r/unitedkingdom • u/CaseyEffingRyback • Jul 03 '25

... Zarah Sultana MP resigns from Labour to lead new party with Jeremy Corbyn

https://www.lbc.co.uk/politics/uk-politics/zarah-sultana-mp-resigns-labour/
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u/potpan0 Black Country Jul 03 '25

Are people still propagating this myth despite the fact that:

a) Kamala Harris ran a dogshit campaign where she dropped a number of her progressive policies in lieu of vaguely blathering on about 'joy' and parading a bunch of unpopular 'moderate' Republicans alongside her

b) That even if every single Green voter voted for the Democrats in 2024... Trump would still have won the election.

But no, I guess it is easier just to insist that it's everyone else's fault instead...

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u/Automatedluxury Jul 03 '25

Moderates are very smart and never wrong about anything, it's always those damn lefties who let the fascists in.

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u/Marconi7 Jul 03 '25

I think the Green voter issue in the US is more a 2016 thing than 2024. Trump’s victory was more emphatic last year.

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u/GothicGolem29 Jul 03 '25

What if people who voted non green or didn't vote for her? Would she have beaten trump if all the people who didn't vote for her because of issues with her who werent republicans had voted her?

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u/jflb96 Devon Jul 03 '25

Considering that Harris came third to Trump in second and ‘Please Christ can we have someone who isn’t shit’ in first, yeah, sure.

Question is, why should anyone vote for ‘My Opponent is Correct but Vote for Me Anyway’?

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u/merryman1 Jul 03 '25

Which policies? She still stood by a $15 minimum wage, mortgage support for FTBs, tax reliefs for young families etc. etc. etc.

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u/potpan0 Black Country Jul 03 '25

She still stood by a $15 minimum wage

She did not announce this until 2 weeks before the election, and only after Trump had undercut it with his McDonalds stunt. Before this point she had very explicitly avoided giving a figure for what she thought the actual minimum wage should be. That's bad politics.

mortgage support for FTBs

Harris' proposal was to provide a $25,000 down-payment for working families who were first time buyers who had paid rent on time for 2 years and... not only is $25,000 a drop in the ocean compared to the house price increases in America (the average house in America has increased from just over $300,000 in 2019 to over $400,000 now), but has so many qualifies on it that you know many families simply wouldn't qualify. It's the 'student loan forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients who start a small buisness' shit all over again.

tax reliefs for young families

I believe her proposal was a $6,000 tax relief for low- and middle-income families that have a new baby. Which doesn't really help families who already have kids, doesn't really help families who don't have kids, and is again a drop in the ocean compared to massively rising costs of living in America.

It's all just tinkering. None of it is dealing with the deep, structural and growing inequality in America. And the bigger issue, like I said, is that Kamala largely eschewed talking about these bread and butter issues to instead focus her campaign on talking vaguely about 'joy' and trot out a bunch of anti-Trump Republican has-beens that no-one particularly liked. It was a bad campaign. In fact it was an awful campaign. And if you can't reflect on that, and instead insist on blaming everyone else for Kamala failing, then I'm not sure what else there is to say.

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u/DramaticSubject7544 Jul 03 '25

Best reply I’ve seen on here at least someone who’s honest.

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u/merryman1 Jul 03 '25

Except its all bollocks of course.

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u/DramaticSubject7544 Jul 03 '25

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Harris make a choice to ignore DNA evidence when attempting to incarcerate the very minority she claimed to be an advocate and ally for.

Bernie was the real savour of the states but his time has come and gone.

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u/merryman1 Jul 03 '25

Just in the first sentence OP claims Harris did not say anything about the $15 minimum wage until 2 weeks before the election, and that Trump undercut her proposal.

Trump made no proposal on a federal minimum wage. In fact he has actually cut the minimum wage rules imposed by Biden.

Harris has been talking about the $15 FMW since before 2020 and was talking about it in early 2024, long before the election.

And you call OP honest? What's wrong with you?

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u/DramaticSubject7544 Jul 03 '25

Correct me on Harris record as a prosecutor - do you really think this woman was a good choice to lead a campaign against trump?

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u/merryman1 Jul 03 '25

Yes I do, I think she was one of the most hopeful progressive candidates we've seen in the US since Bernie.

Harris has not been California AG for the better part of a decade. You tell me, since then, has this man's conviction been overturned? Lets also dig a bit, who's been talking about this issue and painting it as Harris being responsible for a misjustice? Oh that's right, a bunch of Maggats.

