Politics in the West has entered a new era.
Those on the left of the political spectrum sit around scratching their heads on why power they had once taken for granted, has been taken from them. Why has the left failed to engage with the same people who they champion?
From the EU Referendum and the American presidential election, there was a common theme that Leave campaigner Michael Gove put so unashamedly, “people in this country have had enough of experts.” Slogans and punchy one liners were repeated tirelessly by Donald Trump and Nigel Farage until the masses were quoting them as facts and chanting them at rallies.
Then there was the argument from the neutrals.
“Both sides have acted dishonestly.”
“Both candidates are terrible.”
“I am sick of the liberal elite.”
There is a true resentment with anyone who resembles being from this educated class. However, studying the tone from the past year, is their argument justified? I remember back to one of the first campaigning events I did with ‘Stronger In’. After an hour of handing out leaflets I went to a man in about his mid-20s and asked him if he had a positive response from passers-by.
“So many of these people are idiots,” he exploded into a rant. “Why can’t they understand that staying in the EU is the obvious choice? If they can’t see that then they are stupid!”
The public has grown tired of this condescending tone from politicians. They had the choice of agreeing with David Cameron and George Osborne or stick two fingers up to the establishment. They chose the latter.
With the rise of anti-establishment sentiment, the left romanticise with socialism.
This has seen the surge in popularity for leaders such as Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. Despite gaining popularity with millennials, they still do not have the wide appeal to take power in the UK or the US. The left believes they have the monopoly on morality and one thing socialists should know, monopolies are trouble.
Throwing labels around like Blairites, Tory-lite, neo-nazis, alt-right and fascists adds nothing constructive to the conversation.
There are prominent figures from the left praising Fidel Castro’s accomplishments and similar minded leaders in the NUS calling for the ban on right leaning media from university campuses. The echo chambers being created as safe havens for the left, not only enforces this superior attitude but cements the belief that all other views are dangerous.
The public are not fools. They are tired of the hypocritical flip-flop. Remember back in 2013 when Labour blocked the Conservatives motion to intervene in Syria? President Bashar al-Assad was found to be carrying out the most heinous of war crimes by using chemical weapons on his own people.
Labour, too ashamed of their mistakes of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, cheered as they managed to vote down the motion.
Today, Syria continues to burn. The far-left publication of The Morning Star hailed the fall of Aleppo as a “liberation”, when countless more civilians died.
There is currently no real opposition in British politics. The Conservatives drift further to the right under a façade of nationalism. The new set of ‘British Values’ is destined to chip away at our civil liberties, demonise immigrants and set an agenda for Brexit that many did not vote for.
Enlightenment will only take you so far to appeal to these groups so it is imperative we listen to our communities. Those who voted differently in the EU referendum. Those who voted for a different party at the last General Election. Those who have different view to us. Their concerns are genuine and deserve to be heard without being dismissed.
A real alternative is desperately needed, one that is open, tolerant and united.
* Ryan Lailvaux is an active member of the Bristol Liberal Democrats
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49 Comments
It depends what you mean when you say “The Left”.
It is a bit unfair to judge the left based on what one particular person said. You can find people with similar attitudes in all political parties.
Normally we would not take the Morning Star seriously, although perhaps today we should.
The problem with the UK left today is that it is divided and with the hard left in the driving seat. And the main thing wrong with the hard left is that it is only ever good at talking to itself.
Good article. There are some things the left gets right, such as revulsion at parts of the far right and wanting to help the poorest, but it also gets things wrong, one of them being tone, which you talk about here.
I understand completely why people see the far right and want to go as far away from it as possible, but people also need to recognise that, as an example, many like low taxes for themselves (if not for others) and this appeal to perceived self-interest is what the centre-right does well. Yes, the populist right has been successful, but I would say the centre-right has been more successful. Far-right parties have had a surge in Europe, but they are not taking over.
Ryan , welcome to the party , a very good article .
I am not as much of the view as you that the Tories are going to continue to drift towards and beyond , the right wing nationalistic stances , I think to out UKIP, UKIP s as daft as this party is when it tries to out Labour, Labour! My concern is the Prime Minister might mean it in future what with all her talk of governing for everyone , and she might out centre , the centre of politics . So far not much sign of it , but , be that as it May ?!
