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11:41 am, May 11th, 2026 - 76 comments
Categories: AUKUS, Austerity, class, corruption, democracy under attack, democratic participation, Dirty Politics, disaster, Europe, First Past the Post, human rights, israel, Keir Starmer, leadership, Left, nuclear war, racism, uk politics, Zionism -
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That’s Starmer’s achievement, as the local elections in Britain now conclusively show. He always was a muppet puppet; his string-pullers are much more sinister.
The election results were predictably disastrous for the UK Labour Party. Starmer is a gone-burger, thank goodness. But the problems he will have left behind are disastrous for the UK Labour party, and do no favours for other Labour parties.
In England, Reform gained 1442 Council seats and control of 14 Councils, and Labour lost 1406 seats and lost 35 Councils. Greens gained 374 Council seats and now control 4 councils for the first time. In Wales, Plaid Cymru gained 20 seats in the Senned and became the majority party, as Reform gained 34 seats and Labour lost 35. In the Scottish Parliament, Reform gained 17 seats and the Greens 6, with the Scottish National party still the largest part in a hung Parliament.
The Starmer project, and project it is, has been and will continue to be a total disaster for the Labour party in the UK. From its inception it has been a plot, to expunge the populist left internally and externally with the help of the military and security agencies to ensure Labour remains firmly inside the Atlantic/Israeli alliance and ready to press the nuclear button.
Those interested can find much to consider in the 536 pages of Paul Holden’s book Fraud, which says:
In these pages we see how Labour Together selected Keir Starmer to be its frontman, helping him win Labour’s leadership with the most mendacious campaign in recent political history. The Party under Starmer has since embraced the ugliest forms of racism and Islamophobia, and shared information hacked from journalists critical of its allies. The Labour Together project has subsequently transformed the Party into an authoritarian machine entirely intolerant of dissent, rowing back on an ocean of previous commitments and propagating an agenda of reheated austerity.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of that, as I have been a close observer of UK Labour for the past 25 years, including attendance at many conferences, as well as other meetings and conversations. In my opinion Starmer is an entrist plant from the Security Services, shoe-horned into a safe seat once had gained his knighthood as the Chief Public Prosecutor.
I’ve written about my views here and elsewhere, on “the adults in the room” or the “grown-ups” and it is good to see those sentiments now echoed in the British press such as this by Adita Chakrabortty in the Guardian.
In Westminster, “adult” is a conman’s compliment. It sounds a judgment of character, when it is really a definition of ideology. One proves political maturity by not banging on about injustice, by not troubling too much the rich and powerful. To try it out, simply stand in front of a mirror and slowly declare yourself to be “pro-business and pro-worker”. If you can do that without flinching at the obvious contradiction, then congratulations! You too can be prime minister.
“Grownup politics” is praise wrapped around a sneer at those on the outside. Jeremy Corbyn will always be considered politically juvenile, even though he is in his 70s. Peter Mandelson, on the other hand, was the very definition of an SW1 “adult” – and we all know how well that went.
The contrast between Corbyn’s 2017 equality-based manifesto “For the Many not the Few” and Starmer’s 2023 anodyne “Change” summed up the difference. The rise in the UK Labour vote with Corbyn as Leader almost exactly mirrored the rise won by Jacinda Ardern. In fact Corbyn’s vote was higher, around 40%; under first-past-the-post in Britain he reduced the Conservatives under Theresa May to a minority government. In New Zealand, Labour came second to national but under MMP was installed into government by Winston Peters.
The danger for New Zealand Labour now is that whether we like it or not, we become tarred by the same brush. We might not be riddled with paedophiles, but there are worrying signs that the reversion to the mean is becoming the driver of political strategy here as well. I can’t remember the last time I heard a strong expression of Labour principles – sorry in fact I can – it was a speech by David Parker when he was Deputy Leader.
The objective conditions are about to change markedly. The “Jobs/Health/Housing” tricolon mantra that has run for so long will not be sufficient. Whatever needs to be done must be based on strong Labour principles. The UK offers us no answers.
There is a better way.
Really? But Reform, from your POV, surely embrace racism and Islamaphobia that is at least as ugly (if we're going for the maximal point implied by the word, "ugliest").
Yet they've almost wiped out Labour in many parts of the country, plus further destroying the Tories in their beloved little shires.
If racists and Islamophobes love Reform because they think it aligns with their beliefs why didn't they love Labour? It implies that the latter are not racist and Islamophobic enough – if we accept your premise.
