It's ironic that the administration of the oldest president could be marked by the emergence of a fresh crop of politically savvy young politicians.

David Hogg, one of the organizers of March For Our Lives, is co-founder of a group dedicated to supporting young liberals who run for office.

Leaders We Deserve describes itself as an "EMILY’s List for young people" and that's a useful way to look at it.

The PAC was founded just over five months ago and it's off to a good start.

A Democratic group that aims to recruit and support young candidates for state legislative office announced it raised more than $3 million in the latest quarter of fundraising.   Leaders We Deserve — a group founded by activist David Hogg along with Kevin Lata, Rep. Maxwell Frost’s (D-Fla.) former campaign manager — announced Wednesday its fundraising haul between October and December. More than 100,000 donations were made, with the average contribution being $25, according to figures first shared with The Hill. The group received donations from every state.

Their original goal was to raise $1 million but they took in triple that. And they are using those funds to help younger candidates in races where they can make the biggest difference.

In an interview with The Hill, Hogg said that the goal last quarter was to raise at least $1 million. Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland high school shooting in 2018 who also co-founded March for Our Lives, said the group would be announcing its next slate of endorsed candidates “very soon” and was in the “final stages” of choosing the next picks.   “Part of what we’re doing is really narrowing in on the states where young people can have the biggest impact and not just in voting for these candidates, of course, but voting in statewide races where they may be more inspired to turn out and vote in the first place, especially in a place like Montana, for example, where we could potentially help to break the supermajority,” Hogg told The Hill. Hogg also noted the importance of keeping young voters engaged, as they’ve proven to make or break key races. “The number one reason why young people have turned out to vote so much over the past three election cycles is because of Donald Trump in terms of voting against him, but Donald Trump is not going to be there forever,” said the Leaders We Deserve co-founder.   “And from the work that young people [have] done in the movements over the past several election cycles like March for Our Lives, the environmental movement, the movement for racial justice and others, we know that young people are one of our best ways of stopping Democratic backsliding, ’cause they turn out and vote in such a high rate,” Hogg said. “But we can’t just keep voting against things. We have to vote for something, and we also need to see ourselves represented in office to know that our votes are actually mattering and having an impact and to give us what I perceive to be the greatest way to help our democracy, which is hope.” 

People who vote are taken more seriously than people who don't vote. And one thing which encourages voting is having candidates who reflect the electorate.

Briefly mentioned in the article is that Leaders We Deserve places a high priority on state legislative races. Many disturbing anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ laws get passed in red states because MAGA Republicans have supermajorities in legislatures.

If you're interested, visit their site. If you do contact them, encourage them to become active on Tumblr.

Leaders We Deserve | Invest in Young People

And because state legislative races deserve more attention, look up who represents you in your state capital. If it's MAGA Republicans, get active in the campaign of their Democratic opponents.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

Thinking of running for state legislature yourself? The age and residency requirements are mostly lower than for Congress. See what the requirements are in your state.

Eligibility Requirements to Run for the State Legislature

Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama (among others) all served in their state legislatures at one time.

Perhaps you are one of the leaders your state deserves. 🙂

After the first round of Argentina’s presidential election on Oct. 22, a rally in support of upstart far-right candidate Javier Milei shut down a major thoroughfare in downtown Buenos Aires. Attendees draped themselves with the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and waved banners depicting a roaring lion, which has become a logo of sorts for Milei—evoking both his unruly mane and his vow to impose himself over what he calls Argentina’s “political caste.”

Milei, a self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist” who has been compared to former U.S. President Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, had just punched his ticket to a Nov. 19 runoff against Argentina’s center-left economy minister, Sergio Massa. Milei’s feat upended what Argentines call la grieta, or “the chasm”—the traditional cycle of polarized political competition whereby the country’s center-left and center-right vie for control of governing institutions.

Milei’s ascent from libertarian economist to one-term congressman and now viable presidential candidate was rapid. Recent polling shows him with a narrow 4-point lead over Massa ahead of the runoff. Milei owes his success largely to social media—and the young voters who use it.

Instead of crisscrossing Argentina to meet with voters or blanketing urban centers with signage, Milei’s version of hitting the campaign trail entailed producing a steady churn of videos and social media content with a message that was confrontational and “appealed to certain negative emotions like anger, but also fear about what would happen if the next government weren’t led by him,” said Ana Slimovich, a sociologist at the University of Buenos Aires.

That strategy proved especially effective among younger voters. Voters under the age of 29 are credited with making Milei a contender for the presidency: Polls show that nearly 50 percent of that cohort support the far-right candidate. “This movement was born with you,” Milei said in a tweet addressed to young people published shortly before the Oct. 22 first-round vote.

Having come of age in an era of chronic economic turmoil, young voters say Milei offers a new approach to governing that could turn around Argentina’s fortunes. Change is desperately needed: The country’s currency, the peso, is depreciating fast against the dollar, and year-over-year inflation stands at over 100 percent. The International Monetary Fund has forecast a recession for 2023, the seventh economic contraction Argentina will have experienced since 2012. More than 1 in 4 Argentine households now live below the poverty line.

By tapping into voters’ frustrations with economic instability, Milei has ushered a set of previously fringe policy proposals into the mainstream. His signature economic platform includes abolishing Argentina’s Central Bank, ditching the beleaguered peso, and dollarizing the economy—a move most experts warn is infeasible given the country’s low reserves of hard currency. A group of more than 100 economists recently warned that Milei’s economic proposals would spell “devastation” for the country.

Outside economics, Milei has also voiced support for liberalizing gun laws and greenlighting the sale of organs. Years ago, he floated a “free market” for the sale of babies, an idea he has since distanced himself from. In line with his anarcho-capitalist beliefs, Milei has pledged to cut 10 federal ministries, privatize state industries, and dismantle the public health care system in favor of private alternatives. Foreign policy wouldn’t be spared from major changes, either: Milei has suggested he would distance Argentina from Brazil and China, the country’s two biggest trading partners, and align closely with the United States and Israel.

Feelings of exasperation are particularly potent among young Argentines, who are more likely to be informally employed and earn lower salaries than middle-aged and older populations. TikTok, Latin America’s fastest-growing social media site, has been critical to Milei’s courtship of these young people. Milei has 1.5 million followers on the platform, compared to Massa’s 254,000. Milei’s advisor, Fernando Cerimedo, is an important player in the Latin American far right’s digital strategy; his previous clients include Bolsonaro, who adopted a communications plan that prioritized digital media and built an audience of 5.5 million TikTok followers.

In most of his TikTok videos, Milei looks to the camera and answers questions about his policies from a 22-year-old staffer who addresses him by the diminutive “Javi.” Milei concludes these short addresses with a trademark shout of “Long live freedom, damn it!” On Instagram, where Milei has 3.6 million followers (a little over 3 million more than Massa), he shares memes and hosts popular monthly livestreams, raffling off his congressional salary to “give back to the people the money that was taken from them by force.” In the most recent livestream, he led his staff in a chant of “the [political] caste is afraid.”

