Josie Pagani on what UK Labour’s loss means for NZ Labour

Josie Pagani writes in the Herald:

Jeremy Corbyn promised the skies. Free tertiary fees, nationalised railways, free money, free broadband and a four-day week. Who wouldn’t vote for that?

At some point, the popular components of this manifesto lost as awareness grew that he couldn’t remotely deliver it all. Labour’s inability to prioritise and make tough calls, or voice a coherent message on anything, let alone Brexit, showed Corbyn to be weak and unable to lead.

Pagani gets a key point. Some policies individually may poll as popular (who wouldn’t want free broadband) but collectively voters are not stupid and know that promises have to be funded.

But more than anything else, it’s a culture war. Working people in working towns and cities knew exactly what side Corbyn’s Labour Party was on: Palestine was more important than Preston.

And in NZ it is applause at international conferences rather than our towns and provincial cities.

It used to be that people joined the Labour Party to make their lives better off. Now they join to make someone else’s life better off.

What a great analysis. So true.

NZ Labour’s red wall has already crumbled in the provinces. Otaki, New Plymouth, Gisborne, Taupō should all be Labour-held seats. We need to look at the corrosive effects of a culture war. Environmentalism over equality. A sugar tax over a capital gains tax. Climate change over child poverty. Keep cups over mugs.

Corbyn is a warning about building support in liberal urban centres, but losing it in poorer regions.

Labour in the past has held the provincial seats of Rotorua, New Plymouth, Gisborne, Taupo, Whanganui, Wairarapa, Tukituki, Nelson and Invercargill.