Not sure; but the conditions in the 2000s were ok in fact. At the 2005 GE Respect won one seat & got one reasonably close second place (3300 votes behind the winner), plus two distant seconds; that's better than the Greens in 2019 (one win & two even more distant second places)
https://twitter.com/meadwaj/status/1480457714040029185
Obviously the overall vote share was much much smaller, but that's bc there were only a fraction as many candidates in places where they were never going to win
It isn't self-evident that when left electoral challenges falter it's purely because of objective conditions that mean they _couldn't_ succeed. The objective conditions aren't too easy (as though they are for any other approach); but there are political & strategic issues too
In any case, this debate always ends up taking the same form: people who want to stick with Labour say an alternative won't get anywhere, people who want an alternative say working through Labour won't get anywhere, & they both sound pretty convincing
But I think it would be better if we all tried to set out how & why our own strategies _might_ work, instead of just shooting fish in the other side's barrels
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