Slimovich said that young voters see authenticity in Milei’s bombast and bluster. In her view, right-wing figures such as Milei have found fertile ground online because their simple, grievance-filled language is eminently shareable—and because these politicians spend more time broadcasting on social platforms than appearing in traditional news media, which has become widely discredited in right-wing spaces.

Milei is also benefiting from a growing ecosystem of young right-wing Argentine influencers dedicated to amplifying his message. That includes full-time influencers with large accounts such as Tomás Jurado, in his early 20s—whose “Peluca Milei” (Milei’s Wig) YouTube channel recently passed the million-subscriber mark—and digital foot soldiers like 19-year-old Adriel Segura.

When he’s not in class or studying, Segura, who lives in Buenos Aires, dedicates his time to “waging the culture war” on TikTok, where he makes videos explaining or defending Milei and the ideology he represents. In just over five months, Segura has built up an audience of 69,000 followers and amassed millions of views. “Social media is Milei’s territory … and it’s an organic movement because it’s his own followers who make him go viral and promote him,” he said. “I feel like I’m part of that.”

Segura thinks the people who watch his videos—many of whom have written to say he convinced them to support Milei—are just like him. “It’s people who don’t trust traditional politicians, or traditional media,” he said. “And those people tend to identify electorally with Milei.” In Segura’s view, Milei’s supporters understand that a win on Nov. 19 will not magically reverse Argentina’s fortunes—and might even make life in Argentina more difficult. But the country’s chronic economic issues justify trying a new approach to governing the country, Segura said. “Instead of voting for the two parties that created or perpetuated this crisis, I’m going to vote for the guy who is different.”

Experts say that feeling is widespread among young Argentines. “There’s an environment of rage and frustration over the economic and social results that the country has had for many years. That’s led to this thinking that we need something new. Even if it ends in disaster, at least it will be a new disaster,” said Valeria Brusco, a member of the Red de Politólogas, a group of women political scientists. Young Milei supporters “tell you that they prefer for everything to blow up, and let’s see what happens afterward. They’ve got nothing to lose anyway.”

Milei’s youth supporters are mostly male. That’s not surprising, given how Milei has undermined the feminist movement that helped put Argentina at the progressive vanguard of Latin America. (Among other proposals, he backs a referendum to invalidate a 2020 law that legalized abortion in the country.) What experts say does appear contradictory about Milei’s youth support base, however, is how many are economically disadvantaged, including those who work in the informal sector. That includes a significant chunk of delivery drivers who find work through a bevy of popular apps such as Rappi or PedidosYa—and don’t seem swayed by Massa’s party’s proposal to include gig workers in the formal economy and expand labor rights.

According to political analyst Carlos De Angelis, informal workers are wary of state involvement in the economy, which they associate more with pandemic-era restrictions on work than potential policies that could enhance their well-being. “There’s this concept of a benevolent state, right? Well, for them, it’s more like a malevolent state,” he said.

Back at the Oct. 22 Milei rally, Joaquin Ignacio Piaggio met two of his friends, all first-time voters. The 21-year-old philosophy student works part-time as a receptionist. He said he sometimes skips meals because he earns so little, and he must wait months to purchase everyday items like clothes. The idea of moving out of his parents’ home and renting an apartment of his own one day feels inconceivable.

Piaggio doesn’t see a future for himself in Argentina if Massa’s ruling party wins the Nov. 19 runoff. He said he is proud of young people like himself and his friends for elevating Milei as an alternative. “We are the generation that created a change.”

Are you an American adult, unhappy with what's going on, and determined to vote about it this November?

Yes? That's awesome! You absolutely should vote in every election -- and there's more you can do, on top of that.

I've decided this year to really try and ward off the apathy that's common with my age group and younger. It's part of fighting for my rights - I'm not staying quiet while people around me apathetically let racist and mysoginistic extremists take over. Here's some ideas I've had:

Try the "yes, and" approach. I'm sure we all know people who will post about things on social media, but then stay home on election day. It's really frustrating, I will agree wholeheartedly with that. What I've tried to do is approach it from the assumption of care, and provide resources for them to get further involved: "Hey, I see you're passionate about this -- that's great, and there are some things you can do to help change this! Keep talking about it and raising awareness, please let me know if I can help you in any way."

Be curious about why people aren't voting or registered to vote. I've found some of it is due to myths (they don't want to get thrown in the pool for jury duty, not realizing some places pull from license databases too). Sometimes people think it's harder than it is (in my state, it takes just a few minutes online with information you have in your wallet). Some people are disenfranchised by accessibility issues (whether this is physical, mental, situational, or systemic), but would register or vote if they had someone to encourage, guide, or even provide material support (like offering a ride or childcare). Others just don't see the point, which brings me to my next one...

Show the tangible benefits. My state passed a significant paid parental leave program, which allowed my husband and I to take ours consecutively and stay home for eight months once all was said and done. I try to find city programs people benefit from. If I come across exciting initiatives our citizens or legislators are trying to pass, I share those too. If there's anything you know someone supports, and you find a candidate who supports these things, let them know.

Show the tangible risks. I once thought that there wasn't too much to worry about - I'm in a blue state in what I thought was a fairly blue city. Turns out, my city is actually pretty freaking purple. Not only that, but the local (official) GOP establishment is actively cheering defunding our city libraries because they are "liberal brainwashing facilities". Two Republicans on my LOCAL COUNTY COUNCIL were trying to dissolve the health department partnership at the height of the pandemic when people were DYING. Every one of my friends was shocked to find this out, especially when I had screenshots and videos where these people said these things with their own words. People like this are everywhere and they can and they WILL fight to take away your rights if you don't ACTIVELY stand up and defend them. Make this loud and clear.

Engage your social circle. I am fortunate that we have mail-in voting by default that is so easy, you don't even need a stamp to mail it in. All you have to do is fill it out and return it to any drop box or secure mailbox. I'm having a pizza party, and voting is the price of admission. Show that you voted already, or bring your ballot and I've got fun pens for you to fill it out with! When we're done, they go straight in the mail, and then we party and play games.

The biggest thing I've found is that people are tired and feel hopeless. There's a lot of news to keep track of all the time, and it's easy to become complacent. It's easy to forget things if you don't know what the stakes are. Sometimes all people need is a friend to encourage and help them, and it's something you can do to amplify your voice and empower others.

If you have it within you at all, I encourage you not to just vote. Vote, and help the people around you vote too.

There is some really scary shit going on out there, I cannot state this emphatically enough. People in positions of power are trying to erase the atrocities that have happened in our past, and prevent people from learning about it -- why would they want to do that? What motives would someone have to make slavery sound more palatable, to make Nazis sound more sympathetic? There's a reason, and it isn't a good one.

I refuse to accept there is nothing we can do. People are trying to make it that way and make it feel that way, but I'm not accepting that, so I've made it my mission to meet people where they're at so they are empowered to stand with me.