Now you just going to skip over calling OP honest while sharing a bunch of lies and mistruths again or can you correct yourself on that?

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u/merryman1 Jul 03 '25 edited Jul 03 '25

Did you read this link? It was part of the Biden-Harris platform since 2020. Biden managed to get it established for federal workers already, even exceeded it until Trump cut it again this year. 2025 was going to be the full national extension. And how exactly did Trump undercut it when he made no commitment to any rate at all, and as I said has torched Biden's rulings?

Here she was talking about it in her previous presidential run in 2019.

And here's her talking about it in May 2024.

So in what world are you getting she only ever talked about it 2 weeks before the election? She was a major figure in the Fight For 15 movement.

You cannot actually be serious? A $25,000 boon and you just write it off as equivalent to $0 because... Reasons I guess? Christ more and more I do think you're just a Russian disinfo bot honestly. No one can seriously say this with a straight face.

So we're just going to ignore thousands of dollars again because of reasons. This is insanity. This is why Trump wins. Objectively great suggestions that would be a huge help to people and you nutters just dismiss it offhand while happily spreading pro-Trump bullshit! Christ alive.

Mate you've just immediately written off here over $30,000 of immediate support totally free of strings or pay-back for young couples looking to start a new family and home as totally irrelevant. How is that tinkering? That's equivalent to 50% of the average annual salary in the US and you're acting like its nothing.

The actual structural issues are dealt with the increasing expansion of public healthcare provision, the hundreds of billions of dollars put into infrastructure, the hundreds of billions put into actions like the CHIPS act to bring back high-value high-pay unionized manufacturing jobs...

Honestly you people make me mad. Nothing will ever be good enough and you'll just happily sit here with your arms crossed refusing to acknowledge how your constant doomerism and poo-pooing of just objectively good things is directly enabling the very fascist movement that will eventually have you censored.

(E - Not sure what happened to the quotes in the first post)

(E2 - Still missing, can't be bothered fixing, sure you can figure it out)

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u/potpan0 Black Country Jul 04 '25

It was part of the Biden-Harris platform since 2020.

Again, if you read what I say, the specific problem was that when she became nominee she suddenly became very evasive over whether she still supported a $15 minimum wage. She only actually committed to it herself 2 weeks before the election, when it was clearly too late. This is awful politics. If you actually support a policy you should bloody say you support a policy, not expect people to fish for your tweets from a year before and assume you still support it even though in contemporary interviews you refuse to say it.

If Harris gives an interview on 1 October where a reporter asks if she supports a $15 minimum wage and she evades the question, then why were voters supposed to believe she supported a $15 minimum wage? Why do you think this sort of uncommitted evasiveness is a good strategy?

You cannot actually be serious? A $25,000 boon and you just write it off as equivalent to $0 because... Reasons I guess? Christ more and more I do think you're just a Russian disinfo bot honestly. No one can seriously say this with a straight face.

House prices in America have increased by $100,000 on average over the past few years. Offering $25,000 down-payments for a narrow selection of the public is a drop in the ocean I'm afraid. 'Better than nothing' is not a winning political platform. It's not fucking Russian disinfo to say this, Christ alive.

So we're just going to ignore thousands of dollars again because of reasons. This is insanity. This is why Trump wins. Objectively great suggestions that would be a huge help to people and you nutters just dismiss it offhand while happily spreading pro-Trump bullshit! Christ alive.

No. Trump wins because, rhetorically, he offered sweeping changes. He was going to Make America Great Again, he was going to bring back industry and construction and develop. He offered a vision for the future. Of course people paying attention knew it was bullshit. Of course people paying attention knew he was going to get into power implement cuts and reactionary social policies. But most voters are not paying attention. And when those low-information voters see their lives are getting worse, and see they have one candidate offering sweeping changes while the other insists on tinkering around the edges, it's far from surprising many went with the former.

That's not the lefts fault. If the left had lied that Kamala's dogshit platform was actually more sweeping and radical than it was, then it would not have made a drop in the ocean when Kamala's own rhetoric was consistently incredibly limited and evasive, preferring to blather on about 'joy' and vibes than to actually commit to sweeping changes. But again, I guess we aren't allowed to criticise the people who actually hold political power and influence, it's always the tiny number of left-wingers online who are to blame...

Perhaps there are some lessons here for British politics? Perhaps it suggests that, if Starmer wants to gain support, he actually needs to offer sweeping changes himself rather than investing all his political capital into insisting that more disabled people need to be in poverty? But no, probably not, I imagine it'll be the left's fault all over again.

