John McDonnell’s idea of “far right” is left of center
The Overton Window has clearly shifted since 2020. Anything remotely close to Corbyn politically has been stamped out of the Labour Party. Keir Starmer’s policies are now indistinguishable from David Cameron’s. Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and the like appear to be the ones to steer the Conservative Party after Rishi Sunak. if Keir sits at the center or even lean right like Macron does, his opponent after Rishi may well be Le Pen 2.0.
Oh err , how convenient. Isn’t he the guy who influenced labour to propose radical change before, leading to bad defeat in the end? Not that neoliberalism didn’t lose twice also.
Let’s conflate it all with the far right anyway who aren’t likely to vote labour.
He’s made fair points, but you can’t please everyone.
“If you’re not with us – the far right will gain power!” Says man who’s faction has called everything far right for upwards of fifteen years.
What is the far right party all the far right are joining?
Radical change for who? The traditional labour voters? The working class, often more northern and city workers who want strong unions and are hugely against immigration and want strong criminal punishments?
Because labour has basically spent the last 20 years calling those people awful racists.
You seen the shit the papers print these days? It’s already shifted and been like that for more than 20 years.
All the majority of people want is for British citizens to be put first. Tax the rich, remove corruption, decrease unskilled migration, increase skilled migration, fund public services, make life better for the majority.
A few of those statements could be perceived as far left, a few far right. It doesn’t matter. Policies matter. Everybody needs to vote on policies. Read the party manifestos before voting or better yet go to https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/
Isn’t “far right” the most overused word nowdays?
Almost to the level like: Do you like jalapenos on your pizza? No? Then you’re far right!
Not only that, I think the ‘far-right’ might ‘go after’ the British establishment. Certainly ironic if they do.
I mean how else will they appeal to the middle-classes? It would have to be tax cuts for the many, paid for by wealth-tax on the few.
Labour = war mongers.
Tories = Bleed everyone dry apart from the upper class.
It’s got fuck all to do with far left and far right. It’s about those WHO HAVE and those who HAVE NOT.
Funny how all political leaders come from the same upper class Eaton educated twats.
How about a rule change… Anyone in power has to forfeit their positions in business until they’re no longer an elected official. No deals with ya mates. No stock trading and having their entire financial history made public.
I mean we have more chance of getting blood from a stone.
He’s 100% right. If Starmer just does what it looks like he’s going to do which is not much and nothing improves for the ordinary Brit then disillusionment with the 2 main parties will be at an all time high and people will look for a radical alternative. Historically and currently around the world, that usually means the far right growing. Looking at the state of this sub I highly doubt the British public will go the other way and become rabid Socialists.
He’s right. They will actually have to materially improve people’s lives otherwise we end up with a crazy National Conservative Party coming.
‘Far left’ this ‘far right’ that. By the new standards for these than the people who fought to keep this country free from true facists during WW2 would also be far right. I’d take 1 of those men over a thousand of these phoney liberals you see use the term far right over any conservative view.
The thing that drives me nuts is the left and will go on and on about the rise of racism and the far right, but then their most ardent voices go and brand any opposition to a lax immigration policy, or the desire to install a REAL and functional hardline immigration system as racist/far right- when it’s explicitly what most people want done to solve the constant flow of people coming in.
The left seems to know that it’s unsustainable to have a constant flow of people into the country, they know that it creates all manner of issues and that the country can’t manage to house it’s own and keep prices affordable, they know most people except those being on the far left feel this way, and yet they still try to point at the ‘far right boogeyman’ and put the fault on the far right for being ‘nasty’.
The only reason most people would ever vote far right is if the centre and left governments cannot solve the immigration crisis. We know it isn’t racist or fascist to have controlled borders that are actually effective. We all know it isn’t ‘racist’ to know that you can’t flood a country with refugees and be able to support them all. And yet in leftist circles to not do so is explicitly evil, even though they also know and have no answer to respond to the issues of mass immigration.
The left will attack the Tories for their failures on immigration, and then attack the far right for having actual solutions to immigration, all while saying that labour will be able to sort out immigration, while also being filled with people who are ‘anti-action on immigration’.
Does that mean conservatives can say elect their party otherwise risk getting communists ? Or is this only a one way thing ! This kind of discourse isnt healthy.
Unfortunately the people of Britain seem to want far right policies. We had the option for social democracy and it was thrown out pretty decisively.
Because the policies and leader he supported in 2016 and 2019 *didn’t* shift the Overton window to the right and enable the far right loons of the tories?