Blatantly Partisan Party Review VII (Victoria 2022): Fiona Patten’s Reason Party

Prior reviews (first three as the Australian Sex Party): federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016, VIC 2018), federal 2019, federal 2022

See also my reviews of two parties that merged with Reason:

Australian Cyclists Party: VIC 2014, federal 2016

Voluntary Euthanasia Party: federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016, VIC 2018; NSW 2019

What I said before: “My general vibe is that this is the party for left-leaning urban Gen X/younger Boomers, especially those in small business.” (federal 2022)

What I think this time: Fiona Patten managed to narrowly retain a seat for Northern Metropolitan in the Legislative Council in 2018, an uncommon example of a micro-party securing re-election under the anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting system. She faces an uphill battle to hold onto it again this year. The irony is that Patten and Reason support GTV for mistaken and frankly baffling reasons, and the only reforms they propose reflect a personal grudge against “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery instead of achieving more democratic outcomes. It would be easier for Patten to secure re-election if voters at Victorian state elections could distribute preferences above the line (like they can in the Senate) and if her rivals couldn’t siphon 100% of their voters’ preferences away from her (which would never happen under any other system). For more, see the Reason section of Kevin Bonham’s blog entry on each party’s GTV policies.

So, what do Reason stand for besides endorsing a shitty anti-democratic method of electing the state upper house? Happily, the rest of their platform is better. They are taking to the state election the same sort of policies that they took to the federal election, focused on civil liberties, gender equality, and personal freedoms. Broadly put, they are much closer to the Greens than they are to Labor.

Perhaps the bigger question is what distinguishes Reason from the Greens. In some cases, it is a matter of emphasis. Reason have decent policies on climate change and the environment, but it is not their raison d’être. Rather, their civil libertarian ethos leads to an emphasis on topics such as drug law reform, reproductive health, and limiting the influence of religion in public life. This outlook, plus Reason’s links to the adult industry, means they are friendlier to cutting regulations for small businesses, and your enthusiasm for this might vary depending on whether you own a small business or work for one!

Reason supports the rights of the sex industry, as you might expect from the erstwhile Sex Party. It seems this support includes sex workers, despite concerns (including mine) in their early days that this was the party of industry bosses. By contrast, there have been some issues with SWERFs within the Victorian branch of the Greens—the preselection of a notable SWERF as a candidate for one seat in 2018 elicited protests from party members.

The last and perhaps most significant point of comparison between the Greens and Reason is over trans rights. This year, issues within the Greens regarding TERFs in the Victorian branch have come to a head. Despite the party’s subsequent disavowals of transphobia, I would not blame anyone for waiting to see more concrete proof that Victorian Greens are genuine advocates for the trans community. By contrast, Reason has consistently supported trans rights.

The impression that I get from Reason’s website is that they are clearly pitching at socially-liberal urban professionals, particularly Gen X and extending to older Millennials and younger Boomers. The language, presentation, and core issues all suggest this is their main demographic. Reason has no strong ideological undercurrent—Marxists will certainly be disappointed—but in broad terms there is not much objectionable for the left-wing voter.

My recommendation: Give Fiona Patten’s Reason Party a good preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

(I feel like I need a disclaimer, lest I look like I am writing this entry to promote a vote for Reason over the Greens. I am not a member of any political party, nor have I ever been, and in past elections I have preferenced the Greens above Reason. I do think, however, that this year it is worth considering your options—for voters in Northern Metropolitan, this might be an especially tough decision.)

Website: https://www.reason.org.au/

Texan here. Having a British pop star support a Texas candidate is def the wrong move. Texans don’t like outsiders or what they consider liberal elites, so Harry did Beto no favors unless Beto is counting on the harrie vote lmao.

The purpose was to energize younger voters. The voting age starts at 18. They were definitely going for that key harrie demographic.

"OK boomer" and survivorship bias

Now, what with American conservatives losing their shit and demanding the voting age be raised because *gasp* young people are voting for progressive candidates!!!!! I think it's important to talk about how this mythic idea that older people are always more conservative, rather than conservatives just happen to live longer. Boomers are a great example of this (particularly in America) as they're currently fighting against equality despite being the generation behind the civil rights movement, and who created gay liberation and feminism. So, why and how are they now so staunchly opposed to those ideas and the principles behind them? Well, look at who's survived from that generation.

A significant number of gay and bi men from the baby boomer generation were killed by the aids epidemic. Likewise a huge number of the trans and GNC people would have been killed by the lack of access to gender affirming care (for example up until the mid to late 1980s gender reassignment surgery was only avaliable privately in a handful of European countries). Most of the POC (certainly in the US) were trapped in poverty and denied the means to improve their lives (financially and or socially) and so died much younger than their white counterparts. Add into that the social pressures of society. In hetronormative world without the internet where could a young queer person find the information or opportunity to explore their sexuality? Let alone other people who felt similar way to offer guidance and or support? So, that means you can remove a lot of the queer people from the equation (certainly those who were out because of being ostracised and losing any kind of support network even if they weren't the victims of violence). Don't forget as well the ingrained prejudices of society and the risks that posed to non conformists. Lynchings remained de riguer in the south into the 60s, and of course bigots didn't just target POC and queer people, anyone openly supporting or aiding them ran the risk of being attacked.

So, put it all together and that means we're left with a group of people who are overwhelmingly white, rich and cishet. And since contempary conservativism is all about preserving the power and privilege of rich, white cishet men, its easy to see why they're so vehemently opposed to progressive policies.

..."As we sit here a good 11 months before the election, there has been widespread bed-wetting over the incumbent. Buckets of liberal tears have been shed. And it all seems, in my humble, liberal opinion, a bit ridiculous.

I will never, ever, ever again utter the words, “There’s no way Donald Trump becomes president.” Fool me once, and all that.

Trump could absolutely win the 2024 election. He has a sizable swath of the voting public so thoroughly brainwashed they’d follow him into an active volcano. And there are plenty of Republicans who claim they loathe him and talk a good game about protecting democracy but would still push the button for him in the privacy of a voting booth.

Democratic voters shouldn’t rest or feel confident for a second between now and the minute the polls close. There’s too much at stake. The threat of a second Trump term and the dictator-y nightmares it might bring are too great.

... but which candidate would you rather be right now?

That said, it’s absurd to look at the two candidates and think for a moment one doesn’t have the edge, and not just because Biden faces 91 fewer state and federal felony charges than Trump.

Consider these facts:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high Wednesday. The S&P 500 went up 8.9% in November, one of its best monthly jumps in decades.

In the most recent jobs report, unemployment dropped to 3.7% from 3.9%. In January and April, it hit a 54-year low of 3.4%.

Biden's accomplishments as president have been significant

But Biden is president, so Democrats, as they are wont to do, grouse and moan and fret and wonder if there’s a younger, more dynamic candidate out there.

While painted by the right as doddering and inept, Biden has enacted wide-ranging legislation, from a $1 trillion infrastructure bill to the Inflation Reduction Act. He appointed the first Black woman to ever sit on U.S. Supreme Court. He signed the Respect for Marriage Act protecting same-sex and interracial marriages. He united NATO over the war in Ukraine.

And last I checked, everyone is still allowed to say, “Merry Christmas.”

Now consider Biden's opponent, the guy who wants 'Muslim ban'

The man isn’t flawless by any stretch. His age shows. He has failed to tackle illegal immigration and the dire situation along the U.S.-Mexico border. And now some liberals are furious with him for his strong support of Israel in its war against Hamas.

