The Party Splits
TALKING POLITICS
Catherine Carr
4.7 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2019
⏱️ 41 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We discuss the challenge posed by the Independent Group and by Tom Watson inside Labour to conventional two party-politics in Britain.
Can the system hold together? If not, what might replace it? And where are the new ideas going to come from? Plus we talk about what the ERG
wants on the Tory side: is it simply Boris? With Helen Thompson and Mike Kenny.
Talking Points:
The Independent Group is inching toward becoming a party. What will their platform be?
- The only thing they seem to have in common is wanting a second referendum.
- They’re pitching themselves as something new, but these are all career politicians.
- They have to show that they can win votes. But where?
How did we get here? Two major drivers:
- The Second Referendum issue—especially after what happened with the Cooper and Brady Amendments.
- The Labour antisemitism issue—especially around Luciana Berger
- It’s not surprising that there are major tensions in the party system at the moment that Britain is leaving the EU, but it’s also happening at the same time as a crisis in the Labour Party.
What is Tom Watson up to?
- Watson thinks there needs to be space for the social democratic tradition within the Labour Party.
- This marks the end of accomodation with Corbyn and may be a bigger threat than the Independent Group.
- The real point of departure between Watson and Corbyn is foreign policy.
- The social democratic brand is in trouble around the world.
- But the countries where the centre left has done poorly in Europe are eurozone countries. The centre left in Britain moved to the left in response to 2008. It might be hard for Watson to distinguish himself from Corbyn on the economic front.
Mentioned in this Episode:
- The Independent Group’s Statement of Independence
- Luciana Berger on antisemitism in the Labour Party
Further Learning:
- Labour’s Fault Lines
- Socialism in this Country?
- Chris on the decline of the social democrats
- Big moments in the history of the Labour Party
And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, my name is David Ronsman and this is Talking Politics. Today we're going to talk |
| 0:11.9 | about the future of two party politics in the UK is the big threat from the people who |
| 0:17.9 | have quit or is it from the people who have stayed behind. |
| 0:26.4 | Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books and the LRB |
| 0:31.4 | has a new podcast of its own. It's called The State of, it's hosted by LRB Editors, |
| 0:37.1 | Joanna Biggs and Tom Crew and the first episode which is available now is with John Lanchister, |
| 0:44.3 | I guess on this podcast and Patricia Lockwood talking about the state of the internet. |
| 0:48.8 | You can find it wherever you find your podcasts or at the LRB website lrb.co.uk. |
| 1:03.6 | We have with us today Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy, Mike Kenny, |
| 1:07.6 | Professor of Public Policy. I think the last time the three of us were on this table |
| 1:10.8 | we were talking about the World Cup. We were. |
| 1:12.8 | Hello for a long time ago. Can we start with the independent group? I think we're |
| 1:19.2 | pretty going to have to end up calling them TIG. It's too much for a mouthful. They're |
| 1:23.2 | inching towards becoming a party. They are indicating that they plan to put up candidates |
| 1:29.2 | in elections though we think not in imminent by elections. The obvious question is what is |
| 1:33.8 | their platform going to be? Their reasons for leaving are pretty clear but what are |
| 1:38.3 | the reasons are they going to give the voters to vote for them given as we talked about before. |
| 1:43.3 | Really the only thing they absolutely have in common is they want to second referendum. |
| 1:47.2 | Is that the platform? There are two dilemmas I think that they're going to need to figure out |
| 1:52.0 | before they can even get near to a coherent platform. One is the dilemma of are they really |
| 1:58.3 | about reconstituting the Labour Party? Is this a sort of early move to sort of |
| 2:03.4 | re-found labour in some sense or is this an entirely new kind of entity? Is this the centre? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Catherine Carr, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Catherine Carr and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.