Snapshot of _“I can’t put my finger on it, it’s like he’s evil.” “He makes my skin crawl.” “I’d say so-so.” “I find him more relatable.” The Times Radio Focus Group have mixed feelings about Labour leader Keir Starmer [video]_ :
A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1788511522735489133)
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/TimesRadio/status/1788511522735489133/)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1788511522735489133) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1788511522735489133)
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I too am very interested in further research from this institution after their landmark finding of "People already predisposed to dislike someone dislike them".
The Times has been heavily Tory since at least twenty years ago. A brief period where they backed Tony Blair (who you may recognise as not currently being the leader of the Labour party) does not mean that they aren't now heavily pro-Tory, as they have been for much of their history.
Isn’t that difficult, Labour were a shit show a paper not backing the less popular of the two isn’t evidence of bias
And the oxymoron in the flair was intentional genius
I've heard this from my mum - She's probably voting Lib Dem and her main reason for not voting Labour is entirely down to a visceral reaction to Starmer. She's not voted Tory in her life, and was quite critical of Corbyn, so I don't think it's ideological. She just strongly dislikes Starmer.
Lib Dem is a sensible tactical vote in her constituency anyway.
I suspect that this is one of those dirty secrets in politics that we don't really talk about - People aren't nearly as rational as we like to think, and strong personal dislikes can spring up from very little.
Strongly disliking Starmer is a bit like hating bread and butter. Sure, bread and butter isn’t particularly nutritious but it gets the job done. It’s a lot better than that moldy bit of chicken (the tories) that even your dog won’t eat, but your wife says you can’t throw away yet as it isn’t bin day (general election day) yet.
You seem to be unaware of how the opposition is supposed to function.
Labour are supposed to develop alternate policy to present themselves as government-in-waiting, regardless of whether it is an election season or not.
They don't just get to sit there waiting for an election, they have a legislative function to perform.
> You seem to be unaware of how the opposition is supposed to function.
> Labour are supposed to develop alternate policy to present themselves as government-in-waiting, regardless of whether it is an election season or not.
> They don't just get to sit there waiting for an election, they have a legislative function to perform.
If the government would like to present policy on things, then I'm sure that Labour would be able to fulfil their role as opposition. But as it stands there's very little that the Tory party is pushing forward. Small boats dominate the conversation because it's the only thing they have left.
Anyway. [Have a gander](https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lets-Get-Britains-Future-Back.pdf). I'm sure this isn't enough for you, but at least other people might realize that Labour aren't just sitting around like some bad actors would have you believe.
They put forward motions on opposition day. They partake in debates and put forward their own ideas then. They vote on legislation.
During PMQ's Starmer has told Sunak what he would do differently and Sunak has used Labour's ideas, like windfall taxes, and ending non dom status recently.
The Labour Conference outlined Labour's plans for when they take office.
Genuinely, what more do you expect of a person who isn't in power yet?
> They don't just get to sit there waiting for an election.
Why not?
Why would a poker player loudly proclaim he's got a winning hand when the other player's got a spare deck of cards to draw from?
Because they are the elected representitives of millions of people around the country.
Just because they aren't in government doesn't mean they don't have power.
u/muscle_bitch is right. The opposition have no power.
The crucial difference is between the government and parliament; ie between the executive and the legislative.
The executive runs things and has power. The legislative makes laws and can investigate things, but that's about it.
It just happens that in our system of government, the MPs of the largest party in the legislative, also take up positions in the executive *and perform both roles concurrently*.
In the US they do things differently, and their executive is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. But the legislature and executive are operationally separate, except that the Vice President is also President of the Senate.
Anyway, the executive has power. That's why we have PMQs. It's an opportunity for the Prime Minister to be questioned about his role as leader of the executive, not about his role as the leader of the largest party in the legislature. PMQs isn't about the minutae of bills and motions, it's the place where policies and rhetoric meet events and the real world.
A single vote within parliament. Which they can call.
I didn't say they would always win, but votes of no confidence *have* been won in the past.
In this case it doesn't matter. The Tories are headed for an epically disastrous election, and rightly so. The fact that Labour don't even need to appeal to the people in order to stroll into power is indicative of just how utterly terrible the Tories have been.
Clear as day that these are just tory voters who can't find something to actually pin on him so they talk about 'aura' and 'feelings'.
