Transform Politics is the name of a new group looking to form a fresh left-wing party in the UK. It’s made up of individuals and pre-existing parties – and it’s launched its campaign with a flurry of interest on social media, as well as some criticism.
This mindset is why a lot of Blairite Labour policy is “be slightly less right wing than the Tories; the policies might suck but as long as everyone left of Thatcher and Farage feels we’re the lesser evil we don’t need to actually try and be good.” Not having anyone representing the left on the national stage is just going to result in more rightwards drift. I’ve commented elsewhere in this thread on not wanting to split the vote too much between dozens of tiny splinter parties, but also voting for Labour in their current state builds complacency about the voters they think they’ve banked because they used to stand for something, and just leads them to chase more of the Tory vote.
If our voting system was fair, I’d agree with you 100%.
But it isn’t. So I’ll settle for Tories out, followed by trying to drag Labour back left a bit.
The unfortunate truth is that the country is, on average, right of centre. At least on voting day. Most of us are left on some things and right on others. It’s depressingly easy to rile up right wing issues and throw votes, like the recent London ULEZ by-election. My belief is that Starmer panders to the right a bit on a lot of this so as not to lose votes. It’s not ideal, but it’s his job to win an election.
Two hotels in my town have been commandeered by the government to house asylum seekers. The locals hate this. The local Facebook page (which I like to check on for the same reason that I like going to the zoo) will blame everything on “the Novotel lot”. Despite the fact that this is Tory policy, I can but guarantee that the Tory propaganda come election time will point this out, and that Tories are the only ones who can fix the problem, despite having 13 years and counting to do so and only made things worse.