[user104658]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

There isn't any Corbyn faction left, so I completely disagree with you saying there is a husk. The left have been completely ejected and sidelined. This current labour party should be a centrist/labour rights paradise. Where is the Corbynism coming from within the party?

Within the party (as in the party membership) there is still a massive Corbyn support base... I personally know people who are committed Corbynists and are heavily active within the party (people who were at events rubbing shoulders with Corbyn himself 2 years ago). "The Party" in this sense is not the active career politicians of the party who I agree have been actively purged. But then, again, with that I would say there's a difference between the SMALL proportion of politically engaged people knowing this element has been purged, and the bulk of the general voting public knowing this. I would guess from some pretty anecdotal evidence that the bulk of voters are not aware of how quickly this has happened, and they will associate Labour with Corbynesque policies and actions for a good few years.

If voters still see Corbyn as the problem with labour, then it's interesting they would wait for him to leave before taking it out on the party, because Corbyn had his own party working against him from the minute he took over, and never once performed this badly, and his policies are still extremely popular when polled.

I agree to an extent but you could argue that they haven't "waited for him to leave" - the party never did well under Corbyn, and the fact that they're doing even worse now can surely be attributed to them losing many of his supporters whilst failing to gain back many of his skeptics. This is why a flip-flopping party is always going to be in decline... every time they flip they lose some support, and then when they flop, it doesn't all come back.

There is a simpler explanation that the country is lurching dangerously to the right, and with the soapbox and media amplifying the same dangerous non-conformist buzzwords into their mics everyday, it is the natural conclusion, when coupled with a narcissistic pm and his cabal actively looking to take advantage of the situation for themselves.

Absolutely there is a concerning slide to the right and of course Tories are going to be scrabbling to take advantage; sadly, they do it rather well and people are successfully being hoodwinked into believing that the Tories aren't just "unconcerned for the poor" - but that they have concern for anyone other than the actually-wealthy.

I think though there's a very real and very problematic shying-away when it comes to examining and acknowledging WHY this surge in sympathies for the right is happening, WHY there's been a foothold for the Tories to exploit in the first place. Why is their tune reaching so many ears? What fears are they exploiting to gain that support (and it is, always, down to fear). Identity politics, "right-think", moral absolutism and tribalism and some of the worst and most aggressive aspects of left-leaning political rhetoric play into this in HUGE ways and it's going to be unstoppable for as long as people dogmatically refuse to acknowledge it. Are there bigots attached to it? Of course, yes, but there are also huge numbers of people who think of themselves more as individualists/libertarians who are prepared to "join the battle against it" and (very very sadly) many who don't fall into that category but are worried enough by the push towards anti-intellectualism to abandon Labour, who have (in the past) been keen to support it, out of ... "wokeness". Disingenuous support for something they mistakenly believe is wildly popular. These people will never vote Tory but they're being siphoned off. To the SNP up here. To the Greens and even it seems back to the Lib Dems down south. Which will always leave the Tories with disproportionate power because of FPTP voting.

I believe the use of wokeness is little more than a method to delegitimise anyone that speaks up against the regime. The courts are woke according to Boris and Priti, folks saying don't be racist are woke according to Andrew Neil, and on and on it goes.

It's easier to call someone woke than to ponder out loud why they can't be as racist as they'd like. It also has the aspect of divide and conquor purposefully built in, and when mixed with the English love of all things toff, it works as we're seeing.

Of course it's over-simplified and weaponised but it's not the first term that has been or will be and if that makes terms off-limits we'll just be in a constant battle to find new words to sum up the same things. The problem comes when people want to scoff, be dismissive, say "Pfft u are just a woke!" as a shut-down tactic. I don't think that should stop a term being examined to see if it is in any way "a real thing", or preclude discussion of whther or not it might be a bad thing. To try to ignore that anti-intellectualism, populism, moral absolutism and group-think are huge problems on the left is ultimately not going to help anyone. Are there comparable issues on the right? Yes of course there are ... but that's not really the point. You don't ignore your own house's problems because the neighbours have similar issues.