Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/22/time-for-real-change.html
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It sounds excellent, but I fear the chances of a Labour led government are slight, and the chances of one with a sufficient majority to get the necessary legislation through Parliament can be just faintly seen from one of the Bacon Airlines flights over the Infernal Ski-slopes.
(Not that this’ll stop me from voting Labour, of course.)
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Some okay-ish policies, if unfundable, and some laughable to those of us who personally remember nationalised industries/utilities.
But even before I looked at the manifesto, I knew I wouldn’t vote Labour, for one reason: Corbyn.
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Don’t we need some kind of joint declaration between the DS candidates in the USA and Labour in the UK, and various voices in Europe, that there will be a coordinated effort to shut down tax havens and money laundries that abuse the “sovereign rights” of tiny nations?
Glenn Greenwald pointed out something ages ago, maybe around the first Panama Papers story, that these little nations would NEVER, EVER be allowed to set up Blu-Ray factories, withdraw from the Berne Convention, and just start pumping out millions of Avengers discs. They’d be shut down in days. Even China was pushed hard on that stuff, and it was only discs for domestic consumption.
So, we could shut down the money laundries with similar dispatch - if we ever got together on it.
Corbyn could lead off by calling for it, and also by making “pressure Ireland to stop being a corporate tax haven”.
These taxes actually aren’t some really crucial funding source, but it would shut down all the “taxes won’t work anyway” arguments.
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It’s nice to see Labour offer a firm committment to a People’s Referendum on Brexit, which will go a long way toward offsetting Corbyn’s dithering. Pushing back at the neoliberal consensus on all the other issues is a big bonus, but at a moment of crisis they need to address first things first (plus it distinguishes them from the Lib Dems, who are still waffling on a second referendum).
I only hope that enough British voters come to their senses to defeat the Tories and their allies, but hope is about as useful as “thoughts-n-prayers”.
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A complete broadside against Neoliberalism.
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Most of the stuff in manifestos ain’t worth the paper they’re written on as far as i’m concerned.
Well, I’m only 41, so I’m not sophisticated enough to base my political outlook on a handful of yellowing, tenuous narratives about British Leyland, nor clever enough to have memorised contextless magic words like “cap in hand” and “winter of discontent” which, by their mere utterance in front of a horse brass or toby jug, somehow PROVE that socialism is to blame for every problem this almost-exclusively-Tory-run island has ever had.
But I have had a few decades of watching that kind of right-wing storytelling used to justify æternal war on every part of the public sector, and on the idea that humans can or should prosper other than by gouging that prosperity out of their neighbour. Indeed, that’s all I’ve had. I wonder if it isn’t getting a bit tired by now.
Even if it were historically true that socialist governments damage Britain and Tory governments cultivate it – and that is the opposite of the truth – the absolute worst that has ever been said of the Wilson and Callaghan governments is comically trivial compared to what has been done to Britain since my first birthday. Even if you go back to the hysterical fantasies used to scare rubes away from Labour in the eighties (they consort with terrorists like Nelson Mandela! They want to not invade places! They’ll let gays live among us!), those scare stories now read like a wonderful dream of what people should have voted for instead of Thatcher and her train of inept tribute bands.
A great many people still think voting Conservative (and its moral equivalents) is the wise, mature, neutral option. That has always been horseshit, and I’m sorry to say that if you think this way, a rube is what you are.
If you somehow believe (in 2019) that Jeremy Corbyn would mean three-day weeks and failing nationalised industries and powerful unions holding the country hostage, well… that implies having powerful unions, and utilities not run as capital-exfiltration machines, and stable pension-having manufacturing jobs. So if Corbyn can deliver that, why not let him, and then elect some addled Ayn Rand fanbois when you feel this age of miracles is about to become a bad thing?
I’m not going to try to persuade anyone that their hatred of Jeremy Corbyn has been programmed into them by third parties. I do believe that – I think the worst anyone would organically feel about him is “bored” – but I’m not being paid for that struggle. But I will say, if you just pretend you were thinking of voting for Labour – as a nihilistic protest, say – does reading any part of their manifesto actually make you think “I wish I wasn’t voting for this”?
I mean, aren’t you 90% of the way to saying “I don’t agree with my own stated reason for not voting Labour”?
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TL;DR
I did get enough from a brief scan, though, to get the impression you think I’m some sort of Tory. You couldn’t be more wrong.
I meant my final sentence quite literally: I would not consider voting for a party led by Corbyn, irrespective of its policies. My objection is to him personally, as a crap leader.
It seems like I could be at least a little bit more wrong, if you aren’t willing to prevent the very worst Tories winning the next election.
But my post above was unusually rambling, even for me, and I apologise for that.
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This is generally a decent manifesto, but a lifetime of having Tory policies imposed on me has demonstrated that the problem isn’t the contents of the Labour party manifesto, but being attached to a country that constantly votes for selfish, ignorant, society-destroying toryism.
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Actually, I came back to apologise for that “TL;DR”. It was unnecessarily rude.
I see what you mean, but disagree: if I decline to actively avoid a Tory government, by supporting a person I regard with contempt, that doesn’t make me a Tory. The enemy of my enemy isn’t my friend.
On a personal level, the enemy of my enemy doesn’t have me fearing for my life and struggling to survive. This doesn’t mean that we should passively accept everything that Corbyn offers.
If you can vote for someone else without letting the Tories in, then do that, but please don’t fuck up the lives of millions of people because you think Corbyn is a crap leader (so is de Pfeffel, and I can’t see anyone else winning the election).
This message brought to you by someone who thinks the Green Party is too authoritarian and right wing, and don’t get me started on the rest of the parties
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