Or is it that there are other factors that Labour are failing on? Id' say that it is, and unfortunately for a Labour led by Rayner, Streeting, Miliband – anybody really – those factors are that an already large state is increasingly failing to deliver better lives for most people, despite ever larger sums of money being dumped into state institutions. The social contract is broken.
I'm sure that the British Left does not accept that – hell, the Tories don’t wither – hence results like this and talk of "racism" and "Islamophobia". From a RW point of view I hope they keep thinking this way.
Thanks Ad
I think this video putting it politely is unfortunate. Are you completely unaware how Hitler won the masses in 1930? It certainly wasn't through a Labour PM having a tantrum. Watch Reform, One Nation and NZ First carefully and make some videos about them. And study history.
You liked it? Mildly amusing, but the heft is in the sub-text. As if Jung's shadow theory induced the performance. I had to shuffle him from bland inconsequential when I read his bio from the local library: he's authentic as far as I can tell. Got the best origin story a leftist political leader could ever dream of.
Okay, so maybe he's as constrained as Lange was by the party, but he could still surprise us if the challenge fizzles. I'm open to the dark-forces controlling him theory but note evidence is lacking for taking that seriously. If his Jungian shadow seeks global domination, he could try telling Trump what to do…
Mostly I think that his political problem is that he thinks of Labour in terms of people like him. Not as a broad based coalition. That was why there were the effective purges inside UK Labour and the wholesale discarding of supporting activists.
That tends to translate into not getting people out to vote for him and his perceived to be constrained and limited party.
That was what Mike was pointing to the other day.
When there is no room for your activist views in a centerist party, then those who want to see change will move to any other party that is promising action. They'll often vote with their fingers over their nose, but they will vote for changes in what they perceives as being a spiralling disaster.
This isn't uncommon. What will be interesting to see is if the Labour (and the conservatives for that matter) realise the inflection point and adjust. Or if they go down the downward spiral to irrelevance that the UK Liberals (and their successor parties) suffered since the early 20th.
That's an insightful overview. Neuroscience books have led me toward felt salience, in which people are subliminally nudged by players in the game of politics. Bit like tennis players taking the wind into account. I also see a trend back to social darwinism happening. Activists face a paradox in which loyalty to the key group in their arena has to be balanced internally against loyalty to a larger group in a different political arena. So there's a pivot where an agent may switch primal loyalty from a traditional alignment to a progressive alignment so as to retain their sense of destiny (trajectory). Self-interest is no longer a binary alternative to state compulsion (democracy options): agentic groups can form naturally as medial players in the game. Think-tanks.
Until progressive think-tanks converge on an alternative to neoliberalism, activists will lack a credible political program. Yet maybe the Fabians or whoever aren't asleep at the wheel. Could be in the pipeline somewhere. Resilience is the obvious common ground between left & right so I'd start there. Greens ought to give Lux a merit award for achieving a steady-state economy 34+ years after we started to ask for one: growth at stagnation level, increases within the margin of error, ripples on the water of life…
Re that inflection point applying to both trad left/right options, yes. With political sentiments sloshing around so turbulently, someone must show natural leadership to ride the wave of change, and a contagion will always form around such a person. That guy Burnham seems toted by British columnists as most likely.
The problem is that generally populations aren't that interested in steady state lifestyles. Now if they'd concentrated at the time on getting alternatives to the consumption that was the actual problem.. In hindsight the population growth wasn’t a problem because affluence is the best contraceptive.
What is happening now is that that those alternatives are starting to be there and cost-effective. Which they weren't in prior to about 2010.
The net makes people wider in the world without having to actually go there, everything from streaming to just being able to talk almost costlessly to almost anyone in most places. Electric vehicles and battery/solar panel power systems are more cost effective than their alternatives, albeit still with a capital expenditure penalty (and that is reducing rapidly).
The steady state economy that runs a rentier (ie subscription) economic model just makes the world duller and poorer for anyone who doesn't have the assets to rent. Since those assets are increasingly held in fewer hands there are less paths to progress ambitions. Which makes society increasingly unstable and longing for change.
Makes me want to resume pirating media, and figuring out how to move to disrupt.
Always a crap shoot following that. It is more likely to be someone like the mindless rascists. Farage and Trump come to mind. Their activist opponents will, as well as the sheeple, will support them. How else do you get the revolution you're after, without showing up the flaws in the alternatives that the centerist will prefer to work with rather than battle.