But let’s examine the Republican fellow Biden will almost surely be running against. For starters, if you don’t like Biden’s handling of the Middle East, wait until you see what Trump would do. This is the man who created a Muslim travel ban and has said that he'd restart that immediately. He recently said that he'd send immigration officials to “pro-jihadist demonstrations” to arrest or deport “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.”

Liberals need to stop panicking about Biden and start working

I am not now nor have I ever been a passionate fan of Biden. Frankly, I’m not a fan of any politician.

But I can say objectively that if someone asked me who I’d rather be right now as a political candidate – Joe Biden or Donald Trump – it would be Biden, and it wouldn’t be even remotely close.

Perhaps my fellow liberals should stop panicking, change their bedsheets and just focus on putting in the work."

Rex Huppke, USA TODAY

John Object, Life (description)

My name is Timur, I was a Ukrainian musician, and now I am a Ukrainian soldier.

Russia has sent thousands and thousands of soldiers into Ukraine, and I joined the army on February 26th. Currently we are all being bombed, and my life is nothing like what it was two months ago. I have no idea what it is going to be like tomorrow and how much longer I have, so it felt appropriate to share an archive of my 2010-2019 works, in case I never get to do that when I'm old and it's a nice remastered package.

These are sorted chronologically except where putting certain tracks next to each other would enhance the flow (parts of the same EPs etc). Most are horribly mastered. Many are boring and self-indulgent (I'm 27 now; was younger then). However, this was my life, and this is the music I made. 

I urge everyone to do everything in their power to stop fascist Russia, send support to Ukraine, heavy weapons, fighter jets, artillery. Sever all ties to Russian people, kick them off your festivals, cancel your collabs. I want to live.

Some important information to note. We are a sovereign country, with a culture, history, language, identity and path of our own, and we have never been "brothers" to Russians. We also do not have a right-wing government or anything resembling a right-wing faction in power – our current government is actually quite liberal and we have made great progress in human rights over the past years. The combined support for the far-right parties adds up to about 2% of the vote here, when, let’s say, in France it is around 30% and a far-right candidate could realistically win a presidential election – a candidate that claims Russia is a great nation. I am saying this, because I know Russian propaganda is calling us Nazis. 

The war began in 2014 and has been a process of Ukrainian forces defending the territorial integrity of Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists, with weapons and people provided by Russia in "secret" – it was always quite obvious, but they have denied having stepped into Ukraine until this week. The so-called "people's republics" (DNR and LNR) are puppet states, established in name only when Russia saw a chance to destabilize the situation after the country-wide revolution of 2014, and could never exist without Russian weapons, money, soldiers, political support. Ukraine has not been at war with these "republics" (which are Ukrainian territories), it has been at war with Russians, who came to aid a small gang of separatists that attempted to split off two regions of Ukraine. This I am saying because I know it's not fully clear to everyone else outside of Ukraine (e.g. American twitter tankies thinking Russia is building fucking communism – it isn't). 

I know this, because I am a Ukrainian. I've lived my whole life in Kyiv, been to Donetsk and Luhansk, and I have friends who escaped the war there only for it to follow them here. 

Anyway. I hope we will all get to celebrate the end of Russia in a peaceful world, and party again. Until then, I'll try to stay safe and do my job here in the army, though every day I believe less and less that I will get out alive. With or without me, we will win. 

To the every person in the world: whatever you would do to stop Hitler in 1943, you are doing it now.

I hear explosions outside. 

Death to Putin. No gods, no masters. To everyone I ever told I loved them: I meant it, and I still love you. There is nothing I want more than to wake up next to my partner tomorrow, and it hurts me to realise every day this won’t happen anytime soon.

P.S. The quality isn't great on these tracks, these aren't .wav files. I only had access to 320 kbps .mp3 versions, and I had to convert them to .wav to put them up here. I had about an hour to do all of this on my last evening home; I had no time to get my hard disk and find the originals, I'm sorry. Let’s hope I come back and find the true originals someday.

The politics of protest and beyond

Will you be joining the national protest at the Conservative Party conference in October? Along with Trade Unions and their demands for better wages and work place conditions, there are going to be people protesting for a number of reasons. These include those calling for action on the cost-of-living crisis, affordable housing, disability rights, improvements in education, anti-racism and the environment.

It is estimated that thousands of people are going to converge on Manchester on the 1st October, as people are feeling a growing frustration at their day-day circumstances which includes working people having to use foodbanks. But is protesting enough and should these protests mirror a more deeper political response, in-between and at election times?

As many North West councils are controlled by the Labour Party, there is a growing number of voters who are turning to new and smaller parties to voice their dissatisfaction at the Government and at Labour too. In Manchester, The Green Party has seen a growth in elected representatives -alongside the Liberal Democrats- whilst outside of Manchester, the Liverpool Community Independents and The Green Party are also making a mark on Liverpool Council.

Moving further left, whilst groups like the traditional Communist Party of Britain has seen an increased presence of younger members on recent protests and in strike actions, other political parties like Socialist Appeal have also had a lively presence during and after demonstrations called by Trade Unions. The Communist Party has stood candidates at elections but without success.

In the past, protests such as these would have been dominated by groups like the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party, whilst Jeremy Corbyn supporters would have once rallied around the Momentum banner. But it's now unclear if organisations like the SWP, SP and Momentum are still functioning or just operate in name only via social media, having fragmented in recent years after the loss of Jeremy Corbyn.

(Bloomberg) Republican lawmakers are making it harder for students to cast ballots where they attend school, after the GOP suffered stinging recent electoral losses largely due to a historic surge in turnout from younger voters backing Democrats. 

A new law in Idaho specifically bars the use of student identification cards to vote, while a change in Ohio law means students will no longer be able to use tuition or college housing receipts as a form of voter ID, long a popular option for students without state driver’s licenses.

Similar legislation has been introduced in at least 11 other states this year, including the presidential battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Nevada, according to Voting Rights Lab. Other bills have also targeted student voters, such as one in Texas that would bar college campuses from serving as polling places.

Younger voter turnout surged in Wisconsin’s recent Supreme Court election — one that hinged on abortion rights — helping Democrats recapture the court majority. Former Republican Governor Scott Walker tweeted that “younger voters are the issue,” blaming “years of radical indoctrination” in schools and social media and calling for conservatives to come together to work harder to “counter liberal indoctrination to save America.”

Read more: Biden’s Bet on Young Voters Powered Democrats to Senate Control

Liz Azore, who has been tracking the bills for Voting Rights Lab, said that Republican lawmakers seem more interested in legislating on student voting than usual.

“There is a lot more energy on this issue than we’ve seen in the past,” she said.

The proposals from state Republicans come as young voters have become a key voting bloc for Democrats, who believe progressive stands on issues like climate change and student debt will keep those voters in their camp for years to come.  

In Idaho, the number of 18- and 19-year-olds registered to vote jumped 81% from 2018 to 2022, the largest percentage increase in any state, according to CIRCLE.

And many of those new voters are choosing Democrats. 

