Where now for Labour after May 2nd? Guardian Fletter

On 6th May the Guardian published a number of letters about the May 2nd Elections in England and Wales, focused on Labour. One theme is that Labour has moved too far to the right, perhaps interesting given this is the Guardian and not the Morning Star or Socialist Worker. There is a call for PR, which I’m a long standing supporter of, even with the well known downsides.

My own Fletter focuses on Starmer’s Narrow Church and suggests that a return to the Labour Broad Church is needed to gather an election winning left of centre vote. I will post further (& again) on the Broad Church concept. While Starmer said on 5th May (Observer) that Labour is for everyone this can be translated as saying football is for everyone provided they support Arsenal.

Labour’s current strategy seems to be to accept votes will be lost in areas where it is strong but seats will mostly still be held. The focus being on seats where Labour is less strong. It is a strategy but one that probably doesnt work with a Broad Church perspective.

If the Narrow Church remains, the subtext of my Fletter, then votes will go elsewhere to Independents and Greens. An issue is whether there is enough momentum in this in a first past the post system to get a handful of people elected.