The ink on the General Election ballot paper is barely dry, yet the die for the next five years is already well and truly cast. As the individual politicians either celebrate their victories or lick their wounds with various party leaders already falling on their proverbial swords, thoughts must turn to what the next five years will mean.
Surprising as it may seems, in the longer term and by that I mean after the next five years and the next General Election, the outlook for working people could be far better than it has been for a long time provided the Labour Party quickly learn their lesson. In the short-term, provided there is no political trickery, it should also mean that finally the electorate will have its say on Europe which they have been denied by politicians for the last 40 years.
No one can say if the majority of the electorate will eventually vote to stay in the EU or not but there can be no doubt of the hue and cry from the electorate over the years that people want their say on the matter. With the leader of the Labour Party saying a EU Referendum is unlikely to take place if Labour won the next General Election and another Labour politician suggesting that British people could not be ‘trusted’ to decide if they wanted to stay in the EU or not, caused resentment amongst many voters.
Equally ignoring issues like over immigration and the real consequences it has caused in employment, housing, education and health did nothing to curry any favour between the electorate and those they perceived dismissive of the problem in the past.
Although I do not support them, the SNP has won a massive victory in Scotland and must be congratulated for that as clearly that is how Scottish voters feel. However although they will now form a sizeable minority party in Parliament, their political teeth have been pulled in terms of hopes of ruling the whole of the country through a coalition. The SNP victory also shows how dependent Labour had become over the years on their Scottish politicians at the expense of other and less urbanised areas of the country. With that support taken away overnight, the numbers simply did not add up in terms of parliamentary seats of them ever hoping to form a government on their own.
And there lies the nub of Labour’s problem, one of trust or more accurately lack of trust in them by many of the electorate. Lack of trust or faith is something that did not happen overnight, it has been building for years and Labour did not appear to have the foresight to see it coming, understanding it, or countering it.
The electorate is not a single entity that can be taken for granted and used as a rite of passage into Parliament, it is millions of decent hard working individuals each with their own independent thoughts and aspirations most whom loathe being lectured at by elitist politicians. Many working people now feel they have no political party to represent their views. For many it was once the principles of Keir Hardie they supported, strong principles which sometimes seem more recently to have become clouded or evaporated.. For a great many people it is not a case of them having moved away from the Labour Party, to them it feels more of a case that the Labour Party has moved away from them.
The Labour Party is now begun the process of choosing a new leader and it is likely unless they choose a person that voters can believe in, that any future policies Labour develop will be seen as anything other than words on paper. This point on the choice the right leader has already been expressed by some Labour politicians fearful Labour may once again be sleepwalk into the same mistakes of the past.
Something I often hear in conversations is peoples distrust in careerist politicians who they feel lack the contact, experience and understanding of everyday folk and their hopes, fears and aspirations. Nothing makes many peoples blood boil faster than politicians they perceive as “champagne socialists” glibly deciding what is best for them rather than asking or understanding them.
At the end of the day, it is those same people who are going to put their X on a future ballot paper against a particular politician’s name or not. Politicians who appear to alienate people are only alienating themselves.
Choice of their new leader is a matter for Labour alone although some bloodletting over their General Election defeat has already begun. Even if they choose the right person, Labour still face the monumental task of rebuilding its trust and faith with the electorate. Choose the wrong person and they face many more years in the wilderness.
Filed under: The Political Page, The Wind of Change | Tagged: champagne socialists, coalition governmant, Conservative Party, EU referendum, Labour Party, SNP | Leave a comment »
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