In November, voters between ages 18 and 29 backed Democratic House candidates by 28 percentage points, the second-largest margin in three decades and the strongest showing for Democrats among any age group, according to CIRCLE. Turnout among that age group is also at 30-year highs, hitting 27% in the 2022 election.

Young Voters Increasingly Back Democrats

Voters aged 18 to 29 have backed Democratic candidates by wider margins in House races since the 2018 midterms, a measure of partisan support.

Source: Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

Danielle Deiseroth, interim executive director of the progressive think tank Data for Progress, said that polls show younger voters are focused on issues they believe affect them directly, like gun control and abortion rights. 

“Young people are not voting because of ‘vibes,’” she said. “They are voting because they are paying attention to the issues.”

Polls show broad public support for voter ID laws, but lawmakers have long sparred over whether student IDs, which are not government-issued, should count. In addition to Idaho’s ban, five states bar their use for voting. And no student IDs currently meet the requirements to be used in Arizona. Iowa and Utah only allow them when paired with other documentation.

Idaho state Representative Tina Lambert, who introduced the new ban, said it was necessary to stop students from neighboring states from voting twice, although she did not cite any evidence of that happening.

“Some are going to say that this bill will prevent young people from voting,” she said in a speech on the state House floor. “That is certainly not the goal. The goal is simply to ensure that only qualified people are voting in Idaho elections.”

March for Our Lives Idaho, a student-led advocacy group in support of gun control, sued over the law in federal court, calling it a “surgical attack on Idaho’s young voters” in response to growing turnout. Co-director Amaia Clayton, a high school senior, said that the law is “hypocritical” because the state allows gun permits to be used as voter ID.

The Ohio law barred student IDs as well as a more common form of voter ID used by college students: tuition receipts, bank statements and utility bills which have a student’s campus address on them. 

Rob Nichols, a spokesman for the Ohio secretary of state, said that college students are now able to get a free state identification card from the Department of Motor Vehicles to vote in person, or they can vote by mail, which does not require photo ID.

Mia Lewis, associate director of the voting rights organization Common Cause Ohio, questioned why the change was needed.

“Our secretary of state has said for years that Ohio runs model elections, setting a standard for the entire country, and yet suddenly there’s a desire to change them,” she said. “It’s perfectly legitimate to ask what’s driving these sudden changes.”

David Hogg is one of my heroes. He is a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida who went on with several classmates to organize the March For Our Lives.

He is now encouraging young people not just to vote but to run for federal and state office. He co-founded an organization called Leaders We Deserve to help younger progressive candidates.

This is not an attempt at generational or institutional war. As David explained, Leaders We Deserve (LWD) wants to create an intergenerational coalition for change within the progressive community. LWD furthers this by supporting younger progressive candidates who wish to run against older rightwingers. The advisory board of LWD includes veteran progressives such as Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08).

One of many reasons to support LWD is that much of the emphasis will be on state legislatures. The LWD site says, "At least 80% of the candidates we support will be running for State Legislative seats.". I have frequently encouraged people to take a lot more interest in their state legislatures. Until recently, liberals have badly neglected state politics – and we've seen the results of such neglect in states like Florida.

For more information about Leaders We Deserve, check out their site. Leaders We Deserve | Invest in Young People

To make a contribution, you do so via ActBlue. Leaders We Deserve — Donate via ActBlue

Surprisingly, one of the biggest success stories ever for electing young people to office is Joe Biden. He had not yet reached his 30th birthday when he upset incumbent Republican J. Caleb Boggs for US Senate in Delaware. Get involved now and you could go way far.

BONUS TRACK: Consider running for state legislature in your state this decade. In some states the minimum age is 18 – though 21 and 25 are more common. Look up the eligibility requirements for your state.

Eligibility Requirements to Run for the State Legislature

On a leisurely recent afternoon on the cobbled market street in Castle Cary, a small town in the British countryside of South Somerset, there were no no customers at the local cafe and a solitary old man walking toward the town pub. But beneath the quiet surface and slow pace in the quaint town there were rumblings of a political rebellion.

In the by elections last month in Somerton and Frome, the parliamentary constituency that Castle Cary is a part of, people voted tactically against the conservative candidate and chose Sarah Dyke, a liberal democrat who overturned the Conservative majority of nearly 20,000 votes. The defeat of the conservative candidate here, and in other constituencies and local councils once considered the party’s heartland over the last year, tells the story of a larger mood in the country heavily tilted against the incumbent prime minister.

The blue wall of Tory dominance is crumbling and pundits have pronounced the party is in “deep electoral trouble.’’ At the helm of the affairs is 43-year-old technocrat Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Even though on the doorstep he seems to be trusted as the man of finance, it looks increasingly difficult for him to rescue the party at the ballot.

John Curtice, a British political scientist who is currently the Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, analysed the results of the three recent by elections in Somerton and Frome, Selby and Ainsty and Uxbridge for the BBC and wrote it was Rishi Sunak who had “the biggest headache’’ ahead of the general elections.

“The coalition of Leave supporters that delivered Boris Johnson his majority in 2019 has collapsed—nearly half are no longer supporting the party, while Brexit itself has lost its allure for some voters,’’ Curtice wrote. “The Tory leader needs to find a new tune for his party. But with living standards falling, the economy faltering, and public services struggling, enticing voters back into the Tory fold still looks far from easy.’’

Sunak secured the keys to 10 Downing Street last year in the middle of a crisis in the Tory party and on the back of his reputation as a safe pair of hands as chancellor of the Exchequer amid the chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic. A former Goldman Sachs employee and hedge fund manager, he was applauded for his prescient warning against Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts. He took office as the first brown prime minister of the United Kingdom and marched into public meetings with the exuberance and optimism of a head boy that he once was.

Tie slipped in between the shirt, sleeves rolled up, Sunak reiterated his five pledges in every press briefing and media appearance. He said he would halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut National Health Service waiting lists and stop the boats ferrying irregular migrants. He said that the British people should hold him accountable if he fails to deliver and that he would have succeeded only when people feel a discernible change, an improvement in their living standards. If results of by elections and the sentiment in Castle Cary is anything to go by, the prime minister has a long distance to cover.

Margaret Bond stood at the cash register at the local coffee shop called The Place and said this time of the year her cafe started to receive more people but over the last two years the cost of living crisis has kept them away. “When we came back after the lockdown, after COVID, we were very busy, but we found that since the energy prices and everything went up, we’ve noticed a slump in our customers,’’ Bond told me late last month. “I think a lot of the shops are finding it hard.’’

A few steps away Victoria sat on a chair in the picturesque market place as her younger colleague Abby Stevens rolled up unsold Moroccan carpets. “Everything is terrible,’’ Stevens said, complaining about high food, gas and electricity prices. “People are lining up outside food banks. We have lost faith in the government.’’ Food prices rose to the highest levels in nearly five decades in March and April, by more than 19 percent. According to a YouGov poll one of five people in the U.K. either skipped a meal or ate less in recent months.