Thankfully , in common with most newer members , you are clearly not on the left . I t heartens me that so many , especially even younger newer members see themselves as in , what many of us feel is the radical centre , mostly.
That is not the same thing as centrism. It is a wishy – washy sounding phrase used in cohoots together on this , as a criticism , by left wingers and rightwingers . The radical centre , is Liberalism . It can move towards the centre left and does so often . It can sometimes ans in some other countries does, move towards the centre right .
These are divisive times when we need to unify too.
Ryan.
You omit to mention that the left wing parties fail to represents the interests of the bulk of poorer people any longer.
Fortunately the Lib Dems are neither a left or right wing party but an anti authoritarian party. Being liberal means being free from authority. Lib Dems are more about achieving as much freedom from the state as reasonable through freedom for individuals and freedom for businesses.
The trouble with the term “centre” is that you are positioning yourselves according to where others are, not where your own values are.
The real divide that matters today is between authoritarians (left or right wing variants) and liberals. Its clear which side of that argument Liberal Democrats should be on.
(BTW I would describe myself as a “Radical” but that is almost as problematic, as Nigel Farage and suppoprters of DAESH would also describe themselves as such!) Perhaps we should concentrate on developing Liberal answers to the crises facing Europe and promoting those rather than trying to ‘position’ ourselves between old Left and old Right.
“Remember back in 2013 when Labour blocked the Conservatives motion to intervene in Syria? President Bashar al-Assad was found to be carrying out the most heinous of war crimes by using chemical weapons on his own people.”
Yes, I do. And would bombing him a bit have stopped him, or made the whole situation worse? While it’s difficult to say, it’s clear that the Iraq intervention wasn’t a good idea, and it certainly wasn’t clear that intervening in Syria would have done the slightest good.
Jenny,
It’s difficult to say for certain, but I’m not sure it could have worked out much worse for the people of Aleppo.
Ryan, I am not convinced by your assertion that ‘the Left’ in the West took it for granted that they would ‘hold power’. In the UK we have had Conservative Government for 41 years since WW2 and Labour for only 30 -of course many on the ‘Left’ would also want to disclaim the 13 New Labour Years from that 30 year total! Other Western countries have likewise had many years of non Left Government and Greece, Spain and Portugal were right wing dictatorships until the 1970’s.
I do though agree with your point about needing to listen to the communities we purport to represent rather than just dismissing their viewpoints and concerns because they do not fit in with ‘our’ views. The newly elected Federal Board are going to be urged by some to adopt a policy of targeting and marketing our Party at the ‘Liberal, educated, middle class who are Remainers.’ That I think would be a mistake in many ways.
@ Max Wilkinson,
Given that western journalists have not been able to report from Syria because they were being killed, how would you know?
I keep up to date reading the reports of respected journalists Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn in the Independent . They are the only two journalists who I trust given the barrage of propaganda that accompanies war.
Have we learned nothing of the tragedies that unfold when we decide that we want regime change in an area where there is little western understanding of the complexities of the situation?
@David Evershed
“You omit to mention that the left wing parties fail to represents the interests of the bulk of poorer people any longer. Fortunately the Lib Dems are neither a left or right wing party but an anti authoritarian party.”
David, I am afraid you omit to mention where you got your ideas about what ‘left wing’ means.
A basic definition is:
“radical, reforming, OR socialist.” Noter “OR” not “and”! In other words, it involves people who want a change (however that is to be achieved) which will benit (in their view)the mass of the people.
The origin of the phrase came from the French Revolution, when politicians in the National Assembly began to organise themselves into two groups – On the ‘left’ sat supporters of the Revolution, and on the ‘right’ sat supporters of the King (‘left’ and ‘right’ being determined from the perspective of the President, who held a similar place to the Speaker of the House of Commons in Britain).
Of course the real trouble with using such terminology these days is that its meaning has been stolen both by those who want to wear it themselves and those who want to label others such, often pejoratively, so that it now pretty well means what you want it to mean – and hence is pretty meaningless.