That damn Steiner! How dare he does not counterattack in Glamorgan.
It's pretty good. But as a veteran of the 'Hitler reacts' genre… the out and out best by far is 'Hitler reacts to Gatland dropping O'Driscoll for the final Lions test vs Asutralia'. Have a look if your day needs brighteing up 😉
I think this gets some important things right, but also falls into the trap of treating Corbynism and Starmerism as if one of them must contain the answer.
To me they represent opposite overcorrections to the same crisis.
Corbynism often treated politics as a form of moral clarity or moral witness in an increasingly complex and institutionally fragmented world. Starmerism, by contrast, seems to believe the path back to power is through managerial competence, institutional reassurance, and removing anything that looks politically risky.
The problem is that neither really solves the deeper issue facing modern social democracy.
One struggles to convert moral energy into durable governing power. The other risks hollowing out the reason for seeking power in the first place.
What’s missing is a theory of social democracy that also contains a fighting theory of power.
Not conspiracy. Not performative radicalism. Not simply “better management”.
A serious understanding of who holds economic and institutional power, how that power shapes ordinary life, and how democratic politics can materially shift security, dignity, and agency back toward ordinary people.
That means building state capacity rather than just defending bureaucracy. Being pro-worker without romanticising the 1970s. Being economically transformative while remaining institutionally credible enough to govern.
People do still want fairness, solidarity, and collective purpose. But they also want competence, stability, delivery, and governments capable of actually building things again.
The challenge for modern Labour parties is not choosing between Corbyn and Starmer. It is finding a politics capable of combining moral purpose with institutional seriousness.
Huh??
Did you read Mike’s last two paragraphs that finished with “The UK offers us no answers. There is a better way.”?
I agree with your comments re. a ‘theory of [socialist] power’.
My advice would be to retain Starmer and have a planned succession to Burnham & Raynor in the second term. That would indicate a balance between current managerial transition (return to Europe & coping with international crisis) and future national planning (as per the 2029 manifesto).
Thanks Res – that is the most reasoned, practical and farseeing explanation that I have yet seen in all the time I have been reading about politics.
We don't have to give Starmer a break, but the crisis of the richer European economies from the Iran war is of an order of magnitude larger than the GFC or the entire COVID experience.
Occasionally countries get lucky with an Albanese, a Carney or a Helen Clark that can do both moral purpose and institutional seriousness. They are much rare than you think.
Go right ahead and dance on Starmer's grave. It's not the assassination that kills the country; it's whether who comes up next will have made the assassination worthwhile.
Ask Robespierre.
Or: lots of English people are voting Reform because they'll take anyone who seems like they might actually do something about the million immigrants a year and the resulting development of Muslim parallel societies in English cities, and the citizens of those parallel societies are voting Green or independent. Starmer and Labour are irrelevant to those things.
When was the last year there was a million immigrants?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2025
Thanks weka, I wouldn't have believed it could be over 1 million – the Boriswave!
Given it was 1.46M in 2023 and 1.3M in 2024, if the driving factor in the rise of Reform was immigration, the question is why was their vote so low in 2024, despite the collapse of the Tory vote?
I think that's a complex question, and I don't believe the rise of Reform is a single factor. It's to do with Brexit and shifts globally as well as specific events in the UK esp the Southport riots and the jailing of Lucy Connolly for race hate tweeting.
The Southport riots happened after the general election.
Farage and co have been working on this for a long time. I'm sure immigration numbers are used as propaganda, so it's perception as well as what is actually happening.
The left still has their weird blindspot on this, see Ad's post on the rise of Peters etc. If we don't get our heads around this and start addressing it, it will get much worse.
Voting patterns aren't an instant single-issue feedback system. Mass immigration's been driving the growth of populist-right parties for years, not only in the UK.
Because the vote was not "for Labour". It was against the Tories and the voting population of England were smart enough to work out that the best way of doing that was to vote Labour. It was not about policies or candidates, it was about the visceral hatred of Boris and everything the Tory party had done during Covid.
Starmer then gave the populace no good reasons to continue to vote Labour. Arresting Vicars and grandmothers for protesting against the genocide in Gaza and the killing and displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank just was not going to cut it.
going after poor people didn't help either. Once there is an alternative to one of the two neoliberal, fuck over poor people parties, why wouldn't people change their vote?
