Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Larch]

Over here all the nostalgics of the old school industries that were massively downsized/closed down in the 80s (shipbuilding, mining, heavy industry, fishing to a certain extent...) blame the EU instead. 

[The Brain]

In Sweden you rarely hear people complaining today about the end of shipbuilding or clothes manufacture. A few kooks now and then. There is a sense, I think, that the 70s-80s are not very relevant to today's world, and I think this is in many ways correct. For the same reason people rarely talk about PM Olof Palme who was murdered in 1986, in his time a very high profile and controversial political figure, but the Sweden he was active in simply doesn't exist anymore.

[Iormlund]

Over here all the nostalgics of the old school industries that were massively downsized/closed down in the 80s (shipbuilding, mining, heavy industry, fishing to a certain extent...) blame the EU instead. 

In no small measure that's probably because that's the way it was sold. I was only a kid but the mantra of the early to mid 80s was seared in my brain: "We're joining the EU: we need to become competitive".

Of course the truth is they were losing money left and right. The EU ban on subsidies (which the government didn't want to pay anyway) made the Union a fine scapegoat.

[The Larch]

Over here all the nostalgics of the old school industries that were massively downsized/closed down in the 80s (shipbuilding, mining, heavy industry, fishing to a certain extent...) blame the EU instead. 

In no small measure that's probably because that's the way it was sold. I was only a kid but the mantra of the early to mid 80s was seared in my brain: "We're joining the EU: we need to become competitive".

Of course the truth is they were losing money left and right. The EU ban on subsidies (which the government didn't want to pay anyway) made the Union a fine scapegoat.

Well, I was too young back then to remember those days, but my hometown was quite the urban warfare setting during the mid 80s because of all the shipbuilders' strikes, so there's a lingering resentment in the air regarding these topics.

[Sheilbh]

Can/Could the UK's hard coal production compete in price with the Australian coal? I have no idea of its level of production, but IIRC in Europe the main producer of hard coal is Poland by quite far. Germany, on the contrary, still mines and uses plenty of lignite, which is the lower grade of coal and the more polluting one.

No absolutely not. The reason Thatcher took on the miners was partly existential about breaking union power following the 1970s - and the miners were the most emblematic union and following the election of Arthur Scargill as President of the NUM had become the most radical/confrontational. But it was also true that the UK was paying significantly more for domestically produced coal than market price.

That's why the narrative of Thatcher moving from coal to gas isn't quite true. In the rest of the 80s the UK imports coal and natural gas because it's cheaper and Thatcher wasn't particularly interested in meddlig with market forces to ensure UK workers have jobs - it went against her beliefs in the market. In the 90s gas production really takes off in the UK and we start using that to a far greater degree because it is competitively priced (we'd moved from a few fields being discovered to an absolute glut - and now we're back to a few fields ).

Setting aside the fact whether Thatcher was a net good or not (my impression listening to you guys is that it was the correct direction and necessary steps made with way too little / zero consideration or concern given to mitigate the bad side effects), I can't possibly see how this fixation on the 80s (a growing portion of voters were not even alive then) can help address any of the current issues in people's lives.

Yeah I think my broad take would almost be that Thatcher or someone similar was inevitable and the big problem was that Thatcher just leaned into the forces at that time: globalisation, financialisation etc with no desire to create protections for people who were - to coin a phrase - "left behind". I think other countries pushed the brakes a little harder or tried to cushion/deflect the change while she embraced it. But I think it is striking that the Britain she created was not what she wanted - there's a famous line that she wanted to return to a Britain of her father (abstemious, upright, provincial greengrocer and local councillor) but created the Britain of her son (a spiv). Although I am aware of the problems of referring to an astonishingly powerful and intellectual woman by reference to men in her life rather than her own terms

I think there's something to that - in 1979 she does talk about wanting Britain to again be "the workshop of the world", she talked a lot about re-invigorating industry by freeing it from industrial unrest. That isn't the Britain she left in 1990 when we'd already become a financial centre and a service-based economy. In part I think that is just because she didn't believe in interfering in the market. If the market and her policies ending union power and deregulating were going to move us from manufacturing to services - she wasn't going to interfere to prop up manufacturing even if that was her actual preference.

