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Nick Reeves #FBPA #FBPE #PATH #ProgressiveAlliance Profile picture
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29 Sep, 4 tweets, 1 min read
How is it that, at least so far, the Tories have been able to get away with governing so negligently? The answer is in this article explaining how economic change has transformed politics, and how the opposition needs to respond
sussexbylines.co.uk/un-divide-to-c…
Tory government negligence is no accident. In the past the Tories served the middle class and ordinary businesses which forced them to govern competently. Now they can win support from voters left adrift by the crumbling of working class communities and organisations.
When political change is a result of a fundamental economic change like deindustrialisation, then changing policies or leaders won't work. Political strategy has to be reworked from the ground up. The Tories have done that. The opposition hasn't even started.
The Tories, of course, didn't plan the fundamental reworking of their political strategy. They simply followed their nose for money and power and realised it was easier to dupe confused working-class voters than to offer well worked-out policies to business and the middle class.

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More from @nickreeves9876

Nick Reeves #FBPA #FBPE #PATH #ProgressiveAlliance Profile picture
30 Sep
Even as early as 2012 £13 trillion had been hidden in tax havens by the global elite.

Tax havens are parasites crippling our economies, and destroying democracy.

They must be erased. Please help get the campaign going.

#PATH People Against Tax Havens.

theguardian.com/business/2012/…
This is not a small campaign! We need a global campaign to ensure that in every democracy no government can come to power without a firm commitment to the eradication of tax havens.

#PATH People Against Tax Havens
The cost of failure to eradicate tax havens will be crime, corruption, lower living standards, higher taxes, crumbling government services, environmental destruction and growing dissatisfaction with democracy.

#PATH People Against Tax Havens
Read 5 tweets
Nick Reeves #FBPA #FBPE #PATH #ProgressiveAlliance Profile picture
17 Sep
Why did the red wall collapse? Why did so many working-class people vote Tory?

Deindustrialisation has shattered Labour's working-class support base. A new political epoch has begun. Here's how the opposition should respond.
sussexbylines.co.uk/un-divide-to-c…
Working-class politics wasn't just based on people being in similar economic circumstances. It was based on a structure of working class communities and organisations, which has now largely crumbled. Society is now far more fragmented than it has been for 150 years.
The middle class has also collapsed as a coherent political force. With the collapse of class politics there is no socially coherent opposition to a Tory oligarchy peddling the fake communal solidarity of culture wars and flag-waving nationalism.
Read 4 tweets
Nick Reeves #FBPA #FBPE #PATH #ProgressiveAlliance Profile picture
31 Aug
Economic and and social change have shattered Labour's working-class support base. The old politics is not coming back. If the opposition want to win then they must join in a Progressive Alliance and commit to Proportional Representation. #FBPA #FBPPR
sussexbylines.co.uk/un-divide-to-c…
FPTP made a fair bit of sense in a society divided on class lines, when the two main parties had to battle over the political middle ground. But class politics is dead, and in a fragmented society FPTP makes no sense. PR and cooperation are required for a diverse society.
The idea that economics directly drives politics, whether of the Marxist variety in which economics drives class structures and politics, or the centre-left variety in which people respond rationally to economic policies and conditions, is naive.
Read 4 tweets
Nick Reeves #FBPA #FBPE #PATH #ProgressiveAlliance Profile picture
23 Aug
Boris Johnson is just the public face of a quagmire of kleptocratic corruption, a cesspit of oligarchs and their venal political & journalistic minions. And this crooked clique is just part of an international network that is attacking democracy under the flag of patriotism.
And these crony capitalists, these would-be oligarchs and their venal political and journalistic hirelings have always existed, but until recently their road to power was blocked by the politically powerful middle and working classes.
But deindustrialisation and other economic changes have shattered the middle and working classes as political forces, and now, in a fragmented society, these crony capitalists are free to manipulate the 40% they need to hold power under FPTP.
Read 4 tweets
Nick Reeves #FBPA #FBPE #PATH #ProgressiveAlliance Profile picture
21 Aug
The corruption, dishonesty and negligence of the Tory elite is no accident. Deindustrialisation has shattered Labour's working-class base and a divided opposition has allowed the Tories to return to the corrupt oligarchical politics of the 18th century.
sussexbylines.co.uk/un-divide-to-c…
Working class communities, organisations and the Labour movement were the bulwark that resisted the propaganda of the kleptocratic right. That bulwark has largely vanished, and disorientated people in a fragmented society are now wide open to hard-right manipulation.
In the 1950s the Tories were a mass-membership party of the middle class and ordinary businesses. Now, as Brexit has shown, the Tory oligarchy finds it more convenient to manipulate confused working-class voters than to serve the middle class and ordinary businesses.
Read 6 tweets
Nick Reeves #FBPA #FBPE #PATH #ProgressiveAlliance Profile picture
20 Aug
Deindustrialisation has shattered the class politics that dominated the last century. Labour's working class support base has crumbled, the middle class is hopelessly fragmented. The opposition urgently needs a new politics of cooperation and compromise.
sussexbylines.co.uk/un-divide-to-c…
We often look at politics in terms of policies and personalities. But very occasionally the economic and social foundations of politics undergo a tectonic shift which radically and irreversibly changes the political landscape. Deindustrialisation is causing just such a shift.
For nearly 100 years British politics was broadly built around the class struggle. It was taken for granted that the main electoral battles were for the centre ground occupied by the skilled working class and lower middle class. That epoch has ended and won't return.
Read 4 tweets

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