The unions are not happy with the leader of The Labour Party for stating
that he's going to stick with most of the austerity measure brought in by
the current government. This isn't actually anything new - all along
Labour have basically been saying that they'd have to do much the same,
with a little fiddling around the edges, but it's the first time in ages
there's been a major announcement about it.
So the unions aren't happy, because they want someone to stand up for
proper socialism and be more left-wing than Labour are. Which is
understandable - that's their political position. But they seem to think
that Ed Milliband doing this is going to drive away the voters. And my
question would be _where to_? In a country with a decent voting system the
unions could abandon Labour and set up their new Awesome Party Of The Left,
and then those people that agreed with them could vote for them, giving
them a share of power commensurate to their support. They would then be
able to (given sufficient support for likeminded parties) form a coalition
that would then instigate some of those principles.
Under FPTP they're out of luck. If they split from Labour then all they
can do is split the vote and leave the Conservatives in charge. If they
stay with Labour then they're just going to continue being ignored.
Labour's Left is as out of luck as the Conservative Right - neither of them
can go off and do their own thing, and neither of them can get any traction
within the party. If they wanted a voice then they should have pushed for
a Yes vote last May, which would at least have meant that union supporters
could vote for APOTL with Labour as their nose-holding option.
As it is, I shall just feel a little smug.
And sad.
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