I’ll stick with starmer still having a stonking polling lead, thanks.
It’s basically a given. This country will be fully conservative. The Tories are alt right. Labour is centre-right. With FPTP only one of those parties will lead a Government. The country is doomed. We’re heading towards very grim years.
When Labour were last in power, Peter Mandelson was warned that Labour’s traditional voter base was becoming increasingly alienated and disillusioned with the party – he famously sneered that they have “nowhere else to go”. The result was an increase in support for the BNP and UKip.
Labour will likely win the next election and Starmer will spend the next five years prattling on about “fiscal responsibility” while doing nothing to raise living standards or reverse the damage the current administration has wrought for the past 14 years. The end result is going to be a lot of very angry, embittered, resentful people, creating a fertile breeding ground for a populist right-wing resurgence.
If we don’t have a left wing in this country then all that will happen is that the Overton Window shifts more and more to the right, supported by the Tory press.
And if you wanna see a country like that then go ahead….
That’s cool. Start by tackling miss information on social media then!
This country has been going far right for the last 13 years ,where’s he been ?
Is this the radical left that completely let us down over brexit? Yes? Kindly shuffle off.
Can’t we just have a “Far Middle” that isn’t out to be sniveling, scheming, two-faced wankers…
Surely it can’t be that hard…
The problem is, when Labour win, they won’t be able to ‘fix everything’ as many people are hoping for.
This is likely to lead to a far right party gaining traction at the following general election. And I mean real far right, not reform.
Labour just has to improve stuff that’s all. If we haven’t improved then yes a new power will move to fill the void.
I don’t even know what far right means any more. And I suspect the people who throw the term around so freely don’t either
The Western left have messed up their migration policy big-time, we should only have been targeting skilled migrants with a strict emphasis on integration – but we’ve ended up with mass immigration of lots of unskilled migrants from culturally distant backgrounds with sometimes disastrous consequences (e.g. gang crime in Sweden, terrorism in France/UK/Belgium).
The frustrating thing is, most people support controlled, skilled immigration (e.g. automatic visas for STEM graduates from top global universities).
There is also support for unskilled immigration **if** those unskilled immigrants are here temporarily with no chance of citizenship (letting in migrant care workers is a good idea, but letting them stay forever is the dumbest policy ever because they themselves will get old and require care work, if unskilled labour stays forever it becomes a pyramid scheme). Hate to say it but the UAE have the right idea here: widespread use of immigrants but without handing out citizenship like candy
It always amazes me that the far right can capitalize on incompetence from “merely” right wing politicians. As though even more right wing policies are not going to drive a country even harder into the ground.
If labour members put forward another candidate like corbyn it will, once again, allow the Tories to move to the right.
“Labour” under Starmer/ Reeves/Streeting will pick up where the Tories leave off.
One corporate, NHS dismantling, Geny’0syde, billionaire, hedge fund, lobbyist, supporting, compromised party takes over from another corporate, NHS dismantling, Geny’0syde etc…
This will be the case in this year-and every five years hence.
Wonder why your wage/ money is almost worthless, why you are skipping meals and not turning on the heat? while corporations profits boom?
We are all being HAD.
Recent events, in the UK and elsewhere, and thinking from Weber to the Frankfurt School and beyond, suggests that McDonnell is correct.
Way too late for that John. People would argue that what used to be super far right is the centre already.
Labour already announced they’re keeping their hat in the neoliberalism ring. We’re fucked when we have two right wing main parties like in the US.
Im utterly fed up of the shite state of UK politics.
At least they’re calling out Islamists for who they really are. Oh wait…
People are under estimating the Reform party…their all over social media and Brexit voters are flooding to them…Tory voters as well. Their literally using like one or two headlines and its enough to win people over…even if they don’t read the rest of their policies and how it would ruin their lives even more. Boats is all these idiots care about.
What was Jeremy Corbyn “for the many, not the few” if not a populist?
Why would it be that the more ‘populist’ Labour the better, but the more ‘populist’ the Tories, the worse?
Too much political commentary disturbs me, not because it evinces little thought on the part of its composer, but that even less thought is expected from the reader from sources who know their audience.
McConnells right, if labour get into govt with their tory lite strategy, its going to be very bad times ahead for any non fash UK citizen
The problem is that our economic model is broken. Hatred of immigration is a symptom, not a cause.
Immigration would be a purely cultural issue if our economic model was fit for purpose.