Victoria, however, lived in neighbouring Sherborne and said she was disappointed with Brexit and plans to deport asylum seekers to third nations like Rwanda. “I have always tried to support them [the conservative party] and see where it goes, but I don’t like how this is making us seem, bigoted and cruel,’’ she said. Victoria promptly added that many residents of the town backed Sunak’s illegal migration law or plan to stop the boats and asked me to speak to pensioners.

I approached two senior citizens sitting on a bench outside a pub called The White Hart and requested to speak to them but without even asking who I was and what I was writing about they snapped “NO.’’ At another pub a short distance away as I moved towards a group of three more with a notebook in my hand one of them shouted “NO.’’

It was hard to predict the reasons behind their outright refusal and whether their attitude to a journalist of colour was indicative of larger attitudes to immigrants. But for every person who declined to comment there were those like Dean Murphy who wanted to share how the conservatives had failed the nation. He sat on a bar stool with a mug of lager. A carpenter by profession Murphy said he was most disappointed by Boris Johnson’s “partygate” scandal. “He was partying himself, wasn’t he?’’ Murphy said. “I had someone in the hospital at the time.’’ Murphy, however, had kind words for Sunak. “He’s very sensible, good with finances. He’s trying to help the country.’’ 

Sunak’s popularity has plummeted since becoming prime minister. But if he delivers on his promises he might still give the Tories a fighting chance. In January when Sunak said he intended to halve inflation the latest readings were from November and inflation was at 10.7 percent. Last month it fell to 6.8 percent. That should be good news for him and his party but instead experts have pointed out he made a pledge that falls in the domain of the Bank of England which has raised interest rates more than a dozen times to reduce spending and contain rise in prices. Moreover, some believe that setting the goal to halve inflation may have inadvertently created conditions to prevent a steeper fall.

For his part Sunak tried to get leading supermarkets to impose voluntary caps on basic food commodities to rein in what has come to be known as Greedflation or profit inflation by companies to “rebuild margins’’ eventually for the interests of shareholders and CEOs, but so far nothing has come of it. Furthermore, economists are worried that core inflation—the change in prices of goods and services, except for those from the food and energy sectors—has persisted at 6.9 percent.

“To be completely clear, in the U.K. the Bank of England is in charge of setting the interest rates, and they operate separately and independently of the government,’’ Heidi Karjalainen from the Institute of Fiscal Studies told Foreign Policy. The Bank hopes that by raising interest rates, they will dampen demand for goods and services in the economy, “and thus ease price increase pressures.’’

But increasing interest rates have resulted in high mortgages and are expected to slow down the economy over the long term, negatively impacting Sunak’s second priority. “The U.K. is still experiencing moderate positive growth so we are not seeing that happening yet, but the effects of monetary policy can take a long time to feed through fully.’’

The pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine impacted most economies in the world but while fluctuations in food and energy prices can be attributed to such global factors, inflation in the U.K. has been more persistent due to other longer-term policy decisions economists believe.

Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London, said the U.K.’s short-term economic difficulties are not primarily Sunak’s responsibility: “He is closely associated with two of the major drivers of the U.K.’s long-term structural economic weakness: Brexit and austerity.’’ Sunak supported fiscal austerity in David Cameron’s time as prime minister, which cut productivity and hurt social services, and was a staunch backer of Brexit which reduced trade with the EU and caused major labor shortages further impacting businesses.

His third priority, reducing debt, is connected to how well he does with the second. Debt has risen above 100 percent of the GDP for the first time in six decades and cannot be reduced substantially if the economy does not grow at a faster pace and provides the state with sufficient revenue. The deadline for this target is unclear.

Sunak has announced a long-term plan to reform the National Health Service and cut down the waiting lists but training thousands of medical staff will take years. The number of patients waiting for treatment in England rose from 7.47 million in May to 7.57 million in June, even as the prime minister claimed progress.

“We have virtually eliminated 18-month waits and are taking action to bring down waits of over a year,’’ he said. In another interview he added that under his plan the NHS will undergo the “largest expansion in training and workforce” in its history, and reduce “reliance on foreign-trained health-care professionals.” But he admitted it could take “five, 10, 15 years,’’ a wait perhaps too long for millions in queue for essential health check ups.

Sunak and his home secretary have spent the most time in advertising his fifth priority, stopping the boats and deporting irregular asylum seekers. This is a part of the culture war that they hope will bring the Tories back to power. They have pushed through the illegal immigration bill in both houses which calls for deportation of irregular immigrants to Rwanda or another third safe country and until then keeping them in cheaper accommodations than hotels, such as military bases and barges.

Sunak believes this policy is working, too, and has said that in the five months since he launched the scheme crossings are down by 20 percent. It is true that figures for this year are below what they were the same time last year but the number of crossings in June was the highest for any June on record and the fact that people are still crossing the channel on boats defeats the governments narrative of how this law is meant to act as a deterrent. Six people died and dozens were rescued as a migrant boat crossing the English Channel capsized earlier this month.

Experts say “Stop the Boats,” again, is simply a catchy phrase to appease British people who are suspicious of irregular migrants and not a coherent policy to deal with the problem of millions being forced to flee their war-torn, poverty ridden nations. There are other reasons it is not working. For instance, the decision to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has been challenged in the court and the first barge where 500 adult male asylum seekers were to be kept has been found unsafe to host people.

As inflation goes down and the economic outlook for Britain improves, even if marginally, it is possible that some people might feel better off, said Jill Rutter, a senior research fellow at U.K. in a Changing Europe and senior fellow at the Institute for Government. “Even if people do feel a bit better off, or at least that things have stopped getting worse, there is a risk for Sunak that the loss of confidence in Conservatives’ ability to manage the economy persists, as it did the last time the Conservatives went down to a big electoral defeat in 1997,’’ she wrote to Foreign Policy in an email.

Sunak still has yet to fulfill his original reputation as an effective manager of the economy and doing so may be his only chance of gaining reelection. But there is no guarantee that will prove true or, after years of his party’s economic mismanagement, that it is even possible.

Are the Greens taking part in video games on Indigenous Voice to Parliament?

