Seddon bases his Starmer apocalypse on… what? 12,000 votes in Rochdale for a candidate who appealed to Muslim voters on the basis of who they were, rather than what they wanted; and the grumbles in vegan coffee bars in Islington and Hampstead. That’s rather slim evidence for the great Corbyn comeback.
Still, Seddon’s fantasy makes entertaining reading.
Martin M
2 months ago
It is all a bit of a storm in a teacup really, given that there is nothing that Starmer could say or do that would make the slightest bit of difference in Gaza.
Ian Barton
2 months ago
“unlike a Reform Party whose political power still remains in the subjunctive mood, this is a movement that is capable of traversing from the streets to Parliament, depriving Labour of votes and MPs on the way.”
If the author thinks that Reform can’t deprive the main parties of votes and MPs then he is living in a fantasy world.
It remains to be seen. People might not want to risk voting Reform in a general election. Even if Reform won millions of votes, they would be unlikely to score more than one seat in our FPTP electoral system.
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Wishful thinking. No political coalition of any lasting size or strength can be built by around a foreign policy issue. British politics is, and has always been, about land and its ownership. Like Blair before him, Starmer understands that the key to his political longevity is to keep those house prices rising and screw the rent payers and wage earners.
If you want an effective movement of the left then make it about that
AC Harper
2 months ago
I predict that the larger a majority that Starmer ‘enjoys’ after the next General Election the more fractious ‘his’ MPs will be.
We could end up with the Conservatives reduced by a Reform schism and Labour fractured into several special interest groups. None of which will make addressing the business of government any easier.
People who voted for Thatcher ended up under Major. People who voted Blair found themselves under Brown. People who thought they were voting for Boris got Truss, then Sunak.
If the electorate vote Starmer in, what’s to stop him being replaced within his first term?
As you rightly say, the larger the Labour majority, the more confident the left will feel. The Labour party activists are always well to the left of the voters.
Wishful thinking. Sarmer’s majority will be so gigantic that he can afford to destroy the left and sever them completely from the Labour party which can then bevome a centrist party as Reform and what remains of the Tories quarrel over what remains on the right
Isn’t that exactly the left’s opportunity? No one will be able to say that they are letting the Tories back in.
Kevin Mahoney
2 months ago
Previous attempts to form an explicitly socialist alternative to Labour have met with very little success. Look at the derisory share of the vote obtained by the TUSC, the implosion of
Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party and Galloway’s failure to translate by-election victories into long-term electoral success. The kinds of people who were enthusiastic for Corbyn will probably vote Green next time and the effect on Labour will be minimal.
O'Driscoll
2 months ago
Is this a serious piece? Nobody is obsessed with Gaza except the Muslim community, a handful of TikTok Gen Z idiots, and what’s left of the nutters who meet in pubs who support the extreme politics of Chris Williamson and his ilk. In a few months time, Gaza will be off the front pages and Galloway will be bleating to the wind on this particularly issue.
The real problem for Labour is the white working class, particularly in the North, who support Galloway’s other “policies” – pro Brexit, socially conservative, gender critical, in favour of law and order under a much harsher police presence. These people tend not to be fans of Islamism so Galloway/Williamson’s will have to dance on the head of a pin to keep their coalition intact.
Gaza is a temporary non-story as far as UK politics is concerned.
The real problem for Labour is the white working class
This seems to be the common thread among parties of the left. It’s certainly true in the US and, as best I can tell, across Europe. Predictably and in unison, the left’s media amen chorus has branded any opposition as extreme, far right, or Christian nationalists.
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Another delusional leftie we thinks we all want the murdering terrorists made safe
N Satori
2 months ago
…the old political giants, who in any case already resemble, as Christopher Hitchens once said of America’s own dead two-party system, “two cosily fused buttocks of the same giant derrière”.
Thus spake Christopher Hitchens, once the chattering classes favourite Lefty. A jokey and vulgar image which will doubtless appeal to many – Galloway used a variant of it for his Rochdale battle cry – but what does it tell us about the precarious state of Western democracy? That we need Proportional Representation so that every crackpot faction gets a seat or two in parliament? Be careful what you wish for.
Chris Hitchens was a treasure, he was a intelligent and very curious person who happened to be a good observer of life and was open-minded, and had a strong sense of nuance. Creatures like him are a rarity amongst the modern left, they do exist but they’re but are often purged and ostracized from their world. One of the things I really respect about the guy he really fully grasp the the nature of Islamic fundamentalism understood the monster that was coming, while those on the left or even in a state of denial, downplaying and some cases going as far to excuse these people and even praise them despite how awful they really are despite how contradictory their beliefs were to leftist thought.