From this article: “So many of these people are idiots,” he exploded into a rant. “Why can’t they understand that staying in the EU is the obvious choice? If they can’t see that then they are stupid!”
That arrogant attitude is indeed the problem for the left, their politics has become like a religion for them. The regressive left as I call the lib dems, labour and other parties like them have become the new religious right.
Remain in the EU was not the obvious choice at all. I voted leave, I knew there were no guarantees about the leaving deal that we would get as the leave campaigners were not in a position to offer one, the destination will have to be negotiated by the government, I knew that. The departure is certain not the destination, I knew that.
The campaigner in question is clearly just intolerant and bigoted to the point where they can’t see another’s opinion, and very arrogant, if they believe an opinion that differs to theirs is just “stupid”.
Thing is, the party still hasn’t learned. They still haven’t accepted that the democratic will of the people must be put into effect, but most voters accept that. Only about 25% of voters believe that we shouldn’t leave now that people have voted for it.
Come the next election we will have already left, that will be the status quo, and the liberal democrats will be left looking very, very undemocratic indeed and holding a political busted flush.
The “liberal left” might have been defeated, but I see no signs that they have learned from it.
The lib dems haven’t learned that leaving the EU has to happen anymore than labour members have learned that Jeremy Corbyn isn’t electable. But if you let a fool persist in their folly they will become wise.
A political alignment has already happened in Scotland where we have the SNP and the Tories are the opposition, the Tories are now about ten point ahead of labour in the polls in Scotland and the lib dems are fifth behind the greens. If there is a political realignment in England the big two parties will become the Tories and UKIP. Labour MPs do not want that to happen, so they will vote for Brexit rather than cause this.
@Jenny Barnes: “Yes, I do. And would bombing him a bit have stopped him, or made the whole situation worse? While it’s difficult to say, it’s clear that the Iraq intervention wasn’t a good idea, and it certainly wasn’t clear that intervening in Syria would have done the slightest good.” – Worse.
Worse because those who wanted to bomb al Assad’s forces wanted to intervene in a civil war on the side of the people who became Isis.
The real reason for the vast majority of the suffering is that 5 years of non-stop civil war have been made possible by our allies fuelling the civil war and keeping it going by continuing to funnel jihadists and weapons into the country. Without this it would have ended years ago.
@ David Evershed,
Who will wield the authority to decide how much freedom from the state is ‘reasonable’, and how much freedom the individual should have before it becomes an indirect threat to the greater good of the immediate or wider group, or that business should have before it becomes exploitative?
Serious question.
The main problem is the left has forgotten what its appeal is. Things like trade unionism, the NHS, welfare and so forth are not rooted in internationalism. Their origins are in local politics. local support. local struggle and local co-operation. To an extent they are nativist and when you try to widen the net too much the idea of paying for them becomes easier for the economic Right to pick off. If you look at countries with strong social liberal tradition they tend to be less interested in being players on the world stage and a little more insular. The main point is that politics is decided at national ballot boxes, not international ones and the international stuff is a bonus not the point.
Jayne Mansfield
“Who will wield the authority to decide how much freedom from the state is ‘reasonable’ ”
The governing political party decides.
Where the decision is not clear cut, a liberal Lib Dem party would always lean towards the freedom of individuals eg Lib Dems voted against ID cards; and
the freedom of businesses eg Lib Dems voted in favour of the privatisation of the Royal Mail.
Ryan Lailvaux
They are tired of the hypocritical flip-flop
It is hypocritical flip-flop to say that it was wrong to intervene in Iraq, because that is just “imperialism” or a “war crime” or whatever, and then say it is wrong not to have intervened in Syria.
Sorry, but the clear message that came out from Iraq was that we should never intervene in the Middle East, and that we are bad people if we do that. To me, anyone who says we were bad people to intervene in Iraq and bad people not to intervene in Syria is a hypocrite, and a racist.
A racist because it is clear that they judge western people different from how they judge eastern people.
@David Evershed. David your view of Liberalism is much more at home with the Nineteenth century Gladstonian version with than the Twentieth Century version that runs from Lloyd George through Keynes and Beveridge to Charles Kennedy – and now hopefully again with Tim Farron.
