The Tories were successfully shifted from central right to far far right in the last decade, not from within, but by Farage and UKIP and the BNP.
Far right influence threatened to steal votes from the Tories, so they shifted to be far right themselves and managed to stay in power.
There's no reason a similar thing can't happen with Labour. I'm not sure exactly what a left wing version of Farage would look like, but I think we need one.
The Tories were successfully shifted from central right to far far right in the last decade, not from within, but by Farage and UKIP and the BNP.
I don't think that's really true at all. Tory ideology hasn't really changed that much over the last couple of decades except for the EU and accepting defeat on a few token social issues. The shift towards Euroscepticism was largely driven by events - Black Wednesday and the Maastricht Treaty caused outrage on the right and led directly to the creation of UKIP and the ERG, then there was the wave of immigration from Poland, then the endless wrangling over the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty, the euro debt crisis, and then finally Cameron's decision to try and ride the surging anti-EU sentiment by promising a referendum.
I know it's easy to pick out terrible things they're doing and argue they've got worse, but they've always been doing terrible things. Twenty years ago they were still fighting to keep Section 28 and some of their MPs would openly attend mask-off neo-Nazi meetings that used the pre-1994 South African flag as a centrepiece.
There’s no reason a similar thing can’t happen with Labour. I’m not sure exactly what a left wing version of Farage would look like, but I think we need one.
The Greens have been doing a pretty decent job, but the problem is it's extremely easy for the other parties (even the Tories) to pretend that they care about the environment and human rights and stuff. Leaving the EU was a very clear-cut, straightforward policy goal, so it was impossible for any governing party to somehow pretend they were already doing it.
Nah I think we just need a ghoul.
The Tories were successfully shifted from central right to far far right in the last decade, not from within, but by Farage and UKIP and the BNP.
Far right influence threatened to steal votes from the Tories, so they shifted to be far right themselves and managed to stay in power.
There's no reason a similar thing can't happen with Labour. I'm not sure exactly what a left wing version of Farage would look like, but I think we need one.
I don't think that's really true at all. Tory ideology hasn't really changed that much over the last couple of decades except for the EU and accepting defeat on a few token social issues. The shift towards Euroscepticism was largely driven by events - Black Wednesday and the Maastricht Treaty caused outrage on the right and led directly to the creation of UKIP and the ERG, then there was the wave of immigration from Poland, then the endless wrangling over the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty, the euro debt crisis, and then finally Cameron's decision to try and ride the surging anti-EU sentiment by promising a referendum.
I know it's easy to pick out terrible things they're doing and argue they've got worse, but they've always been doing terrible things. Twenty years ago they were still fighting to keep Section 28 and some of their MPs would openly attend mask-off neo-Nazi meetings that used the pre-1994 South African flag as a centrepiece.
The Greens have been doing a pretty decent job, but the problem is it's extremely easy for the other parties (even the Tories) to pretend that they care about the environment and human rights and stuff. Leaving the EU was a very clear-cut, straightforward policy goal, so it was impossible for any governing party to somehow pretend they were already doing it.