And I think this is another point where I, in large part, blame the left. Industrial relations were becoming an increasing issue from 1966 to 1979 - there is incredible footage from the 1979 election when journalists are doing a press conference with union leaders and they're basically asking whether they will let this democratically elected government have a chance or if they will immediately move to strike action to stop it. It's extraordinary. And in that period Labour were in office for 12 years - there were attempts like Barbara Castle's "In Place of Greater Strife" proposal to regulate the unions and move us in a direction closer to Germany or continental Europe and the left and union leaders trashed it. It's not a million miles from the old socialist row about revolution or amelioration - they stopped all attempts at moderate reform for 16 years and then ended up with people electing a radical instead.

And she was cleverer than Heath - my dad was in the merchant navy and remembers spending year's before the strike just shipping coal within the UK to central hubs so she could keep the power on during the strike. Heath didn't prepare and ended up with the 3 day week

Over here all the nostalgics of the old school industries that were massively downsized/closed down in the 80s (shipbuilding, mining, heavy industry, fishing to a certain extent...) blame the EU instead. 

Thatcher's EU - the single market, restrictions on state aid, strong anti-trust enforcement etc.

In no small measure that's probably because that's the way it was sold. I was only a kid but the mantra of the early to mid 80s was seared in my brain: "We're joining the EU: we need to become competitive".

This was a criticism of joining the common market at the times we tried in the 60s and 70s - as well as the sovereignty/democracy issues and developing world/Commonwealth criticism. It was mainly made by the left but their point was the marketeers couldn't have it both ways: this can't be a great opportunity for British industry to start exporting en masse to Europe and necessary because we need to the cold wind of competition to discipline uncompetitive businesses. And they were right - the competition basically won out as we (under Thatcher) leaned into our competitive advantages in professional services, financial sector etc rather than exporting a great deal of goods by British champions.

Here it wasn't that the government wanted to scapegoat the EU (and Thatcher didn't - she was more than happy to take the blame of confronting non-competitive industries and telling them her government wouldn't pick favourites) - but rather the common UK approach of using the EU to anchor in European legislation contentious domestic issues. So part of the reason Thatcher wanted single market reforms wasn't just because she thought they'd be good for Europe, but so Labour couldn't unravel them - same goes for New Labour with some of the social or health and safety EU regulations. And that's why British governments did tend to gold-plate EU law.

In Sweden you rarely hear people complaining today about the end of shipbuilding or clothes manufacture. A few kooks now and then. There is a sense, I think, that the 70s-80s are not very relevant to today's world, and I think this is in many ways correct. For the same reason people rarely talk about PM Olof Palme who was murdered in 1986, in his time a very high profile and controversial political figure, but the Sweden he was active in simply doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah I mean I find the left view a little weird on this because it does feel a little bit  - we want to mine the coal but never burn it

I actually think the 70s is hugely relevant to the modern world in lots of ways because I feel like we're in a similarly transitional era/moment right now as the 70s were.

[Tamas]

I think there's uproar over Johnson's coal-mine closing "joke" because it hit too close to home - you cannot simultaneously long for the days of open coal mines AND demand action on climate change.

[Sheilbh]

I think there's uproar over Johnson's coal-mine closing "joke" because it hit too close to home - you cannot simultaneously long for the days of open coal mines AND demand action on climate change.

Agree.

Johnson made this comment and the left is in uproar over the social damage (which is real!) that Thatcher caused by closing the mines - while today Starmer announced Labour were formally opposed to opening of a new (and the only) coal mine in the UK - to supply an industry that the left (rightly!) wanted nationalised and protected only 5-6 years ago I think there is an awareness of the discomfort of all of those opinions that don't quite cohere or stick together.

