Labour focused on appeasing Reform, not beating them, says Jeremy Corbyn

32 comments

1. I reckon splitting the left wing vote is the perfect way to beat them, Jeremy.

   It’s a bit rich coming from a brexiter but what do I know.

2. If I was focused on winning an election the last person I’d take advice from is Corbyn.

3. Don’t worry, he hasn’t announced his foreign policy yet. That will win over the fence sitters.

4. I disagree with him politically, but he seems to stick by his views other than the whole EU debacle.

5. I mean a majority of the public are furious about immigration. Starmer can’t just say ‘oh shut up it’s completely fine’ and win an election.

6. I agree with him in the sense that Labour should be focusing on a message of hope rather than fear. Doom-mongering just plays into Reforms hand, and the UK isn’t in as bad shape as some people make out (it’s not in great shape either).

7. Corbyn’s spot on.. You don’t beat the far right by copying their language or trying to sound just like them you do it by offering something better that actually speaks to people’s lives..

   Labour trying to sound tough just ends up making Reform look like the real deal while they look like the Reform Lite version.. People are turning to Reform out of frustration and because they feel ignored not because they’re confused..

   The answer isn’t more caution it’s actually, you know, standing for something again..

8. He isn’t wrong. Starmer’s strategy has always been to play a game of Simon Says with the right-wing. He’s a cosplay Tory after all.

9. And Corbs struggled against the Tories at the height of their incompetency arc.

10. Labour focused on trying to find a way to represent the concerns of people who feel so left our of politics that they turn to Reform, Jeremy. I’m not sure why the government of the day listening to the concerns of the electorate should be a bad thing. I don’t think there is a lot of value of being so attached to an ideology that you discount the opinions of the very people you are supposed to represent because you think you know better what is good for them.

    Corbyn has backed himself into the corner of trying to appeal to the groundswell of single issue voters who turned to independent candidates in the last election. He’s the next George Galloway.

11. Instead of appeasing Putin, Hamas and Hezbollah, you mean?

12. And he’s right. Concessions after concessions to the right. Keeps reinforcing bullshit narratives rather than actually making positive change that addresses social and economic problems. And trust me, I speak to these Reform voters, they despise him regardless. You might as well commit to your beliefs (if they even exist) and defend them.

13. Monty Python had this nailed decades ago, all that’s left is for them to actually rename their parties.

    Splitters.

14. But I want left wing social policies and reasoned, and rightish economic policies, and certainly not socialism. This isn’t a unique desire amongst people my age and my socioeconomic class.

    Simply, I believe Corbyn represents a vocal minority of the left, and isolates the majority.

15. This is a man who once uttered the words “I condemn the people of Milton Keynes for the mistakes they made in the May election” at a political rally without a shred of irony. Because said electorate of Milton Keynes had voted out his party. Sums up his mindset.

16. Problem is they will gain a lot of support but the media will ignore them unless to criticize them, you’ll unlikely ever see any of them on Question Time, come election time they probably won’t even be invited to any debates (maybe the odd one where its a lot of them) but the majority will be lab/tory/reform/lib

    Any votes they do get will be taken from mostly labour and this will likely just pull labour out of winning and give Reform an easy win.

    I get the whole argument we need to vote for who we actually want but what happens then is you end up putting the worst possible people in power, just to gain a few seats which won’t change anything.

    Yeah we’ll get a term of Reform and they’ll do so bad, come next election, Corbyns party could do really well and might even stand a chance.

    The sacrifice of even giving Reform a term in power isn’t worth it, the amount of damage these people would do, would take decades and decades to repair and stuff like climate change, cost of living, the NHS doesn’t have that time. Its a terrible system that we have to feel like we need to vote for lesser evil.