What is the Greens’ place on backing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament within the referendum? It appears to differ so much. Lidia Thorpe and Adam Bandt (Picture: AAP/Lukas Coch) What precisely is the Greens’ place on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament? We all know their formal place is an Uluru-statement-is-wrong argument {that a} Voice ought to come final after “reality” and “treaty”. However what in regards to the authorities’s intention to carry a referendum on an Indigenous Voice? It appears to rely upon whom you ask and what day of the week. Greens’ First Nations spokesperson Senator Lidia Thorpe mentioned in September the referendum is a waste of cash and a “wasted train”. She gained’t decide to supporting the case for an Indigenous Voice. Yesterday, Thorpe and Greens Chief Adam Bandt demanded $161 million be dedicated within the funds on reality and treaty mechanisms. Truthful sufficient �� that’s Greens coverage. However then the kicker: Thorpe says she is not going to help an Indigenous Voice except there’s “concrete progress on all three points of the Uluru assertion”. So is the Greens’ formal place that they gained’t help the Voice referendum except their funds calls for are met? Thorpe, in spite of everything, is the occasion’s spokesperson answerable for the difficulty. However wait a second — on Wednesday, Thorpe’s colleague Sarah Hanson-Younger mentioned that she can be supporting a Voice and her colleagues would too. Get Crikey FREE to your inbox each weekday morning with the Crikey Worm. That was after the transient disturbance created by The Australian reporting that Thorpe had met with failed Liberal candidate Warren Mundine about his plan for a marketing campaign in opposition to the Voice. It turned out Mundine was assembly with plenty of crossbenchers about different points; Thorpe denied she can be backing a No marketing campaign and has complained to the press council about The Australian (good luck). The Greens seem caught in a wedge between the far-left components of their base — a few of whom will gravitate towards a horseshoe union with the far proper to oppose a Voice whatever the confirmed want for Indigenous co-design and co-implementation of insurance policies — and the extra mainstream sections of the occasion, together with voters who swelled the Greens’ illustration in Parliament on Might 21, who help a Voice and regard the obsession with reversing the Uluru assertion as pointless contrarianism. The general public taking part in out of this rigidity, with a hapless Adam Bandt apparently unable to show any authority on the difficulty, seems more and more just like the Greens are specializing in inner politics somewhat than placing their vitality right into a bona fide try to implement the Uluru assertion. Both the Greens again an Indigenous Voice to Parliament within the coming referendum or they don’t. The fixed parade of various positions, caveats, assaults and assurances whereas the best musters its forces to launch a wrecking marketing campaign is an costly self-indulgence. Originally published at Irvine News HQ

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XXII (Victoria 2022): Independent candidates in the Legislative Assembly

There are independent candidates standing all around the state in both the lower house (the Legislative Assembly, where government is formed) and the upper house (the Legislative Council, the house of review). This entry discusses the Legislative Assembly; my next one will turn to the Legislative Council.

Sitting independents

First up, there are three seats with sitting independents. Russell Northe, an ex-Nat in Morwell, is retiring and it is now a notional Labor seat. Ali Cupper (Mildura) and Suzanna Sheed (Shepparton) hold seats that the Nationals are desperate to get back.

Sheed won Shepparton in 2014 and successfully defended it in 2018; Cupper won Mildura in 2018. Labor is not competitive for these seats, and I recommend preferencing Cupper and Sheed ahead of either Liberal or National. Both parties are running in both seats, and will be relying on their voters being disciplined and sending preferences to each other ahead of the indies—which is no sure thing. Cupper and Sheed should fancy their chances.

Party-endorsed independent candidates

Some independent candidates for the Legislative Assembly are endorsed by parties not registered with the VEC. I have reviewed those affiliated with Socialist Alliance, the Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (IAPA), Fusion, and Australia One. The IAPA is standing one candidate in the lower house (for the electorate of Melbourne) and two in the upper house. All candidates for the other aforementioned parties are running in lower house electorates and they have not endorsed any upper house candidates. See the linked reviews for the specific candidates and electorates.

Are there any “teals”?

Yes. There are going to be some interesting lower house races featuring so-called “teal independents”. I’m not doing a separate review of teals for this election, but you can read my thoughts from May’s federal contest here. In general, the teals are centre to centre-right, comprising a lost generation of younger moderate middle-to-upper class women who would likely be Liberal Party candidates if the Libs were not swimming further and further into the misogynistic deep end.

I recommend that in all instances you should preference a teal ahead of a Liberal or National candidate. If you have a competitive local teal, see the recommendations section of my federal election entry for tactical considerations if you are tossing between whether to vote teal, Labor, or Green. Of those with Climate 200 funding—the body most strongly associated with financially supporting teal candidates—Sophie Torney in Kew looks most competitive, followed by Kate Lardner in Mornington.

There are also some rural candidates who are at times talked about in the same breath as teals. Jacqui Hawkins in Benambra, for instance, accepted polling—but not funding—from Climate 200. This is her second go after a strong showing in 2018 and she insists she is a “yellow independent”, not a teal. The teal campaigns do have an urban vibe, so it is in the interests of rural candidates to not appear too close to Climate 200 and Simon Holmes à Court.

Other independents

You might also have other independents running in your local electorate, and because you have to number every box on the small ballot for the Legislative Assembly, you really should look them up. Sometimes, they’re amusingly loopy. Sometimes, they’re the benign sort of candidate you use in your preferences to separate the parties you like and dislike. Sometimes they’re so unhinged that you put them below the crackpot party you thought you were going to put last. And sometimes—not as often as would be ideal, but sometimes—you will be pleasantly surprised by how appealing they are. Use the VEC’s website to see if there are any indies in your area.

If you have a good local indie but you don’t think they’re likely to be competitive, it’s still not a waste of time putting them first ahead of your preferred bigger parties. If they receive 4% of the primary vote, they receive public funding from the VEC to cover some of their campaign costs.

England and the Conservative leadership

The Tory leadership election will choose the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, but the real competition is to be a popular Conservative in England. This government was elected in England, by English voters, and has taken a particular English view of the union. In 2019, to gain an 80-seat majority across the UK, Boris Johnson needed an English majority of 156. Out of 365 MPs,  only 20 were from Wales or Scotland. It was the culmination of a dramatic twenty-year political realignment of England’s national identity groups. Though the ‘more English than British[1]’ were always more Conservative, Labour still won amongst all three identity groups in 2001. By 2019, the Conservatives won 68% of the ‘more English’ and 50% (to Labour’s 30%) amongst the ‘equally English and British’. Corbyn’s Labour took more votes than the Tories amongst the ‘more British’. It is English identifying voters who hold the future of the Conservatives in their hands.

A largely unspoken but important question in the Tory leadership race is how each candidate will appeal to English MPs, then to English Conservative members and, ultimately, to an overwhelmingly English electorate. Despite the Conservative success amongst English identifying voters, those relationships are not straightforward. Tory MPs, Tory members and English Tory voters do not necessarily share all the same views and values, and the tensions between them will influence the outcome of the next election and shape the future of the United Kingdom.

The electoral polarisation of the past fifteen years reflected the alignment of the three powerful forces of nation, social values, and political voice. Often below the radar, ideas of the nation have been as central to England’s politics as they have been - in very different ways - to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. National identities matter because they reflect and act as carriers of shared values and the experiences and the world views of people of different backgrounds and values. These can include fundamentally different understandings of the nation itself. It is not hard to see how people who felt they have been on the losing side of economic, social, and geographical change held to the ‘English’ they have always been, while younger, more highly educated, more diverse voters have constructed a cosmopolitan Britishness that suits their needs.

Notions of national sovereignty were contested during and after the referendum, with predominantly English identifying Leave voters placing sovereignty next only to immigration as the main reason for their choice. Their support for UKIP in council and EU elections had led to the promise of a referendum, and their support for the Brexit Party ultimately made Johnson the Prime Minister who would win the ‘Get Brexit Done’ election. That Brexit satisfied a very English view of sovereignty was reflected by the many Leavers who said they would rather Northern Ireland and Scotland left the UK than forgo Brexit.

Social values became more important than the traditional left-right economic divide. Immigration proved a bridging issue between English social conservatism, ideas of the nation and a belief that national government should decide who comes here. Paradoxically, while all national identity groups became more liberal over this time the divergence between them widened. From sometime before 2015 the ‘more British’ moved away from both the English identity groups in their liberal attitudes, levels of higher education, age, and diversity.