A treasure? I do remember that he was quite rattled when his friend Martin Amis’ published Koba The Dread, a non fiction work dealing with the indulgence of communism by Western Left wing intellectuals including writers at The New Statesman one of whom was Hitchens himself.
I have read God Is Not Great three times now and, while Islam comes in for criticism it is just as part of a general attack on the power of religious beliefs. Remember his famous attack on Mother Teresa? Perhaps I have not read as much of Hitchens as you but it does seem that the monster he ‘understood’ was religion itself – any religion.
By the way, check out the latest pronouncements by George Galloway. He’s now talking about a coming change in British politics with huge numbers of small factional groups seeking political office. Will Multiculturalism have spawned a creature with a giant derrière and many, many buttocks?
Jane Anderson
2 months ago
Starmer did not display a lack of principle. He stuck to his principles as far as I could see, and refused to have those hijacked by the relentless antipathy and aggression of the anti Zionists.
Charles Hedges
2 months ago
Labour would find it easier if there was a Trotskyist Party. Galloway, Livingstone, Corbyn , Scargill, etc are basically Trotskyists, one aspect of which they despise patriotism and British culture. The Trotskyist mentality is very appealing to resentful embittered ineffectual office workers in the public sector with a sense of entitlement and repels self emplotyed tradesmen and the self- employed and those in small businesses in general.
A Labour Party of C Attlee, E Bevin, D Healey, Callaghan with Union leaders such as Hammond and Chapple of EETPU and Laird and Jordan of AEU would be very appealing. Namely; tough practical, patriotic, pro NATO, pro advanced manufacturing and the technical education to go with it, pro law and order, contempt for cultural Marxism ( Woke ). They would attract Conservative voters outside of the M25 and those in industry, farming, fishing, etc .
It has been said the best Foreign Secretary since 1945 was E Bevin; and the best Secretary for Defence was D Healey and most robust Home Secretary was J Callaghan.
The Conservatives would end up representing effete affluent ineffectual suburban office workers.
Scargill was always a Stalinist. Galloway is probably closer to Stalinism than Trotskyism.
And Stalinists and Trotskyists hated each other for more than they hated the Right.
This election looks very much like ours in the US. Here, I can understand why Trump puts off some people, but I cannot grasp how anyone would want more of the past 3+ years. Similarly, I can understand why UK voters would be disenchanted with the Tories, but not why anyone would be enthused by Labour.
I don’t think anyone is enthused by Labour – it’s got more to do with getting the Tories out. If the Tories get their act together, ditch the woeful incompetents they have in government and inject some real talent, maybe their comeback will be a lot quicker than currently envisaged.
Eleanor Barlow
2 months ago
Yet again, a left winger claims that the whole country is anti-Israel whereas most voters have other priorities and want their politicians to concentrate on stuff that needs sorting out at home, rather than cosying up to the Hamas lovers. The presence of 1000s on the streets every week is deliberately provocative as is the attempts to threaten MPs and their families.
As for the left posing a threat to Labour, most have left the party of their own accord and some have been expelled so hardly any of them are still part of the party machine.
To the extent that they even GAF, that’s certainly true among my friends.
Brian Doyle
2 months ago
The key to the door of magical and transformational change of power in Westminster is change FTP system to one of PR
and the hand that reaches for that key
Is for the upcoming Election is Tactical Voting
, which if such key placed in the keyhole then you can have ‘ The Hinges of Fate ‘ begin to ease and move
Unstoppabley so till the doors fully open
Into a bright new dawn
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Great to see Mark on Unherd, but in terms of a growing Left, sadly its not the Left we(many of the wider Left/inc on here, not all hard right) want or need: its a mix of poisonous dwindling Far Left Sects(see my reply to article by Terry Eagleton) but who have had a second wind(nah umpteenth) by organising the demos, etc, The main one is the SWP(read about Comrade Delta), who fund many of the costly Gaza demos, who have been absent from basic issues like housing, social security, economic inequality for decades. Counterfire, ex SWP, (Rees/German, e5c), a growing Student Left based around the Communist Party Of Britain, many radical islamists(i also recall a key member of the MCB during Iraq War was a former SWP member.)
Then, there are many of the Old Left/IMG/Anarcho’s(strangely not many ex militant) in their 60’s/70’ even 80’s who now show absolutely no interest in basic issues like above, have abandoned the working class as a agent of change, don’t help in working class communities any more, lots of conspiriacy theorist, flakes, etc. Of course there are also many thousands of young people just disgusted by what is happening in Gaza, (but also consumed by a extreme woke agenda). There are also lost of ordinany middle class liberals, There are also the huge amount of Muslims who are terrified and angry by what is happening to their co -religionists, may not that part of a new coaltion bases on non religious basic issues.
