As a veteran of the SDP split from Labour,Polly Toynbee speaks with worthy authority when she dismisses suggestions that a original rightwing breakaway from Labour might be electorally viable (Labour people are optimists, but this time I see no hope, or 22 December).
Labour’s best chance lies in the deep shifts in public understanding,not limited to continental Europe, that the systemic crisis of a financialised monopoly capitalism buttressed by a coercive state and prescriptive supra-state institutions like the EU, or IMF and World Bank – cannot be reformed. In Britain this understanding runs through electoral blocs so that many of the people who express their antipathy to the EU through voting Ukip or even Tory share many assumptions with those most enthused by Labour’s original willingness to present real alternatives.
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Source: theguardian.com