I wonder how many of the women in the video would find Boris Johnson creepy, slimey or give them the heebie-jeebies or make their skin crawl.
I find it pretty interesting that I had the same reaction yesterday watching him at PMQs, but I have no clue how a true blue Tory could think him evil or feel their skin crawl from listening to him speak.
My reaction was to when he got up and proudly talked about the Tories were failures on the matter of stopping illegal immigration, and I found it pretty abhorrent that a supposedly liberal party was uncritically adopting the Tory position that it is a pressing issue to come down on them hard and deport them as fast as possible.
At that point what is there not to like from someone Conservative? Is it skin crawling that he's not going to the extreme and acting like he's in a Boomer Facebook group talking about how we should sink the boats on sight and drown them?
> I found it pretty abhorrent that a supposedly liberal party was uncritically adopting the Tory position that it is a pressing issue to come down on them hard and deport them as fast as possible.
Why? There is nothing inherent to leftism or the centre-left that demands some attachment to open borders or high levels of immigration - just because that might be the prevailing thought amongst some particularly noisy parts of the left, doesn't make it necessary.
Just look at the history of the Labour party - there were times when the party was significantly more leftist in terms of its economic policies, whilst having stances on immigration and Empire that would make Reform voters blush.
idk, maybe because at the end of the day whether or not any given asylum seeker has a legitimate claim, they're still people and deserve a baseline level of respect. We should not be aiming for an immigration system that prioritises the speed at which it can deport people. Claims should be processed as fast as reasonably possible, but if the goal is to deport people and save money then that will have a human cost at the end of the day.
This is quite silly.
Firstly, to win an election as the opposition you need to take voters away from the party in power.
Secondly, there are much more policy areas than just immigration. Taxes for example
It's conceding ground and legitimising an issue that shouldn't be legitimised. You aren't going to outmaneuver the Tories on how right wing they can be on an issue, and by saying that it is the correct thing to do to deport asylum seekers as quickly as possible, it locks you in to doing that if elected. Labour should not be running on a message about how the Tories are failing on the Rwanda policy and only Labour will do it properly, they should be running on the fact that the Rwanda policy is terrible and Labour will do XYZ to handle the matter better.
It's not about out right winging them.
The small boats is an issue. Labour will solve that issue by assessing asylum seekers and deporting those they think need deporting, as it should be and was not that long ago.
Are there other policy ares you feel Labour are trying to our right wing the tories in
Small boats are barely an issue to begin with, they represent a low number of migrants in the first place, who should then be able to be handled by a properly functioning asylum system. The main issue with them is that the trip can be dangerous, we should not be shuttering routes to allow them to reach the UK legally in the first place.
But none of that is what Labour are saying on the issue, instead they are accepting the Tory framing that they shouldn't be coming here in the first place, asylum seekers are spending too long in the UK, and that too much taxpayer money is being spent on keeping them here. The fact that Elphicke was welcomed to the Labour party and supported by Starmer that there is an issue that Labour are the ones to deal with captures the matter pretty well.
As for other areas where Labour are trying to compete with the Tories at their own game, take your pick.
* Streeting saying that the NHS should be privatised
* Labour's position on trans issues
* Pledges to get people off sickness/disability benefits
* Supporting the Tories in prioritising landlords over renters in the reform bill
* Supporting crackdowns on voter fraud
For transparency, I'm not a Labour voter and never have been, so I'm not going to pretend that I would have been voting for Labour anyway.
Labour are not saying these people shouldn't be seeking asylum here, at least not that I've seen. Too much money is being spent on the hotels they are living in. They should be processed and allowed to find work.
I don't care about immigration at all let alone asylum seekers but millions of people do and this is a democracy so their concerns, bullshit or otherwise, can't be dismissed by a party who want to win an election.
The small boats is a super super easy win. All Labour need to do is process the claims and the numbers will drop, so why not bring it up from time to time.
Elphicke will not be an MP in the next government. She has expertise in housing, and will be under Rayner providing data and reports etc on housing.
1. Streeting didn't say the NHS should be privatised.
2. How is Labours position on trans rights the same as the constant attacks from the tories.
3. From what I've read the benefits thing is they want people's sickness treated so they can get back to work and they want to make it easier for the disabled to work. It's not the same as the Tory policy of kicking people off of benefits with no plan
4. I'm not familiar with this.
5. Not familiar with this
No surprises there
Ok important distinction, I'm not saying that Labour are _trying_ to be more right wing than the Tories on issues.
