UK Politics

You are absolutely right. There's empirical evidence that these kinds of 'accommodationist' policies only increase support for the far right. These polls are further evidence that the Starmer strategy is counter-productive.

"They're right about everything, and you shouldn't vote for them" is the message he's giving

Labour canvasser asked why I wasn't voting that way at the last GE. I said, "I'm a socialist - honestly, would you*?" and he seemed within a heartbeat of agreeing. The local crowd seemed pretty depressed about chasing the Overton window back then [although obviously they will make sympathetic noises towards anyone they're talking to, that's part of the job].

[* This isn't risking a Reform storm - FPTP and I'm in a solidly Labour ward, but they still bothered to knock on doors, which was eye-opening in itself]

I'm still a member for now, but I'm not surprised people feel that way.

genuinely

A few things.

1. He came into power because the electorate were looking for change. We're still looking for it because he's just slowed the decay a little, and hasn't really made any big plays.
2. Whereas leaders like Canada's Mark Carney have basically told Trump to take a flying leap off a short pier, Starmer has tried to play to his ego. He's invited him for a state visit, which is pretty much universally hated. He's negotiated over tariffs. He's normalised what Trump does.
3. The government are currently fighting a court case where their lawyers claim the is "no evidence of genocide in Gaza" therefore arms sales to Israel are legal. Starmer is an ex-human-rights lawyer.
4. He recently made a speech about immigration calling the UK an "Island of strangers". He's chasing a right-wing vote because the right-wing Reform Party are getting stronger. None of them would touch him with a barge pole so it's pointless. While he's doing this the left-wing base are ditching him for the Greens and LibDems.

So if you're a pro-austerity pro-israel anti-immigration Trumper who thinks Reform UK is a step too far, you'll be happy with Starmer. Otherwise you're looking for other options.

He rode to power on the back of not being from the party behind the least popular government in fucking ages (after 14 years of disaster). He made lots of promises to appeal to the essentially left-wing party that he's the leader of. In any case, he wound up with a landslide parliamentary majority off the back of around a third of the actual vote.

Since then he's put Wes Streeting in charge of the NHS and McSweeney in charge of strategy, and has chased the racist vote that's stoked up by Nige "Brexit" Farage.

So he's triangulating right to chase the votes of people who can't stand him and will never vote for him, and in the space of a month has lost 34 approval points from actual Labour voters to wind up with a net -5 approval or something like that.

What's odd is that I know people who've met him and worked with him personally, and they are all largely of the belief that he's a man of deep principle. Which just goes to show his talent, because he's hiding it incredibly well at the moment.

Decided to blame immigrants for all the country's problems.

He's a Conservative who took over our main 'left' party and ousted all the leftwing politicians from it. He's pro-israel (his wife is israeli), anti-immigration, deeply transphobic, fucking over the disabled and impoverished, further fucking over the NHS, etc.

There's more but I don't want to keep thinking about this as it's upsetting and I have shit to do today.

A wolf in sheep's clothing. Labour is our main left wing party, but he's left wing in name only. Blames immigration for all our problems while screwing over vulnerable people plus dismantling the NHS even more.