“Gove put so unashamedly, “people in this country have had enough of experts.” Slogans and punchy one liners”
Like a sailor complaining about the sea Gove has said that his statement has been shortened by the media and is therefore out of context. This is true, but he is a journalist himself. He is also an MP, so he presumably supports representative government when it suits him. Meanwhile, “doing a Gove” has entered the English language and The Times are pushing a cartoon of Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and a large knife.
Matthew,
I very much agree. People are not tired of flip flop. They’re fed up of western politicians taking us into wars to support “moderate rebels” who turn out to be jihadists and because of this endless blundering ineptitude then spend a unhealthy amount of time trying to protect our “freedom” by spying on us and trying to solve a refugee crisis that would barely exist if they stopped trying to instigate regime change like it was still acceptable to send gunboats up the Nile . In a weird way the other problem with politics, not just of the Left. is that it has become somewhat reminiscent of the old soviet union with a similar mixture of propaganda and fear of the populace. GDP like tractor production always grows and there is always a dissident/populist to blame for discontent.
“Why has the left failed to engage with the same people who they champion?”
Mainly because they no longer champion them. Which left wing / left of centre party speaks for the average working man ? My father bemoaned the lack of “flat caps” in the Labour party 25 years ago, they are now all but replaced by the idiot left of Corbyn or the pseudo Tories from the Blairite wing. The Lib Dems still have a mountain to climb in terms of trust and their pro EU stance (which I wholeheartedly support) will not appeal to those working class areas who voted for Brexit so convincingly.
The lack of support for the two “big” left of centre parties would be worrying enough if it wasn’t for the variable populism of UKIP. They have few noticeable policies and are therefore able to say what they want on the doorstep. They will eventually be found out, but sadly I fear it will be at leats one more Tory Government before they are…
Anyone who thinks the terrors of Aleppo would have been avoided if the commons had voted to Bomb Syria in 2013 needs to remember 2 things. Firstly, Libya what a great decision of the coalition to attack there has turned out to be. and Secondly, the motion was only about bombing the chemical weapons whose location could not be verified. Aleppo is virtually flattened, that was not chemical weapons – although they may well have been used. Even had they been eradicated from the theatre Assad, with his Russian and Iranian backers would have had the upper hand.
The lesson from both Iraq and Libya is that without significant international backing, a clear goal, and a post conflict stabilisation and exit plan (complete with resources and international backing), then don’t intervene.
Good article Ryan!
Good article – apart from the piece about Syria.
Yes, Putin outmanoevred us in Syria, conned us into believing that he would sort out Assad’s chemical weapons peacefully, and then proceeded to cause carnage. So yes, those of us who opposed bombing Assad in 2013 have to ask ourselves – Did we get it wrong? But I fear the answer is – Almost certainly, no we didn’t.
Had we merely thrown a few bombs down for a month or two, then we might have seen Assad go easier with the chemicals, but we would not have prevented anything else that has happened. So the answer to Max Wilkinson’s comment “It’s difficult to say for certain, but I’m not sure it could have worked out much worse for the people of Aleppo.” is “I’m pretty sure it would have worked out no better.”
Then again, we could have ratcheted up our response, somehow. In theory, we could have launched a ground war against Assad. In theory (and this one is actually a mite less totally implausible!) we could have allied ourselves with Isis to attack Assad. Had we somehow strayed into this military fantasy land, we would have found ourselves directly at war with Russia. In those circumstances, what could possibly go wrong?
One final question for the war lobby, who think we should have bombed Assad – Name me just one such military intervention since 1945, against opponents far more powerful than the rebels of Sierra Leone or the genocidaires of Serbia, that has actually worked. And has worked in the long term (so discount Iraq and Libya, then).
If you can do that, then you can claim that bombing Assad might also have worked. If you can’t, then you can’t.
@Matthew Huntbach, is it not somewhat ironic that you accuse someone else of racism and yet refer to the inhabitants of the Middle East, with their broad range of complex social, economic, cultural, ethic and religious differences, under the generic label of ‘eastern people’?