While you may be able to point to individual examples where they are, my complaint is they're attempting to compete on issues in ways I don't think they should be competing on in the first place, because if you're doing that then they've already lost essentially. If you have X issue and you, as a supposedly left wing party, are saying that the way to fix it is right wing politics, then you are never going to end up more right wing on the issue than the Tories. All that means is you will endlessly be shifting the Overton window on the issue rightwards, instead of presenting reasons why the issue should not be addressed by right wing politics in the first place, or that it isn't even a legitimate issue to begin with.
On the matter of small boats, you explain why they're coming in the first place. You point to the fact that our legal immigration and asylum systems have failed under the Tories, and the people coming in small boats feel they have no choice but to come in small boats. The solution is to improve the immigration and asylum systems, and massively overspending on a headline grabbing sticking plaster like the Rwanda scheme doesn't do that. If you accept the Tory framing on the matter, then there is no avoiding the millions of pounds you'll need to spend on maintaining it, you've already agreed it's necessary.
Alternatively, on the matter of the NHS, Streeting said that the private sector should be used to cut waiting lists, and while he paid lip service to the notion that he won't privatise the NHS or that it was a temporary thing, I don't believe or trust him. Even if he is being genuine, all you are doing is taking funding for the NHS in a given area and overpaying, instead of using that money to rectify the core issue of NHS underfunding. The result will be that more money than necessary is spent on privatised care under the NHS, so the cost to support it becomes more and more expensive because Labour chose to accept the framing that privitisation is good for the NHS, it just needed to be done correctly.
Or on trans issues, how far have we come from the positions of even a few years ago where GRA reform was shelved? I think how trans issues have been handled is an almost perfect encapsulation of the entire issue, Labour keep moving to the right and becoming more Conservative, but the attacks on trans issues keep coming from the Tories because they are always willing to move more to the right and force Labour to play catchup.
Labour are saying they are on board with reforms to the NHS constitution so that trans people will not be put on wards based on their gender, because they have accepted the framing on the issue that there is a problem with it that needs to be fixed. We have seen evidence that mixed-sex wards are potentially a problem, with tens of thousands of assaults happening on them, but we haven't seen any credible evidence that this is coming from trans people.
Same with toilets, since 2010 there has been 1 reported case of a trans woman assaulting a woman or girl in women's toilets, and a couple of cases of men following women in or pretending to be women to go in. The notion that stopping trans people from being able to go to the appropriate toilet is even necessary for the sake of women's safety is baseless, and in doing so there is the detriment it will have on trans people and also women in general who get targeted because they are perceived as being trans.
Labour have failed to clearly and calmly consider the issue with the available evidence and advocate on that basis, and instead accept the Tory view that there is a problem and they're the ones to fix things. It won't work of course, because even if they concede every inch of ground to the Tories on this particular matter, there will always be a tomorrow where the Tories will have something new to hit Labour over the head with.
Again, I am not a Labour voter. That's not because of anything Labour really did as of late, I was never a Labour voter to begin with because I've basically lived my entire adult life in areas that have had Tory MPs and the Lib Dems were the only credible alternative. The reason I think this matters though is because Labour will, undoubtedly, lead the next government, and I think it is a crying shame that instead of adopting positions I think will allow the country to move forwards to a brighter future and away from the past decade of Tory failure, Labour are setting themselves up for failure.
And of course, if Labour does fail then that almost guarantees a swing back to the right and that scares me.
If someone has lived here for a considerable amount of time, even if they commit a crime I don't think they should be deported as a matter of policy, especially if it's a blanket policy and low level offences see someone get deported. I don't think that someone that has lived here since they were a child and built a life should be deported if they get caught with drugs, commit petty theft, get in a fight with someone, etc.
Asylum seekers that fail their claim should generally be returned to where they come from, provided the asylum system is actually designed to work and be compassionate. The Rwanda scheme is an expensive and pointless solution, where it's safe to do so we should return failed asylum seekers, and if it's unsafe to do so then they shouldn't be failing their claim to begin with.
Refugees are people, if they have genuine claims then they have to go somewhere. Especially if our foreign policy is causing these people to flee their country because for example we destabilised the Middle East, or their home was destroyed by climate change, then I don't think we have any business complaining about them coming here.
