So the unions aren't happy, because they want someone to stand up for proper socialism and be more left-wing than Labour are. Which is understandable - that's their political position. But they seem to think that Ed Milliband doing this is going to drive away the voters. And my question would be _where to_? In a country with a decent voting system the unions could abandon Labour and set up their new Awesome Party Of The Left, and then those people that agreed with them could vote for them, giving them a share of power commensurate to their support. They would then be able to (given sufficient support for likeminded parties) form a coalition that would then instigate some of those principles.
Under FPTP they're out of luck. If they split from Labour then all they can do is split the vote and leave the Conservatives in charge. If they stay with Labour then they're just going to continue being ignored. Labour's Left is as out of luck as the Conservative Right - neither of them can go off and do their own thing, and neither of them can get any traction within the party. If they wanted a voice then they should have pushed for a Yes vote last May, which would at least have meant that union supporters could vote for APOTL with Labour as their nose-holding option.
As it is, I shall just feel a little smug.
And sad.
Original post on Dreamwidth - there are
