[SpaciousBox]

Presently, I am working and living in a very very working class area of the country, and it is a seriously conservative world. It's the sort of thing you really need to experience, in order to understand, but everything feels like it is at least 30 years in the past. Women are treated differently, and gender equality doesn't really exist. Attitudes to race are still developing, and reactions to difference in general is closer to something you might expect on a playground, than from grownups. It can often be a challenging environment for someone like myself with a very middle class background, but it isn't in anyway malicious or driven by the sorts of hatred that you might see in American Conservative tradition. People are more weary of difference (skin colour, LGTB, cultures) than they are outright against. Their treatment of women is more protective, than it is oppressive, though it does very often come across as highly rude.

It has often puzzled me how the working class seem to have far more in common with conservative ideology, than that of the left, but then again the Conservatives would also want very little to do with them. The conservative party promote individual responsibility, family values, and very class-based attitudes to how you should behave. This really doesn't link up with a working class society who are surviving on benefits, very often single mothers or denying family responsibility, and actually have no real control over their lives at all. They are the forgotten group of our society, that just can't associate with anyone from the political class at all.

A Labour party that moved further to the right would be more successful, but in order to win the election they still need to retain the liberal voters who can't stand the sort of social conservatism that the right promotes. If Labour moved to the right, then the country would have two right wing parties, and a very low voter turn out.

[Technology]

If Labour moved to the right, then the country would have two right wing parties, and a very low voter turn out.

This might create the impetus for a new party to rise though if the left feels disenfranchised. In addition, if Labor moved to the right on social issues, they could be more of a third way (as opposed to third position, being as its still within the overall "liberal" sphere and not fascist) syncretic party, providing they move back more towards the left on economic issues. Arguably, they are that syncretism the other away around now, with pro-immigration, pro-social permissiveness, combined with the light-Thatcherism embraced by Tony Blair (left-liberal social positions, center/right-liberal economics) opposing the Conservatives full on Thatcher stiffy.

The weird thing is though, the third party rising at the moment isn't a more left party, but a more nationalist counterpart to the current parties engaged with permissive capitalism, and that party is UKIP.

So, what we may end up with is the weird situation of three or four right wing economic parties temporarily (maybe a centrist one if Ed is as "Red" as they say he is, or if the LibDems move back to the "radical center" if it was ever more than a buzzword), which obviously isn't sustainable - disenfranchisement tends to create new political parties - so either Labor (or the LibDems if they don't die) goes quite far left to capture these voters, or yet another party rises. I can't think of a system with four or five major parties though, so something's got to break, and someone has to lose out.

[trombonepolitician]

It's always interesting to to hear about political parties in other countries. I always liked the positions of the National Liberal party in the UK myself. What is also interesting is this renewed interest in nationalism in some parties. I'm not against nationalism and loyalty to your country perse (after all, nationalism at the root just constitutes common values of a people in a large group, or "nation"), I'm against a national attitude that is highly exclusive of others that might want to join in the spirit of that community.

[Heisenberg]

I think that's probably because you're an American, trombonepolitician. The USA and the other "New World" countries (as opposed to the "Old World" countries in Europe) are based on civic nationalism rather than ethnic nationalism: the "nation" is usually defined more as adherence to the principles of the American constitution rather than as a people tied by culture and history. One does not simply become British, or French, or Chinese for that matter, simply by moving to that country and "joining in the national spirit". That is not to say that immigrants should be mistreated or excluded from public life.

To give an example, Gurkha soldiers have served in the British Army for centuries now, and are rightly held in very high regard by the vast majority of people in Britain. However, they are ultimately still Nepalese - their culture, language and traditions are not British. There is no reason that this needs to be considered a negative thing though: as far as I'm concerned, supremacists and racial bigots are an embarrassment to any country they come from.

[slybaldguy]

Heisenberg, who do you have as your display pic?

[Heisenberg]

Erwin Rommel.

[slybaldguy]

Erwin Rommel.

I didn't recognise him without the hat. I thought you were a British patriot?

[Heisenberg]

Well, Rommel was still a fantastic general who commanded the respect of his enemies. I don't consider Germany a natural enemy of Britain anyway (Rommel felt the same way, funnily enough), so I don't really see the contradiction. Besides, I had Malcolm X as my avatar before. I can't imagine he was too fond of Britain, given its history. He is still someone I have a lot of respect for, though.

[trombonepolitician]

I think that's probably because you're an American, trombonepolitician. The USA and the other "New World" countries (as opposed to the "Old World" countries in Europe) are based on civic nationalism rather than ethnic nationalism: the "nation" is usually defined more as adherence to the principles of the American constitution rather than as a people tied by culture and history.

Yeah I figured as much. I consider myself a civic nationalist- that should be proof enough


I'd love to find the platform of Blue labour. I'll take a look around

[Heisenberg]

Voila.

[Decky]

And I want immigrants that are encouraged to learn American language and customs.

Cree you mean? The main language and culture in the USA is an immigrant one. American languages and cultures have almost been wiped out.