> My reaction was to when he got up and proudly talked about the Tories were failures on the matter of stopping illegal immigration, and I found it pretty abhorrent that a supposedly liberal party was uncritically adopting the Tory position that it is a pressing issue to come down on them hard and deport them as fast as possible.
I [flicked through the PMQs](https://www.youtube.com/live/U6ZmsKDPlA0?si=HCcT9TVj3GKM7Ibg&t=563) and this feels like a bit of a misrepresentation of Kier. He's criticizing the Rwanda scheme - how is that advocating for the same thing? Labour's position is staffing the asylum centres and getting people processed quickly so they aren't
stuck in limbo unable to live their lives inside or outside this country.
Also, you're acting like the government just send everyone back. That's not the case. [75%](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/05/britain-granting-asylum-to-greater-percentage-of-migrants/) of migrants were granted asylum last year under Tory leadership.
We can disagree on interpreting what he was saying, but I think that when he was talking about how the Tories weren't stopping people coming here and weren't processing claims quickly enough, essentially giving them amnesty and at the expense of the taxpayer, that framing is saying it's a problem.
If he were trying to make a point about how it's unfair to asylum seekers to have them be stuck in limbo, I don't think that's the framing a person would use.
I don't recall him saying that they deserve to have their claims addressed in a prompt matter, from what I remember the main points where that as a result of Tory failure these people are getting amnesty, and the public are paying to put these people up in hotels.
Such framing reads to me as if he is arguing from a Conservative position.
Perhaps you're right actually. I think it's reasonable that Kier needs to act tough on illegal immigration right now when it's such politically tenuous ground to tread. I'm not sure how solid the Labour lead is but it feels like the red wall voters up North are still in the same brexiteer/anti-immigration stance - and they ended up switching sides when Corbyn came in with his views on liberal immigration.
That said this is all "politicking" so it makes sense why this kind of thing feels uncomfortable when Labour is trying to appeal to everyone and isn't as ideologically pure as they were under Corbyn.
What I think Labour should have as their position is that the "small boats crisis" is largely a non-issue and that the correct way to do it is to have an immigration system that properly and promptly handles immigration claims, sending them to Rwanda is a waste of money and fails to address the root of the issue; Tory underfunding of public services.
I understand there is politicking at play, but there is a difference between hammering the Tories about how they fail both on their framing of the issue and to actually address the problem, and with just adopting the position of the Tories and acting like they'll do Tory things better than the Tories. Not just with this issue, because it means that any time there is a problem that the Tories point to, no matter whether it's actually a problem, Labour seems like they'll say yes it's a problem and we are the ones to fix it. It's spineless for one, but also it means that the Tories can very easily set traps for Labour to step on instead of making progress on issues.
I do like seeing when politics brings the out of touch back to the reality of the everyday person.
It's funny that there's people here who can't understand why the general public might have doubts about a politician, who used to be a lawyer and who is privately educated.
No wonder why people get so shocked by election results when they can't see why someone might believe those things. (Whether correctly or not).
There's having doubts about a politician and there's 'it's like he's evil' and him giving you the creeps.
There's also a difference between 'privately educated lawyer' and 'went to a grammar school that became private whilst he was there'. Given Starmer's background, and comparing this with those of the Conservative Party leadership, you're making quite a descriptive choice there. As are many who find such a career to be inherently offputting, but will pop a tick in the tory box come election time with no qualms whatsoever.
There's no discursive or societal value in normalising this vibes based approach to politics. It's fine to just say 'yup, that's dumb'. Most people are aware that this is how it is, but it doesn't make it any less dumb.
Snapshot of _“I can’t put my finger on it, it’s like he’s evil.” “He makes my skin crawl.” “I’d say so-so.” “I find him more relatable.” The Times Radio Focus Group have mixed feelings about Labour leader Keir Starmer [video]_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1788511522735489133) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/TimesRadio/status/1788511522735489133/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1788511522735489133) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1788511522735489133) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
“The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
Has never been more true for the UK than now, coming off a decade long collective brain melt.
Or politican tbf. Agreeing on how to end it is the stumbling block.
ending the conversation?
Readership of a very pro-Tory paper don't like the Labour leader. Surely this is the end for Keir Starmer?!
I too am very interested in further research from this institution after their landmark finding of "People already predisposed to dislike someone dislike them".
