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What is the point of Labour ?


pawpar

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I don't doubt she was being honest. However it does highlight the SNP's limitations.
Why isn't the same true of Dugdale? She was being honest by admitting that Labour can't win in Banff, Shetland and Orkney or Berwickshire.

It highlights the SNP’s limitation that although it can comfortably win two elections in Scotland and still be leading in the polls (by an increased and increasing margin) and return a different result to England meaning a government is forced on Scotland that it overwhelmingly didn’t vote for? Thus the whole point about why indy is essential? Thanks for making my point for me.
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24 minutes ago, Detournement said:

I don't doubt she was being honest. However it does highlight the SNP's limitations.

Why isn't the same true of Dugdale? She was being honest by admitting that Labour can't win in Banff, Shetland and Orkney or Berwickshire.

"We can't win, so if you want to send Nicola a message, vote Tory"

as opposed to:

"We can't win, but the Tories stand for the few, not the many so the less Tory MPs the better"

Or even:

"Jeremy Corbyn is the fucking messiah, give him your vote, Labour needs every vote it can get, send Theresa May a message, and f**k the SNP as well, the c***s"

There is absolutely no doubt that Dugdale was unambiguous in sending out a pro-Union as opposed to anti-Tory message in that campaign. Whether you think that is a valid strategy is a matter of your own political leanings, but it does leave Labour in Scotland with an open flank regarding it's commitment to left wing ideals above all other considerations. 

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"We can't win, so if you want to send Nicola a message, vote Tory"
as opposed to:
"We can't win, but the Tories stand for the few, not the many so the less Tory MPs the better"
Or even:
"Jeremy Corbyn is the fucking messiah, give him your vote, Labour needs every vote it can get, send Theresa May a message, and f**k the SNP as well, the c***s"
There is absolutely no doubt that Dugdale was unambiguous in sending out a pro-Union as opposed to anti-Tory message in that campaign. Whether you think that is a valid strategy is a matter of your own political leanings, but it does leave Labour in Scotland with an open flank regarding it's commitment to left wing ideals above all other considerations. 
It was a vote Unionist parties message.
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1 minute ago, Detournement said:

Dugdale didn't say that. 

Again no one wants to address the reasons for the SNP>Tory swing.

Paraphrasing slightly, but here's an actual video of her saying “There are a few differences in the Borders and the Highlands where the Tories might be better placed but right across Scotland’s centre belt, where the vast majority of Scotland’s population lives, the only party that can beat the SNP is the Labour party.”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/807559/Kezia-Dugdale-Nicola-Sturgeon-SNP-Scottish-independence-poll-Ruth-Davidson

There really is no other way to explain that other than as an explicitly pro-Union message from the leader of the Labour party in Scotland advocating that voting for the Tories is what some people should do to stop the SNP.

The reasons for the SNP>Tory swing in the North East are fairly fucking obvious as well. There was always a subset of folk for whom Scottish independence was a mere stepping stone to the real prize of exiting the EU. This vote tended to be associated with rural and fishing communities. in the North East. The advocacy by the UK government for leaving the EU, and the Scottish government's decision to link a 2nd Indy Ref to the EU was always going to make that decision for those people fairly easily. The reason the Indy vote is so stable is because the Yes and No side ended up swapping more or less equal numbers of people: Some middle class central belters went yes as an EU survival strategy, while some formely ostensibly SNP voters went Tory to get out of the EU. There is also no doubt that over the last few years, particularly since Sturgeon took over that the SNP has been more left wing, and probably more central belt focussed as opposed to Salmond who was a well kent face and who'd built the SNP's original bases in the rural communities.

None of which answers the basic question: What is the point of Labour. Right now, what exactly is the fucking point of Labour?

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The point of Labour is to end austerity and build a society fit for the 21st century.

I agree with your reasons but i'd place more emphasis on people in the North East feeling they don't share common cause with the Central Belt. Fishermen and farmers basically want an MP who they feel works for them and provides more quotas/subsidies.

It's not possible to appeal to every constituency in Scotland but the SNP have to try. This causes them serious problems when creating policy and probably explains why they have expended so much political capital on crazy, doomed to fail, schemes like corroborration and named person.

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4 hours ago, Detournement said:

This is nonsense. Dugdale acknowledged that Labour weren't going to win in rural areas. That was just a simple fact. The idea that a sunday morning interview on Sky news that no one watched was the defining factor in voting intention is absurd.

Far more people saw Sturgeon state with certainty that the Tories were definitely going to win a majority at the end of the final (I think?) debate. The SNP failed to either fully commit to a second referendum or offer any way to end austerity.

It's not really up for dispute that Scottish Labour was running on a 'stop indyref 2' campaign and I think it's not unfair to consider that this feeds into the idea of Labour being relatively light on the Conservatives'. I maybe wouldn't have gone as far as what the poster has said but when you are aligning yourself in this way and telling your supporters that this is a number one issue, it's not an outrageous implication.

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44 minutes ago, Detournement said:

The point of Labour is to end austerity and build a society fit for the 21st century.

 

By hiding from the argument of single market access and being too scared to have an intellectual debate with their base; they will ensure that we'll be entering the second quarter of the 21st century with potentially record amounts of poverty and more pressure on public spending. The clock is ticking and they certainly have the numbers to force through a move like this but they are choosing to sit it out and are scared of telling people they are wrong.

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The more things change the more they stay the same.

Corbyn has spent his Parliamentary career condemning top down leadership, and manipulation of policy making.  Yet Labour’s whole Brexit policy is being decided by Corbyn and a few others whilst the Party has been denied a say.

There is nothing to suggest the direction Brexit is taking us in has the support of ordinary members or voters.

 

 

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It's not really up for dispute that Scottish Labour was running on a 'stop indyref 2' campaign and I think it's not unfair to consider that this feeds into the idea of Labour being relatively light on the Conservatives'. I maybe wouldn't have gone as far as what the poster has said but when you are aligning yourself in this way and telling your supporters that this is a number one issue, it's not an outrageous implication.
This in spades.

If you run a Stop Indy Ref 2 campaign as both Labour and the Tories did then it's clear me that Unionists were being encouraged to put the Union before party.
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7 hours ago, Detournement said:

The Dugdale "vote Tory" theory also ignores the fact that there was only one Tory victory - Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock - where there was any substantial Lab>Tory swing.

The vast majority of Tory victories were direct SNP>Tory swings.

It's not a theory that the leader of labour told people to vote Tory though is it.  That's a fact.

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