David Allen, US bombing of Daesh in August 2014 halted their rampaging advance across northern Iraq and was doubtless critical to saving Erbil, population 1.5 million from a massacre. That’s a success.
Excellent article,the liberal elite in their bubble isn’t interested in any alternate view and if anyone has the audacity to say they think that for example immigration levels are too high they are immediately smeared as a racist or slapped down as a xenophobe.
This concern was repeatedly ignored for years until the lid blew off the pressure cooker on 23 June.
Having some concrete policies that address immigration, globalisation et al might be the answer instead of the ignore / smear button.
Politicians like Andy Burnham it seems have at last woken up and smelt the coffee.
I suspect that politics is suffering a Mark Twain moment in that the reports of Labours death are much exagerated. Where does this narrative come from – the right wing press who have a vested interest in doing Labour down and the polls.
Yes, they are hurt – but let’s examine why, Is it that the membership doesn’t want it’s leadership – no, they didn’t acheive at all in the general election aand so we must look elsewhere.
I suggest it is the ongoing rebellion of the PLP which is turning off the poll respondents and that those polls are once again not reflecting the actualite. Let’s look at this last year where it matters – actual elections.
First, I suggest we discard the wonderful victory we had in Richmond Park – Labour didn’t fight very hard, had a poor candidate and suffered accordingly. Sleaford was somewhat different – yes they lost 7.1% of their vote but they were less than 1% from knocking our candidate into fourth place despite putting much less effort into the contest than we did. This is not how a party in its death throes acts.
Second, the council elections of May this year. Yes, Labour lost 18 seats and control of one council but gained control of another. Compare that with the Tories who lost 48 councillors and control of two councils whilst gaining one other – a loss on the night of a council. And yet Labour are supposed to be dying?
Third, and finally. Despite atrocious polling and the internecine warfare of the time, Labour took the London mayoral contest. If the polls reflected reality then Khan should not have been able to pull this off.
I suggest therefore that Labour is being terribly underestimated and that the right wings reports of Labours imminent demise are greatly exagerated.
If we must obsess with binaries – and I’d hoped by 2016 society would be sophisticated enormously though not to deal in simple binaries. All these intelligent people in the world and we still talk about lefts and rights when they are largely superfluous. Well if we have to simplify it’s now more about authoritarianism v liberalism and in that equation some of the people you’d traditionally call ‘left’ are just as authoritarian as the right. Infact it’s probably some of their vociferous but slowly eroding authoritarianism which has led to the rise in the right in the first place. Liberalism (in varying degrees over history) works. It’s never perfect but it brings competent governance and largely peaceful worlds. ATM that is under threat from both binary left/right. Don’t be fooled that left always means lovely/fluffy. Labour will just as happily throw away our liberties to achieve their economic ends as the tories will.
Left failed to win? Nonsense! The SNP has swept to near 100% victory where it has stood candidates for Westminster.
They are doing just what successful left parties have done in history, they are representing the wishes of ordinary people against the establishment. Labour is not doing that. I think the SNP ought to expand into national politics, and it would win.
“A real alternative is desperately needed, one that is open, tolerant and united.”
All too often in recent years it seems that the Lib Dem approach to politics stops at this point.
There is much hand-wringing, agreement that there is a problem and that a liberal solution is needed, but then absolutely no consensus on what that solution should be.
Lib Dems risk appearing as the party of protest, picking up votes from those upset about different single issues without actually offering an alternative or consistent vision.
@ David Pearce “I think the SNP ought to expand into national politics, and it would win.”
The SNP a party of the left? They talk left but act right with centralising instincts and they are not liberal. An example is the merging of local constabularies into a national police force. Their economic policies are coming apart. They will soon be found out!
@ Leek Liberal The SNP isn’t the only party to talk left and act right. There’s one a bit closer to home that does that…. as do Labour and Tory Governments…. but I’ll give credit to the SNP on Trident.
Time the Lib Dems had a positive radical clear message on such things as poverty, the destruction of local government, social care and employment rights. Being the fuzzy middle and anti-Brexit only goes so far.
It pains me to say that a change of Labour leadership by 2020 could lead to a whole new Ed Balls dancing game as the Teresa May government tumbles into ineffective disarray. Wouldn’t swear an oath on any of this though……. and maybe Tim ought to go in the Jungle next year ????
