Thread by @uk_domain_names

More and more Tories are jumping onto the "Short-term Brexit pain? Sure - it's a milestone on the way to higher pay." train.

If enough Leavers swallow it (alternative is to admit to themselves they voted wrongly) they'll have cemented that contingent.

Oh, and Lexit is dead.

This approach has several advantages for the Tories:
- The first part, i.e. the bit we see now, matches reality: there are Brexit problems. ("Aha, but they're Brexit-problems-for-a-good-cause...")
- Stuffs Labour. Already impossible to out-Leave the Tories, now double impossible.

Other advantages...
- Once people become invested in the idea, they will accept almost any hardship. Why? Because of the sunk cost. They've already "accepted" the current damage. That's the price of continuing to believe in Brexit. So reversing their thinking becomes ever harder.

Oh, and of course...
- Infinite material for the tabloids to rally around. Wartime blitz spirit, suffer for Britain, we're all in it together, plus attacks on every perceived enemy in sight (the EU, specific EU countries, Remainers, anyone who dares gainsay the One True Brexit).

Let's come back to that "Lexit is dead" bit. It's important.

One key Lexit argument was that immigration depressed wages. (false)

Now the Tories have pinched that argument, and are banging the drum for higher wages via temporary Brexit pain caused by the loss of foreign staff.

If you're a Leaver, the sort of Leaver willing to continue to support Brexit despite all the evidence of real life damage, who do you go for?

The Tories, who got Brexit done, and continue to "fight for Brexit" against a myriad of confected enemies?

Or Labour, the Remain party?

Yes. Labour, the Remain party.

See, that's Labour's big problem.

RW media combined with the Tories, Brexit Party, and Lexit elements to paint Labour as Remain, even though it's not really Remain at all.

Indeed, Labour voted down a Remain stance at their 2019 Party Conference.

So we come to the present:

- The Tories, so pro-Brexit they're willing to blow up the economy and empty shop shelves to see it through (in the name of a nebulous future nirvana).

- Labour, fence-sitting to avoid losing voters it lost years ago.

- Aghast Remain voters, ignored.

All this would be bad enough if Brexit were the only issue in town.

It's not.

The Tories have parked their tanks all over Labour's lawn. Look at their willingness to run up huge public debt to bail out businesses for example. (Even though it's arguably not been enough.)

Labour has made precious little headway in the face of some of the worst calamities to ever befall a country in peacetime.

That's down to timidity, to a desire not to offend those who've already abandoned it, and who will not be coming back.

Labour MUST do something DIFFERENT.

What about the LibDems?

Good question.

They have a problem. A huge problem. Simple to explain, impossible to beat.

It's this: They cannot get into power alone, and never will.

And that means all their good intentions must be very heavily discounted, because they won't happen.

So why are the Greens surging (relatively speaking)? Don't they have the same problem as the LibDems?

Yes, but Green supporters are passionate about the same thing as the Green party. And that passion overcomes the knowledge that the people they're voting for won't be in power.

Not to mention that the endless climate catastrophes the world's experienced over recent months and years (and before, of course) are sadly also the best possible advert for a strong Green approach.

But again, as with the LibDems, the Greens won't be enacting their manifesto.

So what's the answer?

There's no easy fix.

Indeed, the current situation may be impossible to rectify, especially if the Tories keep rigging the electoral system in their favour through "reform".

But as far as a fix might be possible, it's possible to envisage 3 key components:

1. Labour embraces Remain/Rejoin. Through and through. It becomes what its enemies have expended a huge amount of time and energy on gaslighting the public into believing it already is.

That frees Labour to call out the damage of Brexit. Every job loss, shortage, factory closure. All of it. Brexit. Brexit. Brexit.

2. A grand electoral pact, much more comprehensive than simply standing down candidates. Plan OVERTLY for a Labour/LibDem/Green coalition NOW.

3. A commitment to proportional representation, as the coalition's first act.

Sure, it would mean Labour would never govern solo again. But let's face it, does it look likely they'll do so in the foreseeable future?

It would signpost a transformational shift in politics.

Political parties that aren't in power are pressure groups.

The Greens sort of accept that, though they'll probably never admit it (and of course they have local strength).

The LibDems have some more clout, but they're in that situation nonetheless.

And Labour? That depends.

Labour has get over the notion that it's the "natural" party of opposition.

Their best offer to a substantial part of the electorate cannot simply be "we're not the Tories, so..."

It is the historic party of opposition. But it won that designation by winning elections.

Of course it's more complicated than that. Power is exerted at various levels.

And yet, it's also that simple.

The Tories couldn't have wrecked the country as comprehensively as they have if control of Westminster wasn't the Big Prize of politics.

Unfortunately, it is.

/END

I've expanded on many of the themes in this thread, and gone a lot further, in the article linked to below... Please take a look!
link.medium.com/EKYTk1qT5jb