I'm opposed to f**king over poors, but Reform isn't offering an alternative to neoliberalism. Imho, it's an alternative neoliberal party – time will tell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_UK#Ideology_and_platform
well quite. But the point isn't what Reform are, it's why people are flocking to them.
Was the point that Reform is an alternative? I wonder about the nature/values of that alternative – it's not an alternative to neoliberalism, imho.
So, why are people flocking? Maybe they cling to the (seductive) idea of getting 'ahead', however unlikely that is in the greater scheme of overshoot, and have been sold the idea that Reform offers a leg-up?
If so, then some (most?) people will be disappointed, but that's politics for you – cycles of optimism/hope/belief, followed by disappointment, disaffection and despair.
a lot of it is around the deterioration of standards of living. Health care, jobs, housing costs. People aren't wrong that neoliberalism's reliance in imported labour and wage suppression ultimately harms communities. The new right took that and pushed hard on racism, blaming immigrants from poor (brown) countries, but also eastern European immigrants.
People are also not wrong about the fast changes to their communities. Liberals want a melting pot and deny that there is anything good about English culture, handing love for one's country to the white nationalists. One of the left's bigger own goals.
If the left says the only good way is a melting pot and if you like your anglo saxon or celtic roots you are racist, of course people are going to look elsewhere.
I agree that the getting ahead thing is part of it, but all parties offer that promise Reform makes it personal and says we will help you get ahead, ahead of immigrants.
The only way for the left to combat that imo, is to listen to the needs of those people. Not the hard core racists, but the much larger number of people who want to belong, want a recent paying job, good standard of living for their family. Zack Polanski and the Greens' rise is in part due to them offering an alternative that meet people where they are, but they're limited by the identity politics.
Which (English) liberals are those – the Lib Dems?
Does Reform say how they will do that? Maybe give 'preference' to UK citizens over non-citizen immigrants, given that they can't really crack down on naturalised citizens – can they? I would have thought there was plenty of prejudicial preference already. If immigrants are 'getting ahead', then imho it's most likely due to having much-needed skills and/or a strong work ethic – making the most of opportunities, etc.
God knows NZ can do without Winston First becoming as popular as Reform in the UK, so warnings such as yours about this are timely. Turn down the 'immigration tap' by all means, just don't expect that to address the root cause(s) of the problem(s) anytime soon – either in the UK (overshoot day 22 May), or here in NZ Aotearoa (overshoot 10 April).
I agree. However the deterioration is also a consequence of the neoliberal economy. Neoliberalism ameloriates to the point of stopping people from rioting, just (UK sits on that edge much more than we do). That’s what Reform is playing to.
Left liberals/progressives.
If they attain fascism, they can do what they want.
I cannot stress this enough. There is large popular support for Reform in the UK from people who perceive Reform as being preferable to Tories/Labour despite the ties to fascism. That includes people who previously voted left and centre left. The left should be alarmed by this and we are sleepwalking into it.
The people I see don’t believe Reform are fascists and don’t see themselves as fascists. That’s how Reform is doing so well.
to clarify, I don’t see those people as fascists either. But it’s impossible to talk with them about fascism, in part because liberals throw the term fascism at them and generally overuses the word. I understand now how fascism takes hold.
I don’t get that, why would one want to talk with them about fascism if they’re not fascists? Aren’t they so far out there, on the Right, that they’re [already] a problem in their own right? Isn’t it form of whataboutery or straw man?
people voting for or supporting Reform? They’re voting for a party that is heading towards fascism, that’s why I want to talk with them. Before it’s too late.
Do you think all Reform voters are fascists?
Honestly, I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it, as very few people are truly fascist, IMO.
How can you be so sure that Reform UK is heading towards full-blown fascism? In your view, what does it take for them to get there?
You’re bouncing back to me my own questions!?
Don’t you, personally, think that they’re causing problems right now through their already-radical and extreme views and policies? It’s not a binary, is it: Reform UK = ok now but if/when [?] they become ‘fascist’, Reform UK ≠ ok? Put differently, are they a risk now or not (e.g., to social stability & cohesion) or will they become a risk only when they go full-fascist? I realise the irony of framing it as a binary choice.
When referring to a [hypothetical] tipping point, it suggests some kind of threshold (of what?) at which a phase transition or transformation will occur. I don’t know what this means in qualitative and/or quantitative terms but it does seem to imply some inevitability and (historical?) determinism, which I’d reject without strong arguments.
