This is actually a good thing for Labour, I think. Although not for, e.g., Labour councillors in cities in the short term.
It’s a challenge that plenty in Labour are taking seriously. “Polanski is a real threat,” says a senior source, warning that the old assumption that “these people have nowhere else to go” no longer holds. No 10 has long believed that the Greens […] pose the biggest threat (a prediction that has so far been borne out).
If ‘senior source’ here is actually being listened to, that’s all to the good.
Polanski is doing well keeping the focus on their economic policy and not getting drawn in on identity, defence and immigration which are more controversial.
I agree that they are becoming to Labour what Reform are to the Conservatives. I have no idea how things will ultimately pan out but it’s refreshing at least to have two clearly distinct sides again, instead of the endless ‘centrism’ (a new conservativism IMO) of the last couple of decades.
The solution is of course to move further to the right.
Under a two-party system, that logic was basically a matter of arithmetic: every vote Labour won off the Tories counted double.
Now the system’s fractured, the logic no longer holds: now it’s a matter of uniting your bloc and maximising efficiency. Reform are currently doing that better than Labour and Labour’s institutional memory is preventing them recognising that they need to change strategy (cc. /u/[email protected], making a related argument).
Basically, the Corbyn strategy of uniting the left is now the right one - it was just mistimed.
Left, left, left, right ole left, right…