The proceeds of economic growth, which are contributed to by immigrants, are simply not being managed to the benefit of the average U.K. citizen.
This is because of extractive rent-seeking economic policy that rewards short-term gains. A lack of investment and a refusal to tax the proceeds of economic growth in a sensible way.
This has been an issue since 1979. The current government are simply the logical outcome of this model rewarding this behaviour with wealth and power. Compounded over 45 years. With the costs of this model being paid by average people without the means to influence or escape these costs.
They allow record legal migration to secure economic growth, yet the growth is only benefitting an ever decreasing slice of the population.
This effectively pushes all the economic externalities or costs of high migration onto the public without investing in the services or infrastructure necessary to support an increased population.
The people who benefit from this model, simply pay money to avoid the NHS, bad housing, poor transport and benefit massively from a pool of disempowered labour, migrant, or not. Leading to a further degradation of these goods and services for everyone else.
This isn’t supposed to be the deal.
If you benefit massively from the economic system. You pay back proportionally to the benefit you extract. Which non-corrupt governments use to ameliorate and pay for the negative externalities of your extraction.
If governments do not do this, through capture, corruption or incompetence, then the inevitable result is authoritarianism or extreme left revolt.
It just so happens that the people currently benefitting the most from our economic model favour authoritarianism; for obvious reasons. As it allows this exploitative extraction to continue without democratic accountability and avoids them being targeted by an angry and divided populace.
Russia is somewhat a model of this for these authoritarians.
They know the current system is democratically unsustainable.
So, ultimately, I agree with McDonnel here. Without meaningful economic reform, with public buy in, we are just delaying an even scarier shift to authoritarianism.
Hatred of immigration is a symptom, not a cause.
If it weren’t for this bad, short sighted economic management, the increases in productivity over the last 45 years would have seen the average U.K. citizen in a veritable leisurely situation. Instead, we have this…..
We seem trapped in a cycle of conservative-Centrist Labour, back and forth. People vote labour hoping for a change and find things aren’t much different and think “why bother?”. This sort of thing plays into the hands of people like Donald Trump who talks about all the things the left complain about and the centrists ignore and then tells people they’re going to do something about it. The only thing we don’t get is someone who will do something about it.
42 comments
John McDonnell’s idea of “far right” is left of center
The Overton Window has clearly shifted since 2020. Anything remotely close to Corbyn politically has been stamped out of the Labour Party. Keir Starmer’s policies are now indistinguishable from David Cameron’s. Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and the like appear to be the ones to steer the Conservative Party after Rishi Sunak. if Keir sits at the center or even lean right like Macron does, his opponent after Rishi may well be Le Pen 2.0.
Oh err , how convenient. Isn’t he the guy who influenced labour to propose radical change before, leading to bad defeat in the end? Not that neoliberalism didn’t lose twice also.
Let’s conflate it all with the far right anyway who aren’t likely to vote labour.
He’s made fair points, but you can’t please everyone.
“If you’re not with us – the far right will gain power!” Says man who’s faction has called everything far right for upwards of fifteen years.
What is the far right party all the far right are joining?
Radical change for who? The traditional labour voters? The working class, often more northern and city workers who want strong unions and are hugely against immigration and want strong criminal punishments?
Because labour has basically spent the last 20 years calling those people awful racists.
You seen the shit the papers print these days? It’s already shifted and been like that for more than 20 years.
All the majority of people want is for British citizens to be put first. Tax the rich, remove corruption, decrease unskilled migration, increase skilled migration, fund public services, make life better for the majority.
A few of those statements could be perceived as far left, a few far right. It doesn’t matter. Policies matter. Everybody needs to vote on policies. Read the party manifestos before voting or better yet go to https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/
Isn’t “far right” the most overused word nowdays?
Almost to the level like: Do you like jalapenos on your pizza? No? Then you’re far right!
Not only that, I think the ‘far-right’ might ‘go after’ the British establishment. Certainly ironic if they do.
I mean how else will they appeal to the middle-classes? It would have to be tax cuts for the many, paid for by wealth-tax on the few.
Labour = war mongers.
Tories = Bleed everyone dry apart from the upper class.
It’s got fuck all to do with far left and far right. It’s about those WHO HAVE and those who HAVE NOT.
Funny how all political leaders come from the same upper class Eaton educated twats.
How about a rule change… Anyone in power has to forfeit their positions in business until they’re no longer an elected official. No deals with ya mates. No stock trading and having their entire financial history made public.