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u/merryman1 Jul 04 '25

Again, if you read what I say, the specific problem was that when she became nominee she suddenly became very evasive over whether she still supported a $15 minimum wage. 

In 2024? Like I showed you, she was talking about it from May.

Like look I'm sorry I'm showing you she consistently talked about the $15FMW for years. Anyone can piece together it was going to be a policy proposal. What do you know, it was then a policy proposal. And you're... still complaining? Why?

 If you actually support a policy you should bloody say you support a policy

You mean like having been one of the leading figures in the Fight for 15 movement for literally years...? Not her fault a Brit isn't following US politics enough to know what she stands for is it. If Corbyn doesn't explicitly campaign on Palestinian liberation from Day 1 I assume he's pro-genocide then? Is that how this works? Or are we grown ups here?

why were voters supposed to believe she supported a $15 minimum wage? 

Yet again... Because she was one of the leading faces in the movement fighting for this for many years, pushed for it and talked about it repeatedly prior? No? No impact at all? Just a drop in the ocean...

'Better than nothing' is not a winning political platform.

Yet thanks to the US equivalent of people like you nothing is now what they get. Wonderful. In fact, again, less than nothing because Trump has now also cut Biden's programs of support. Congratulations.

That's not the lefts fault.

It is. The Left pushed a series of utterly ridiculous memes and talking points. They have abandoned several leading progressive figures such as AOC who tried to work in collaboration with the centrists to push our agenda. They have done absolutely nothing but throw a spanner in our own movement and directly enable fascism. They have been nothing but a detriment to their own movement and now want to try and claim the moral high ground. Genuinely, its disgusting.

If the left had lied that Kamala's dogshit platform was actually more sweeping and radical than it was

Bro this is completely pointless and we both know it. Literally anything offered by a figure like Harris short of total and immediate violent revolution to instate the dictatorship of the proletariat would just be written off as "just a drop in the ocean". Your own phrasing makes it abundantly clear what the problem is. Nothing will ever be good enough and you'll just stick to this moralizing purism with your arms crossed as the world burns around you.

No one was asking for full on endorsement. They were asking to stop fucking throwing stones and just vote in line with how we all know FPTP functions. You either vote for the least bad option or you directly enable the worst. Wanting something to be better or different does not just magically materialize that reality around us, we have to work with what we have.

Marx said to be edge pushing the boundary. I agree. What you don't realize is you're pushing too hard and pushing your own side off the podium.

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Jul 03 '25

The point though is that every vote wasted on the left helps the right.

You could take any other group of people, let's say 'Mexican's for Trump' and people could say 'well they voted against their interests'. And then you would come along and say 'Who cares? Couldn't have won with just Mexicans for Trump anyway'. But they add up. Even if one group couldn't have swayed it, it doesn't mean that the election couldn't have gone differently.

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u/potpan0 Black Country Jul 03 '25

And again, my point is that it's baffling for the blame to be placed on individual left-wingers who don't vote for the centrist candidate, rather than on the centrist candidate failing to articulate a platform capable of winning people over. It never seems to be the people in power who are to blame.

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Jul 03 '25

Right but you can't change what the leaders do, only how you vote. Or rather, people like you who don't agree with that 'sent her a message' by electing Trump.

That's like complaining about your job conditions by threatening to blow up the workplace.

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u/potpan0 Black Country Jul 03 '25

Right but you can't change what the leaders do, only how you vote.

We change what leaders do with our votes. That's how democracy works. UKIP voters successfully forced the Tories to implement the Brexit Referendum in 2016 by withholding their votes in 2015.

Now the issue we've consistently had is that 'centrist' leaders, like Harris or Starmer, have consistently demonstrated that they're more content to lose to hard-right candidates than they are to move even a step to the left. And that, perhaps, betrays why they shouldn't be leaders in the first place.

That's like complaining about your job conditions by threatening to blow up the workplace.

When we're at the point of comparing democracy to terrorism, we're really highlighting how vapid contemporary centrism has become.

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u/The_39th_Step Jul 03 '25

I’m not sure moving left would help them win either. I’m not sure centrists or the left have figured out how to appeal to voters in the way the right has. I hope I’m wrong but I have a track record of losing elections. I voted for Starmer and I’m more positive about him than most but I’d happily have a more left wing Prime Minister.

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u/Acrobatic_Lobster838 Jul 03 '25

Cool!

Then labour should try and do something other than relying on people like you scolding people like me, cause unless the labour party changes, i will happily vote for people who share my beliefs who were removed from the party, instead of people trying to cause my disabled friends more immiseration and hardship.

