be a very compelling result compared to that.
The tories lost, Stamer won because tory voters split between Lib Dem’s, Reform and other.
You listen to the liberals backing labor’s change they’ll say it’s because labor picked up Tory voters in key races while losing voters in “safe” races while cherry picking results to demonstrate.
I’ve yet to be convinced of that line of thinking though and I’m much of the same opinion as you. Nobody elects a status quo party when shit is going south like it is right now. The Tories lost because they couldn’t help but put up shit policies. The neo-blairites will lose because they kept those shit policies.
Shy tories voted for the Lib Dem’s. The Lib Dem’s aren’t some compromise between left and right. That’s doesn’t really work, it just means everyone dislikes you. The Lib Dem’s get votes when the tories are too socially unacceptable to vote for.
A Tory walks down the street, he encounters a homeless person. He chooses to kick the them, laughing as he walks away. The Lib Dem disgusted by this kicks the homeless person, then walks away quietly.