Alex Hegenbarth
@Matthew Huntbach, is it not somewhat ironic that you accuse someone else of racism and yet refer to the inhabitants of the Middle East, with their broad range of complex social, economic, cultural, ethic and religious differences, under the generic label of ‘eastern people’?
So why don’t you accuse me of being a “racist” for the use of the phrase “western people”?
If you think I don’t have a clue about the diversity of people in the Middle East, then you don’t have a clue about me.
People like you are illiberal in your attempts to close down discussion by trying to scare people off for some use of language where you want to make yourself seem oh-so-superior by making accusations like you do.
I was simply writing something in a hurry, with the limited words available to contribute here, and didn’t have time to think of some more fancy words.
@David Raw I agree entirely with your critique of the Lib Dems and with SNP on Trident. My worry about SNP is the damage they can do to us electorally in England at the next General Election. We already know how the prospect of a shaky Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition running the country frightened huge numbers of soft Lib Dem voters into the arms of the Tories costing us 20-30 seats last time. If SNP are going to hold 40-50 seats at the next General election we face the same nightmare scenario again! Having always wanted a federal UK including Scotland, I am coming round to the view that under first past the post, SNP if they win a majority of the votes, should be empowered to bring about Scottish independence without any need for a referendum having the electoral mandate to do so. Basically it should be that if they vote for SNP, the party of scottish independence, they should know that independence would be the outcome.
@Leekliberal “We already know how the prospect of a shaky Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition running the country frightened huge numbers of soft Lib Dem voters into the arms of the Tories costing us 20-30 seats last time.”
Do we?
The prospect of “a shaky Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition” did not prevent the Lib Dems from winning a lot of seats in 2010. In 2015 Lib Dems stoked the fear of a Labour/SNP coalition in Westminster and categorically ruled out being in a coalition with them. Those “20-30 seats” and more were lost long before an election campaign which made no meaningful attempt to win them back.
@Peter Watson “The prospect of “a shaky Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition” did not prevent the Lib Dems from winning a lot of seats in 2010. ”
Can I remind you that the SNP won just 6 seats in 2010 General Election and were not seen as a significant factor in forming a Government so your case does not hold up.
Leekliberal 20th Dec ’16 – 12:21pm…. We already know how the prospect of a shaky Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition running the country frightened huge numbers of soft Lib Dem voters into the arms of the Tories costing us 20-30 seats last time….
A rather unique ‘take’ on the situation….Long before the 2015 GE we were polling single figures, we had lost hundreds of councillors, 90% of MEPs and were losing deposits in by elections…..I’d suggest that the evidence shows it was the coalition with the Tories that lost us those seats…
@Leekliberal “Can I remind you that the SNP won just 6 seats in 2010 General Election and were not seen as a significant factor in forming a Government so your case does not hold up.”
What is the minimum number of seats to be part of a coalition? The Lib Dems have an important role in the Welsh government despite only having one AM.
A hung parliament was a realistic possibility in 2010 and there were three parties in a potential Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition and even more in the sort of anti-Tory rainbow coalition that was being mooted in 2010. The possibility of this did not frighten away soft Lib Dem voters, and the prospect of Lib Dem influence in a hung parliament was a significant factor for the party’s supporters (and its opponents). In theory the movement of seats from Labour and Lib Dems to the SNP between 2010 and 2015 makes little difference to anti-Tory parliamentary arithmetic, though over this time the Lib Dems lost votes and shredded their reputation as an anti-Tory party and reinforced this by definitively ruling out coalition with Labour and the SNP in 2015.
At no point in the 2015 general election campaign (nor during much of the preceding few years) did 30-40 seats look realistic despite the best attempts of party loyalists to predict this, decrying those who said otherwise on this site and not seeming to acknowledge their mistakes subsequently. Sadly incumbency was not enough to protect some good Lib Dem MPs from the damage wrought by their leaders over the previous few years.
Joe Otten: “David Allen, US bombing of Daesh in August 2014 halted their rampaging advance … That’s a success.”