Generally speaking, I think that generalising [a whole group of people] or stereotyping is an ineffective strategy, and counter-productive even because of the high risk of back-firing and making things worse. The populist playbook uses this strategy, which means that ‘anti-populists’ cannot.
If you mean Reform, yes. Obviously.
I don’t believe Reform are ok now, where did you get that from? (if you think you got it from my comments, then I would suggest you don’t understand my argument here and now I’m in the position of having to argue against something I didn’t say).
Of course causing social instability is a problem now.
My comments to D were about Reform voters, the ones shifted/shifting from Conservative/Labour to Reform, where we still have some chance of calling them back from supporting a party that is heading for fascism.
You will see me making the comment quite often that the left and/or liberals lacks strategy and when I ask about this no-one ever tells me what the end game is. I’m suggesting that we still have time to prevent fascism. It’s not inevitable. That’s the point. We have to have an analysis of who those Reform voters are, and why they’re rejecting liberal values an the left’s idea of how society should be run. And from that analysis we have to develop strategy. A major part of the left’s struggle atm is that we can’t have those hard conversations.
In terms of tipping points, I’m not an academic or historian but have been following people since 2015 who talk about the evolution of fascism, how it comes about, what it looks like, how those transitions happen. The rise of Reform is a tipping point. Not the only one, not deterministic, but happening in real time and the left is struggling to respond.
In the UK I see two main areas where a good left response is happening. In the UK Greens, and in the left wing gender critical feminists. Ironically (given the Greens’ antipathy towards GCF). There will be other groups too (I’m just not familiar with them) eg unions, groups organising around ethnicity and anti-racism. The UK has a much stronger left wing activist culture and movements than NZ. But the left there still has a problem in Labour, and in the identitarian left. See the recent cross post on what happened to the climate movement and the need to work with people who think differently from us. This is exactly the same issue as with Reform voters. If the left keeps calling everyone fascist, at some point the people we want to vote left end up hating us and then it will be incredibly hard to undo that.
Yes, “they” are Reform UK, that’s what we’ve been talking about.
I’ve been trying to understand what you’re trying to say in your comments, which I find a little confusing, so I tried various ways of getting clarity and I don’t think I’m quite there yet.
My main question centres on why you would focus, seemingly, on what might be rather than on what is? Reform UK are pretty bad now and they might get worse. Or they might not.
My secondary question is about the slide (or tip over) into full-fascism. You seem to say that it’s not inevitable but only if the Left develops an effective strategy – in its absence, or when a poor strategy back-fires, the slide will be inevitable seems to be the logical conjecture.
Well, yes, but this puts two hypothetical conditions together and thus is speculative. What do you mean by “the left” here? Some hardliners? Some factions of the Left? Surely not the whole Left and all the perceived and self-identified parties in/of the Left, and everybody who feels Left, votes Left, supports the Left? And calling “everyone” [??] fascist seems to me an exaggeration.
My cautious and poorly-informed reading is that if some fascist elements are trying to pull Reform UK into full-fascism the best strategy for the Left (and moderate centrists?) is to provide an alternative choice to those Reform voters that you referred to. When you start talking about those fascist elements trying to con and lure them it may well confuse them into thinking that you’re accusing them personally of being (proto)fascists and attacking them for that – not many will side with their accuser/attacker – this will drive them faster straight into the welcoming arms of those fascist elements (transformation complete) and it’ll make you worst fear come true.
actually most of this conversation I’ve been talking about voter and responses to Reform, hence my confusion when you were referring to ‘they’.
I focus on what might be because by the time fascism is present, it’s generally too late to stop it. I cannot stress that enough.
Reform are pretty bad now. They may or may not get worse. But the rise in fascism in the UK isn’t only about Reform. They are part of a wider process.
I don’t think leftist action is the only necessary thing at all. But developing better strategy than we have now is prudent, especially if I am right in my analysis that some (not all) of our current positioning is making the situation worse.
I use the term left differently at different times. Here it is shorthand for the centre left, the left, progressives and liberals. No, I don’t mean the whole left. My comment was a synopsis with context, obviously I didn’t mean literally everyone.
Liberals in particular hold the responsibility for yelling fascist or racist or bigot at people. It’s a specific dynamic.
