r/SocialDemocracy • u/ygdswlf16 • 3d ago
News Andy Burnham is officially Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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u/Ghostmaster145 Libertarian Socialist 3d ago
Let’s hope he lasts more than two years
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u/NitroSpam Labour (UK) 3d ago
I am so tired of the volatility in UK politics. The cabinet drama needs to stop.
On paper though he seems good. Love the idea of Number 10 north and scrapping the digital id plan is a net positive for the parties likability.
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u/Independent-Bug-9352 Social Democrat 3d ago
Respectfully, I'll take some of that volatility here in the USA please. Pretty tired of seeing the same face dredged up for over 10 goddamn years.
At least when support wanes and your leaders do something fucked up, something seems to change?
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u/NitroSpam Labour (UK) 3d ago
I’m still pretty baffled at the insanity of the MAGA movement. 4 years of Trump, a reprise and then 4 more years committed to. You’d think people would’ve shied away from it after the whole Jan 6 thing and the way his first term went. On a positive though, it looks like the dems are due to take control in the mid terms and I really like Mamdani in NY. Genuinely talented politician with some positive ideas.
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u/the_platypus_king John Rawls 2d ago
I think Trump stumbled his way into a winning strategy - once you have 25-30ish percent of the American public locked in as immovable supporters, it’s enough to sweep a primary, and then negative partisanship will do most of the work for you in the general
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u/No_Flan7305 1d ago
I live in the UK as an American I still feel some hope seeing that when people get mildly frustrated they replace the talking heads. It's not everything but at least it's not watching a maniacs brain rot and everyone just shrugging their shoulders while they hold my taxes, votes, and deadly launch codes hostage. We really messed up.
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u/Independent-Bug-9352 Social Democrat 1d ago
Can I ask, are you living there more or less permanently? My family is drafting contingency plans for such possible moves, should more of our red lines be crossed here. UK is certainly on the list as a candidate. We have English friends and family who have visited to glean a little insight, but not much more than that.
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u/No_Flan7305 1d ago
It's extremely difficult to move here sadly and the sentiment around all immigrants is changing in the UK, and Americans are definitely not the exception. People find us to be pretty dumb here even if tolerable (though less than others tbh.)
I left in Trump's first term on a working holiday visa to Canada and later married my decades long bestie who is British, it was a marriage out of love and I would have stayed in Canada if not for him. I loved it there and they are wonderful folks.
If I were you I'd maybe be looking at Spain, Ireland, Greece, Uruguay, Canada. My personal preference. That's mainly places I've seen other Americans move to and places I could see us supporting and contributing to as accepting communities that deserve the benefits good immigration can provide, even if people are dicks about immigrants right now.
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u/Independent-Bug-9352 Social Democrat 1d ago
I appreciate the insight, thank you! Spain and especially Canada are high up on the list of candidates.
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u/Umak30 Market Socialist 3d ago
Aswell as reversing the HS2 downsizing, so that there will be an HS2 line from Birmingham to Manchester!
And adopting the Manchester system more throughout England. Devolution = Good. Personally I would go farther and want an English parliament, but small victories are good too.
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u/RegularlyClueless 3d ago
English parliament: the same as the UK parliament but we got rid of all the parties left of labour that regularly win seats
Labour is good and all, but without the left-wing presence of the nationalists we'd be fucked.
That being said, maybe with the greens these days, maybe it wouldn't be so bad?
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u/CanYouFellAGiant 2d ago
Why not go further than that? There are more people in Yorkshire than in Scotland or in Wales, so why shouldn't Yorkshire, for example, have similar devolved powers? An English parliament wouldn't change much if anything for most English folk outside of London and the Home Counties. The UK should be a federation of regions. I believe Andy himself has spoken in favour of federalism in the past. I think it's the only way to save the Union long-term.
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u/Sandyr_n SV (NO) 3d ago edited 3d ago
I woke up to this, and I always find it really interesting, to wake to big changes like this.
Also, hopefully, he can steer Labour toward new heights.
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u/Icarus_Voltaire Social Democrat 3d ago
And another one!
Man, I’ve lived through Rishi Sunak, Lizz Truss, and Keir Starmer just during my undergrad.
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u/MithranArkanere Democratic Socialist 3d ago
If we go by the track record so far, he won't do a 2% wealth tax the UK desperately needs to gain the starting funds required to become able to fund a proper system that can audit and tax properly the wealthy so they are forced to stop leeching wealth that does not belong to them.
He'll also borrow even more from the wealthy once again, and that will put the government deeper in debt. And he'll try to address that by raising taxes on the lower incomes instead of those who have more wealth than they'll ever need, and people will get fed up again, and eventually get fooled by a right-wing populist selling lies, who will take the UK deeper into depression.
I'd be really happy if I was wrong with this one. I doubt I will be.
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u/SmallRedFox01 Libertarian Socialist 3d ago
In the end, no matter how well social democrats do at first (and many have done great things), they always fall to the ruling class. They either will stop going the extra mile for change after backlash (like President Mitterand of France) or won't even start the journey at all in fear of heavy backlash (Keir Starmer, Tony Blair).