Up to a point, yes. But, if you read again my post to which you have responded, you’ll see that I did acknowledge that Western military intervention does often work well, but only when it is used against relatively weak opposition which can be beaten or severely weakened. I quoted the examples of Serbia and Sierra Leone. Isis may be more exceptional in their cruelty, but as a conventional military force, they are also beatable.
Assad, especially with Russian and Iranian backing, is an entirely different kettle of fish. The fact that the US have been to some extent successful against Daesh proves nothing about whether they could effectively have taken on Assad (and Putin).
Glenn
I very much agree. People are not tired of flip flop. They’re fed up of western politicians taking us into wars to support “moderate rebels” who turn out to be jihadists
That’s not quite what I was saying. Iraq was run by one of the cruellest dictators in the world, and I could certainly see the case for overthrowing him. I think Tony Blair honestly supposed that just getting rid of him meant something better would have arisen. Of course he was very silly not to have thought it through, not to have any idea of what would happen afterwards. But I think those who accused him of being a “war criminal” etc show just that sort of attitude that puts people off the left, this constant trendy self-denunciation, the idea that Britain and British people are always bad, and so must always be the ones to blame.
Mathew Huntbach – I agree entirely.
David Allen – I advert you to Operation Orchard, where Israels older aircraft (F15, F16s) overcame the latest (then) command and control equipment including all the SA kit the Russians had developed. The Syrians had built a nuclear reactor near Homs? and the Israelis knocked it down.
Then we have the Iraqi No Fly Zone – this time using French command and control equipment with a mix of Russian and French firepower. The allies degraded the Iraqi capability very quickly.
Mathew
One of the best things you have said on here .
You always interest me even when sometimes you infuriate me . It is only ever in the way you say things at times . Anger that I feel is on rare but felt occasions misplaced when we all have lots to agree on . You often , do go the distance in effort to debate .I welcome it.
Above you are both correct and fair . The former because of the latter.
It takes a lot to be so o Tony Blair . I was once Labour . A radical moderate in what was once the centre right of the party and now is the centre of this one !
I totally share your view . I joined this party just after the Iraq fiasco.
Well, I remember when the Iraq invasion happened, with trendy lefties jumping up and down and calling Tony Blair an “imperialist” etc, and it seemed to me just so typical of the way they act: whatever is done by the UK or USA is wrong, whatever is done by their opponents is to be excused. I remember thinking what hypocrites these people were: they had rightly denounced Saddam Hussein when he seemed to be an ally of the west, but suddenly he was considered ok and defensible when the UK and USA attacked him.
So I just couldn’t join in with them in their marches and demonstrations when the invasion started. On balance I agreed the invasion was wrong, because there seemed to be no plan as to what would happen next, there was no support for it among people in the area, and I felt that what would happen is what indeed did happen. Still, I suspected, and I am a sorry I was wrong in that, that there was some sort of secret plan in place to put a new and reasonable government in place, and those who protested would ever after be attacked with “If you had it your way, the cruel dictator would still be there”.
I also could not see any way that deposing the dictator could be seen as an “attack on Islam” and I was disgusted by those who whipped up antagonism and encouraged support for religious extremists by making that false claim.
However, given that the clear message sent out by almost everyone in the Islamic world was “You were wrong to get involved”, I had no doubts about Syria: they had told us we were wrong to get involved in the Middle East so we shouldn’t. The guilt for what happened falls on their heads, and anyone who now says we are bad people for not intervening in Syria is an utter hypocrite. Don’t blame us – go off and blame those who pushed the line previously (i.e. in many cases, yourselves) that any such involvement would be wrong.
Matthew
That’s a gross simplification. The fact that people on the Left denounced Saddam Hussein does not mean they had to support the Blair/Bush attempt to overthrow him. It’s possible to see both as wrong. Especially considering the fibs told as a pretext for doing it. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed because of it, incinerated and blown to pieces by bombs, infrastructure destroyed, homes levelled, people displaced. All to eliminate WMDs that were not there in retaliation for a terror attack Iraq had nothing to do with. And that’s before you get to our own troops injured and killed for this folly. To top the lot when they did find Bin Laden he was living pretty much out in the open in Pakistan who one of our allies. I’m sorry I don’t care what Tony Blair intentions were. The road to hell being paved with them and all that. There are plenty on the centre Right who said and are saying the same thing. The Left isn’t distrusted because of Iraq or Syria. It’s actually distrusted because it tends to support some unpopular domestic policies and is seen as being bossy. The Left’s weak spot are in short mass immigration and a puritan streak.
