Quote Originally Posted by Robin Friday's Ghost View Post
And I understand why people will vote for Starmer's Labour because of this. My view is that, when you award Starmer's and Blair's version of Labour with electoral success, you allow them to say "See? This is the sort of socialism the British people want". So you get Corbyn ostracised by his own party and a continual shift to the right so that Labour and Conservatives are almost indistinguishable. And maybe that model of the Labour Party is indeed what the British people want. But it isn't what I want and I won't lend them my vote to bolster their claims.
I understand that and sympathise with that view - and am on the cusp of going the same way. But I am still, just, by my fingernails holding on to the view that as someone is going to hold governmental power I prefer it to be the ones who might do a bit less damage and a bit more good (however fine the margins).

I also still believe that a Labour Party that has organisational links to the labour movement can have its behaviour and policy choices modified from below - sometimes. I respect some of its MPs and many of its activists. It is not the same party I joined in the late 1970s (and again in the mid 1980s and late 2010s - 31 years all told) - ripping up Clause 4, turning conference into an annual rally, purging the membership and relying or corporate donors and lobbyists for funding and direction have gutted Labour - but the last vestiges remain (just) of the party it used to be.