This is opinion. So read it as such. But consider it please.
Obviously if you read this based on the title. I assume you oppose the Tories.
But if you are wondering why labour are so keen to manage expectations. There is a reason.
Campaign funding wise the Tories are estimated to be 19m ahead of labour. But honestly at the moment they are not spending a huge amount more.
We know the Tories are skilled at election manipulation. So there is genuine fear that the Tories plan to launch a campaign within the last few days.
I.E. when there is less time and funding to ensure fact checking is effective.
They know Starmer is more publicity aware then Corbyn was. He is able to play it in a way that dose not scare traditional Conservative voters.
They also know thanks to Boris, that the courts are unable to punish them for outright lies during any political campaign. And that Rishi is prepared to lie about and accuse civil servants of lying when challenged.
As huge as polling is against the Tories. All it would take is some dramatic claim against the party or Starmer. To convince Tory traditional voters to bite their tongue and vote Tory. While convincing left wing voters not to vote or to switch to 3rd party in seats where labour are the 1st or 2nd party.
The fact we know they have a huge amount of money unspent. Makes it clear they plan to launch something nearer the end of the election. And the only advantage of leaving it so late. Is it will limit the ability of the party to effectively react. Or fact checkers to be able to prove and distribute evidence of lies.
Please be prepared for this.
There will literally be Tory trolls/bots pushing this narrative to split the Labour vote. Get the Tories out, then push Labour for PR, hard, to keep Tories out of unjust power.
This is the exact same problem in the United States and even Canada right now. It’s leading me to believe it’s the inevitable conclusion of a first past the post system.
FPTP has to go, but the further right the government, the hard it is to push them for it. A right Labour is better odds then any Conservative flavor, and it’s not like the Conservatives are moving left right now.
PR (well, some forms of it) is less bad than FPTP but it’s not a panacea. Most PR systems have the problem that they give disproportionate power to unprincipled centrist parties that can make or break coalitions, at the expense of parties with more distinct agendas. This can lead to situations where the centrists are always there, regardless of how the election went, like the Free Democrats in Germany for many years. So if you want the LibDems to hold the whip hand, go for PR, since that result is as inevitable as the emergence of two big parties under FPTP.
I’d enjoy that scenario as a Lib Dem member
What I wanted hasn’t been implemented.
I want Mixed Member PR (Germany and New Zealand have this), but with score/range voting instead.
I used to be a party member but left years ago when it got rough! Maybe getting back into politics more directly is the way to go: changing parties from within!
What do you think this looks like? Like, what, you’re gonna withhold your vote next time, letting a different party take advantage of FTPT, or vote for them anyway, because you’re still trying to keep the tories out of power?
There is absolutely no incentive for them to change the system while in power.
If the public mood is turned against PR and everywhere is calling it undemocratic and their government illegitimate, they may not feel they have a choice. Especially since their membership want it.
The media is largely right wing (because the rich are rightwing) and the right have been able to use FPTP to have unrepresentative governments for decades. But now, with the right split, all of a sudden FPTP might keep them out of power. So the wealthy may turn on FPTP too.
Damn, they may feel they don’t have a choice? Definitely sounds like you know what you’re talking about. We’ll just hope they feel like they have to do it, something that definitely has plenty of historical precedent. What actual physical actions are you thinking of taking that would make them feel they don’t have a choice?
Also confusing - when you talk about the right using FTPT for decades, are you thinking “since 2012” or “since 1708”? Because neither of those are time periods you’d measure in decades.
I follow a lot of politics, and grew up in a political family. But I’m just an interested bystander.
As right in power, even if you don’t include New Labour, it’s more Right government.
This shows the last 100 years (p12) https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7529/CBP-7529.pdf
14 Conservative governments and 9 Labour
(I counted the two coalition governments as Tory due to them by the major party in the coalition)
Yet the majority of that time, progressives have been in the majority, but out of government because they are split over multiple parties. Plus a rightwing bias media placing a thumb on the scales as much as they can for the right.
I don’t know what questions you think you’re answering, but they aren’t mine.
We have used FTPT since the creation of the house of commons in 1708. It’s over 300 years of “the right [having] been able to use FPTP to have unrepresentative governments for decades”. That’s 30 decades, an unreasonable number to summarise as just decades. As a subpoint, [citation needed] on progressives being a majority - your file shows the Conservatives have averaged 40% of the vote for most of the last 100 years, with the Lib Dems taking another 10-20% most of the time, and 50-60% of the vote is definitely a majority before you start adding the conservative members of supposedly liberal parties like labour.
Secondly, nothing you said names a single actual action you’re willing to take to pressure Labour. If you were being realistic you’d have said something like mail bombing or arson, but you haven’t even said you’ll write an angry letter or something. There’s just this gap of thinking where they get into power, and then something vague happens that makes them do the right thing. Back in 2002/3 me and 36 million other people worldwide took to the streets protesting plans to invade Iraq. On the 15th of February the largest demonstration in history occured worldwide, with close to a million people marching in London alone. IT had absolutely no effect on government policy, with our nominally progressive government throwing their full support behind the invasion, so what are you going to do this time that will actually effect change?
Are you saying you think FPTP has delivered representative Parliament?
As for action, I bash FPTP every chance I get, including here on Lemmy. But also Reddit (less now), Mastadon and Twitter. I do write into some of the main stream political podcasts I listen to. I voted for AV. Though I don’t think large marches have a good history in recently. With Iraq and Brexit being examples. But I’d join a voting change one anyway.
But when voting under FPTP my priority is get the Torys out. Anyway trying to convince people not to prioritize that I think are actually pro-Tory.
What? Are you actually reading what I’m writing? How did you get this idea from what I said?
So you say that you don’t like FPTP, especially on niche internet communities, and write in to podcasts. Could you explain to me how these influence the actual Labour Party? Like I used the example of an angry letter as a joke about completely ineffectual action, but you’re genuinely suggesting that writing an angry letter to someone with no connection to the Labour Party is action.
oh god i’m gonna
You really are a parody of liberal activism.
Voting is how you change things in a democracy and that is the only systems worth having. Even FTPT is still going to give the Tories a massive kicking for their unkind racist crapness. Parties change with the environment their are in or they lose support. So shaping the environment is important. That why you get advocate groups.
Anyway, I’ve noticed your a hexbear so …