Who should be the next labour leader?

@DaySpider With respect, when the Lib Dem leader loses her seat, the classical liberal Centre is gonna struggle for answers.

@Burnley123 I'm not a Lib Dem but to be fair she lost her seat because it was heavily targeted by the SNP out of spite (much as Labour went after Chuka Umuna and Luciana Berger), rather than from any rejection of centrism surely. Although I know you're not yourself exactly of the centre ground so I imagine you disagree lol

@Burnley123 it definitely seems to struggle at the moment! Though that's not for want of decent ideas. (That sounds like I'm calling voters stupid lol, but I'm not)

@Lhayezee well any party leader has to expect their constituency seat to be heavily targeted. That’s not why she lost, the real reason is her undemocratic policy of stop Brexit was anything but democratic or reasonable. And the SNP were just more popular.

@LukeTheDuke I support Brexit (well a sensible one anyway), but I also strongly think that the Lib Dems' position of 'if we get a majority we will cancel Brexit' is COMPLETELY democratic. Parliament is sovereign, because we elect MPs, who make decisions on our behalf based on broader promises they've made (ie election manifestos).

If a party promises that, if elected to government, they will cancel Brexit, that is 100% democratic and how our constitution works: the LDs especially would be drawing support from across GB (ie not predominantly just in England, as Labour and the Tories are currently, but Scotland, to some extent Wales, too). Winning a majority on the back of a very specific promise they made very clear, and then doing what you promised to do, is exactly how Parliament should work. An undemocratic policy would be to promise to remain and then pass the WA anyway.

Sorry but the "stop Brexit" policy may have been unpopular but it was anything but undemocratic.

Even Vince Cable and Norman Lamb said it was undemocratic. The people felt it was undemocratic hence the political earthquake we saw. You simply cannot ignore a referendum result and never implement it - that could never be acceptable. the manifesto promise is completely irrelevant - it should never have got to the point that parliament did not implement a referendum result for 3 years. A manifesto commitment 2 or 3 years later simply doesn’t come into it.@Lhayezee

@Lhayezee I'm a leftist obvs. My contention is that the poor performances of CHUK and the Lib Dems undermine the argument that Labour would do better in the old centre of British politics. If we are gonna win back working class leave voters then we have to make them an economic offer.

The electorate will not buy a radical left wing agenda. Unfortunately, the way the media portray labour leaves the party constantly on the back foot as being dangerous, unaffordable, loony left etc. The lessons of 1983 and all previous and subsequent losses have to be learnt. The public are, to some extent, timid about their politics and respond better to supposed centrist policies (although I’d do note the shift to hard right politics in many European countries and America - however that is achievable due to a right wing media).

Blair, whatever you think of his decisions in government, understood electoral success comes from looking like a centre ground party. The public get frightened by words such as Trotskyite, commie, Leninist and all the other pejorative tags that are used against Labour if they try to present a ‘hard’ left wing platform.

Change uk and Lib Dem’s are a bad explanation of why centrist parties were not popular this time around - this election was totally overshadowed by Brexit. Believe me, I’d like to see a radical transformation of society, but the public are so badly miseducated by the media that they simply won’t elect a ‘hard left’ labour leader or party. It just won’t happen. It’s been tried and failed again and again and again.

It’s better for Labour to portray oneself as centrist and then when in power put in place good policies such as minimum wage, sure start, educational maintenance allowance etc. - the public actually like these policies without necessarily understanding they are socialist.

Ideological desire to be strong left will leave Labour out of power for more than another decade. New Labour haD electoral success sussed out (much as I deplore the decisions on Iraq, PFI, etc). Tactically, Labour must portray itself as centrist to start winning again. @Burnley123

@LukeTheDuke OK so change uk and the Lib dems are bad examples (two bad examples which both lost to Corbyn's Labour as well as the nationalist right.

I can give you a dozen more examples of collapsing centre left parties in countries which don't have brexit. Look. At the German sdp or the French socialist party which have collapsed by being centrist.

Read in to the crisis of social democratic parties in Europe. We are in a different era now and one of a collapsing centre and rising nationalist right.

Agree with that analysis. So what do you think is the solution to Labour becoming electable?@Burnley123

@LukeTheDuke It's tough. We need to have policies which improve people's material conditions more than new labour. More working class MPs are also a, must.

A lot depends on the Tories. If brexit goes badly, it's bad for the country but means labour can win. Visa versa also applies.