I mean we have more chance of getting blood from a stone.
He’s 100% right. If Starmer just does what it looks like he’s going to do which is not much and nothing improves for the ordinary Brit then disillusionment with the 2 main parties will be at an all time high and people will look for a radical alternative. Historically and currently around the world, that usually means the far right growing. Looking at the state of this sub I highly doubt the British public will go the other way and become rabid Socialists.
He’s right. They will actually have to materially improve people’s lives otherwise we end up with a crazy National Conservative Party coming.
‘Far left’ this ‘far right’ that. By the new standards for these than the people who fought to keep this country free from true facists during WW2 would also be far right. I’d take 1 of those men over a thousand of these phoney liberals you see use the term far right over any conservative view.
The thing that drives me nuts is the left and will go on and on about the rise of racism and the far right, but then their most ardent voices go and brand any opposition to a lax immigration policy, or the desire to install a REAL and functional hardline immigration system as racist/far right- when it’s explicitly what most people want done to solve the constant flow of people coming in.
The left seems to know that it’s unsustainable to have a constant flow of people into the country, they know that it creates all manner of issues and that the country can’t manage to house it’s own and keep prices affordable, they know most people except those being on the far left feel this way, and yet they still try to point at the ‘far right boogeyman’ and put the fault on the far right for being ‘nasty’.
The only reason most people would ever vote far right is if the centre and left governments cannot solve the immigration crisis. We know it isn’t racist or fascist to have controlled borders that are actually effective. We all know it isn’t ‘racist’ to know that you can’t flood a country with refugees and be able to support them all. And yet in leftist circles to not do so is explicitly evil, even though they also know and have no answer to respond to the issues of mass immigration.
The left will attack the Tories for their failures on immigration, and then attack the far right for having actual solutions to immigration, all while saying that labour will be able to sort out immigration, while also being filled with people who are ‘anti-action on immigration’.
Does that mean conservatives can say elect their party otherwise risk getting communists ? Or is this only a one way thing ! This kind of discourse isnt healthy.
Unfortunately the people of Britain seem to want far right policies. We had the option for social democracy and it was thrown out pretty decisively.
Because the policies and leader he supported in 2016 and 2019 *didn’t* shift the Overton window to the right and enable the far right loons of the tories?
I’ll stick with starmer still having a stonking polling lead, thanks.
It’s basically a given. This country will be fully conservative. The Tories are alt right. Labour is centre-right. With FPTP only one of those parties will lead a Government. The country is doomed. We’re heading towards very grim years.
When Labour were last in power, Peter Mandelson was warned that Labour’s traditional voter base was becoming increasingly alienated and disillusioned with the party – he famously sneered that they have “nowhere else to go”. The result was an increase in support for the BNP and UKip.
Labour will likely win the next election and Starmer will spend the next five years prattling on about “fiscal responsibility” while doing nothing to raise living standards or reverse the damage the current administration has wrought for the past 14 years. The end result is going to be a lot of very angry, embittered, resentful people, creating a fertile breeding ground for a populist right-wing resurgence.
If we don’t have a left wing in this country then all that will happen is that the Overton Window shifts more and more to the right, supported by the Tory press.
And if you wanna see a country like that then go ahead….
That’s cool. Start by tackling miss information on social media then!
This country has been going far right for the last 13 years ,where’s he been ?
Is this the radical left that completely let us down over brexit? Yes? Kindly shuffle off.
Can’t we just have a “Far Middle” that isn’t out to be sniveling, scheming, two-faced wankers…
Surely it can’t be that hard…
The problem is, when Labour win, they won’t be able to ‘fix everything’ as many people are hoping for.
This is likely to lead to a far right party gaining traction at the following general election. And I mean real far right, not reform.
Labour just has to improve stuff that’s all. If we haven’t improved then yes a new power will move to fill the void.
I don’t even know what far right means any more. And I suspect the people who throw the term around so freely don’t either
The Western left have messed up their migration policy big-time, we should only have been targeting skilled migrants with a strict emphasis on integration – but we’ve ended up with mass immigration of lots of unskilled migrants from culturally distant backgrounds with sometimes disastrous consequences (e.g. gang crime in Sweden, terrorism in France/UK/Belgium).
The frustrating thing is, most people support controlled, skilled immigration (e.g. automatic visas for STEM graduates from top global universities).
