The #LabourTogether report contains a clear strategy to win - but the left has to take part and own it, not stand on the sidelines defending a strategy that failed 1/ newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
2/ Scotland is the strategic issue for Labour and it has the wrong position - on the second referendum and on independence: but there's a route to a left government as long as the Union lasts... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
3/ The key proposal: we try to unite socially liberal and "authoritarian" voters around a big change economic agenda... but we can't wish away the huge cultural divide, and a different strategy than "it's the same wherever you live"... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
4/ Plus we focus ruthlessly on economic, social and climate justice - and nothing else. We learn to stop treating Labour manifestos as a dartboard for worthy causes. The obsessions of the pro-Putin crowd are designed to lose Labour votes... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
5/ A left government could - a) decarbonise the economy b) break with global finance c) attack inequality d) raise wellbeing across a wide range of indicators e) radically redistribute power. *If the left gets on board with Starmer* newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
6/ The British left never understood what's wrong with "economism" - the working class, via the party, has to fight for moral and intellectual leadership of the country. Gramsci's "war of position". We need to start it now... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
7/ So the left faces a choice: sit on the sidelines defending a manifesto and a narrative that were rejected, blaming 80% of the membership and our 10 million voters for "capitulating to the bourgeois PV campaign" (snore) ... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
8/ ...or engage with the Starmer project. That doesn't mean failing to criticise him. It means creating a party that becomes a vehicle for dialogue between progressive and socially conservative sections of the working class... it's the only route to power. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
9/ The common experience - from Leigh to Lambeth - is powerlessness. The commonly accepted solutions, across both sections of the working class, revolve around "family, work, fairness and decency": the left has to address that agenda newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
9/ Winning is hard. It involves thinking and rethinking - and you have to be guided by theory and evidence. The Labour Together report, and the Datapraxis work it's based on, are the first real attempt I've seen the party make at doing that. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
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