I came across a graphic a few days ago that tries to define where Liberalism sits in the political landscape. Here it is, but you’ll have to enlarge it for reading:_
One issue which sticks out for me is the supposed positioning of Liberalism between Labour on the left and the Tories etc. on the right. Well, where to start? How about the definition of Labour as a party of the left – really? Labour is a party of the working-class so it encompasses a very wide range of political opinions indeed from right to left and that is of course why it’s in a state of almost continual internal warfare. Often referred to as a ‘broad church’, it’s like all religions together in one tent and the squabbling for which sect is the top dog is unstoppable.
So to look at Labour as a party of the left is very misleading and you only have to take their passive position over Brexit as a rather glaring example of the party in effect backing a policy of the right because their working-class right-wingers, who support Labour electorally, backed Brexit and Labour could do nothing about it. Labour has as a consequence lost some of its traditional supporters to the Tories as they thought Labour’s Brexit stance (on the fence but leaning towards Brexit) was not good enough. In fear of losing more supporters this way, Labour’s leadership has in effect hidden behind the sofa hoping no one will mention Brexit.
As a Social Liberal, my view is that the vast majority of Labour supporters are to the right of me politically but where you can place Labour on a left V right axis is problematic as that party has the potential to be left or right of centre. Conversely, until recent times, it would be possible to find Tory supporters who were all but centrists but of course, they’ve either been thrown out or have left that party. My own present political axis for England would look something like this:-
Liberals, Greens, Social Democrats ———–Centre———— Tories, UKIP
——————Labour———————-Labour————————Labour——
That Labour desperately wants its former right-wing voters back is a given, but presently many are in Johnson’s clutches. However, this very Labour problem kind of makes my point about where the Labour Party sits in the political spectrum because its white, working-class, right-wing voters can easily move to back the Tories. There may even be a few Tories left who can easily move to vote Labour too as they don’t see it as a left-wing party.
As an aside, I’ve never been particularly taken with the alternative view i.e. looking at political parties as Liberal V Illiberal as that is not how folks in the real world look at political parties in the UK.
I don’t consider myself to be ‘middle of the road’, ‘moderate’ or ‘centrist’ but of the left. As a Social Liberal and a life-long trade unionist I’ve never been tempted to join Labour as it mostly seems to be to the right of my politics.