Plus the implication that on the fundamental issue - Thatcher got it right but did it in a bad way. And  it should be said that was broadly the New Labour take - and they have many issues but I do think part of their success was accepting the country Britain had become more fully than the Tories at the time and not really being weighed down by historical baggage. It's not just the left that live in the past - the Labour right constantly want to re-litigate the fights of the 80s and the 90s and revive 1997-era Blairism which is equally historical. I think the great successful Labour leaders all adress now - Attlee was all about what now we've won the war, Wilson was about embracing the "white heat of the technological revolution" to modernise Britain, Blair was - and is - obsessed with identifying the trend of history and trying to fully embody and embrace that, like Paul Klee's Angelus Novus.

I think actually that's the big issue with Blair's current analysis - in the 90s and 00s it meant embracing some good things (LGBT rights, modern attitudes on race etc) but also more contentious things (public sector reform - which Gove has continued - and globalisation) and that the job of Labour as a progressive party, and progressives in general, was to advance those historical forces. I think he now sees the tech companies in the same way, so they should be embraced and pushed forward by progressives in his tradition. But it's why his rhetoric was always - you are either on my side (and the side of the people) or you are on the side of the past. I think the slight problem is he was too narrow in appreciating how historical forces could be manipulated or altered. There was no sense that his government could change the way globalisation was experienced in Britain, for example, which I think is part of why we ended up where we did.

Edit: It's also why I think the most cutting line Cameron ever achieved to Blair was "he was the future once."

Edit: And, incidentally, while climate wasn't a motivator in Thatcher's policies on coal-mining - I believe she was the first world leader to give a speech on climate change in the late 80s on the first IPCC report:

The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement. It is almost as difficult to get a large number of distinguished scientists to agree, as it is to get agreement from a group of politicians. As a scientist who became a politician, I am perhaps particularly qualified to make that observation! I know both worlds.

Of course, much more research is needed. We don't yet know all the answers. Some major uncertainties and doubts remain. No-one can yet say with certainty that it is human activities which have caused the apparent increase in global average temperatures. The IPCC report is very careful on this point. For instance, the total amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere each year from natural sources is some 600 billion tonnes, while the figure resulting from human activities is only 26 billion tonnes. In relative terms that is not very significant. Equally we know that the increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere date from the start of the industrial revolution. And we know that those concentrations will continue to rise if we fail to act.

Nor do we know with any precision the extent of the likely warming in the next century, nor what the regional effects will be, and we can't be sure of the role of the clouds.
[...]
Global climate change within limits need not by itself pose serious problems—our globe has after all seen a great deal of climate change over the centuries. And it's notable that the blue-green algae which dominated the Precambrian period at the dawn of life are still major components of the marine phytoplankton today. Despite the climate changes of many millions of years, these microbes have persisted on earth virtually unchanged, pumping out life-giving oxygen into the atmosphere and mopping up carbon dioxide.

The real dangers arise because climate change is combined with other problems of our age: for instance the population explosion; — the deterioration of soil fertility; — increasing pollution of the sea; — intensive use of fossil fuel; — and destruction of the world's forests, particularly those in the tropics.
[...]
But the need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action now. There is already a clear case for precautionary action at an international level. The IPCC tells us that we can't repair the effects of past behaviour on our atmosphere as quickly and as easily as we might cleanse a stream or river. It will take, for example, until the second half of the next century, until the old age of my grandson, to repair the damage to the ozone layer above the Antarctic. And some of the gases we are adding to the global heat trap will endure in the Earth's atmosphere for just as long.

The IPCC tells us that, on present trends, the earth will warm up faster than at any time since the last ice age. Weather patterns could change so that what is now wet would become dry, and what is now dry would become wet. Rising seas could threaten the livelihood of that substantial part of the world's population which lives on or near coasts. The character and behaviour of plants would change, some for the better, some for worse. Some species of animals and plants would migrate to different zones or disappear for ever. Forests would die or move. And deserts would advance as green fields retreated.

Many of the precautionary actions that we need to take would be sensible in any event. It is sensible to improve energy efficiency and use energy prudently; it's sensible to develop alternative and sustainable and sensible ... it's sensible to improve energy efficiency and to develop alternative and sustainable sources of supply; it's sensible to replant the forests which we consume; it's sensible to re-examine industrial processes; it's sensible to tackle the problem of waste. I understand that the latest vogue is to call them 'no regrets' policies. Certainly we should have none in putting them into effect.

