Thread by @Rats_Nest_Org

What I do not understand about @Keir_Starmer and @UKLabour is this. 48% of the population voted to remain in the EU. Even if they cannot rejoin, they would at least appreciate closer ties - Single Market, Customs Union - & less hostility.

They are a group that is completely unrepresented by any party that can win power. They are voters without anyone who is asking for their support. They are a large group, a group which, if augmented by new young voters who are pro Europe could give a party a winning mandate.

By & large they're also a group which would support fairer wages, more equal society, decent treatment of minorities, ending hunger & homelessness: they would, in short, support what's on Labour's manifesto. They would give Labour a win, if they could. BUT, and this is a big but,

in return, they ask for two things. They want a return to Europe & proportional representation. Does @KeirStarmer think he can have their support without offering those things? Does he not understand their support is not unconditional: they as voters want true representation?

Labour is running after the voters it lost. To do so, it continues to be pro-Brexit and anti-European. When is it going to understand that in order to win those voters back it will have to offer them something - the new fascism - that is the antithesis of its founding principles?

The people who voted for the Tories at the last election to "get Brexit done" are the Tories' new demographic, because the Tories offer them far-right policies and a manifesto predicated on racism. They don't want to be "won back" from that, they want to embrace it further.

They believe Labour is the party of the "loony left". They have abandoned it, and will continue to abandon it unless it too offers them the purge of British society they want: to see ethnic minorities out, and the suppression or oppression of other minorities too.

Theirs is the politics of spite. They have been persuaded that no matter how badly off they have been made by Johnson's policies, so long as the people they hate and despise are persecuted, they will vote for Johnson. The right wing media directs and facilitates this attitude.

It has carefully cultivated this attitude to win this demographic over & turn them into its new supporters. When @UKLabour has no control over the media which pushes them to support Tories, how does it think these voters are going to be won back? Why does it think they'll change?

What can Labour offer them that they want that's more important to them than their racism? Their xenophobia? Their prejudice? These are people whose desires have been thwarted & voices unheard for decades. As long as the Tories' policies echo their wants, they will support them.

They will support them even to their own detriment, because they have been completely conned by a party that has persuaded them that "if only" - if only Black people leave the UK, if only there are no more migrants, if only we aren't in the EU - all their dreams will come true.

If Labour really wants to win, it should stand on this slate:
Rejoin the single market & customs union, if not the EU.
Restore freedom of movement.
Proportional representation/ #ProgressiveAlliance
Equitable social policies that leave no-one out.
End corruption and cronyism.

I voted Labour in 2019. I would vote for Labour again. But not unless it stops the stupid, bitchy, playground infighting, offers me, a pro-Europe voter, some hope, & agrees proportional representation & a #ProgressiveAlliance to ensure the Tories can never do this to us again.

I'm not alone in this. There are enough like me, of my mind, to give Labour its win so we can stop this Tory-Brexist-Fascist party from taking power again. But unless @Keir_Starmer actually listens & shows some support for us, we'll look elsewhere. The Lib-Dems are in eclipse.

But if Labour is unable to win back its former voters - and it will be, unless it offers them the fascism they want, and that Johnson's government and Johnson's press has persuaded them is on offer - and it cannot appeal to Rejoiners and centrists, then a Lib-Dem/Green coalition

with liberal social policies, a pro-Europe stance: a centrist alliance which will attract Labour Rejoiners who are angry with the party over Brexit, the broad swathe of the centre who won't vote for a pro-Brexit party, & left-wing Tories fed up with the party's current policies

would be capable of taking enough support from both main parties to win. Labour can't give new Tory voters what they want & still be Labour. It needs to talk to those of us who want the Tories out. It needs to agree a #ProgressiveAlliance. It needs to soften its stance on Europe.

Labour needs to deal with the issue of fascism AFTER it is in power. The people seduced by the Tories' own brand of fascism aren't going to put Labour into power to do that: why would they? @Keir_Starmer : talk to the centrists. Create a #ProgressiveAlliance then we can #GTTO .

I don't understand what the thinking is @UKLabour Is there no-one there who understands it is not possible to win back former voters in the current political climate - but that it's is entirely possible to win new ones with the right policies? That there is an electorate waiting?

@Keir_Starmer understand: politics has changed. Create a #ProgressiveAlliance . Or will you go down in history as a man who could have prevented the UK's slide into this peculiarly nasty version of fascism, could have delivered the country from authoritarianism and who would not?

You won't win alone @UKLabour Lack of flexibility, of cooperation, of a broader outlook, damned Jo Swinson in 2019. Will that be your legacy? The party that could have cooperated with others to smash the biggest threat this country has faced since WWII - but which chose not to?

Thank you all of you who have responded to this thread & retweeted & liked it. It is so encouraging to know there are many of us who feel this way. We need that hope, and that sense of community as we work (legally) towards removing this corrupt & self-serving government.