The third force was those who felt they were not well represented within the political system, including working class former Labour voters living in areas of economic decline who could not find an expression for their patriotic, socially conservative, and economically left of centre politics. England’s powerful elites in academia, the media, culture, the voluntary sector, and the civil service are all much more likely to identify as more British than English than the population as a whole and to hold the values that go with that.

Conservatism’s success was to appeal to all three drivers of change, albeit only by transforming a pro-EU party into one of de facto Euroscepticism. It was helped by a Labour Party that struggled with all three and which ultimately settled for reflecting its narrow ‘more British’ base of support. Yet Conservatism also contained unresolved tensions around England, the union, and economic and social values.

Boris Johnson mobilised a very English sense of Britishness around Brexit, but in other ways he was out of step with his English voters. Always a British nationalist and never an English nationalist, Johnson always advocated for Britain or the UK above their component nations. Most of his English voters, on the other hand, prioritise English interests over those of UK, thought devolution unfair to England, and wanted England’s laws made by England’s MPs.

Johnson’s British nationalism was of course distinctly Anglo-centric, the latest in a long line of politicians to see the Union as an extension and expression of England institutions and interests. But unlike those who showed some respect for other national sensibilities, Johnson showed nothing but contempt. He tried to roll back elements of the devolution settlement, side-lined the governments of Wales and Scotland, and agreed the Northern Ireland Protocol as the price for a very English dream of hard Brexit. The admittedly limited and bureaucratic English Votes for English Laws introduced by David Cameron was abolished.

Prior to 2019 at least, most Tory MPs were advocates of the same hyper-unionism. The new Red Wall MPs have developed a distinct English regionalism – with the implication of a fairer deal for England – but face resistance from their colleagues.

On England issues, the Conservative members who will choose the next Prime Minister are much like the English electorate. In a 2017 survey by Conservative Home, 75% of English activists thought devolution had harmed England. Nearly a third thought Scottish independence would ‘end to unreasonable demands’ on England to provide ever greater financial and political concessions, slightly more than those who thought independence would do ‘serious harm to the UK’.  It was the English identifying activists who were most sceptical about the Union.

Despite noisy advocates of culture wars, Tory MPs and party members are more socially liberal than their voters and their new 2019 former Labour and mainly English voters were markedly less liberal. But on economic issues, Tory members and MPs are well to the right of their own voters, and particularly their new 2019 voters.

With the ‘more British’ voters looking beyond reach, future Conservative support will depend on keeping ideas of the nation and social values at the centre of political debate and offering that sense of power and voice that both Brexit and ‘levelling up’ once promised. But that may be harder than in the past.

Issues that mobilise national identity with the force of Brexit will be hard to find. There is some scope in the spectre of Labour reliance on SNP support. English voters may like the government to ‘standing up to EU’ over the Northern Ireland Protocol, but most are ambivalent about whether Northern Ireland stays in the UK at all.  Neither issue may set pulses racing in the same way.

While English voters remain more socially conservative than the more British, they have become more liberal, and this may not provide the rich seam it once was. Only a small minority now believe you must be white to be English. Concern about immigration has dropped sharply; last year’s record levels raised little complaint. (Anger at small boats is more about government failure to tackle lawlessness than immigration per se). Ministers were humiliated by a U-turn on England’s footballers ‘taking the knee’ and culture warriors are struggling to find issues on which they unite a majority rather than a hard-core minority.

As inflation rises inexorably and trade with the EU continues to stutter, there is every chance that economic issues will rise up the political agenda. The national identity groups differ much less on economic values, and all are to the left of centre. It’s significant that Labour performed better in 2017 when Brexit was not at stake and the campaign centred more on public services and the economy than in 2015 and 2019. The higher the economy in voters’ minds the more the gap between the Conservatives and their voters will matter.

This is the background to the Tory leadership competition. The ‘ideal’ candidate would appear be able to speak to English sensibilities about nation (and dialling down the excessive British nationalism wouldn’t hurt the party in Wales and Scotland). Instead of divisive culture wars they would speak more quietly to the mainstream English sense that change has happened too quickly and would hope to portray Labour as a party of middle-class city graduates. And they would maintain the pragmatic heterodox economics that marked Johnson’s early record.

The Conservative electoral system filters candidates through two electorates that are, in some important ways, out of kilter with the voters they have won over recent years and those ‘ideal’ leadership qualities. Brexit is totemic for these electorates, but while it did the trick in the past it may have lost much of its electoral power today. Both MPs and members may favour tax cutters committed to cutting public services over economic interventionists. Misunderstanding their voters, they may choose culture warriors who speak to an embittered minority, and candidates whose British nationalist unionism does not address English issues. At the time of writing levelling up had not featured prominently in most of the leadership campaigns. 

General elections are contests, and the Tory choice of leader is only one factor. Labour has gained support amongst all identity groups, but is still heavily skewed towards the more British. LibDem by-election success reached the breadth of support they enjoyed in 2010 but how much was due to the toxicity of Boris Johnson is not clear. Many issues will come and go between now and polling day, but the underlying political forces usually win out. What story will England want to hear? And who will tell it best?

John Denham

Background material

Bale and others Mind the Values Gap

Bale and others Grassroots

British Election Study

Denham What Conservative activists think about the UK

Denham and McKay England: the forgotten nation that remade the politics of the UK

Denham and McKay England’s elites

Denham Labour must solve its Englishness problem

Ford and Sobolewska Brexitland

Henderson Brexit, the Union and the Future of England

Henderson and Wyn Jones Englishness the force transforming Britain

Kenny and Sheldon Unionism and Conservative thinking

Surridge Understanding English voters: values and national identity

[1] Surveyed voters place themselves on the Moreno scale from English not British, more English than British etc, often simplified as ‘more English than British’, ‘equally English and British’ and ‘more British than English’

honestly, I hope that Trump and Ron DeSantis both run in 2024

I would love to see them sling mud, "debate”, and ultimately tear the GOP apart for as many worthless racist, TERF, and batshit crazy voters they can get 

don’t get me wrong - it will be ugly, mean and cruel, and unless Trump decides to compromise and support DeSantis as the younger and more viable candidate, there will be a huge fight

if the past is any indication, Donald Trump is clearly a vain, catty bitch who will do and say virtually anything to stay on top of the heap, and I think that he won’t accept DeSantis as the nominee if that makes him look weak

I have no doubt there are already countless insane campaign ads and draft speeches in development at conservative think-tanks and political laboratories across the country for one or the other, and for the dozens of lesser even more vile candidates that will inevitably cling to them

whoever emerges bruised and filthy from the rubble of the 2023 Republican primary will still be lucky enough to probably face Joe Biden, a worthless and incapable liberal nearing the end of a lame duck session - if he’s even alive and can lead a functional campaign at that point

I’m not gonna lie, it’s a really dark timeline ahead of us

but for everyone not pinning their hopes on electoral politics in this day and age, and after everything that’s happened since 2016, I think it would be just amazing to watch from the sidelines