And our uncertainties about climate change are not all in one direction. The IPCC report is very honest about the margins of error. Climate change may be less than predicted. But equally it may occur more quickly than the present computer models suggest. Should this happen it would be doubly disastrous were we to shirk the challenge now. I see the adoption of these policies as a sort of premium on insurance against fire, flood or other disaster. It may be cheaper or more cost-effective to take action now than to wait and find we have to pay much more later.
[...]
But our immediate task this week is to carry as many countries as possible with us, so that we can negotiate a successful framework convention on climate change in 1992. We must also begin work on the binding commitments that will be necessary to make the convention work.

To accomplish these tasks, we must not waste time and energy disputing the IPCC's report or debating the right machinery for making progress. The International Panel's work should be taken as our sign post: and the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation as the principal vehicles for reaching our destination.

We shan't succeed if we are all too inflexible. We shan't succeed if we indulge in selfrighteous point-scoring for the benefit of audiences and voters at home. We have to work sympathetically together. We have to recognise the importance of economic growth of a kind that benefits future as well as present generations everywhere. We need it not only to raise living standards but to generate the wealth required to pay for protection of the environment.

It would be absurd to adopt polices which would bankrupt the industrial nations, or doom the poorer countries to increasing poverty. We have to recognise the widely differing circumstances facing individual countries, with the better-off assisting the poorer ones as we agreed to do under the Montreal Protocol.

[Josquius]

I know the left will start climbing out of its hole when they can string out two sentences commenting on a present situation without naming Thatcher as the root cause of whatever issue being discussed.

To be fair she is.
This is something labour could have done well to be a lot clearer about in the past rather than just accept the tory rewriting of history.
That labour have a tendency to live in the past may well be true but they don't do this in a blaming thatcher fashion.

I mean, first there is yourself who absolutely cannot interpret reality other than its relationship to Thatcher (don't worry, a lot of Hungarians who hate Orban have reached this stage already). And there's the Guardian comment section where it is impossible to scroll down more than 2-3 comments without seeing "Thatcher" written down, completely regardless of the topic at hand.

Setting aside the fact whether Thatcher was a net good or not (my impression listening to you guys is that it was the correct direction and necessary steps made with way too little / zero consideration or concern given to mitigate the bad side effects), I can't possibly see how this fixation on the 80s (a growing portion of voters were not even alive then) can help address any of the current issues in people's lives.

If we went and reopened literally all the coalmines tomorrow it would improve exactly none of the existing issues of the country, and would make some of them worse. Same goes for pretty much all the heavy industry which has closed down. A lot of what happened in the UK seem to have happened in the rest of the world roughly at the same time (and behind the Iron Curtain once communism fell). It wasn't an evil woman going against the tide of history and wrecking a country bound for greatness - it was times changing and the UK's (wrong or right, up for debate) answers to that. Let's move the heck on it's been almost 40 years.

I'm a guy on the Internet. I have no relationship to the Labour Party leadership and never have.

That thatcher is so utterly hated shows how actually cursing her name could have worked rather than the current state of living in the past without specifying what the actual errors to be fixed are, in many cases identifying totally the wrong stuff.

Note I said it would have been a good idea to attack thatcher more. Now, despite most of the problems in the country having their roots with her, it wouldn't really be as you say its the distant past.
It's ridiculous that so much of the blame for all that is wrong falls on Blair when the worst you can say for him is he squandered the opportunity to fix many of thatchers errors.

Thatcher certainly did wreck the UK. She devestatd the county and pulled us away from where we were headed in being a normal West European country and instead strengthened the forces trying to make us into a pale imitation of the US.

Nobody thinks the industry can all be brought back. That was one of those when it's gone its gone things (though it needs noting no, this was far far from inevitable. Germany is the best example of a better way) . But thatchers errors stretch far beyond this. There's a lot she did that any halfway competent government should be prioritising fixing as its really key to the biggest problems in the country. Busses and local government are two big ones here.