17. Magic Grandpa isn’t really someone with much credibility when it comes to election advice

18. Labour seems to have it in their heads that being more like Reform will steal away their voters when in reality the Reform voters would never vote for Labour even if it was between them or nuclear extinction, even if Labours policies were the same as Reform (or worse) the Reform voters wouldn’t ever vote Labour purely because of the name

    Labour should have just let Reform crash and burn but instead they’re effectively helping Reform with their actions, if Labour was focussed on being Labour then public opinion of them wouldn’t be diminishing, now we’ve got Corbyn’s new party which will split the vote between the left even further it’ll mean Labour will have to do some extraordinary things to keep people on board

19. Truly I think having a Left populist party is not a bad thing in and of itself, to balance out Reform if anything. However, it is sad that the entire British left can only offer up a two-time loser who will be close to 80 at the next election to be its figurehead.

20. I disagree with old Jezza.

    Labour doesn’t really seem focused on anything really.

21. Just like Corbyn likes to appease Russia. He should not throw stones when his record of pacifism and appeasement is what it is

    His foreign policy makes him impossibly unelectable even if his domestic policies would be good overall

22. I don’t really like JC, as I don’t think he is much of a leader, but he is not wrong in his analysis of Labour.

23. Corbyn focused on appeasing Putin, not stopping him, says anyone with a brain in their nut.

24. How about focusing on serving the public? Then they won’t have to worry about beating them.

25. Honestly, I don’t think he is doing any of this now to challenge for PM, but to ensure a more sturdier media soap-box. Fringe party at best that’ll mop up a few metropolitan city seats.

26. He’s right though. We don’t need another reform. We have reform and their voters aren’t swing voters.

    Labour need to lean into populism and not the right wing kind. They seem to be doing their best to please absolutely no one and think that’s being in the centre.

27. For a party who claims to be fighting Reform, Corbyn and Sultana sure do spend every chance they get to exclusively moan about Labour specifically.

    Look at the glee that they talk about targeting Streeting’s seat, or the prospect of Starmer losing his. It’s a revenge tour based almost solely on hurty feelings.

28. All labour need to change after Corbyn was the leadership. The policies were popular, the political environment was ripe for it and a charismatic leader on the left of the party would have won the election and headed off reform.

29. **HERE’S HOW OUR VOTING SYSTEM IS BROKEN:**

    A hypothetical constituency of 1000 people could vote 40% Red, 60% Blue. Those 400 people who voted Red basically did nothing on the scale of the actual election.

    Is it fair that those 400 people’s vote meant nothing just because they lived within a specific postcode?

    In 2019 Labour/Corbyn had **10,269,051** votes.
    In 2024 Labour/Starmer had **9,708,716** votes.

    Labour in 2019 had **202** seats while in 2024 they got **411** seats.

    Our political system is in desperate need of an overhaul because it’s obvious it makes no god damn sense.

30. The problem with this whole thing is that – yes it matter who wins GEs but – you don’t really win as a country by not letting a massive proportion of your population have their voices heard. Sure, I don’t want Reform to win, at all. But the idea that listening to Reform voters and taking their concerns seriously is some kind of appeasement, rather than how democracy should ideally work, is a bit cynical in my view. People who have that opinion have spent too many years in politics I think.

    For me, Labour should look at the concerns of Reform voters, and then see if the issues can be addressed within a framework oriented around Labour’s values and priorities. Not simply ignore a load of the British public for 4 years, and hope that they can win another election without their support to extend the amount of time they can ignore them for to 8 years. That’s shit, and a recipe for division and decline.

31. I don’t like Corbyn at all. Infact, I think he’s a fraud. But, he was far more popular than Starner when Labour leader and given Starmers performance thus far, I imagine that gap has grown substantially

32. I just don’t get it, immigration is a big thing for a lot of voters.

    I don’t see C+S coming out for more deterrence or stronger borders? It’s not a left vs right issues, but there really are quite an extreme far-left (socialist worker) groups of activists have made it a Left v Right issue.

    Corbyn is off the mark on immigration completely, and this will turn away a decent chunk of people alone.

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