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Anyway, I'm depressed about the election. A lot of my friends are like, employed white collar middle class people, and so...they're umming and aaahing about whether to vote for Labour - who have a chance of winning -or vote for the Lib Dems, who are socially liberal but economically center-right.
I probably can't summarise the politics of the UK well enough for my international readers to get all the nuances of rhe last 40 years in my country. But like...
...in the 90s the Labour party successfully rebranded as a center-left party. It was glossy, but also had the idea that we were all middle class now, and that global capital was good and a path to prosperity and neoliberalism was fab. Then, when I was at university, I actually did vote for the Lib Dems once - they notoriously promised not to raise tuition fees, garnering a huge student support, only for them to go into a coalition government with our right wing party - the Conservatives -and promptly raised the fees.
For me that's like...lesson learned abour centerist moderates. A lot of lefties in my life like the Lib Dems, and toss up between them or Labour as the left wing choices. But the LDs aren't left wing, they're liberal - when given the choice, they see no real conflict in their economic viewpoint with the right, and are comfortable supporting them. The LDs get this Leftie vote because they are *socially* liberal - they're not racist, like the gays, like the planet. But they're fundamentally the party of well meaning middle class people: they're not interested in challenging the status quo, because broadly speaking capitalism is turning out ok for them.
So in this election, the Labour party have rebranded again as a proper Left wing party of the working man. They propose to nationalise stuff, expand worker rights, redistribute wealth, improve the welfare state, and fund hospitals. Unlike the LDs, whose economic approach is "capitalism is ok but needs compassionate tweaks here and there", the new Labour party are former trade unionists whose economic approach is "inequality is bad and we should challenge the root causes of it".
And that's really exciting to me! Exciting in a tribal way, a deep felt groan of love and despair. The slogan - "for the many not the few" - it's just a damn slogan, but it makes me happy. And I think about how waking up knowing that people voted for this and that this is who leads the country would be - for the first time in a long time - a source of hope.
Anyway, so there is a Lot of other stuff going on in the UK right now. And as ever, my politically engaged Facebook wall is alight with discussing whether they'll vote Labour, Lib Dem or Green.
And it's hard not to get really, really angry at them all. The current Conservative government has been in for 9 years, and they used the financial crash of 2008 as a cynical excuse to impose ideologically-motivated cuts, which blamed the problems of the crash on vulnerable and disabled people. Food bank use has rocketed, as has child poverty. Welfare has been repeatedly cut. The economy has stagnated. Hospital standards have dropped. Knife crime has gone up; police, library and youth club numbers have dropped. And this is part of an ongoing trend of falling standards which had been consistent in neoliberal governments in this country since 1970...and rhe last time we had a socialist Labour government.
So to me it's...you vote against thst. There is no legitimate reason not to. Only if you're the kind of person who knows they won't seriously be impacted by the next 4 years of a conservative government would even consider voting in a way which might enable it. It's treating politics as a kind of after-dinner game: for sure, my liberal friends are all against the Conservatives. They wouldn't vote for them or wish to see them on power. But they're not...a disabled person reliant on welfare payments. They haven't lived for 9 years under the psychological burden of being told over and over again by government and media that they are inherently worthless, and they arent financially at the mercy of those governments. They know the Conservative welfare policy is bad, but not tasted the terrifying precarity of it. They have rhe luxury of political purity; I don't.
This is rhe meaning of the term "solidarity", and also why neoliberalism has been so pervasively awful. It creates winners and losers, and encourages people who are (temporarily) winning to identify wit those who are (always) winning. It's really notable that the people on my FB wall who are on disability are visibly freaking out about the election; not at all the wistful, principled tones of those criticising Corbyn on this or that nuance. It's a far more panicky "I can't face another four years of this". I can feel the unhappiness like a weight on my back. I can't bear to watch the news. Im profoundly unhappy. I feel like every vote for someone who isn't Labour is a direct and personal targeted vote for me to die; which in some ways, it actually is.
I probably can't summarise the politics of the UK well enough for my international readers to get all the nuances of rhe last 40 years in my country. But like...
...in the 90s the Labour party successfully rebranded as a center-left party. It was glossy, but also had the idea that we were all middle class now, and that global capital was good and a path to prosperity and neoliberalism was fab. Then, when I was at university, I actually did vote for the Lib Dems once - they notoriously promised not to raise tuition fees, garnering a huge student support, only for them to go into a coalition government with our right wing party - the Conservatives -and promptly raised the fees.
For me that's like...lesson learned abour centerist moderates. A lot of lefties in my life like the Lib Dems, and toss up between them or Labour as the left wing choices. But the LDs aren't left wing, they're liberal - when given the choice, they see no real conflict in their economic viewpoint with the right, and are comfortable supporting them. The LDs get this Leftie vote because they are *socially* liberal - they're not racist, like the gays, like the planet. But they're fundamentally the party of well meaning middle class people: they're not interested in challenging the status quo, because broadly speaking capitalism is turning out ok for them.
So in this election, the Labour party have rebranded again as a proper Left wing party of the working man. They propose to nationalise stuff, expand worker rights, redistribute wealth, improve the welfare state, and fund hospitals. Unlike the LDs, whose economic approach is "capitalism is ok but needs compassionate tweaks here and there", the new Labour party are former trade unionists whose economic approach is "inequality is bad and we should challenge the root causes of it".
And that's really exciting to me! Exciting in a tribal way, a deep felt groan of love and despair. The slogan - "for the many not the few" - it's just a damn slogan, but it makes me happy. And I think about how waking up knowing that people voted for this and that this is who leads the country would be - for the first time in a long time - a source of hope.
Anyway, so there is a Lot of other stuff going on in the UK right now. And as ever, my politically engaged Facebook wall is alight with discussing whether they'll vote Labour, Lib Dem or Green.
And it's hard not to get really, really angry at them all. The current Conservative government has been in for 9 years, and they used the financial crash of 2008 as a cynical excuse to impose ideologically-motivated cuts, which blamed the problems of the crash on vulnerable and disabled people. Food bank use has rocketed, as has child poverty. Welfare has been repeatedly cut. The economy has stagnated. Hospital standards have dropped. Knife crime has gone up; police, library and youth club numbers have dropped. And this is part of an ongoing trend of falling standards which had been consistent in neoliberal governments in this country since 1970...and rhe last time we had a socialist Labour government.
So to me it's...you vote against thst. There is no legitimate reason not to. Only if you're the kind of person who knows they won't seriously be impacted by the next 4 years of a conservative government would even consider voting in a way which might enable it. It's treating politics as a kind of after-dinner game: for sure, my liberal friends are all against the Conservatives. They wouldn't vote for them or wish to see them on power. But they're not...a disabled person reliant on welfare payments. They haven't lived for 9 years under the psychological burden of being told over and over again by government and media that they are inherently worthless, and they arent financially at the mercy of those governments. They know the Conservative welfare policy is bad, but not tasted the terrifying precarity of it. They have rhe luxury of political purity; I don't.
This is rhe meaning of the term "solidarity", and also why neoliberalism has been so pervasively awful. It creates winners and losers, and encourages people who are (temporarily) winning to identify wit those who are (always) winning. It's really notable that the people on my FB wall who are on disability are visibly freaking out about the election; not at all the wistful, principled tones of those criticising Corbyn on this or that nuance. It's a far more panicky "I can't face another four years of this". I can feel the unhappiness like a weight on my back. I can't bear to watch the news. Im profoundly unhappy. I feel like every vote for someone who isn't Labour is a direct and personal targeted vote for me to die; which in some ways, it actually is.