[Sheilbh]

Just as an aside I'd note that English Labour have gone in big on this - as have the SNP. One party that I'd say lives too much in the past and one that just enjoys any opportunity for a grievance (see the recent "scandal" about a Scottish person being wrongly stopped in a Zara for shoplifting - or the manufactured "snub" by Johnson not meeting Sturgeon ).

By contrast - Mark Drakeford, the leader of Welsh Labour who've just matched their best ever results and is First Minister of Wales just retweeted Starmer's comment once and has spent the last day going on about the Welsh government's/Welsh Labour's climate plan.

In part that might just be the benefit of being in power, but part of it is also I think just better politics. Instead UK Labour is calling for Johnson to apologise and withdraw his remarks - which he won't.

As I say: bait. And Labour cannot resist

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/08/jeremy-corbyn-could-be-reinstated-as-labour-mp-under-leftwing-challenge-to-starmer

Jeremy Corbyn could be reinstated as Labour MP under leftwing challenge to Starmer

Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn have drawn up an "urgent" plan that would hand party members the powers to reinstate the former leader as a Labour MP.

In a sign of the tensions within the party over Corbyn's suspension, figures on the left are circulating a change to Labour rules that would give members the final say over disciplinary action taken against MPs.

Local branches of the party are being asked to back the rule change and propose it at the forthcoming Labour conference, creating a potentially embarrassing moment for Keir Starmer as he attempts to use the Brighton gathering to reinvigorate his leadership. The proposal, drawn up by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and circulated across the party, states that an urgent rule change is needed to close a "gaping hole in the Labour party rule book" and hand more power to members.

"The PLP [Parliamentary Labour party] is not accountable to annual conference," the proposal states. It said the new measure "would require the PLP and chief whip to report directly to the conference, including on MPs' discipline, with the conference able to confirm or reject disciplinary decisions that are of concern to delegates".

While the change would apply to action taken against all MPs, it has been designed as a way to reinstate Corbyn, who was suspended from the party last October after stating that antisemitism in the party was "dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media". It followed damning findings in a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Corbyn, who attacked the suspension as a "political intervention" that he would strongly oppose, had his party membership reinstated after 19 days but still has not had the party whip restored in the Commons, meaning he sits as an independent MP. Corbyn has said he had made "absolutely clear those who deny there has been an antisemitism problem in the Labour party are wrong".

Motions that are problematic for the leadership are not uncommon at Labour conferences, but it is one of several issues that could cause a distraction for Starmer at a hugely important moment for him. Party bodies may be able to throw out the proposal if it is deemed to have legal problems, but ultimately Labour may need the help of supportive trade unions to kill it off.

Despite thousands of pro-Corbyn members leaving the party since Starmer's arrival, the measure is a sign of the significant divisions that remain inside Labour after years of civil war. Senior party figures have long blamed Corbyn for leaving behind party structures that needed a lot of work to repair. "People underestimate just how much work we've had to do to fix things in the party," said one key figure.

More than a year into Starmer's leadership, he has already overhauled his senior team and has begun to take a tougher stance against the party's hard left. Last month, Labour's ruling body voted to ban four far-left factions that were vocal supporters of Corbyn's leadership and to overhaul its complaints process. It outlawed Resist and Labour Against the Witchhunt, which claims antisemitism allegations were politically motivated, and Labour in Exile Network. Socialist Appeal, a group that describes itself as a Marxist voice of Labour and youth, was also banned. Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal, described it as a "blatant, politically motivated attack on the left by the Labour right wing".

A senior Labour insider said they were confident that conference would reject the rule change, which would cause obvious issues in sexual assault claims and other sensitive allegations. They added disciplinary action should not be politicised and that the party should be focused on the country's priorities.

Charlotte Nichols, ​​the Labour MP for Warrington North, said: "The last thing we need is a rule change that could lead to the second guessing of the outcome of bullying and sexual harassment cases or the debate of individual disciplinary cases. This is not how our complaints system should run and should be rejected if it goes to conference floor."