I will post an example shortly.
apologies to Mountain Tui, a fellow author, I’m using this example simply because it was in my twitter timeline yesterday.
https://x.com/Mountain_Tui/status/2054816541590561044
There is plenty to criticise Seymour for here, but it’s not fascist. It’s authoritarian. I think MT is using the term ‘fascist’ here in the populist sense as a pejorative, rather than in the classic political sense. Using fascist in its populist sense then opens the doorway to calling people we politically disagree with fascist, and then the term gets watered down to the point it can’t be used in many contexts.
This is one of the things that happened in the gender/sex wars. The women who were called nazi bigots that started moving away from the left and liberal politics, then got called nazi RW fascists and at that point gave up on the left. There were serious, important critiques of that shift to be made and how some gender criticals were working with the far right, but what was once a left wing feminist movement, became a RW movement in part because of the left’s approach of ostracise and ridicule.
It’s not just in the sex/gender wars. It’s happened over racism, and immigration, covid, climate change. We can call ACT or Reform party voters fascist, but it won’t help our cause.
The populists like Reform work with the proto-fascists, the far right and the actual neonazis. It’s not so much a matter of some fascist elements trying to pull Reform into full fascism (although I’m sure that is happening too), it’s that fascism is rising due to a range of dynamics and influences.
I didn’t say that.
That’s a bit vague. How far? How are they a problem in their own right? How is that the same or different from fascism.
The problem is if enough people support Reform uncritically that the UK passes a tipping point.
If we cast them all as fascists we make the term meaningless, and we create a divide that becomes very difficult to reduce again.
Could you help me out by providing a name? I know of Farage, leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party, but who are these “left liberals/progressives” who “want a melting pot and deny that there is anything good about English culture…” – they sound a bit nuts to me.
I'm not frightened by the idea or the actuality of a melting pot, nor is it something I actively want either – it just is. As for there being nothing good about English culture, well, there's the insurance of democracy for a start – some might go so far as to suggest that representative democracy is a foundational pillar of modern British society. [I got that last bit off Google AI]
It is nuts. I can’t give you a name. I’m pointing to an observable dynamic. Do you see anyone in NZ talking about feeling good about being a descendent of the English? What are their politics? Who opposes that? It’s a pretty clear pattern.
The left has long taken a position against melting pot theory, because it is assimilationist. We value and desire diversity. We’re just not very good affording that to white people. I know who my people are and where I come from, in similar ways to how Māori know. But there is a taboo in my talking about it (because I’m Pākehā).
Absent even one name, I'm not seeing "Liberals want[ing] a melting pot and deny[ing] that there is anything good about English culture" as anything other than a hypothetical 'dynamic', and one that would play into the hands of a right-wing populist party like Reform UK at that.
You write "it's a pretty clear pattern", but honestly it's not clear to me.
Is "anyone in NZ talking about feeling good about being a descendent of the English" (or not)? And, if so, what (typically?) are their politics, and who (typically?) opposes that? If you could answer your questions with specific examples, then that might really help. Not understanding something that is "a pretty clear pattern" can be frustrating.
I'm descended from English and Scottish 'stock', with perhaps a dash of French thrown in. Once upon several times, long long ago, the English fought with Scots, and with the French, and they may again (overshoot, inequality, etc.), but my fortunate time (and place) on spaceship Earth has been one of relative peace. I feel lucky in my both my ancestry and upbringing (there but for the grace of God go I), which I (now) believe gave me an intergenerational leg-up from the cradle – a leg-up I expect to last until the grave. Indeed, if the findings of longitudinal studies are valid, then the downstream effects of such chance advantages are perhaps among the most observable dynamics in Kiwi society.
Again, not sure what you're getting at there – an example of how "the left" valuing (the reality of) diversity is depriving (specifically) white people (of something?) might help.
I know who mine are too, vaguely, but who is imposing this "taboo"?
P.S. Except for TS, and links that Google searches throw up, I don't do social media – maybe the answers to all my questions lie there, and/or maybe generative A.I. has the answers, but I prefer to ask real people.
I definitely think if you are not on social media you will be missing a big part of the picture.
Social media is one of the main ways liberal taboos and sanctions are enforced. It's the home of cancel culture.
I think you've answered your own question there. If you're not aware of anyone, then doesn't that suggest it doesn't happen?
Whatever the merits of my argument, if it's not the norm in NZ for Pākehā to celebrate their ancestral culture, this to me is a strong indication that it isn't happening generally.
The people who are talking politically about how great English culture is are generally authoritarian and/or proto-fascist, or white supremacists. I will find you some examples from twitter.