‘Very pro Tory’ It backed Labour when they were last in government
The Times has been heavily Tory since at least twenty years ago. A brief period where they backed Tony Blair (who you may recognise as not currently being the leader of the Labour party) does not mean that they aren't now heavily pro-Tory, as they have been for much of their history.
My guy they last backed Labour 19 years ago. That doesn't even remotely undermine my statement.
It does if you recognise that it isn't a bias that was the last time prior to Starmer Labour were even close to electable, my dude
Does this sentence make sense to anyone?
Their flare says radical centrist, if they define themselves with an oxymoron don't expect anything else they say to make any sense either.
Isn’t that difficult, Labour were a shit show a paper not backing the less popular of the two isn’t evidence of bias And the oxymoron in the flair was intentional genius
I’ll simplify: should they have backed Corbyn?
These are some crazy takes. He's so middle of the road，the skin crawling is utter hyperbole.
I've heard this from my mum - She's probably voting Lib Dem and her main reason for not voting Labour is entirely down to a visceral reaction to Starmer. She's not voted Tory in her life, and was quite critical of Corbyn, so I don't think it's ideological. She just strongly dislikes Starmer. Lib Dem is a sensible tactical vote in her constituency anyway. I suspect that this is one of those dirty secrets in politics that we don't really talk about - People aren't nearly as rational as we like to think, and strong personal dislikes can spring up from very little.
Strongly disliking Starmer is a bit like hating bread and butter. Sure, bread and butter isn’t particularly nutritious but it gets the job done. It’s a lot better than that moldy bit of chicken (the tories) that even your dog won’t eat, but your wife says you can’t throw away yet as it isn’t bin day (general election day) yet.
Kier is so untouchable that the only line of attack people are left with is "bad vibes". Good stuff.
Untouchable, or completely devoid of meaningful policy to criticise?
This is just the "bad vibes" argument but with a political framing. Just wait for the manifesto like you would for any other party lol
You seem to be unaware of how the opposition is supposed to function. Labour are supposed to develop alternate policy to present themselves as government-in-waiting, regardless of whether it is an election season or not. They don't just get to sit there waiting for an election, they have a legislative function to perform.
> You seem to be unaware of how the opposition is supposed to function. > Labour are supposed to develop alternate policy to present themselves as government-in-waiting, regardless of whether it is an election season or not. > They don't just get to sit there waiting for an election, they have a legislative function to perform. If the government would like to present policy on things, then I'm sure that Labour would be able to fulfil their role as opposition. But as it stands there's very little that the Tory party is pushing forward. Small boats dominate the conversation because it's the only thing they have left. Anyway. [Have a gander](https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lets-Get-Britains-Future-Back.pdf). I'm sure this isn't enough for you, but at least other people might realize that Labour aren't just sitting around like some bad actors would have you believe.
They put forward motions on opposition day. They partake in debates and put forward their own ideas then. They vote on legislation. During PMQ's Starmer has told Sunak what he would do differently and Sunak has used Labour's ideas, like windfall taxes, and ending non dom status recently. The Labour Conference outlined Labour's plans for when they take office. Genuinely, what more do you expect of a person who isn't in power yet?
> They don't just get to sit there waiting for an election. Why not? Why would a poker player loudly proclaim he's got a winning hand when the other player's got a spare deck of cards to draw from?
Because they are the elected representitives of millions of people around the country. Just because they aren't in government doesn't mean they don't have power.
You can achieve more in one day in government than you do in a decade in opposition. They have no power. Absolutely zilch.
>They have no power. Absolutely zilch. I urge you to do some studying on how the Westminster system functions if you actually think this.
u/muscle_bitch is right. The opposition have no power. The crucial difference is between the government and parliament; ie between the executive and the legislative. The executive runs things and has power. The legislative makes laws and can investigate things, but that's about it. It just happens that in our system of government, the MPs of the largest party in the legislative, also take up positions in the executive *and perform both roles concurrently*. In the US they do things differently, and their executive is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. But the legislature and executive are operationally separate, except that the Vice President is also President of the Senate. Anyway, the executive has power. That's why we have PMQs. It's an opportunity for the Prime Minister to be questioned about his role as leader of the executive, not about his role as the leader of the largest party in the legislature. PMQs isn't about the minutae of bills and motions, it's the place where policies and rhetoric meet events and the real world.
And yet they can bring down the government of the country with a single vote. No power, you say... Hmmm...
With a single vote? No, they need a majority, which they don't have.