The party is also likely to have yet another clash over its endorsement of the Trident nuclear weapons programme, although Starmer now has many more supporters in key party positions and within the major unions since he became leader, which should make it easier for him to navigate potential conference problems. However, Unite – the biggest and most influential union – is still in the hands of the party's left.

Imagine being so out to lunch, that you are a member of the opposition party but rather than focusing on replacing the Tories, you move for more in-fighting within your own party.

[Sheilbh]

Imagine being so out to lunch, that you are a member of the opposition party but rather than focusing on replacing the Tories, you move for more in-fighting within your own party.

It is the Labour way  

See the fights between Gaitskellites and Bevanites in the 50s and 60s, or Labour in the 80s. Every 20-30 years Labour decides it would like to be in power and starts talking to the country, but in opposition it tends to focus on the internal battle for control of the party. I think it's because there is more of an ideological aspect to Labour.

It is striking but you can basically watch the 1995 series The Wilderness Years about Labour and it's very similar to now - you can just cut and paste modern figures into it

E.g. Roy Hattersley: "A number of factors made it possible for demagoguges - and by demagogues I principally mean Tony Benn - to say this is what is wrong with the Labour Party: your leaders betray you; your leaders are really Tories in disguise; policy is never genuine socialism, it's always capitalism dressed up to look like something different. Because of the despair in 1979, the party was in a mood to believe that. The Labour Party for 2-3 years wasn't an opposition at all. It was in opposition to itself. It was the internal opposition." Plus ca change.

I think it's a big part of why in the post-war era there has only been one Labour government with a majority that won a second term in 2001, while there's only been one Tory PM who didn't win a second term (and, I believe, the late 90s-early 2000s Tory leaders are the only ones since the party was created in the 19th century who haven't become PM). When the Tories are in opposition they basically don't worry about betraying some creed and adapt to win the next election, their priority is winning power. The only time I've seen them fall apart and have big ideological disputes was 97-2005 when they were wedded to Thatcherism.

I think it's also the big differene between the Tories and the GOP - there's no movement conservatism or intellectual/ideological creed of the type Republicans are obsessed with. It's also why the "schools" of conservatism are more about what they do in office (One Nation Tories = Disraeli, Villa Tories = Salisbury, Butskellism, Thatcherism etc) rather than different theoretical schools derived by intellectuals, think-tanks, writers.

[Neil]

That's why I always liked the Tories as a party.  They're wise enough to change with the times.  Sure you have a few old folks who are still wedded to the ideas that Thatcher's responses to the challenges of the Seventies can always be universally applied to any problem (which is a big part of the movement conservatives in the US), but generally they're at least trying to come up with new ideas.  They might not always be the best ideas, but they're trying. 

The interesting thing about how they relate to the Labour civil war though is that they actually fought their civil war while in power.  Cameron's weak position in the party gave us the Brexit referendum, and kept him from going to the mattresses for Remain like he would have wanted to, just because he didn't want to ruffled any Leave feathers. 

[Sheilbh]

That's why I always liked the Tories as a party.  They're wise enough to change with the times.  Sure you have a few old folks who are still wedded to the ideas that Thatcher's responses to the challenges of the Seventies can always be universally applied to any problem (which is a big part of the movement conservatives in the US), but generally they're at least trying to come up with new ideas.  They might not always be the best ideas, but they're trying. 

I think it's a huge part of their success. Especially when you look at Labour and there is really interesting thinking on the left that has largely been ignored. Instead you have the Labour left around Corbyn who are basically arguing for an updated form of Bennism and a Labour right who are insisting that the way to win is just to apply Blair's analysis of 1997. And in that documentary Blair says people think why Labour lost so much is complicated and it's not: society had changed and the party hadn't. I look at both factions and think the same still applies.

The interesting thing about how they relate to the Labour civil war though is that they actually fought their civil war while in power.  Cameron's weak position in the party gave us the Brexit referendum, and kept him from going to the mattresses for Remain like he would have wanted to, just because he didn't want to ruffled any Leave feathers.