Glenn
That’s a gross simplification. The fact that people on the Left denounced Saddam Hussein does not mean they had to support the Blair/Bush attempt to overthrow him. It’s possible to see both as wrong.
Yes, and as I said, I didn’t support Blair/Bush myself. Please try to read what I am actually saying rather than jumping to simplistic conclusions.
Certainly many people on the left have forgotten how to communicate in simple English on an equal basis. But there are other more fundamental reasons why the left is struggling. In the era of masses of workers on assembly lines, of huge employment in mines and so on, it was easy for a socialist or worker-liberal left to organise and easy for it to attribute problems to the bosses, or more intellectually, to an unfair system. The fundamental changes in employment, the reduction of large workforces, the return of homeworking and of self-employment, the diversity of the internet, offer opportunities to a Liberal left, as Paddy Ashdown saw, but it’s harder to unite people with a simple message and hard to engage people and places at the bottom of the heap.
However, many of those responding to messages of exclusion and narrow nationalism are comfortably off and materially secure – and mostly relatively old. I think they find the world confusing and inimical partly because we get confusing messages about the whole world so much more and partly because of the pace of change. An atmosphere of confusion and fear generally favours the right.
Matthew,
I tend to shut down when I hear phrases like “trendy lefties”. Aside from anything else the trendy part of the left until the Iraq war was in the Blair camp. The parts of the Left most critical of the war were actually the old Left, Liberals and the pacifist Left as well as the very opportunistic SWP (who were never that trendy).
Personally, I was initially sceptical, but thought it might do some good and at the very least would remove a dictator. Then, as the horrific mess unfolded, came to the conclusion it was a disgraceful episode in our History and that far wiser people could see it from the start, Do I think it makes Blair a war criminal? To be honest, I don’t know. What I do know is that it changed my view of internationalism and the desire to be seen as a big power mainly because it was the first time I truly understood the way propaganda bounces nations into war. I see much the same thing with Syria, but with the desire to blunder on being driven by a pumped inability to admit to failure and being in the wrong.
Glenn,
You may shut down, but that is what this thread is all about: a faddishness in the left, obsession with certain issues which wins praise from a small in-crowd, but puts off many others because to everyone else it makes them seem elitist and detached.
I don’t regard Blair as in any way “trendy left” because I don’t regard him as “left”.
On the Iraq invasion, I could see both sides of the case, that’s all I’m saying. I don’t think Blair agreed to it because he wanted to cause harm and hurt, and I certainly don’t think he did it as some sort of attack of Islam. The readiness of the trendy left (and, yes I do mean people like SWPers here) to make such accusations seemed to me to be typical of the way they don’t think, they just follow the trend of saying whatever the USA does is bad, whatever an enemy of the USA does should be excused. They helped whip up the Islamic extremists with all the horrible things we see that resulting in today by doing that.
As I said, I think Blair honestly believed that the invasion would easily bring down the dictator, everyone would rejoice at that, and peace and happiness would be brought to Iraq. Of course he was wrong and foolish to think like that, and not to see what wold really happen. Nevertheless, I think it is part of that trendy lefty attitude I despise to put all the blame on what happened after the invasion onto Blair and Bush, and none on the various factions in Iraq who used the opportunity to start a nasty civil war. Also, it’s racist, because it’s saying that only white people can be blamed because only they are adult and superior enough to be held responsible.
Matthew,
I disagree about the “trendy lefty” stuff. Blair came in on that Cool Britannia identity politics, multiculturalism and cod corporate language which to me is far more indicative of “trendy” than anything this article describes. Anyway, I by and large like the left and am much more sympathetic to them than to say Nick Cohen with his mythical “regressive left” nonsense which is what this article most reminds me of.
I actually think Labour got it right on Syria.