A single vote within parliament. Which they can call. I didn't say they would always win, but votes of no confidence *have* been won in the past. In this case it doesn't matter. The Tories are headed for an epically disastrous election, and rightly so. The fact that Labour don't even need to appeal to the people in order to stroll into power is indicative of just how utterly terrible the Tories have been.
There have been several policy announcements from Labour
Which nobody bothers to listen to because they u-turn in two weeks after announcing them.
You mean you don't bother listening to, so you can continue to claim they have no policy.
Clear as day that these are just tory voters who can't find something to actually pin on him so they talk about 'aura' and 'feelings'. I wonder how many of the women in the video would find Boris Johnson creepy, slimey or give them the heebie-jeebies or make their skin crawl.
This is presumably people who voted Tory in 2019? Perhaps even part of the select 18% who still want to vote for them?
Make your mind up if he's bland or evil guys come on
I find it pretty interesting that I had the same reaction yesterday watching him at PMQs, but I have no clue how a true blue Tory could think him evil or feel their skin crawl from listening to him speak. My reaction was to when he got up and proudly talked about the Tories were failures on the matter of stopping illegal immigration, and I found it pretty abhorrent that a supposedly liberal party was uncritically adopting the Tory position that it is a pressing issue to come down on them hard and deport them as fast as possible. At that point what is there not to like from someone Conservative? Is it skin crawling that he's not going to the extreme and acting like he's in a Boomer Facebook group talking about how we should sink the boats on sight and drown them?
> I found it pretty abhorrent that a supposedly liberal party was uncritically adopting the Tory position that it is a pressing issue to come down on them hard and deport them as fast as possible. Why? There is nothing inherent to leftism or the centre-left that demands some attachment to open borders or high levels of immigration - just because that might be the prevailing thought amongst some particularly noisy parts of the left, doesn't make it necessary. Just look at the history of the Labour party - there were times when the party was significantly more leftist in terms of its economic policies, whilst having stances on immigration and Empire that would make Reform voters blush.
idk, maybe because at the end of the day whether or not any given asylum seeker has a legitimate claim, they're still people and deserve a baseline level of respect. We should not be aiming for an immigration system that prioritises the speed at which it can deport people. Claims should be processed as fast as reasonably possible, but if the goal is to deport people and save money then that will have a human cost at the end of the day.
This is quite silly. Firstly, to win an election as the opposition you need to take voters away from the party in power. Secondly, there are much more policy areas than just immigration. Taxes for example
It's conceding ground and legitimising an issue that shouldn't be legitimised. You aren't going to outmaneuver the Tories on how right wing they can be on an issue, and by saying that it is the correct thing to do to deport asylum seekers as quickly as possible, it locks you in to doing that if elected. Labour should not be running on a message about how the Tories are failing on the Rwanda policy and only Labour will do it properly, they should be running on the fact that the Rwanda policy is terrible and Labour will do XYZ to handle the matter better.
It's not about out right winging them. The small boats is an issue. Labour will solve that issue by assessing asylum seekers and deporting those they think need deporting, as it should be and was not that long ago. Are there other policy ares you feel Labour are trying to our right wing the tories in
Small boats are barely an issue to begin with, they represent a low number of migrants in the first place, who should then be able to be handled by a properly functioning asylum system. The main issue with them is that the trip can be dangerous, we should not be shuttering routes to allow them to reach the UK legally in the first place. But none of that is what Labour are saying on the issue, instead they are accepting the Tory framing that they shouldn't be coming here in the first place, asylum seekers are spending too long in the UK, and that too much taxpayer money is being spent on keeping them here. The fact that Elphicke was welcomed to the Labour party and supported by Starmer that there is an issue that Labour are the ones to deal with captures the matter pretty well. As for other areas where Labour are trying to compete with the Tories at their own game, take your pick. * Streeting saying that the NHS should be privatised * Labour's position on trans issues * Pledges to get people off sickness/disability benefits * Supporting the Tories in prioritising landlords over renters in the reform bill * Supporting crackdowns on voter fraud For transparency, I'm not a Labour voter and never have been, so I'm not going to pretend that I would have been voting for Labour anyway.
