“There are approaching three or four times as many 2024 Labour voters who are considering switching to the LibDems or Greens than those to Reform” Being seen to appease the right means Labour loses votes to the left and centre. - ThreadSky

richardcorbett.bsky.social • 14 days ago

“There are approaching three or four times as many 2024 Labour voters who are considering switching to the LibDems or Greens than those to Reform”

Being seen to appease the right means Labour loses votes to the left and centre.

Reposted from Byline Times

🔴Local Elections: ‘Keir Starmer’s Rightward Shift Is Laying the Ground for Nigel Farage’

Labour’s embrace of economic and political orthodoxy is forcing voters to look elsewhere for change, argues Keir Starmer’s former adviser Simon Fletcher

bylinetimes.com/2025/05/02/l...

Comments

archeratti.bsky.social•14 days ago

I am one of those. I will not be voting Labour and will be switching to Lib Dem or Green. I am done with Labour.

montrose.bsky.social•14 days ago

Great
Waste of anyone's vote

fbpech.bsky.social•14 days ago

Me too.

astina72.bsky.social•14 days ago

The objective for Labour now is to crush the Reform Party, now that the Tories are on a massive, potentially terminal, decline.

brexitbin.bsky.social•14 days ago

juditty.bsky.social•14 days ago

I certainly won’t be voting Labour again until they move left.

stiggylou.bsky.social•14 days ago

Same. I lent them my vote last year.

chorizo-chomper.bsky.social•14 days ago

If Starmer had principles he could stand up for them, instead he's an empty centrist void who believes nothing and will usher in a collapse of labours vote with policies like the cuts to pip and WFA allowing a victory who gets exactly what they want from reform.

chorizo-chomper.bsky.social•14 days ago

* A victory for the far right

johnhb61.bsky.social•14 days ago

I'm sure I saw a graph that showed reform take 1 more council seat than the tories lost. Labour gained 6 seats overall. Obviously reform did well because of tory incompetence in government. So Labour didn't lose out to reform.

sammaclaine.bsky.social•14 days ago

In general the Conservatives lost Councillors to Reform (roughly 670). Labour lost a few seats, not surprising as these are essentially rural areas but overall the picture is now:

staropal.bsky.social•14 days ago

I have been a lifelong Labour voter. I am now in my seventies. I despair of what Labour is now. Unless Starmer returns to true Labour values and policies, he has lost my vote. I will look to the Greens, or Lib Dems.

davebentley58.bsky.social•14 days ago

This is so f***ing obvious I don’t see how anyone with a basic grasp of politics or human behaviour doesn’t see it. Presumably McSweeney thinks he has polling evidence that moving right helps Labour, but he will be proved terribly wrong. Moving to the right doesn’t challenge Farage, it helps him!

thistimesurely.bsky.social•14 days ago

Unfortunately moving even slightly to the left (where they should be) would result in losing countless centrist voters to Reform. They are walking a tightrope.

jacky3344.bsky.social•14 days ago

The actual data shows that labour are likely to lose more seats to the Lib Dems if they don't change their ways on key issues (climate change, 2-child cap) than Reform.
Them's the facts. Get over it.

thistimesurely.bsky.social•14 days ago

There’s nothing for me to get over mate. I’m totally relaxed. Enjoy your day.

jockyfox.bsky.social•14 days ago

Yep 💯 %

viscountpontypandy.bsky.social•14 days ago

When it comes to clueless moronity Starmer is starting to exhibit Truss-like characteristics!

titiaetxav.bsky.social•14 days ago

💯 agree. I would have been one of them if we had had local elections…

jaloomi.bsky.social•14 days ago

I'm definitely considering joining the Green Party. It's the only party that's taking the climate crisis seriously.

fbpech.bsky.social•14 days ago

Join them! They are lovely.

grumpycook.bsky.social•14 days ago

After 40 years of voting Labour, and an election was held tomorrow I would vote Lib Dem

fbpech.bsky.social•14 days ago

I totally get that.

paulspeacock.bsky.social•14 days ago

You may be right but where did they vote last Thursday?

chiaroscurof19.bsky.social•14 days ago

Too right there are.

fbpech.bsky.social•14 days ago

This is absolutely true. I can think of so many of our friends who have done this in the last couple of years, but particularly since the election.
Very sad.

coffindodger.bsky.social•14 days ago

Starmer has sufficient majority to introduce not only PR but legislation to prohibit funding from donors including TUs.
Imagine how much Führage can receive from the likes of Musk!

