The basic problem with Labour is that it assumes a lot of things about ordinary people. At the last election it tried to paint the picture that Britain was a nation at breaking point where the vast majority of people were a huddled mass of impoverished people in need of rescue by their betters. This attracted only the votes of the well-to-do condescending middle classes who believed this caricature - and the usual leftist "working class" who want free stuff in abundance.
Since Corbyn it seems to me that those most enthused by him are those who tend to blame their own predicament on the Tories rather than their life choices.
What the left don't seem to be able to grasp is that most people don't want a handout or a depressing pebble dashed hut gifted to them. They have higher expectations and aspirations.
I can't speak for anyone else but I want a liberal and fluid job market so I can opt in and out of work rather than being tied to the same 9-5 year after year. I cannot cope with the ossified structures of what we call work and I need to be able to opt out. What I want is a reasonable degree of contractual protection but nothing so rigid that I am bound to follow the archaic work structures of 1974.
Labour might well be right to be concerned about the so-called gig economy but my problem is not with the concept. It's that when one contract ends the next ones are few and far between. What I need is more market liberalism not less. The best days of my life were when I could pick and choose my employer.
I think it was Thomas Sowell who said something along the lines of "The hypocrisy of the left is shown by their apparent concern for poverty but complete lack of interest in means to solve it".
Whenever I read leftist drivel I read people who think that they represent the masses when in fact they represent nobody but themselves and their own personal inadequacies. The entire ethos is that they are entitled to a home and healthcare and that somebody else should pay for it.
Leftists whine about capitalism yet ordinary people have never been better off. I'm a slacker but I have a place I call home, a car with all mod cons and freedom to do pretty much as I please. Is this because I'm a high flyer? No. There are few people in the world who do less work than me. It's just that capitalism has made good cars affordable and travel within my means. The only thing standing in the way of a better life are the crippling taxes I pay on everything I buy. Petrol especially.
What capitalism has delivered more than anything in the last century is freedom. So now the question is how we create more freedom, more liberty and more opportunity. That is ultimately what the working class want and have always wanted. The left don't seem to understand this. They want to hobble successful people so their lives are as stunted as their own. I won't vote for that and I never will.
The left still have value to add. An unfettered capitalist system is about as depressing as an unfettered socialist system. I never want the UK to be the USA where everything has a price tag and nothing is ever done without pay. Britain has always been about finding the middle way. I will fight the hard right Tory vision as much as I will fight that of the far left. Britain is the best place to live because we instinctively know where that balance is.
And that brings me to the subject of the EU. The EU more than anything is about hyper-liberalisation to the point of abolishing the nation state and democracy along with it. Now we have reached the point where too much is out of our control. It may well even work in your estimation but there will come a time when it doesn't. On that day we will be glad of the economic sacrifice we have made to leave the EU. Some control is better than none.
For a time we had what is labelled as a centrist consensus. That worked for Britain but as it gradually drifted away from democracy, the centre of politics departed from the centre of the soul. That is why I view Brexit as a corrective.
In this it would seem the vast majority backs the Tory government. Were I a leftist I would not be down hearted. This is only temporary. The nation has decided that change is necessary and that we must see it through. Once we have accomplished that change the Tories are as dead as Labour. When that day arrives, for the first time in decades we can have genuine debate about who we are and what we want to be without the dead hand of the EU closing down the options. Give me this one thing and I will listen. Oppose me in this and I will rain fire.