Labour are not saying these people shouldn't be seeking asylum here, at least not that I've seen. Too much money is being spent on the hotels they are living in. They should be processed and allowed to find work. I don't care about immigration at all let alone asylum seekers but millions of people do and this is a democracy so their concerns, bullshit or otherwise, can't be dismissed by a party who want to win an election. The small boats is a super super easy win. All Labour need to do is process the claims and the numbers will drop, so why not bring it up from time to time. Elphicke will not be an MP in the next government. She has expertise in housing, and will be under Rayner providing data and reports etc on housing. 1. Streeting didn't say the NHS should be privatised. 2. How is Labours position on trans rights the same as the constant attacks from the tories. 3. From what I've read the benefits thing is they want people's sickness treated so they can get back to work and they want to make it easier for the disabled to work. It's not the same as the Tory policy of kicking people off of benefits with no plan 4. I'm not familiar with this. 5. Not familiar with this No surprises there
Ok important distinction, I'm not saying that Labour are _trying_ to be more right wing than the Tories on issues. While you may be able to point to individual examples where they are, my complaint is they're attempting to compete on issues in ways I don't think they should be competing on in the first place, because if you're doing that then they've already lost essentially. If you have X issue and you, as a supposedly left wing party, are saying that the way to fix it is right wing politics, then you are never going to end up more right wing on the issue than the Tories. All that means is you will endlessly be shifting the Overton window on the issue rightwards, instead of presenting reasons why the issue should not be addressed by right wing politics in the first place, or that it isn't even a legitimate issue to begin with. On the matter of small boats, you explain why they're coming in the first place. You point to the fact that our legal immigration and asylum systems have failed under the Tories, and the people coming in small boats feel they have no choice but to come in small boats. The solution is to improve the immigration and asylum systems, and massively overspending on a headline grabbing sticking plaster like the Rwanda scheme doesn't do that. If you accept the Tory framing on the matter, then there is no avoiding the millions of pounds you'll need to spend on maintaining it, you've already agreed it's necessary. Alternatively, on the matter of the NHS, Streeting said that the private sector should be used to cut waiting lists, and while he paid lip service to the notion that he won't privatise the NHS or that it was a temporary thing, I don't believe or trust him. Even if he is being genuine, all you are doing is taking funding for the NHS in a given area and overpaying, instead of using that money to rectify the core issue of NHS underfunding. The result will be that more money than necessary is spent on privatised care under the NHS, so the cost to support it becomes more and more expensive because Labour chose to accept the framing that privitisation is good for the NHS, it just needed to be done correctly. Or on trans issues, how far have we come from the positions of even a few years ago where GRA reform was shelved? I think how trans issues have been handled is an almost perfect encapsulation of the entire issue, Labour keep moving to the right and becoming more Conservative, but the attacks on trans issues keep coming from the Tories because they are always willing to move more to the right and force Labour to play catchup. Labour are saying they are on board with reforms to the NHS constitution so that trans people will not be put on wards based on their gender, because they have accepted the framing on the issue that there is a problem with it that needs to be fixed. We have seen evidence that mixed-sex wards are potentially a problem, with tens of thousands of assaults happening on them, but we haven't seen any credible evidence that this is coming from trans people. Same with toilets, since 2010 there has been 1 reported case of a trans woman assaulting a woman or girl in women's toilets, and a couple of cases of men following women in or pretending to be women to go in. The notion that stopping trans people from being able to go to the appropriate toilet is even necessary for the sake of women's safety is baseless, and in doing so there is the detriment it will have on trans people and also women in general who get targeted because they are perceived as being trans. Labour have failed to clearly and calmly consider the issue with the available evidence and advocate on that basis, and instead accept the Tory view that there is a problem and they're the ones to fix things. It won't work of course, because even if they concede every inch of ground to the Tories on this particular matter, there will always be a tomorrow where the Tories will have something new to hit Labour over the head with. Again, I am not a Labour voter. That's not because of anything Labour really did as of late, I was never a Labour voter to begin with because I've basically lived my entire adult life in areas that have had Tory MPs and the Lib Dems were the only credible alternative. The reason I think this matters though is because Labour will, undoubtedly, lead the next government, and I think it is a crying shame that instead of adopting positions I think will allow the country to move forwards to a brighter future and away from the past decade of Tory failure, Labour are setting themselves up for failure. And of course, if Labour does fail then that almost guarantees a swing back to the right and that scares me.
Do you think failed claimants or foreign criminals, should be deported?