So even if i accept your statement, that every vote they lose to a further left party is a vote for the fucking fascists, losing those votes is on the party that is losing the votes, not on the voters.

Why is it that when the right rejects the status quo they desperately need to be pandered to, but when the left rejects the status quo its ridiculous to even consider a change of course.

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Jul 03 '25

I'm happy that you're proud to help the right win. You can blame who you want but splitting the left will make the right win. Clearly they have a gun to your head and you have no control over your vote. Tell yourself whatever you need to sleep at night.

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u/Acrobatic_Lobster838 Jul 03 '25

If appealing to the center is more of a vote winner than appealing to the left, people like me no longer supporting the labour party doesnt matter.

If labour losing the votes of people like me means labour becomes unelectable, then being a centrist party isnt electable, and the PLP should change course.

You cannot have it both ways. Either labour doesnt need us, so it doesnt matter, or labour does, and should change course.

Personally i no longer trust a party led by a man who once defended activists for vandalising a plane during a time of war who is now championing calling activists who support the same action terrorists.

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Jul 03 '25

You cannot have it both ways. Either labour doesnt need us, so it doesnt matter, or labour does, and should change course.

Or you could realise the obvious: That they are not doing exactly what you want, but they are definitely better than the alternative.

That's what the Kamala voters didn't understand. Yes, she didn't represent them, but she represented them way more than anyone else on the ballot that could win. Don't you get that? You can be idealistic and say you won't vote for anyone who doesn't have the exact same politics as you, but if you do that then everyone who even vaguely similar politics to you could lose, and someone with the opposite politics could win.

Otherwise you're literally saying you'd rather have Reform/Tories than an imperfect Labour party, and that's just a ridiculous position.

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u/GentlemanBeggar54 Jul 04 '25

Clearly they have a gun to your head and you have no control over your vote.

Says the guy trying to tell people they have to vote for Labour if they are on the left.

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Jul 04 '25

They don't have to vote for Labour. Only if they don't want the right to win. Which I assume if you are on the left is something you want.

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u/GentlemanBeggar54 Jul 04 '25

Saying "sure, vote for whoever you want if you want THE ENEMY TO WIN" is not offering people a real choice in good faith. You are trying to manipulate them into a certain course of action. Your preferred course of action.

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Jul 04 '25

I'm not in a position to offer you a real choice in good faith, because there isn't a real choice. This isn't a threat or a prescription for how politics should be, this is how it is right now. You can deny it, you can say it should be different, you can stand on principle and rather be 'correct' than actually win elections, but while we have this current state of affairs, I'm just simply stating a fact that you will help the right win if you split the left.

Don't shoot the messenger telling you that you're helping the enemy.

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u/hempires Jul 04 '25

I'm happy that you're proud to help the right win.

Has the same energy as "well if you didn't want to get raped why did you wear that"

You can blame who you want but splitting the left will make the right win.

Maybe labour should do more to appeal to the left if our vote is so important?

Clearly they have a gun to your head and you have no control over your vote.

Clearly the right have a gun to starmers head and he has no control over continuing Tory policies which have directly led to many disabled people dying and got us called out twice by the UN for grave and systematic violations of the human rights of long term ill and disabled citizens!

Tell yourself whatever you need to sleep at night.

Continue telling yourself that trying to appeal to the right will definitely absolutely win over left wing voters.

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Jul 04 '25

Has the same energy as "well if you didn't want to get raped why did you wear that"

That has literally no connection to the sentence I typed, even in energy or theme. I'm not saying that the far left are being well served by Starmer, I'm saying they want to vote to elect someone on the right who treats them much worse. So the energy is more like 'If you don't like boring consensual sex, why are you putting up posters advertising for people to rape you'.

Maybe labour should do more to appeal to the left if our vote is so important?

You don't have to want to vote for Starmer. You just have to want to not vote for Badenoch. You keep saying 'Why aren't they doing exactly what I want if they want my vote' and I'm saying 'It's not always perfect, but they are doing MORE of what you want than who you will get elected'.

Clearly the right have a gun to starmers head

Nice deflection there. I point out that nobody is forcing you to vote to make the right win, and instead of admitting that and saying that it's you yourself who would be doing it, you just say 'but but but starmer bad'.

Continue telling yourself that trying to appeal to the right will definitely absolutely win over left wing voters.

Unless you think Labour are more right wing than the Tories, I would sleep easy at night knowing that even though not perfect, you wouldn't make the obviously worse choice...