Yes - although I think Cameron's referendum position was not just about his party position. My suspicion is Johnson's position was entirely driven by his reading of the best way to power (lose the referendum, be the voice of the majority of Tories who supported Leave after Cameron left office).

But I think what's fascinating about it is that civil war in power was almost quintessentially Tory. I know there is a take that all of this is ideologically driven - but I don't think there is actually much ideological content there, or much theory behind the positions. There's a bit but it's very thin gruel (unlike the GOP or Labour, for that matter). I think it was about the most Tory concerns: how best to win, keep and exercise power.

[Josquius]

   

And in that documentary Blair says people think why Labour lost so much is complicated and it's not: society had changed and the party hadn't. I look at both factions and think the same still applies.

I agree with this though the funny /sad thing is so many people, especially from the ex Labour demographics, insist it's the opposite. That it's labour who have somehow changed.

This is where I think there needs to be a balance rather than just throwing out the past. Of course we aren't going to turn back the clock to the 60s. But we should be aware of what is responsible for the country being the state it is.
There's so much ignorance for example of labour historically being the party supporting social issues. The tories culture war nonsense has successfully spun it that at some point in the not too distant past Labour started being particularly into gay and minority rights.

[Sheilbh]

There's so much ignorance for example of labour historically being the party supporting social issues. The tories culture war nonsense has successfully spun it that at some point in the not too distant past Labour started being particularly into gay and minority rights.

Yes - but does it matter?

So firstly I think part of this is we do not have a good concept of minority rights and the campaigns for them in the context of the UK. We borrow so much of our understanding of those struggles from the US and part of that is just because we're in their cultural orbit but I think it also has an impact politically. In a gay context it is still weird to me that the leading LGBT+ campaign group in this country is called Stonewall and we time our biggest pride celebrations with the Stonewall riots. Similarly I think we all, probably, know more about the US civil rights movement than the campaigns in the UK - the Bristol bus boycott, the campaigns for the various Race Relations Acts (passed by Labour governments etc). I think that has a political effect in that it basically denudes our politics of the content and the history of those British movements for minority rights - with the exception of Enoch Powell, I feel like Brits will have more sense of, for example, the racial politics of the US than here.

More widely though - I wonder if that past matters. There is an ungodly amount of gay Tories - the Tory party elite is riddled with gay men, especially young gay men in advisory roles (and it always has been). But more broadly I think until 2010 there was a clear association of Labour as the party for minorities and the Tories were the party of Section 28 and Enoch Powell. The Tories have moved on - and that is a good thing for minorities. But I don't know how long you can coast on your historic reputation if people feel, for other reasons, increasingly disconnected from your party. So I've mentioned before but the Tories are up to about 33% of the minority ethnic vote - I've read that Labour strategists are concerned that this might be the next "Red Wall" and that actually the minority vote is showing signs that it is starting to break up in the same as the white British vote. So there are signs that vote - which is really important for Labour - is starting to break up along education and age lines like white British votes. The possible exceptions are British Muslims and Black Caribbean voters.

In a way it's a good thing - again it's a contrast with the GOP - and I think generally good for minorities if they can feel comfortable voting for all parties including the right, rather than basically constantly providing new Enoch Powells.

And the other wrinkle within this - is that in the 80s the "looney left" were a huge issue for Labour: Ken Livingstone, Militant, Ted Knight's Lambeth - all of them created problems. A big part of their looneyness was anti-racism and pro-LGBT policies. Yes they also broke financial rules and, in the case of Militant, had to send taxis scuttling round the city handing out redundancy notices - and some of the other stuff like declaring nuke free zones or solidarity with the Sandinistas were more weird/out of the mainstream. But a lot of their politics on apartheid, on race and on gay and lesbian rights especially all became part of Labour mainstream in the 1990s and the national mainstream in the 2000-10s. But it was exactly that stuff that caused panics in the tabloids and, in part, drove the Labour leadership to move against those radical local parties.

Edit: Basically I think there's a risk of this becoming a bit like - I think it was Rebecca Long-Bailey - being shocked a constituency went Tory given that it was the site of a strike in the 1860s that was really important in developing the labour movement