A fair number, but as a wider left ready to take on Starmer(and the inevitable growth of a new far rightmuch more sophisticated than Tommy, EDL, etc. as he inevitably loses support post election win,It just doesn’t cut the mustard, and probably deletorious to any new project that wants to engage with the masses, including the ex miners, etc, who deserted such politics in the last decade.
Frederick Jones
2 months ago
What part will Jew hatred play in the Collective?
John Galt Was Correct
2 months ago
I don’t think Starmer has had a failure of principle, quite the opposite. He has stood up to the radical left activists to keep labour electable. As said many times, including on this site, UK elections are won from the centre. The activists don’t understand this in their echo chambers. The risk of course is that after Starmer is elected he is ousted for the radicals and activists.
Alice Devitt
2 months ago
At no time EVER has Starmer discounted the threat from the nasty, wicked hard left…ruined Lab history since 1918. Me thinks author, like so many MC loathe Starmer. ‘Keith’ like rejection but better written.
Simon Blanchard
1 month ago
Labour’s in-built fatal flaw – its birth defect – is the irreconcilable conflict (and mutual disdain) between its socially conservative working class support and its blue haired, graduate liberal wing. The whole contradictory contraption is only held together by FPTP and provides another reason why we need electoral reform. “Oh but be careful what you wish for; we’ll end up with crackpots, crooks and weirdos in parliament”. Yes probably, but if that’s who people want to vote for then that’s democracy for you. The current arrangement clearly doesn’t work.
Neiltoo .
1 month ago
Leaving aside the rather bizarre attitude of treating deaths in the Middle East as being uniquely special I think the authors prophesy of the far left hurting Starmer will more likely come true immediately after the next general election.
I suspect Starmer will win, with a much smaller majority than some suggest and within a year will be removed by the very scary and deeply dangerous totalitarians on the far left of Labour. Probably with the help of a block Muslim vote which will eventually, in turn, dump the Labour left. RIP the UK.
William Brand
1 month ago
Biden is trying to be on both sides in Gaza building a dock for Gaza and giving bombs to Israel. Us domestic politics drives action by the army. God is watching and will destroy America if he dumps Israel. Read Revelations 18 for Gods reaction to dumping Israel. One only prays that there are enough Christians in America that the doom will wait until the Church is raptured. God is allowing the growth of Woke antisemitism to cause Jews to flee to Israel prior to America’s doom.
Seddon bases his Starmer apocalypse on… what? 12,000 votes in Rochdale for a candidate who appealed to Muslim voters on the basis of who they were, rather than what they wanted; and the grumbles in vegan coffee bars in Islington and Hampstead. That’s rather slim evidence for the great Corbyn comeback.
Still, Seddon’s fantasy makes entertaining reading.
It is all a bit of a storm in a teacup really, given that there is nothing that Starmer could say or do that would make the slightest bit of difference in Gaza.
“unlike a Reform Party whose political power still remains in the subjunctive mood, this is a movement that is capable of traversing from the streets to Parliament, depriving Labour of votes and MPs on the way.”
If the author thinks that Reform can’t deprive the main parties of votes and MPs then he is living in a fantasy world.
It remains to be seen. People might not want to risk voting Reform in a general election. Even if Reform won millions of votes, they would be unlikely to score more than one seat in our FPTP electoral system.
Wishful thinking. No political coalition of any lasting size or strength can be built by around a foreign policy issue. British politics is, and has always been, about land and its ownership. Like Blair before him, Starmer understands that the key to his political longevity is to keep those house prices rising and screw the rent payers and wage earners.
If you want an effective movement of the left then make it about that
I predict that the larger a majority that Starmer ‘enjoys’ after the next General Election the more fractious ‘his’ MPs will be.
We could end up with the Conservatives reduced by a Reform schism and Labour fractured into several special interest groups. None of which will make addressing the business of government any easier.
People who voted for Thatcher ended up under Major. People who voted Blair found themselves under Brown. People who thought they were voting for Boris got Truss, then Sunak.
If the electorate vote Starmer in, what’s to stop him being replaced within his first term?
As you rightly say, the larger the Labour majority, the more confident the left will feel. The Labour party activists are always well to the left of the voters.
Nonsense
Would you care to elaborate?
Wishful thinking. Sarmer’s majority will be so gigantic that he can afford to destroy the left and sever them completely from the Labour party which can then bevome a centrist party as Reform and what remains of the Tories quarrel over what remains on the right
Isn’t that exactly the left’s opportunity? No one will be able to say that they are letting the Tories back in.
