Rayvin

Also many will have lent their votes to other parties. Just checked the Labour forum on Facebook and Starmer looks popular. Along with JLB though.

Part of me hopes that several of the Labour voters who went for the Tories this time have a nagging sense of "what have we done". I doubt the intention was a victory this convincing. They'll know what Johnson is about, too. I still think that anyone objecting to Corbyn has no need to go Tory. So many of them went straight across the aisle here it's just bizarre if the issue was just him.

But they do matter to the left wing that any centrist taking over Labour needs to keep on side. This whole point came from an attempt to suggest that if the centrists do somehow manage to take control again, they need to keep the left on board. Somehow.

I'm not trying to put lipstick on anything, I think they're fucked. Permanently. I've said it repeatedly.

Also, again, I'm kind of trying to suggest how we get the broad church back. I'm now about 30 hours without sleep so maybe I'm totally incoherent at this point.

Johnson just won an election, that's not going to help us. Just winning isn't everything. Policies matter.

I didn't say it was, hence suggesting we leave austerity out. All i meant to imply was that the offering needs to be strong. More left than centre.

So how are you proposing we get the left on board with austerity lite? Maybe we leave that particular policy on the bonfire. I wonder if all of this could have been avoided if Labour just opposed austerity properly... maybe Corbyn would never have been elected. As I've said before, I was going Cooper up until I read his manifesto and the party broadly voted to punish poor people in some timely vote on austerity around the same time. But anyway, if the centrists want to take the party back, it's gonna have to be seriously convincing stuff. Winning elections should be front and centre but it can't be everything.

It's a right mess unless we literally have the second coming of Blair around the corner, with enough despair on the left to wave it through. Who knows I guess but i don't think it looks good.

I think a centrist, media friendly pro Remain leader would have done far better, but probably still lost a decent number of the hard-core leave seats. Maybe they would have picked up enough Tory ones to counter that, idk. I'm talking now about the future of the party though. Whether you think Younge or any of the Corbyn faithful are right or not, it is clear that they do not see this as a defeat for left wing policy. And their policy research will support that, since they received broadly favourable results. The consequence of that view, is that Labour is doomed. If it goes centrist, the left will schism out (And they are not so small in number that Labour don't need them). If it goes left, the centre leave and have to vaguely try to establish an electoral force in the same place as the Lib Dems who have proven once again that they're on a hiding to nothing but can at least win a reasonable number of centrist votes - or to join with them and further alienate the soft left. The only chance for Labour is the broad church, and it isn't happening.

I'm not saying the left is right about all this btw, I'm just saying that schism is inevitable and neither side will win.

From the guardian's Gary Younge. I know this isnt what people want to hear about centrism but as ewerk said, and as I've tried to say in my tired incoherence (I can't sleep still, given up), this wasn't a ringing endorsement for the centre: They [centrists] will have to face the fact that the electorate did not abandon Labour for the centre. They went either to the far right in England and Wales or to the social democratic nationalist alternative in Scotland. They did not go to the Liberal Democrats or back Change. Chuka Umunna, Dominic Grieve, David Gauke, Anna Soubry, Jo Swinson and Luciana Berger all lost. I did not hear a single voter ask about Owen Smith or pine for Yvette Cooper. Whatever comes next it won’t be a return to abstaining on the welfare bill or backing the hostile environment policy. They will want Labour to be more effective in opposition, but they will want it to mount an opposition. The centrists will have to face the fact that the thousands of people who travelled the country during these past few weeks to canvass in the cold and rain are not about to abandon their ideals or the party. And those who invested so heavily in this particular iteration of Labour will have to face the fact that their conviction alone was not enough to convince others of their ideals.

Aye, well in Tom. You deserved more than this. Heroic effort nonetheless.

Doesn't matter I guess, people need to vent so whatever. I'll just steer clear for a bit. Not in the best of moods myself anyway.

Or it highlights that Labour's position of being pro-Brexit in 2017 and being anti-Brexit in 2019, has killed them.

Fuck off mate, seriously. I've been up all night worrying about this and the last thing I need is someone pretending that a vote I cast 4 years ago has led us inevitably to this point. Such an inevitable point, I might add, that it somehow didn't happen in 2017.

If centrism was going to win big, the Lib Dems wouldn't have been obliterated last night either. This was either all about Brexit, or they fucked up too. Look man, the country isn't the same anymore. It has polarised indeed, and I'm really not sure the pool of voters left in the middle is all that big. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it is, but the pool of voters on the solid left isn't small. How is Labour going to bring those two sides together again now? And believe it or not I mostly consider myself a centrist. The vast majority of what I've said on here over the years has been based on my reading of the situation, not personal preference. Labour's "radical left wing" policies poll well. How can that be a positive sign for a return to centrism?

SNP for me I guess. Suppose I should start looking into their post independence policies.

I agree with you, there really is very little evidence that centrism is what is needed. Maybe someone younger with a less checkered past though. But the schism is going to produce a centrist party anyway.

Does anyone reckon the Tories might just be right? Save yourself the heartache, fuck everyone else and worry about yourself only? I mean idk what the point in anything else is now.

It's a decade of Tory rule, either way. I'm amazed this isn't obvious tbh. The schism is going to end Labour for a generation, no matter who wins it.

Ok so we're at roughly 1.4m remain voters more than leave. I feel like it's worth people making a fuss about that in some form, try to pressure Johnson to get a less mental deal. Unlikely but worth trying.

I really think youth turnout will plummet after this one. Done everything they should have and were still let down. Why bother.

They could have removed Johnson and set up a GNU. Admittedly Corbyn would have needed to fuck off to bring the rebel Tories on side, but on balance I think it would have been the best outcome. Agree with the point on Labour but they aren't going to pick a centrist. I keep thinking Yvette Cooper would be the one to go for if we could, but it isn't going to happen. Already the Blairites and Corbynites are turning on each other. They'll split, I'm almost certain. Agree on the last point too, it's almost certainly what will happen. Though technically that space has been available for 4 years now and the Tories haven't stepped into it so far.

Aye but Strugeon knows Scotland is gone now. This isnt just a mandate for another referendum, its a 'come and get me' from the voters. At which point, incidentally, you will need a centrist Labour Party. Although to win power, that party will end up looking more like Cameron's Tories.