marycorb.bsky.social•14 days ago

They need to stop chasing the people from the right of centre and start to deliver to the people what voted fir them last July. Change the fiscal rules. Increase tax thresholds, raise taxes and create a wealth tax.

derekturnbull.bsky.social•14 days ago

They already lost my vote

fbpech.bsky.social•14 days ago

And mine.

guyduncan.bsky.social•14 days ago

agree - cannot support Labour if they shift to the right....sick of pandering to that kind of politics....
@labourpartyuk.bsky.social

paulcole.bsky.social•14 days ago

It's INSANE. Even the local election results show that it's not the Reform voters Labour needs to win over - most of them have switched from the Tories. Centre left is where Starmer needs to aim - for the good of all of us.

timobetcke.me•14 days ago

What I do not understand. Labour has the same data available. What is the rationale then to go so strongly after Reform while ignoring the risk from Lib Dems and Greens?

alidancer.bsky.social•14 days ago

Following media noise rather than data? Playing to headlines?

timobetcke.me•14 days ago

For me there seem to be two possibilities. One, the Westminster bubble really has a strong reality distorting effect, and this is driven by Newspaper headlines. Two, they believe that Lib Dem voters will come to Labour's aid again in the next GE, no matter what.

all-a-mort.bsky.social•14 days ago

Across the country at the general election people lent them their votes (and some to the Lib Dems) to fix the rot of public services and standards by displacing the Tories, for Starmer's Labour Party to then behave as if they *are* Tories and even worse start mimicking Farage's lot. Get in the bin.

operabunny.bsky.social•14 days ago

Labour have ignored the fact that many left leaning voters only 'loaned' their votes to Labour, in the hope they would be better than the Tories. Labour cannot reasonably expect those voters to do the same again if they turn into 'Tory Party mk2'.

okekai.bsky.social•14 days ago

We see this in America all the time. The left thinks there are more votes if they move to the right and don't realize they are offering a choice of a real conservative for a new fake one. At the same time telling their base they don't need their vote. otherwise we would have Prez Harris!

twinklebutt.bsky.social•14 days ago

I am one of those. Voted Labour for decades, but their transphobia, severe weakness on EU cooperation and pandering to racists is putting me right off voting for them again. Green next time unless something dramatically changes.

fbpech.bsky.social•14 days ago

I am too. I’m a Green member. In another constituency I’d have no problem being a member of Lib Dem’s.

paulineloven.bsky.social•14 days ago

Me too, exactly that.

arj2024.bsky.social•14 days ago

The mistake Starmer is making is to allow McSweeney to drag the Overton window in the Reform direction.

This might not affect Labour votes, so McSweeney might not care, but dangerously it could nudge more Tories to switch to Reform?

McSweeney is simply helping the opposition.

sylvie-62.bsky.social•14 days ago

Apparently, McSweeney believes that you have to meet voters where they are… without asking why they are where they are, how they got there or what’s shaping their views… Soooo, with a complete lack of moral principle in Lab and a toxic information environment, we’re heading for a cliff

malcolmlh.bsky.social•14 days ago

I think there are signs that Labour voters leaving and heading towards LD and Greens and possibly Independent candidates as well. Looking at the local elections Reform's gains were at the expence of the Tories and the LD's at the expence of Labour. I know General Elections may be different.

nataliemason.bsky.social•12 days ago

As always, what they tell the papers and the public, whether it's that they need to chase Reform voters or stick to their "fiscal rules" or "listen to experts", it's just an empty excuse that they're using to justify the fact that they're actually just doing exactly what they wanted to do all along

rcamatrix.bsky.social•14 days ago

Politics and economics are way beyond Starmer’s abilities. He isn’t going to make change happen because he doesn’t understand what’s happening around him and wouldn’t know what to do if he did. If Labour don’t want to become irrelevant like the Tories they need to ditch him and soon.

ciaron.bsky.social•14 days ago

I’m one

billygiblets.bsky.social•14 days ago

Me too.

danielinniss.bsky.social•14 days ago

Yup

susan2024.bsky.social•14 days ago

Sir Ed's Lib Dems is more socialist and more European than Starmer's Labour. People who care about people are bound to switch. I would never have considered LibDem, but needed to keep the Tories out of our Borough. Now we have a stunningly good LD MP in @munirawilson.bsky.social & an LD Council

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