Previous attempts to form an explicitly socialist alternative to Labour have met with very little success. Look at the derisory share of the vote obtained by the TUSC, the implosion of
Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party and Galloway’s failure to translate by-election victories into long-term electoral success. The kinds of people who were enthusiastic for Corbyn will probably vote Green next time and the effect on Labour will be minimal.
Is this a serious piece? Nobody is obsessed with Gaza except the Muslim community, a handful of TikTok Gen Z idiots, and what’s left of the nutters who meet in pubs who support the extreme politics of Chris Williamson and his ilk. In a few months time, Gaza will be off the front pages and Galloway will be bleating to the wind on this particularly issue.
The real problem for Labour is the white working class, particularly in the North, who support Galloway’s other “policies” – pro Brexit, socially conservative, gender critical, in favour of law and order under a much harsher police presence. These people tend not to be fans of Islamism so Galloway/Williamson’s will have to dance on the head of a pin to keep their coalition intact.
Gaza is a temporary non-story as far as UK politics is concerned.
The real problem for Labour is the white working class
This seems to be the common thread among parties of the left. It’s certainly true in the US and, as best I can tell, across Europe. Predictably and in unison, the left’s media amen chorus has branded any opposition as extreme, far right, or Christian nationalists.
Another delusional leftie we thinks we all want the murdering terrorists made safe
Thus spake Christopher Hitchens, once the chattering classes favourite Lefty. A jokey and vulgar image which will doubtless appeal to many – Galloway used a variant of it for his Rochdale battle cry – but what does it tell us about the precarious state of Western democracy? That we need Proportional Representation so that every crackpot faction gets a seat or two in parliament? Be careful what you wish for.
Chris Hitchens was a treasure, he was a intelligent and very curious person who happened to be a good observer of life and was open-minded, and had a strong sense of nuance. Creatures like him are a rarity amongst the modern left, they do exist but they’re but are often purged and ostracized from their world. One of the things I really respect about the guy he really fully grasp the the nature of Islamic fundamentalism understood the monster that was coming, while those on the left or even in a state of denial, downplaying and some cases going as far to excuse these people and even praise them despite how awful they really are despite how contradictory their beliefs were to leftist thought.
A treasure? I do remember that he was quite rattled when his friend Martin Amis’ published Koba The Dread, a non fiction work dealing with the indulgence of communism by Western Left wing intellectuals including writers at The New Statesman one of whom was Hitchens himself.
I have read God Is Not Great three times now and, while Islam comes in for criticism it is just as part of a general attack on the power of religious beliefs. Remember his famous attack on Mother Teresa? Perhaps I have not read as much of Hitchens as you but it does seem that the monster he ‘understood’ was religion itself – any religion.
By the way, check out the latest pronouncements by George Galloway. He’s now talking about a coming change in British politics with huge numbers of small factional groups seeking political office. Will Multiculturalism have spawned a creature with a giant derrière and many, many buttocks?
Starmer did not display a lack of principle. He stuck to his principles as far as I could see, and refused to have those hijacked by the relentless antipathy and aggression of the anti Zionists.
Labour would find it easier if there was a Trotskyist Party. Galloway, Livingstone, Corbyn , Scargill, etc are basically Trotskyists, one aspect of which they despise patriotism and British culture. The Trotskyist mentality is very appealing to resentful embittered ineffectual office workers in the public sector with a sense of entitlement and repels self emplotyed tradesmen and the self- employed and those in small businesses in general.
A Labour Party of C Attlee, E Bevin, D Healey, Callaghan with Union leaders such as Hammond and Chapple of EETPU and Laird and Jordan of AEU would be very appealing. Namely; tough practical, patriotic, pro NATO, pro advanced manufacturing and the technical education to go with it, pro law and order, contempt for cultural Marxism ( Woke ). They would attract Conservative voters outside of the M25 and those in industry, farming, fishing, etc .
It has been said the best Foreign Secretary since 1945 was E Bevin; and the best Secretary for Defence was D Healey and most robust Home Secretary was J Callaghan.
The Conservatives would end up representing effete affluent ineffectual suburban office workers.
Scargill was always a Stalinist. Galloway is probably closer to Stalinism than Trotskyism.
And Stalinists and Trotskyists hated each other for more than they hated the Right.
That would get my vote.
This election looks very much like ours in the US. Here, I can understand why Trump puts off some people, but I cannot grasp how anyone would want more of the past 3+ years. Similarly, I can understand why UK voters would be disenchanted with the Tories, but not why anyone would be enthused by Labour.
