What's in a Name

A large percentage of my friends and acquaintances are left-wing politically. In fact, despite knowing quite a few Tory and UKIP voters, you'd be surprised to know they're not evil; they're not necessarily in the 'I'm alright Jack' camp nor are they unaware of some of the things that I and many of my friends have tried to make public knowledge.

What the general election did was tell Labour that people trust them less now than five years ago and they've been in opposition. Their election campaign didn't really get off the ground, it only looked that way and because the Tories adopted only had a couple of mantras (that some of the press suggested was a negative campaign) that both worked and vilified Labour enough to not allow any trust back. The irony is had the Tories been in power instead of Labour during Gordon Brown's tenancy, we really might have been worse off.

Regardless of what horror stories you can show people, Ed Miliband and his team became more toxic as the campaign went on - for the average person. Pollsters, politicians, pundits and not us plebs were in a bubble of what ifs and smug fait accompli; while the press, whatever side they were on, did their best, most people just made up their minds on the way to the polling station and like in 1992, didn't like the possible unknown over the hard realities. End of. Subject closed for five years.

Except, the right-leaning press, the media and bloggers are calling this a watershed moment for Labour. Suggesting that this election has been so damaging it could have serious implications for their ability to win an election for a generation - aside from the fact that two weeks ago commentators were suggesting whoever wins inherits a poison chalice, that appears to have been forgotten about because of Labour's woeful performance. Except... It wasn't really woeful.

Labour probably got what they deserved because they fall between two stools too often. Red Ed and Business Balls seemed less authentic - less genuine - than Posh Dave and Gorgeous Gideon, who clearly haven't got a clue about some things but still managed to convince the voters they were the best and most honest alternative. It did seem like they were making reactionary promises - "You have my promise - child tax credits will be safe under the Conservatives" has magically managed to disappear and has been ignored by the right wing press. 

If the press is right and Labour are now in a serious crisis, then the answer might be in the polls.

I want to ask you a question and this is where I'm struggling with semantics because of our fantastic language. UKIP is a British Nationalist Party and I'm not suggesting they're just the BNP in a different coat, but they are a Nationalist/English-centric party. They got a big - LibDem sized - chunk of the vote. UKIP's politics whatever you think of it seemed to appeal to the nationalists in this country and I don't believe for a minute that that percentage of the population are all ignorant racists; many of them voted UKIP because they believed they would help the NHS, look after the disabled and be fairer and less ... political. It's political ignorance at its worst, but in a country where politics is hated by most people it's the best you're going to achieve.

The other shock of the election was the Scottish National Party. They are now the unanimous winners of Scotland. You do not associate the SNP with the BNP do you? When you look at Nicola Sturgeon you don't think she's Nick Griffin's sister or Nigel Farage's cousin do you? You can't imagine her or Salmond or any of the other 56 MPs marching on Edinburgh demanding a Scotland just for the white Scottish with a palpable undercurrent of violence and hate, can you?

Plaid Cymru is the Welsh National Party - once upon a time they might have had an arson problem among their ranks, but they're essentially just like the SNP - they are what the Labour party of the 1980s would have been had it been recreated in the 21st century. These are left wing parties that command a lot of respect in their own countries. UKIP got a lot of votes on the basis they were English and wanted what was best for England - that actually isn't much different from what Leann Wood or Nicola Sturgeon were saying, the big difference is UKIP is driven by right wing ideology and that historically tends to veer towards a more fascistic end.

What if UKIP had been a mirror-image of the SNP? What if Nigel Farage had been the same beer-swilling, fag smoking good old boy, but had similar politics to the SNP? Well, it wouldn't happen, but if in some weird reality it did and this Farage was pro-Europe except with a deep concern about the amount of immigrants coming into the country in comparison to the amount of people unemployed or on zero hours contracts, and a desire to possibly look at changes to benefits rules to ensure the large bigoted amount of the population feel it is being dealt with? UKIP ended up appealing to old skool Labour despite it being a party that makes Dave and Gideon's look centralist. 

If Labour is 'finished' as a centre-left party and need to move further right to encourage the middle ground of Britain to vote for them again, to ensure that kind of majority, then what about all the people who have proved that what they want is a Labour party that is further left than it put itself, but also wants people to aspire and become rich and feel justified and not penalised about paying higher taxes for the privilege of being better off than others. 

Modern socialism doesn't appear to know what it is and therefore has allowed a new form of right-wing communism - commonly referred to as Capitalism - to have become the only reason for us all to survive. If we are not making money for someone we're not a useful member of society and even if we're disabled or mentally unstable that is no longer the problem of anyone but the sufferer and his or her people. If you can't make 'the man' money then you are not contributing to society and it is allowable to think of you as second class.

Now, here's where it gets, knowing me, slightly ironic and humorous. What England needs (because Scotland and Wales have them already) is a socialist nationalist party that also thinks of itself as British and is still concerned about the population of the United Kingdom - being English means being British - full stop.

