[span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(192, 0, 0);"]soapbox wrote:[/span][br style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(192, 0, 0);"] [div style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(192, 0, 0);"]how these constituents go from left to extreme right? wtf?[/div] [div style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(192, 0, 0);"] [/div] [div style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(192, 0, 0);"]how does one toss out labour beliefs (albeit the third way / moderate beliefs) and vote for a party that hold almost the opposite political philosophy?[/div] [/div]
[div]It's not that unusual, and has a few historical precedents that we should have learned from by now.
When a mass left party fails to live up to the voters' expectation of what a left party should be, the working class majority usually moves right, not left in response. They do so because they are generally not as educated as others in society, and they respond to those on the political scene who absorb and reflect their anger at the way things are going. This is almost always a right-wing group whose economic policies retain enough socialistic flavour of a sort while at the same time paradoxically damning socialism itself.
The working class wants action now, and the mass left party offers compromise. In a period of increased immigration, the rightist party appeals to the feeling that the native working class is being shafted or restrained in their upward mobility while benefits are being doled out to newcomers. At this point, many in the working class give up hope in the mass left party being responsive to their needs, and know that the mass right party has no interest in their needs, so they vote for the party that will shake things up the most.
That sounds weird as hell, but it was the pattern followed in Italy, Germany, and recently in France (where the National Front is reported to have received support from about 1/3 of the former voters for the old French Communist Party, when that party underwent reformation in the mid-90s). When the left fails, voters do not move further left (where more theoretical intellectualism flourishes), but to the far right (where fast action is the prime value).
[span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 191); font-style: italic;"] Gopher wrote:[/span][br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 191); font-style: italic;"] [span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 191);"]Well, for a start Blair was never on the left - he more or less destroyed the Labour party.
[span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"]The death of John Smith was one of the worst spots of bad luck in British history. Blair arrived after that, as a result of the persistent failure of the Labour Party to win a general election. Like an accountant, he was the guy that no one really wants around, but you know he can do what you need to do. The party is not dead, and certainly not its socialist nature (talk to local people, not the PLP, you'll see for yourself).[/span] [span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"]It's just been very, very ill.[/span][br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"]
Leftest of the main British parties is the Liberal Democrats.
[span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"]We will agree to disagree here. Read the Orange Book and then say that. The LibDems are a holding cell for those cantankerous sorts who leave parties when everything is not going their way, but they will not hang about when the Liberal nature exerts itself.
I'll not bore anyone any further. It's hard to not talk shop when issues are raised here. Makes my head spin, and my personalities get all dizzy.
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