Having said yesterday that Labour needs to seriously up its game if it wants to woo the Liberal Democrats, Gordon Brown most certainly did that. It’s clear also that many in the Labour Party are willing to consider a major offer that would include very substantial electoral reform. Many, but by no means all – which brings us to the irony of the situation.
Although Labour campaigned in many areas on the claim “Vote Lib Dem, get Cameron”, many in Labour are now willing to make it a case of “Vote Labour, get Cameron”. They are willing to see Cameron in Number 10 rather than do a deal with the Liberal Democrats.
Interesting times… (and times which many, though not all, pro-electoral electoral reform campaigners seem to be flunking by having decided to fall silent when it comes to putting pressure on Labour).
UPDATE: In fairness on the last point should add that it’s now been pointed out to me that there will be more campaigning aimed at Labour coming soon.
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20 Comments
Absolutely mad seeing all these Labour MPs coming out of the woodwork, not to attack Brown but to propose a Lib Dem-Tory pact. Very confusing.
Well I never. I did NOT see that one coming! Crazy, the lot of them.
Oh well. I don’t see us getting electoral reform from the Tories, I think Nick did everything right though, there wasn’t anything else to be done.
Maybe we’ll get it the next hung parliament… in 35 years time :/
Getting AV+ (and therefore a slightly better deal next election) out of the Tories and possibly David Laws in to moderate faith school policy would not be a bad result, far from it.
Chin up lads, lasses, and those in-between.
Or perhaps these Labour sceptics are actually taking a principled stance, don’t actually think a viable Lib-Lab government can be formed on the knife-edge parliamentary maths, realise it would backfire horribly on their party and think Labour’s interests would be better served by a period in opposition that would enable them to regroup under a new leader?
In other words, voting reform is important, but it isn’t EVERYTHING. (And in any case, from the point of view of the Lib Dem dilemma, is now being offered by the Tories along with other political reform.)
At the end of the day these Labour folk recognise they lost the election (not only in the sense that they didn’t come first, but that they suffered a huge loss of vote share and seats) and clinging on to power under an arrangement that would be inherently unstable – at a time of economic crisis, to boot – would leave the public deeply unimpressed.
With the exception of Alex Sabine I see nothing here except pure self-interest – so much for the new, fairer politics your leader talks about.
“Labour’s interests would be better served by a period in opposition that would enable them to regroup under a new leader?”
LABOUR’s interests. Not the country, or the wider social democratic left.
Where are TBP, VfaC, 38 Degress, P2010 when you need them?
You have to read this one:
http://spinoza1111.wordpress.com/
Those who voted Labour rather than tactically for the Lib Dems in seats like Oxford West & Abingdon have certainly made it more likely that there is a Tory led Government than a Labour led Government.
Personally, blanco, I’m more concerned about what is in the interests of liberalism, not the ‘wider social democratic left’, whose statist and centralist instincts are often inimical to liberalism.
I suppose this distinction is at the heart of some of the debates and misgivings in the Lib Dems about which way to go at the moment.
But what I was saying was that the incredulity of some posters at these Labour sceptics’ stance shows no proper understanding of how badly they believe a Lib-Lab deal – in these circumstances, and on this arithmetic – would be viewed by the public.
There are far too many (small ‘c’ ) conservative Labour MPs stuck in the past. Thank God we are not too much like that. Really disappointed that Labour didn’t have the courage to go for real change to the electoral system when it mattered. What a gutless lot of phonies. I for one, wanted a ‘rainbow’ coalition to show that it can work. Obviously I was wrong. I don’t want a formal deal with the Tories….I don’t trust them. Let them form a minority government if need be. At least, we will show some principles. Nonetheless, perhaps if we do form a government with the Tories (and it looks like it) they will prove me wrong. I’m not holding my breath. Never thought I’d see the day when I actually feel a greater respect for the Tory party than I do for the gutless Labour party, but today for the first time (and I’m 53 and a lifelong Liberal), I do.
Maybe something good can come of this. A new second party of real progressives incorporating radical thoughtful politicians not beholden to the unions or business interests. I can foresee a split developing within the LDs with maybe a handful of Lab MPs to follow forming a party committed to authentic reform. At the moment I’m just sick of most UK politicians and their ‘conservative’ ways. Too many Lab MPs qualify as the biggest conservatives around.