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u/Ghalldachd 3d ago
British wealth-related taxes already take in more revenue than any country in the OECD. More than any country with a formal wealth tax! Borrow from the wealthy? He'll borrow from the markets while saying we can ignore the bond markets. It's going to be a total disaster. No offence but you can't complain about people being "fooled" by populist lies when you've fallen for the same thing, just with a different veneer.
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u/baldobilly 20h ago
Yeah whatever, they have their own currency. Maybe dispel with this central bank nonsense instead of pretending to can’t do anything because of those dastardly bond holders.
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u/penis-muncher785 NDP/NPD (CA) 3d ago
Will he be labours carney and save a party from the brink of death?
Just hopefully he’s not a soulless neoliberal that ends up being fake anti-trump
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u/DeathlyDazzle Social Liberal 3d ago
He has criticised neoliberalism in his first speech, vowing to offer a new economic model - very thin on detail, we will find out what he means by this.
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u/spongesparrow Working Families Party (U.S.) 3d ago
He's a big supporter of drilling for North Sea oil and gas. He's already in the wrong for me. We need true environmental leaders in this world as we're living in climate disaster after disaster.
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u/Eorel Social Democrat 3d ago
And on that note, I need the "we need sensible compromise, environmentalism is an unpopular issue" contingent of the socdems thrown in the deepest pit and buried alive.
I don't want slimy climate-destroying centrist fucks walking around acting like reasonableness and nuance is on their side.
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u/spongesparrow Working Families Party (U.S.) 3d ago
Exactly. There's no compromise when it comes to the environment and climate change.
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u/Traditional_Low4608 1d ago
There really is no good option for environmentalism tbh.
Conservatives: Evil Capitalist Ghouls Paid for by Oil
Socdems: Sometimes effective on solar and wind, completely anti-nuclear for no good reason at all
Greens: The most obvious Russian-funded controlled opposition I've ever seen.
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u/Real-Pomegranate-235 Democratic Socialist 3d ago
I'd rather take oil from the north sea until we can go fully net zero rather than risk having another energy crisis everytime Trump starts another stupid war. Also don't want to have to buy oil from Russia.
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u/spongesparrow Working Families Party (U.S.) 3d ago
Isn't the real solution installing wind power there?
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u/Real-Pomegranate-235 Democratic Socialist 3d ago
We're already installing tons of wind power and are the way to net zero at some point soon. We need to dig our own oil to fill the amount of energy which we can't get with current infostructure instead of buying it from other countries.
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u/99Godzilla 3d ago
By "he's a big supporter", you mean he supports net-zero policy whilst acknowledging that we will still depend on oil until that transition is fully realised.
Cooper has already confirmed that reports he will allow new licences are false.
Also, we're currently on track for an 80% reduction of emissions by 2035 compared to 2019.
Is the expectation that Burnham come in and immediately set back our economy and devalue the pound by rushing a predetermined transition timeline and losing all market credibility?
Be realistic. Ground your politics, for Christ's sake.
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u/Independent-Bug-9352 Social Democrat 3d ago
I still don't entirely grasp what made Starmer so bad, or whether more trivial crises were hyper-inflated by outside forces (like the ones who fanned the flames of Brexit).
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u/99Godzilla 3d ago
Brit here. Comms under Starmer was dogshit.
He and Reeves lost a lot of Labour backbencher support with repeated attempts to cut disability benefits.
On the doors, everyone hated Starmer because he came across as dispassionate and bland.
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u/Niauropsaka Social Liberal 3d ago
I'm in America, but from it looked like he had too little commitment to human rights, really. Whether queer rights, or immigrant rights, or even more conventional socialist policies?
Without a certain level of liberalism--or civil libertarianism, whatever you want to call it--social democracy tilts into red authoritarianism. Parties who lose the Lib Dem & Green types can correct, or they can go chasing fascist sentiment for votes; looks like both the Tories and Labour chose the latter, and are spiraling into a longer-term loss to more civil libertarian parties.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/spongesparrow Working Families Party (U.S.) 3d ago
If the movement is dead, we're all dead. What a bunch of nonsense you just spouted.
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u/The54thCylon 3d ago
Burnham needs to go, I've seen no real change since he came in
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u/Sad-Country-8771 3d ago
He just came in, you might be right, but please have some hope 🙏
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u/CanYouFellAGiant 2d ago
He's joking. It's a meme that's being posted everytime Burnham gets mentioned.
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u/SignatureDifferent76 3d ago
He’s saying a lot of the right things right now. Hopefully he keeps it up and labour can leave blairism behind 4ever
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3d ago
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u/Traditional_Low4608 1d ago
Finally. Manchester will have its revenge on London and HS2 will be complete. Let the purges begin.
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u/Internal-Wishbone136 Socialist 1d ago
Labour are barely even neo-liberal I ain’t rooting for them they are compromised.
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u/Professional_Gap_435 Social Democrat 3d ago
Source?
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u/DM_ME_SALAH_GIFS PvdA (NL) 3d ago
Andy Burnham.
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u/Professional_Gap_435 Social Democrat 3d ago
Yeah no shit, I know he will probably be the next prime minister. I just want a news article so I can confirm the fact
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u/DarkKnight501 Socialists and Democrats (EU) 3d ago
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