If you're waiting for an operation or a doctors appointment and you can't get one for 2 months, while you see people who don't speak English, who probably don't work, waiting around you, is it bad to feel a sense of traditional Englishness or Britishness? Its a reality of an ageing population. With age comes an inherent racism. And we are all racist in the most simple form of the word - we categorise on crude things like colours. Going back to policy, is there anything wrong with stopping unless immigrants? People from outside the EU who don't contribute value to the UK? People who don't have skills, or assets that will enhance the UK. There probably is a lot wrong with it ethically, but Labour needs a hook. Something to show they can stand up for Britishness and this would be a solid start.
The problem with that lies in the fact that Labour has attracted a class of urban voter who realises that their doctor is at least 40% likely (I think - it was a stat from 2014, iirc) to be of minority ethnic origin - thus, it makes little sense to be angry about the people sitting in the waiting room when the GP is also somewhat unlikely to be a purebred Anglo-Saxon type.
If Labour wants to dump that urban voter class to try to seek the ignored, marginalized white British working-class vote, that's a *huge* gamble. I do feel that Labour has gone *much* too far in trying to dump itself of the perception of being the representative of the (majority white) working classes (in favour of appealing to middle-class urbanites), but there is a huge ethical and practical risk associated with a clean break from the strategy of the last two and half decades to go all out trying to capitalize on the fact (as you pointed out) that we're still hardwired to be xenophobic in many ways. That's a hook, in other words, that might fall very flat if the BME voters and associated urban middle-class voters flock to the Lib Dems/Tories and leave Labour without even the base it's usually relied on when things have gone sour.
It sounds like your argument is for a French like state, where quality of life prevails over the economy. It's Gallic, it's not us. 52% have just voted to leave that kind of EU reality where quality of life, working hours directives etc, are a reality. It's a no no. You wouldn't back a party that wanted the value of your house to go down would you?
Let me put it bluntly - what
@Gutter Boy suggests is one of two paths that we can take in a world where automation will assuredly (and utterly relentlessly) kill off the idea of full employment over the next 25 years. That is the higher path - the one that essentially emphasizes a world with an acceptance of degrowth, less work, more time devoted to developing the social, creative and cognitive abilities that will mark the divide between humans and AI in the coming years, and a sustainable (or sustained) industrial sector that provides employment to people who can't be expected to cope with the realities of a world in which a machine can do any repetitive task you can do - white collar or blue collar, accounting or on the production line, fighter pilot or fruit picker. In that world, the population pyramid slowly inverting wouldn't be as much of an issue since the majority of economic output would be produced by automation anyway, which could then be put to use sustaining an ageing population without the need for immigration maintaining the 'ponzi scheme'.
The other road we can go down is one where no provisions or radical societal changes are made in the face of the incoming wave of automation, and society is put onto a road that will only lead to utter collapse as more and more people compete for fewer and fewer 'human-capable' jobs as an extremely tiny class of ultra-rich (who will own the automated means of production of the future) and a slightly larger class of technocrats and ultra-high-skilled technology professionals jointly eat the overwhelming share of national income.
Those are our two choices. We cannot compete with what's coming - it already takes us 15 years to train a child into a semi-functional adult in modern society, teaching him or her the basics of societal norms and understanding, mathematics and science. Actually, scratch that - it takes us even longer (up to four more years on top of the 15), because you are basically out of luck in modern society without an undergraduate degree. Now imagine how long it would take to train children to the (inconceivably) higher standards required to compete in terms of quantitative cognitive ability (involving a knowledge of mathematics and a scientific understanding that would put today's very brightest kids to shame) with an AI which can store and retrieve data much faster than you can, which can learn by itself (to a large extent), iterate and improve on its processes by itself (to a large extent) and essentially do any work not involving pure creative thinking or social understanding better, faster and more accurately than a human could ever hope to do it. And it is coming, assuredly so.
If you're a lawyer studying contracts, an accountant (of whatever type), a driver (however complicated your route), a logistics manager...your job is
*already* under threat, no matter how white collar you think you are. (
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...-automation-pose-to-your-job/article30434394/). The future will be even more devastating to a society unprepared for it.
As to those that don't think strong leadership that focuses on the nation and the nations identity would be successful, where have you been the last few years!? Brexit - all about asserting the nation. Trump - all about putting the US first. LePenn as Mr Dubai outlines, as well as the rise of ukip. Isn't it clear!? People what strength, and some tangible sense of us and the nation.
This, I agree. This is the panic reaction to economic depression, widespread (and rapidly growing) inequality and the coming onset of automation (even if people don't realise it yet). It hasn't peaked yet, and we have yet to see the worst of it.
