Under our unfair electoral system Labour needs to win back a lot of those voters lost in recent elections in key areas. Many live in low income, low skilled areas, with high unemployment and few job prospects. Many are also on some form of benefits / social security, and really need a lot of state support from the state in terms of health, pensions, housing etc.
Yet, they were persuaded to vote Tory, a party dedicated to helping the wealthy, cutting benefits / social security, removing state support and effectively doubling down on exactly this sort of voter.
Why is this? Mostly the influence of mass and social media, which effectively trashed the Labour party and its leader in the last election, and persuaded its readers their interests lay with people like Boris Johnson.
Plus, there’s the customary deference and forelock-tugging to those perceived as one’s ‘betters’ (!), especially in predominantly rural areas like north Lincs.
And, perhaps most of all, rather than argue they deserve state support, people have been tricked into feeling ashamed to admit they need it; that any expressed need must be their own fault, and an admission of weakness, and therefore undeserving.
So, Starmer needs to win over these sort of voters, many of whom have been brainwashed into a fear of social change, and to feel shame associated with support, especially when it gets branded in the media as ‘communism’, ‘radicalism’, ‘anarchism’, etc.
Sadly, that may mean not appearing too radical and old-school socialist, in case it frightens the natives. No, first, he has to gain their confidence and trust, and save more radical policy and strategy for later.
Of course, our media owning foreigners will scream ‘communism’, ‘anarchy’ and so on from their tax-exiled hideaways, and will do their damndest to persuade people to keep deferring to Johnson and co., not because Boris is brilliant, but because the alternative would be so awful and only serve to encourage those lazy benefit scroungers and undeserving foreigners.
And many on here will swallow it, so successfully have they been brainwashed into voting against their own interests and needs.
So, it’s a tricky act he has to pull off. Keeping onside more radical members of his own party, while also winning back many of the brainwashed ‘red wall’, especially those north of the border, as DM mentions above. And, in one of the most unstable times socially and politically in our history. This country badly needs radical change, yet how many are woke enough to vote for that?