Ellie
Well I never. I did NOT see that one coming! Crazy, the lot of them.
Of course it was coming. It’s what the two party system is about. Either you have one lot or you have the other lot. Anyone who voted Labour was voting Tory as second choice, anyone who voted Tory was voting Labour as second choice. Both those parties support a twisted system which squeezed out alternatives and is designed – they say so themselves – so that if one of them doesn’t win outright, the other will. Now there is a rare aberration, it hasn’t worked out that way, so they’ll combine to make sure we get destroyed and it goes back to working out that way. That’s what the bone-head “no compromise with the LibDems” people in the Labour Party are calling for.
A question for LIb Dem people…
Does anyone really, truthfully, (logically?) belive that the tories will houner honour any of the policy changes that they have said to the LIb Dems.. ???
It is unthinkable that we should ally ourselves to the Tories or Labour for the sake of credibility say no to both but most certainly not the Tories. Over 200 members of our party will be outraged if a Lib Tory alliance is formed of ANY kind.
As a Labour member I am absolutely incensed with most of the opposition to a Lib Dem – Labour coalition from within Labour. In particular, I find the inability to grasp that PR is a game-changer for the wider left and centre-left puzzling and depressing.
Labour have realised they’re sitting pretty, let a Con/Lib government form, watch them tear each other apart, and have a huge chunk of the Lib Dem voters next election.
this deal with the tories is a gift to the tories
it gets them into power after 13 years it makes the
liberal democrats with part of the blame for unpopular polocies and
the tories will find underhand ways to either drop electoral reform
or get the lib dems in a couple of years to vote against them and then blame the fact that a preportanat
voting sistem would allways end like this even john major called them b++++++s what was nick thinking of
“As a Labour member I am absolutely incensed with most of the opposition to a Lib Dem – Labour coalition from within Labour. In particular, I find the inability to grasp that PR is a game-changer for the wider left and centre-left puzzling and depressing.”
Stuart, I am not a Labour member but I am very angry at the Labour MPs and others who have torpedoed a LibLab coalition. They really are putting their own interests above those of the country. What is shameful, and what suggests to me this is endemic to Labour, is that both the right and left of the PLP were opposed to it. They would hand the Tories the keys to No. 10 purely so they could use it against the Lib Dems at the next general election.
Stuart, why? I was this close to joining Labour to fight the good fight – I voted for them last week – but I don’t think I could ever trust Labour again. This was the best chance to make progressive politics a reality in over a generation – they owed it to the country to at least try. They weren’t willing even to do that.
F*** Labour. I don’t know what the future of progressive politics is, but it’s not them.
C Park
It is unthinkable that we should ally ourselves to the Tories or Labour for the sake of credibility
So what should we do right now then?
There might have been a minority of the Labour MPs who sabotaged the coalition prospects who were doing it, Alex, for principled reasons but I’ve little doubt a fair few were doing it for (as Blunkett put it on the Today Show) “the good of the party”. They think their prospects are better if they spend the period of the unpopular by necessary cuts to fix the mess they’ve made on the opposition benches so they can spring into action in 2015 as the saviors of public service spending. There are some individuals (Ed Balls) who took a personal role in sabotaging the talks and whom I’m pretty sure we can see announcing his intention to run for the Labour leadership in the near future. Tom Harris empassioned defense of FPTP I’m sure has everything to do with his belief that it’s the optimal voting system and nothing to do with the fact he’s an MP for the Labour rotten borough of Glasgow and there’s every possibility he’d lose his seat under a fair voting system.
Of the 40 or so Labour rebels there apparently were against the deal my bet is that around 5 were principled, 25 were defending their interests in an unfair voting system (despite Labour manifesto pledges) and the remainder were eyeing up various roles they could aspire to gain were one or other leadership bid successful. Labour are, as we’ve seen over the last 13 years, a bunch of swine. It would have been easier to work with them than the Tories (though not, apparently, to negotiate with them) but their unprincipled, top-down and disorganized nature finally did in any hopes of that happening.
We’re in government – this is good.
The Tories are in government – this is bad.
New Labour are out of government – this is great.
Well said, Duncan Crowe!