A new political party?

[Workingman]

It is being mooted according to the Guardian

It will be interesting to see how this goes and if it can take off... It is desperately needed IMO and the LibDems do not cut it. They did not quite shoot themselves in the foot when getting into bed with the Tories, but they did when they caved in to everything - student loan, the AV fiasco.

I have long thought that the country needs a party to cherry pick the best of policies from right and left and centre. If this new party can do it I might be persuaded...

[Kaz]

Didn't the SDP try this, 35 years ago?

[Workingman]

Sort of.

The Gang of Four (Owen, Jenkins, Rodgers and Williams) split from Labour due to its infiltration by Militant Tendency. The trouble was that they did not have a broad reach, no party machine as such, and no big financial backing. The SDP and Liberals worked together to cherry pick what they thought were winnable seats for each party. It did not work and eventually the two merged into the LibDems we have today.

I also got the impression at the time that the Gang of Four were variously seen as traitors to Labour, opportunists or cowards. The idea of Social Democracy seemed good, its implementation not so.

[cromwell]

"Moderates" in Labour are worried. They can see themselves being deselected if Momentum get their way, so what to do? The rules at the moment in the party seem to make it difficult for them to find a way back to control Labour; so are they going to jump or will they be pushed?

So the likes of Yvette Cooper, Dan Jarvis, Ben Bradshaw may be tempted to join a new party but they know there is a problem. A lot of people in this country vote tribally, Tory and Labour alike. They vote for the label of Troy or Labour more than they do for the candidate. If Mary Creagh in Wakefield wants to stand for something other than Labour then imo she's history and the same would go for a lot of others.

Some Tories like Anna Sozzleberry, Ken Clarke, Nicky Morgan and a few others may have a brief wish to join up with a new party but they are safer from being deselected than their Labour opposites, so I think they will stay put.

Plus if Tony Blair declares his undying support for any new party (and he probably would) it will snooker them with a lot of people straight away.

[Workingman]

I got the impression that the new group does not mind the support of ex Tory or Labour donors and supporters, but that it does not want any tainted ex MPs.

I d not give it much chance of getting going, even though it is needed, and I agree with you, Cromwell, the best way of killing it stone dead is to get Blair to come out in favour.

[Suff]

The last thing we need in the UK is to spend £50m of government money to create a party, for the express purpose of voting against everything else and FOR nothing.

Anyone checked out how well that is going for France right now?? There is talk about bringing the republic down. Not that I think it will happen. But the feelings and the strikes, running right now, make the hatred of Sarko and his reforms look like a new born kitten...

En Marche all right. Directemont a la Greve!

[cromwell]

In general the media here is in favour of Macron Suff. We are getting very little information about what is going on, just a blink-and-you've-missed-it five second clip on the news about strikes.

[Workingman]

In general the media here is in favour of Macron Suff. We are getting very little information about what is going on, just a blink-and-you've-missed-it five second clip on the news about strikes.

Yup. you really have to look. Even RT, Al Jazz and Reuters are pretty thin on info. Don't even bother with Sky, the BBC or ITN.

[Suff]

Yes you do have to dig. Also you need to know a little bit about the background.

Right now France is stuck right in the middle of a major war for control of working conditions. Led by the SNCF which is billions in debt and has train drivers who get a full pension at age 50 and it is a very good pension.

Macron has 4 more yeas to go as President and he's not backing down at all. They are the worst strikes I have seen in 2 decades, with extensive timetables for the strikes and when summer comes expect ports and air traffic to join in. I have travelled through the previous strikes and it was not so bad. This time the disruption is extreme.

I have a friend who is flying to see her daughter in Australia. Because of her flight time she needs to take the 5am train out of Poitiers or she's going to miss the flight. However SNCF are unable to tell her if she will get a train before 5am that morning. In the end she bought a €250 flight from Bordeaux to Paris to avoid it all.

I was talking to the guy who supplies our wood (weekend before last), he's French and a businessman. He is incensed about the strikes and also immigration. Clearly a FN voter. He was talking about the fact that if he doesn't work he doesn't get any money and he uses his wood business to supplement his pension. His sympathy for SNCF drivers who can, essentially, retire on a good whack, is non existent.

I expect a full summer of disruption to come. Of course you won't hear that in the UK press until it actually is announced and they won't announce it until the maximum impact will be felt. Personally, if I were driving to Europe for holiday this year, I'd be looking to cross to Belgium or Holland. Or Spain if you are going that far south.

My fait that a tired old re-tread party of "EX" MP's, in refuge from the main parties, will provide us with a real solution? NIL.

What people like to forget is that we have already had a revolution in government and we already have a 4th party. Given that this party garnered more votes than the Lib Dems in the last election, yet failed to get a single seat, even though it had a huge groundswell of support, should be a clear indicator of where a 5th party in UK politics is going to go. It will take 2-3 decades to even condition the voters to the fact that it might be a good idea to vote for them and, even then, they are likely to produce less MP's than the Lib Dems.

Better to get behind UKIP and "reform it". But of course they are a horrible bunch of racists. Just like Corbyn's Labour if you read the press..... Plus the fact that this 5th party would be ultra PRO EU and you can start digging the hole right now. 6 feet deep.

There is a very different dynamic to UK politics than the one trumpeted in the press. Just witness what happened to the SNP vote when Sturgeon went rabid about trying to keep Scotland in the EU. Half her independence voters voted TORY! Which kept the UK Tories in power. More twists and turns than a game of Twister.

[cromwell]

My money is on Macron to win then. But it will be unpleasant, obviously.