A center-left group in the U.S. sees a valuable lesson in the landslide victory of Britain’s Labour Party after nearly 15 years in the political wilderness.
The centrist Democrat think tank Third Way argues in a memo obtained Friday by POLITICO that Labour’s sweeping win shows that “centrism wins elections” and can undercut right-wing populism by appealing to the broadest segment of the population with a credible platform.
This is ridiculous. Nothing changed on Labor’s end; the right just split the vote. The lesson is to have incompetent competition.
Splitting the right = left landslide. Splitting the left = right landslide.
Third way: “Hey, if we split the left, the left will win!”
How is this a broader lesson and not just UK specific? “Center” here I take to mean right, they are saying left parties should move right to become centrist. Where elese has this worked? Swedens socdem has moved right for a long time, and they are barely scraping by. In France, Macron is a center right guy and he is absolutely failing to the far-right.
The sun came up this morning and centrists took it as an omen that they should move to the right.
Now I understand this article is largely ragebait for this community, but I just wanted to point out that the incredible strength of this centrist approach resulted in one of the lowest turnout elections in 20 years with labour receiving about 34% of the popular vote.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a consistently winning strategy.
Turnout was low because people don’t vote when they already know the outcome. The last landslide in the UK also had low turnout.
And while 34% is a few percentage points lower than other recent winners, the more centrist party, lib dems, got more votes than the previous election.
And while 34% is a few percentage points lower than other recent winners, the more centrist party, lib dems, got more votes than the previous election.
Sure, but Corbyn’s labour got 32.2 and 40.0 compared to this 33.7 “landslide.” And Corbyn won his seat even though he’s an independent. I don’t particularly find the centrist strategy to be a very compelling result compared to that.
The tories lost, Stamer won because tory voters split between Lib Dem’s, Reform and other.
Shy tories voted for the Lib Dem’s. The Lib Dem’s aren’t some compromise between left and right. That’s doesn’t really work, it just means everyone dislikes you. The Lib Dem’s get votes when the tories are too socially unacceptable to vote for.
A Tory walks down the street, he encounters a homeless person. He chooses to kick the them, laughing as he walks away. The Lib Dem disgusted by this kicks the homeless person, then walks away quietly.
