VIDEO: Can the Red Wall trust Labour on Brexit and immigration?
A couple of recent videos for you to enjoy (or not, as the case may be!). First, I was glad to be invited on to Spectator TV – the magazine’s broadcast channel – to discuss the question of whether the Red Wall can trust a future Labour government on Brexit and immigration. Regular readers will know that I have been very critical of Labour’s stance on these two issues for many years. In this 20-minute discussion, I warn Labour not to betray working-class voters on these matters, and I explain what I think the implications might be if it does.
Second, I popped up as a panellist on GB News’s Dewbs & Co, alongside outgoing Conservative MP Dehenna Davison. Topics under discussion included the prospect of future tax rises (and in particular whether the main parties were being honest with voters), Labour’s proposal to make it easier for people to change ‘gender’, and whether Nigel Farage was right to say that Nato and the EU had provoked Russia over Ukraine.
A reminder that you can follow me on X/Twitter: @PaulEmbery
I agree fully with your list of what Labour should focus on, but the Labour party that advanced the condition of ordinary people died in 1979. Apart from interludes with more radical left elements which repel ordinary voters, it is now the party of performative progressivism, an entirely upper middle class, wealthy project the despises and in truth hates ordinary people. It will do nothing of what you suggest, but will pursue progressivism, constrained only by the fact that what has been done already has totally bankrupted the country. Personally, my prediction is that in five years time there will be millions more disenfranchised and disillusioned voters to join those who thought in 2019 that the Tories finally got the need for fundamental change. I see us as not ahead of the convulsions sweeping Europe and America, nor as having swerved them, but five years behind. I think things are only going to get a lot worse.
Paul, I very much agree with what you say about the need for a revival of industry in Britain. I have long considered the decline of the industrial sector as a very serious issue - not just as an economic issue but also as regards national security. My impression is that it began under the Thatcher government but has continued apace since then. I strongly suspect that the expansion of the universities has contributed to it, because of a corresponding contraction of skills training. A few years ago I was chatting with a builder and his son, also a builder, who had done some work for me. I asked them about what training there was these days for skills in the building trade. It was very evident that there was much more available when the older one had trained, than when his son did, at least locally. This is in Sheffield, one of the centres of the industrial revolution.