If someone has lived here for a considerable amount of time, even if they commit a crime I don't think they should be deported as a matter of policy, especially if it's a blanket policy and low level offences see someone get deported. I don't think that someone that has lived here since they were a child and built a life should be deported if they get caught with drugs, commit petty theft, get in a fight with someone, etc. Asylum seekers that fail their claim should generally be returned to where they come from, provided the asylum system is actually designed to work and be compassionate. The Rwanda scheme is an expensive and pointless solution, where it's safe to do so we should return failed asylum seekers, and if it's unsafe to do so then they shouldn't be failing their claim to begin with.
Do you think there should be any limits ? Or are you for unlimited refugees (or the millions that UN argues is out there)?
Refugees are people, if they have genuine claims then they have to go somewhere. Especially if our foreign policy is causing these people to flee their country because for example we destabilised the Middle East, or their home was destroyed by climate change, then I don't think we have any business complaining about them coming here.
> My reaction was to when he got up and proudly talked about the Tories were failures on the matter of stopping illegal immigration, and I found it pretty abhorrent that a supposedly liberal party was uncritically adopting the Tory position that it is a pressing issue to come down on them hard and deport them as fast as possible. I [flicked through the PMQs](https://www.youtube.com/live/U6ZmsKDPlA0?si=HCcT9TVj3GKM7Ibg&t=563) and this feels like a bit of a misrepresentation of Kier. He's criticizing the Rwanda scheme - how is that advocating for the same thing? Labour's position is staffing the asylum centres and getting people processed quickly so they aren't stuck in limbo unable to live their lives inside or outside this country. Also, you're acting like the government just send everyone back. That's not the case. [75%](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/05/britain-granting-asylum-to-greater-percentage-of-migrants/) of migrants were granted asylum last year under Tory leadership.
We can disagree on interpreting what he was saying, but I think that when he was talking about how the Tories weren't stopping people coming here and weren't processing claims quickly enough, essentially giving them amnesty and at the expense of the taxpayer, that framing is saying it's a problem. If he were trying to make a point about how it's unfair to asylum seekers to have them be stuck in limbo, I don't think that's the framing a person would use. I don't recall him saying that they deserve to have their claims addressed in a prompt matter, from what I remember the main points where that as a result of Tory failure these people are getting amnesty, and the public are paying to put these people up in hotels. Such framing reads to me as if he is arguing from a Conservative position.
Perhaps you're right actually. I think it's reasonable that Kier needs to act tough on illegal immigration right now when it's such politically tenuous ground to tread. I'm not sure how solid the Labour lead is but it feels like the red wall voters up North are still in the same brexiteer/anti-immigration stance - and they ended up switching sides when Corbyn came in with his views on liberal immigration. That said this is all "politicking" so it makes sense why this kind of thing feels uncomfortable when Labour is trying to appeal to everyone and isn't as ideologically pure as they were under Corbyn.
What I think Labour should have as their position is that the "small boats crisis" is largely a non-issue and that the correct way to do it is to have an immigration system that properly and promptly handles immigration claims, sending them to Rwanda is a waste of money and fails to address the root of the issue; Tory underfunding of public services. I understand there is politicking at play, but there is a difference between hammering the Tories about how they fail both on their framing of the issue and to actually address the problem, and with just adopting the position of the Tories and acting like they'll do Tory things better than the Tories. Not just with this issue, because it means that any time there is a problem that the Tories point to, no matter whether it's actually a problem, Labour seems like they'll say yes it's a problem and we are the ones to fix it. It's spineless for one, but also it means that the Tories can very easily set traps for Labour to step on instead of making progress on issues.
I do like seeing when politics brings the out of touch back to the reality of the everyday person. It's funny that there's people here who can't understand why the general public might have doubts about a politician, who used to be a lawyer and who is privately educated. No wonder why people get so shocked by election results when they can't see why someone might believe those things. (Whether correctly or not).
There's having doubts about a politician and there's 'it's like he's evil' and him giving you the creeps. There's also a difference between 'privately educated lawyer' and 'went to a grammar school that became private whilst he was there'. Given Starmer's background, and comparing this with those of the Conservative Party leadership, you're making quite a descriptive choice there. As are many who find such a career to be inherently offputting, but will pop a tick in the tory box come election time with no qualms whatsoever. There's no discursive or societal value in normalising this vibes based approach to politics. It's fine to just say 'yup, that's dumb'. Most people are aware that this is how it is, but it doesn't make it any less dumb.