Over in the United Kingdom it is clear the Conservative Government is on its last legs.
There are predictions that not only will it lose power but there are some suggestions that the loss could be catastrophic, with the party winning fewer than 100 seats and even the Prime Minister Richi Sunak being under threat.
From the Guardian:
The Conservatives are on course for their worst election result, winning fewer than 100 seats, according to a new poll.
The seat-by-seat analysis gives the Tories 98 constituencies compared with Labour’s 468, giving Sir Keir Starmer a 286-seat majority, the Sunday Times has reported.
The 15,000-person poll, conducted by agency Survation on behalf of Best for Britain, gives Labour a 45% vote share with a 19-point lead over the Conservatives.
Rishi Sunak’s party is on track to win 98 seats with none in Scotland or Wales, according to the research. It also suggests the prime minister is at risk of losing his own constituency, the new Richmond & Northallerton seat in North Yorkshire, to Labour with his lead less than 2.5 percentage points.
A brief review of the history shows clearly the reasons for the Conservative Party’s plunge in support.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility Brexit has been a disaster. Who can forget Boris Johnson’s leadership duing Covid where an inept response caused many unnecessary deaths. Or Partygate where he breached well published rules and then deliberately misled Parliament over what had happened. Or the short yet destructuve rule of Liz Truss which led directly to the UK economy crashing because of doctrinaire commitment to tax cuts for the wealthy?
Richi Sunak has stopped the bleeding of support. But clearly the past few years have caused more than a flesh wound to the Conservative Government.
To confuse things however Keir Starmer has tacked Labour to the right.
I don’t know why he thinks this is strategically let alone morally a good thing to do. But refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to stop Israel’s genocide of Palestinians has surprisingly not gone down very well with activists. And backtracks on green investment and the mistreatment of former leader Jeremy Corbyn and former front bencher Diane Abbott have seen a bleeding of membership. Under Corbyn in 2019 the membership was 532,000. The latest figure suggests that it is now 366,000 and that numbers have declined by nearly 24,000 in the past couple of months.
This is jaw dropping.
And the drop is not only because of people leaving in disgust. There has also been an active program of getting rid of members who think the Labour Party should actually be a left wing party.
From the Guardian:
Four in five Labour members back Keir Starmer and believe he will win a majority at the next election, according to private polling that shows the transformation of the party’s grassroots.
Two polls shared with the Guardian demonstrate how the composition of Labour’s membership has changed since Starmer was elected leader in April 2020.
Since then his advisers have embarked on a mission to change the party, starting with the proscription of several far-left groups that had been supportive of Jeremy Corbyn.
“There has absolutely been a deliberate strategy to change the membership,” one Labour official said. “The proscription of those groups was absolutely key because it sent a message that if you’re in any way affiliated with them, this is not the party for you.”
The United Kingdom’s first past the post system clearly gives the major parties considerable extra power. Unlike New Zealand under MMP disaffected members have nowhere really to go.
But this particular approach is converting Labour into nothing more than a franchise with some historical good vibes being used by those with little appreciation of its raison d’être but seeking to maximise their power.
And diminishing your membership means that you are more and more reliant on donations from wealthy benefactors, most of which are designed to maximise access and affect policies to their benefit.
Give me a mass membership noisy passionate and sometimes unpredictable movement any time.
I appreciate that careerist politicians think that their position should entitle them to a career.
But us activists are not interested in giving them privilege.
They are given the benefit of our support to do a job. If they are unable or unwilling to do this job then they should seek alternative employment. And make way for others that will do their best to advance the progressive cause and make the world a better place.
I suspect that Starmer will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and lead a labour lite Goverment which will be a pale immitation of its predecessors. New Zealand Labour should not think that this is a blueprint of what will work here in Aotearoa.
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