Comments by "J Drake1994" (@JDrakeify) on "Nuneaton is the kind of marginal Labour should win, can they turn it around?" video.

  1. Thing with Bernie Sanders is that he actually had a far stronger connection with the working classes than Corbyn does, probably because he was better at getting his economic and anti establishment messages through to the electorate. Labour will need to do the same, as well as find a way to accommodate its competing demographics on the question of immigration, if it hopes to win places like this.
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  2. His point is that social media is good for speaking to a politically engaged minority. So whilst it is a valuable tool in internal party elections, the same cannot be said for national elections, which are a different beast altogether. Saying that Corbyn has to appeal to a wider audience is just a statement of fact, you don't need to be a Blairite to see that.
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  3. Only winner in that situation are the Tories.
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  4. She's not a politician, the purpose of the interview is to determine what people think, not why they hold those views. Even if he had successfully challenged her, there would be millions more who still think the same thing, and not much would have changed.
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  5. Teriek Williams Bernie is more left wing than Corbyn in some senses. Certainly not when it comes to foreign policy, but on things like taxation he is proposing levels not seen since the 1970s, whereas Corbyns tax plan is not particularly different to Ed Milibands.
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  6. Owen is not advocating we swallow the other side's ideas whole (as many Blairites do). But he is looking left wing solutions to things that potential voters see as issues. Hence why he has advocated for things like a migrant impact fund, and for protecting workers from being undercut in the first place. Labour's message should focus on spreading the economic benefits of immigration to all areas of society, rather than continuing the race to the bottom. The only side that wins from that are exploitative employers. That is an example of how Labour can engage with people on issues that are important to people in a progressive way, rather going on about issues which the average voter cares little about. The trouble with the leftists that you will see on places like TYT is that they offer little solutions about how to get into powers and implement the ideas they call for, which is the point of politics in the first place.
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  7. Lee No, both sides will do even worse than if they were united, even if there combined vote share is higher than it would be as one Labour Party, or even higher than the Tories, because FPTP punishes division and new parties heavily. That is part of the reason why the Tories are so successful, until a few years ago, they were the sole party of the right. And if there is going to be a split, why should it be the left (not 'far left' that label is reserved for genuine Trotskyists) who go? They make up the overwhelming majority of the membership.
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  8. Lee I dont think people will vote for Jeremy Corbyn, but that is before we even come to policy. The main objections that ordinary people have to him are based on his incompetence and what he has said on foreign policy (which I agree is a bit out there, but none of that is official policy) most voters are unaware he is even anti austerity. If Labour under a different leader who did not have those flaws, I'd think that it would have a very good chance of being successful after years of austerity which has led us nowhere. Ed Miliband supported austerity because it looked like there was a far better case for it when he made that decision. Since then, the academic consensus has shifted against it. Even Tory politicians like Stephen Crabb and Sajid Javid have been making the case for greater government borrowing to fund infrastructure spending. When the supposed centrists in the other party agree with you, a view can hardly been all that out there, surely? I wouldnt be all that surprised if austerity is dropped in the autumn statement. As for taxation, his proposals are not all that radical. He has proposed bringing back the 50p tax rate which existed under Gordon Brown, and a rise in corporation tax to around what it was in the New Labour years, and in other major European countries like France and Germany. He also supports a Mansion Tax just as Ed Miliband did. He is not even proposing a wealth tax, as Owen Smith has done. When it comes to tax, he is not particularly more radical than his predecessors. And incidentally, you will find that the public support all of those taxes. They are generally in favour of progressive taxation.
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  9. Callum Pledge How is it ironic that the working classes support a socialist? That is supposed to be, and still is, the socialist base. Most of them are economically left wing, it is just that they are also socially conservative, and right now issues like immigration is overtaking the economy as the most important issue in working class communities, hence why many voted UKIP.
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  10. Arsenal As I explained, that is true on foreign policy, but on the economy it is likely the other way around. Do you have any evidence to dispute that point?
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  11. Lee​ the rest of Labours MPs are centre left or centrist. Certainly the vast majority of those that support Corbyn in the party are not entryists, he won with all three sections of the electorate last time out, and upwards of 90% of Labours membership voted for them at the last election, the rest opted for parties like the Lib Dems or the Greens, whose goals are entirely compatible with Labours as laid out in our current Clause Four. Membership of genuinely far left groups that might attempt entryism is at an all time low, and the Labour membership is rising, rather than declining. Michael Crick, who literally wrote the book on entryism, has said that such a thing is highly unlikely to happen now, as the conditions that allowed it in the eighties are absent now. Sure there are some far left activists who have attempted to join, and some have likely succeeded, but not on any significant scale. If Militant had never existed, the whole entryism thing would not be seen to be nearly as important as some are making it out to be. It is just a narrative promoted by those who are convinced history is repeating itself word for word. As for Corbyn, what exactly is so 'far left' about any of the policies he has actually announced? Investment rather than austerity is now the consensus among many experts, that is why he has been able to get so many economists to work with him. Military interventionism in the middle east has been proven as the wrong policy several times over the last few decades, and getting rid of trident is an idea that has support across the political spectrum, especially from those former politicians who have been involved with it. So why, precisely is he such a dangerous radical?
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