There is also support for unskilled immigration **if** those unskilled immigrants are here temporarily with no chance of citizenship (letting in migrant care workers is a good idea, but letting them stay forever is the dumbest policy ever because they themselves will get old and require care work, if unskilled labour stays forever it becomes a pyramid scheme). Hate to say it but the UAE have the right idea here: widespread use of immigrants but without handing out citizenship like candy
It always amazes me that the far right can capitalize on incompetence from “merely” right wing politicians. As though even more right wing policies are not going to drive a country even harder into the ground.
If labour members put forward another candidate like corbyn it will, once again, allow the Tories to move to the right.
“Labour” under Starmer/ Reeves/Streeting will pick up where the Tories leave off.
One corporate, NHS dismantling, Geny’0syde, billionaire, hedge fund, lobbyist, supporting, compromised party takes over from another corporate, NHS dismantling, Geny’0syde etc…
This will be the case in this year-and every five years hence.
Wonder why your wage/ money is almost worthless, why you are skipping meals and not turning on the heat? while corporations profits boom?
We are all being HAD.
Recent events, in the UK and elsewhere, and thinking from Weber to the Frankfurt School and beyond, suggests that McDonnell is correct.
Way too late for that John. People would argue that what used to be super far right is the centre already.
Labour already announced they’re keeping their hat in the neoliberalism ring. We’re fucked when we have two right wing main parties like in the US.
Im utterly fed up of the shite state of UK politics.
At least they’re calling out Islamists for who they really are. Oh wait…
People are under estimating the Reform party…their all over social media and Brexit voters are flooding to them…Tory voters as well. Their literally using like one or two headlines and its enough to win people over…even if they don’t read the rest of their policies and how it would ruin their lives even more. Boats is all these idiots care about.
What was Jeremy Corbyn “for the many, not the few” if not a populist?
Why would it be that the more ‘populist’ Labour the better, but the more ‘populist’ the Tories, the worse?
Too much political commentary disturbs me, not because it evinces little thought on the part of its composer, but that even less thought is expected from the reader from sources who know their audience.
McConnells right, if labour get into govt with their tory lite strategy, its going to be very bad times ahead for any non fash UK citizen
The problem is that our economic model is broken. Hatred of immigration is a symptom, not a cause.
Immigration would be a purely cultural issue if our economic model was fit for purpose.
The proceeds of economic growth, which are contributed to by immigrants, are simply not being managed to the benefit of the average U.K. citizen.
This is because of extractive rent-seeking economic policy that rewards short-term gains. A lack of investment and a refusal to tax the proceeds of economic growth in a sensible way.
This has been an issue since 1979. The current government are simply the logical outcome of this model rewarding this behaviour with wealth and power. Compounded over 45 years. With the costs of this model being paid by average people without the means to influence or escape these costs.
They allow record legal migration to secure economic growth, yet the growth is only benefitting an ever decreasing slice of the population.
This effectively pushes all the economic externalities or costs of high migration onto the public without investing in the services or infrastructure necessary to support an increased population.
The people who benefit from this model, simply pay money to avoid the NHS, bad housing, poor transport and benefit massively from a pool of disempowered labour, migrant, or not. Leading to a further degradation of these goods and services for everyone else.
This isn’t supposed to be the deal.
If you benefit massively from the economic system. You pay back proportionally to the benefit you extract. Which non-corrupt governments use to ameliorate and pay for the negative externalities of your extraction.
If governments do not do this, through capture, corruption or incompetence, then the inevitable result is authoritarianism or extreme left revolt.
It just so happens that the people currently benefitting the most from our economic model favour authoritarianism; for obvious reasons. As it allows this exploitative extraction to continue without democratic accountability and avoids them being targeted by an angry and divided populace.
Russia is somewhat a model of this for these authoritarians.
They know the current system is democratically unsustainable.
So, ultimately, I agree with McDonnel here. Without meaningful economic reform, with public buy in, we are just delaying an even scarier shift to authoritarianism.
Hatred of immigration is a symptom, not a cause.
If it weren’t for this bad, short sighted economic management, the increases in productivity over the last 45 years would have seen the average U.K. citizen in a veritable leisurely situation. Instead, we have this…..
We seem trapped in a cycle of conservative-Centrist Labour, back and forth. People vote labour hoping for a change and find things aren’t much different and think “why bother?”. This sort of thing plays into the hands of people like Donald Trump who talks about all the things the left complain about and the centrists ignore and then tells people they’re going to do something about it. The only thing we don’t get is someone who will do something about it.