The liberal left understandably and rightly push back against that. But instead of saying "it's good to connect to one's roots and have a politics around that and we can do it in a non-fascist way" it says "white pride = fascism".
I think it's tied to the progressive idea of open borders and immigration being always good.
Is there such a thing as English culture? Should it be celebrated or not? What happens if we frame English culture as evil colonisers and must smash their statues.
What happens if immigration changes things so fast that the good and useful aspects of English culture become lost or detached? The white supremacists organise around this and are winning. The liberal left is left wondering why people don't like us or our agenda. I know why those people are like that, but the main push I see from the left is that those people must be ostracised not called in.
Maybe "white supremacists" appear to be winning on social media (I wouldn't know), but I (personally) would make no apologies for ostracising them ("white supremacists" – ffs!) in NZ Aotearoa.
If you believe the NZ political left ‘umbrella' should 'call in' white supremacists, then that's a hard 'agree to disagree' moment for me. White supremacist ideology/beliefs should be called out, not in, imho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics_in_New_Zealand
maybe I'm bad at explaining this. Let me try again.
Yes we should be do everything we can to suppress white supremacists.
What we shouldn't do is call everyone who votes for reform or act a white supremacist.
Do you see the difference?
(and btw, you've been reading my work here for long enough to know that I don't want to call in white supremacists, so wtaf?)
I do indeed see the difference, and who is this 'we' who is calling "everyone who votes for reform or act a white supremacist"?
If you mean some TPM MPs, then fair enough, but that 'we' isn't me – I don’t like many NAct policies – doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with NAct voters.
I mean the liberal left. If you are one of the liberal left who doesn't do that, good. But many do.
The idea that there are "many" liberal (progressive?) lefties who "call everyone who votes for reform or act a white supremacist" seems fanciful to me, but I’ll take your word for it – what percentage would you put it at?
Admittedly, I do find it more of a challenge to converse amicably with ACT voters than National voters – that’s when I can tell the difference
if you want to go down a pendantic rabbit hole, consider many to be more enough to make a difference.
I get that people don't want to use social media, but that doesn't excuse ignorance about cancel culture. It's not like it hasn't been talking about on TS or in the MSM.
Imho, your pejoratives – pedantic rabbit hole; ignorance – are unhelpful. I was hoping you might illuminate the magnitude of this perceived liberal (progressive?) lefty failing via a percentage.
"Enough to make difference" is disappointingly vague – would it be closest to 1%, 20%, 50% or 100% of liberal (progressive?) lefties who "call everyone who votes for reform or act a white supremacist"?
I do hope it's not closest to 100%.
I think your whole argument here is nonsense.
It's entirely reasonable to ask me for evidence to back up my argument. Asking me to provide a % of liberal lefties who use ostracisation tactics is a set up, made more stupid by the idea that it might approach 100%
If you want to pick holes in a dynamic you don't yet understand, have at it, but it's not going to increase understanding.
yes I'm being rude. I've engaged in good faith here, you seem uninterested in learning about a well known dynamic. That's fine too, but you started the marginalisation, and why bother arguing over something you don't know about?
Respectfully, I did say that I took your word for it, i.e. that there are "many" liberal (progressive?) lefties who "call everyone who votes for reform or act a white supremacist". You have convinced me that this ‘dynamic’ is real, even though it initially struck me as nonsense, for the reasons I indicated, i.e. I’m a progogrssive lefty, an I don’t do that, plus my very limited exposure to social media.
It's good to know that "many" doesn't approach 100%.
We may still differ on just how politically problematic this dynamic could become for the liberal (progressive?) left – time will tell.
fair enough.
I will post some examples as I find them. Most of the examples that are easy for me to find are from the sex/gender war and I don't want to post a lot of that for obvious reasons.
Think of it more as a culture in the liberal left.
Those who wanted more support to the working class from government went to the Green Party (Your Party being a failure)
UKIP Reform encouraged people to first blame the EU, then access to the UK by foreigners (migrants and refugees) so the poor would blame everyone but Reform for the decline in their circumstance.
The big lie of the right was that Brexit would mean more money for the NHS, now its that the NHS has failed and so Farage would replace the NHS
(Farage is the front the right are using to protect oligarchy/class privilege and prevent the working class being united)
The increase in support for Reform has nothing do with Labour’s position on Palestine, or foreign policy.
