this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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So did this UK "centre-left" party turn out to be a Trojan horse or what? They've dismantled trans rights. They plan on using AI thought police to 'predict' future crimes and criminals. And now they want multibillion corporations to have free access to anyone's work without compensation.
If I hadn't looked this political party up on Wikipedia, by this point I would be assuming that they're a bunch of conservative wankers on Elon Musk's payroll.
Is anyone calling UK Labour centre-left? I would have thought theyd be sitting just inside the lower right quadrant of the political compass, they might have been centre left when Corbyn was the leader but that was a while ago and Starmer isn't that kinda guy.
Wait, so in all these years that Europeans have been making fun of dumb Americans for having a two party system, and for having no real left wing options, the UK has been basically the same?
Yes. So is France.
But at least you can vote for a proper left wing party. The social democrats will whine at you but they can't say you're secretly voting for the right since they're the one refusing a broad left coalition
Yes, that's why Europeans make fun of both the UK and its former colony.
Kind of, its a little more complicated than that, I think its probably more accurate to say they have their own issues. The UK system is pretty different from the shitshow in the US.
They also use FPTP but have no electoral college and multiple parties including 4 major parties. So while there are multiple parties, in any given electorate you really need to vote for the party you hate the least that has a chance of winning. The two parties in an electorate that have a chance of winning varies across electorates and regions. They also have the House of Lords instead of a senate with members of House mostly being appointed (for life) rather than elected.
So .. its own nonsense. Still seems less shithouse than the US system.
For life you say? Appointed? Sounds like someone already won in life and could retire at birth (owners class) then got punished by having to show up every once in a while to "make laws".
I think they like the free money, the old money boys club and the chances to tell the poora whats best for them ..
Lords in the UK get a tax free allowance of £323 for every day they actually turn up to work. But nothing actually forces them to show up.
Australia too.
Australias Labor party is sits slightly progressive and slightly left of centre, the greens sits hard left/progressive, given we have more than 8 parties, 4 of which could be considered major parties with 2 of those in the left and none of the issues associated with FPTP and that electoral college nonsense I think Australia is doing alright in the scheme of things, especially compared with the US and UK.
Always has been.
We've been making fun of the UK too, you dummie
I looked up the history of UK Parliament a while ago. Since conception there have only ever been two parties in charge: Conservative (used to be called Liberal) and Labour. Before merges and changes the main groups were called Whigs and Tories, both of which primarily became Conservative. Modern Liberals brought back the original Liberal Party, while Liberal Democrats were formed by part of Labour and part of the modern Liberals. They are pretty much identical in terms of actual change.
The only show of promise is that the Green Party have secured a massive increase in power, and there might actually be a chance of a difference in the next decade.
You've got the details a little wrong. The original two were the Whigs and the Tories, as you say. The Whigs became the Liberals who became the modern day Liberal Democrats, who still exist but haven't been in power outside of being a junior member of a coalition for a century. Tories became the Conservatives, who are still one of the major two and are regularly still called the Tories. There was a faction that broke away from the Whigs called the Liberal Unionists, who merged into the Conservatives, but they're separate from the Liberals. Labour is not a successor to either of them, though they did make some strategic agreements with the Liberals early on. In the early 1900s, Labour replaced the Liberals as one of the two major parties.
It is still consistently a two-party system. One of the historic parties got replaced and there is a stronger presence for minor parties than there is in the states (see especially the SNP in the past decade and the Tory-LibDem coalition in 2010), but still a two-party system
Thank you, I tried to condense it and may have condensed a little too hard aha
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections
The Conservatives forming from a split in the Liberal party doesn't mean they're the same thing.
Labour and Liberal Democrats are two very different parties. Or at least they used to be, until New Labour became a thing...
Our politics are bad, FPTP is bad, but we're not a 2 party system entirely. The Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, and Reform all manage to have a say in politics and how things are done. They all influence Labour and the Conservatives.
Yes this is definitely true. Although these days unfortunately it seems to be both the Conservatives, and Labour who are influenced by Reform. Even Labour have started parroting some of the same lines about immigration etc. I'm always disappointed about how little talk there is of stuff like cost of living, rent etc since these are often at the forefront of my mind whenever I vote.
Can we just shut the fuck up about this fantasy "centre-left" already? There has not been a centre in a very long time, let alone a left. Regardless far-left or far-right, only options are authoritarian and not libertarian. Go compare Switzerland to enlighten yourself.