Except... Socialist Nationalism is not what Plaid or SNP are by any stretch of the imagination. The name that is most closely associated with socialist nationalism is ... um... really, really unfortunate. Take your pick: Hitler or Nazis. That's what that is.

Unfortunately if you type Nationalist Socialism into a search engine the Nazis always come out on top and even if you are the most left wing party in the universe this combination of words just doesn't cut it. Can you imagine the uphill struggle they would face just to explain that their name doesn't mean they want to cook people in ovens.

So what are the SNP?


The SNP's policy base is mostly in the mainstream European social democratic tradition. Among its policies are commitments to same-sex marriage, reducing the voting age to 16, unilateral nuclear disarmament, progressive personal taxation, the eradication of poverty, the building of affordable social housing, government subsidized higher education, opposition to the building of new nuclear power plants, investment in renewable energy and pay increases for nurses and key public sector workers, such as social workers and children's support. 

You look at those policies and there's not a lot wrong with them although I could see Tories baulking at a progressive personal taxation scheme and the other things they can't make heaps of money from. Except, I don't think the SNP is anti-wealth; they're a 21st century party and appreciate that there is as much need for rich as there are for lower waged, because it helps with the aspirations and we need a time where aspirations have to be encouraged in tandem with social fairness and investment in the future from both government and private sector. That sounds like a pretty liberal agenda by 'socialist' standards and I bet you this is the real reason why they won so many seats, because unlike the undecideds in England, the Scots ones said they wanted fairness and progressive government that views everyone as important.

Why can't that kind of politics exist in England. The Greens offer some of that. Labour offers some of that. Lib Dems offer some of that. Surprisingly UKIP even offers some of that. The problem is if the Conservatives or the right wing were as flaky as the left every time they had a party crisis they would have split into myriad different shades of blue. If the Tories had self-destructed the way the left wing regularly does we'd have to have coalition governments because we'd have 20 different parties all with similar but slightly varying ideology and separated by everything from xenophobia to welfare reforms - or Italy as it is often referred to. The Tories are super glue, Labour is a Pritt stick. Conservatism is more cohesive than socialism and people sometimes vote for stability and Jesus, don't the Tories remain stable even when they're in turmoil?

Maybe it's time for a radical approach? Maybe it's time for the left side of the Kingdom to unite and embrace both the issues that deeply concern them and some of the issues that ultimately have led to a Tory victory. Surely it's not in the national interest to have the left side of the political spectrum to be so shattered? Surely national interest should also apply to national politics? It has to be important because it's important to have diversity in everything.

Labour needs to do something I wouldn't have given house room last May had I contemplated defeat of that scale. It needs to ditch any of the Blair/Brown government from its shadow cabinet and more importantly it needs to elect a leader who cannot be associated with the former administration in any way than name. That'd be Jeremy Corbyn then.

If they can do this, then the most radical ideas might be to see if it can create a United Kingdom Nationalist party - a Labour party united with the SNP, Plaid and the SDLP could promote itself as the party that is fighting for the UK as independent political organisations united with a common goal. Have generally similar manifestos and a joint one that promotes growth and fairness as much as aspiration and wealth creation.

Be transparent. Be united. Have disagreements, like the Tories have all the time, but don't allow small differences to prevent moving forward. We've seen throughout history how putting aside differences and finding common ground has benefited mankind.

Labour have lost the pizazz they had in the late 90s and they discovered that peoples dislike of a party benefits the other even if they're not much better. Blair won three elections because people had long memories of Thatcher and what they remembered as the 'punitive right' punishing the poor - punishing the people who didn't vote for them. What Blair did was make labour less toxic for the right, in reality New Labour didn't win by virtue of policies and promises, it won because it wasn't the Tories.

If someone asked me (and they won't) what I'd do, I'd keep it simple. Go back to simple root and branch economics and social policies. Work out the long term affects of everything; don't take unnecessary risks with human lives.

... Now, I wrote this originally back at the start of June. I also wrote a companion piece to this about how the Conservatives play the 'long game' so much better than Labour because Thatcher stole the idea from one of Reagan's advisers - employing probability specialists to look at a multitude of possible outcomes to anything. I also wrote this at a time before Gideon's first budget, that looks extremely fair on the surface but may well come back to bite him and Dave on the arse before 2020. This was also written before the rise of the Economic Nazi party, or Germany as it is often referred to. In a world where banks are regularly bailed out by countries and other banks to the tune of TRILLIONS, best part of Europe want to crush the Greek people under their jackboot heels and effectively turn what is essentially a third world country on mainland Europe into a wasteland of human failure and misery. Alexis Tsipras is on the verge of being humiliated and crushed by the big boys of Europe; his country will face extreme punitive measures for 30 years, where almost everyone will be made to pay for their bankers excesses. That's what our European Union does now - it ruins people and places so that shareholders - the rich - get more.

This isn't the Europe I've supported for years. This is capitalist fascism with added cruelty and I think of myself as well schooled in politics and understanding Europe and how it all works and I have to tell you, on this simple issue alone, I'd vote for us to come out of Europe, because I don't want to be part of a club that has no regard for human life.