From the same ONS page:
"At 204,000, long-term international net migration for the year ending (YE) June 2025 was around two-thirds lower than a year earlier (649,000 in YE June 2024)."
So the media reporting, even from conservative papers like The Times, has been about "net migration at low level," ignoring the fact that immigration was still around 900,000. The issue of a million foreigners a year immigrating isn't lessened by hundreds of thousands of locals emigrating, it's exacerbated by it.
Amazing eh. It's the neoliberal and the liberal position. Cheap labour to support the economy and the property classes. Liberals love it because of melting pot theory, and they're a big chunk of the middle class who benefit enough from neoliberalism to tolerate it. God forbid the leftie who tries to talk about pace of change and the importance of homegrown culture. We just need to build more houses and everything will be alright! how is that working out? Thus liberals hand the whole popular position to the right, and now the far right.
Still haven't seen any liberal explain their position strategically.
I'm certain this is why the European centre-right parties are being hit as hard as the centre-left ones over this. The Tories under Cameron, Johnson and Sunak all made announcements about reducing immigration, no more multiculturalism etc, while quietly presiding over increased immigration because their big donors required it of them. Both Labour and Conservatives are paying the price for it now.
Here we have a similar decline in immigration since the 2023 peak and also a larger more recent outflow of locals (to Oz) in the past year.
But no Reform type party.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn0g0xnr7klt
Our number of foreign born residents) is higher than the UK (29% to their 16%).
NZ is based on immigration, so it's harder to make an anti-immigration case here. That said, expect NZ First to benefit from mass immigration as a political issue the same as One Nation is in Australia.
Disclaimer: people might object to me saying NZ is based on immigration because there was and is an indigenous people here. That's true, but it's worth considering how mass immigration from a foreign culture worked out for the tangata whenua here, before trying to present it as an unalloyed good.
As for the Green vote, this is more related in the loss of centre-left support for Labour – the impact of Moslem voting in a bi-election (anecdotal) does explain the nationwide rise.
does NOT explain
I think there’s an important word missing from the title to cover the main message of the Post:
'Smash with Left populism, get Right populism'
Populism appears to be sustainable and enduring as a political force, but not as a model/mode of governance; it lacks the deep foundations of ideology that actions comprehensive policy frameworks.
Populism is how to win elections that enable parties to govern. The machine that put Starmer in place smashed left populism via its treatment of Corbyn.
Was Corbyn's model better in terms of governance?
Ok, I won’t try to stick to Mike’s OP and second-guess his thinking. I think your description is too simplistic and it seems that you’re referring to something akin populist rhetoric per se rather than populist policies.
Frankly, I have no opinion on this nor am I really interested in forming one. I assume you refer to party governance because Corbyn never was PM, AFAIK.
Corbyn had populist policies too.
I as interested in your ideas about governance, not sure why you wouldn't want to talk about them. Corbyn still had "deep foundations of ideology that actions comprehensive policy frameworks"
More than happy to talk about forms of governance in general and/or in the NZ context; not interested in UK context and Corbyn.
Of course, any Leader of a major political party would be stupid to completely shy away from populist policies, style, and tactics, if that were even possible; they must stay relevant and win the popular vote – ‘purity’ politics is the enemy of the possible & practical.
The biggest U-turn by Labour was their running against Tory austerity, which was immediately followed by announcing the country could not afford anything and was running austerity Labour style instead. This includes the infamous retraction of the winter fuel allowance from many seniors (people are estimated to have died of fuel poverty as a result of this).
The chart of membership here Labour Party (UK) – Wikipedia is probably relevant to how well this was working. Membership went massively up with Corbyn as leader and has fallen almost entirely back under Starmer. Of course, it's not known what a Corbyn lead Labour government would have done in office, but the end result of a Starmer lead Labour government appears to be a matter of timing (the UK had finally got fully fed up with the Tories), more than any politicking they did.
I treat U-turns with suspicion – a tree bends in a storm but it doesn’t move to a new spot.
UK Labour doesn't appear at all concerned about Reform. They spent most of the last week of the election running anti Green messaging on every political forum Labour candidates appeared on. Of course, lots of the left wing of Labour moved to the Green party after they were thrown out of Labour (more since Your Party split).
Populism shouldn't be a dirty word for the left. But we have to do it based in shared values.
While Jacinda Ardern undoubtedly was popular, I think that few would describe her as a populist politician, unlike Corbyn, it seems.
I agree with you that populism is essentially colour blind by nature.