I don’t think anyone is enthused by Labour – it’s got more to do with getting the Tories out. If the Tories get their act together, ditch the woeful incompetents they have in government and inject some real talent, maybe their comeback will be a lot quicker than currently envisaged.
Yet again, a left winger claims that the whole country is anti-Israel whereas most voters have other priorities and want their politicians to concentrate on stuff that needs sorting out at home, rather than cosying up to the Hamas lovers. The presence of 1000s on the streets every week is deliberately provocative as is the attempts to threaten MPs and their families.
As for the left posing a threat to Labour, most have left the party of their own accord and some have been expelled so hardly any of them are still part of the party machine.
I suspect that, in reality, there’s pretty substantial majority support for Israel.
And for Israel’s ongoing actions to disable the latest avatar of genocidal Jew-hatred.
To the extent that they even GAF, that’s certainly true among my friends.
The key to the door of magical and transformational change of power in Westminster is change FTP system to one of PR
and the hand that reaches for that key
Is for the upcoming Election is Tactical Voting
, which if such key placed in the keyhole then you can have ‘ The Hinges of Fate ‘ begin to ease and move
Unstoppabley so till the doors fully open
Into a bright new dawn
Great to see Mark on Unherd, but in terms of a growing Left, sadly its not the Left we(many of the wider Left/inc on here, not all hard right) want or need: its a mix of poisonous dwindling Far Left Sects(see my reply to article by Terry Eagleton) but who have had a second wind(nah umpteenth) by organising the demos, etc, The main one is the SWP(read about Comrade Delta), who fund many of the costly Gaza demos, who have been absent from basic issues like housing, social security, economic inequality for decades. Counterfire, ex SWP, (Rees/German, e5c), a growing Student Left based around the Communist Party Of Britain, many radical islamists(i also recall a key member of the MCB during Iraq War was a former SWP member.)
Then, there are many of the Old Left/IMG/Anarcho’s(strangely not many ex militant) in their 60’s/70’ even 80’s who now show absolutely no interest in basic issues like above, have abandoned the working class as a agent of change, don’t help in working class communities any more, lots of conspiriacy theorist, flakes, etc. Of course there are also many thousands of young people just disgusted by what is happening in Gaza, (but also consumed by a extreme woke agenda). There are also lost of ordinany middle class liberals, There are also the huge amount of Muslims who are terrified and angry by what is happening to their co -religionists, may not that part of a new coaltion bases on non religious basic issues.
A fair number, but as a wider left ready to take on Starmer(and the inevitable growth of a new far rightmuch more sophisticated than Tommy, EDL, etc. as he inevitably loses support post election win,It just doesn’t cut the mustard, and probably deletorious to any new project that wants to engage with the masses, including the ex miners, etc, who deserted such politics in the last decade.
What part will Jew hatred play in the Collective?
I don’t think Starmer has had a failure of principle, quite the opposite. He has stood up to the radical left activists to keep labour electable. As said many times, including on this site, UK elections are won from the centre. The activists don’t understand this in their echo chambers. The risk of course is that after Starmer is elected he is ousted for the radicals and activists.
At no time EVER has Starmer discounted the threat from the nasty, wicked hard left…ruined Lab history since 1918. Me thinks author, like so many MC loathe Starmer. ‘Keith’ like rejection but better written.
Labour’s in-built fatal flaw – its birth defect – is the irreconcilable conflict (and mutual disdain) between its socially conservative working class support and its blue haired, graduate liberal wing. The whole contradictory contraption is only held together by FPTP and provides another reason why we need electoral reform. “Oh but be careful what you wish for; we’ll end up with crackpots, crooks and weirdos in parliament”. Yes probably, but if that’s who people want to vote for then that’s democracy for you. The current arrangement clearly doesn’t work.
Leaving aside the rather bizarre attitude of treating deaths in the Middle East as being uniquely special I think the authors prophesy of the far left hurting Starmer will more likely come true immediately after the next general election.
I suspect Starmer will win, with a much smaller majority than some suggest and within a year will be removed by the very scary and deeply dangerous totalitarians on the far left of Labour. Probably with the help of a block Muslim vote which will eventually, in turn, dump the Labour left. RIP the UK.
Biden is trying to be on both sides in Gaza building a dock for Gaza and giving bombs to Israel. Us domestic politics drives action by the army. God is watching and will destroy America if he dumps Israel. Read Revelations 18 for Gods reaction to dumping Israel. One only prays that there are enough Christians in America that the doom will wait until the Church is raptured. God is allowing the growth of Woke antisemitism to cause Jews to flee to Israel prior to America’s doom.