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Keith Kahn-Harris's avatar

Thanks so much for this thoughtful piece. I would want to add one thing to this (daunting) agenda: While we have to work towards preventing a Reform or similar government, we also have to plan for what happens if it can't be prevented. We need to look at the experience of the US and ask how the destructiveness of the Trump administration might have been made more difficult if there had been a proper plan in place before January 2025. We need to think about how the services and the knowledge that Reform would seek to destroy could be salvaged, partially or wholly. We can't wait for the current government to do this as, like most parties, Labour is only thinking about how to make a better electoral offer that would prevent a Reform election, not about what to do if they fail (and I think they will fail). That myopia is made worse by a strategy of allowing a measure of populist destruction, thinking (wrongly) that this will satiate populist desires.

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Nicholas Colloff's avatar

Excellent. The absence of a positive narrative is stark, and one that resonates with the values held by the majority (I am struck by the resonance with the divide between what most people in Africa talk about, when I am there, and what development specialists imagine they ought to be talking about). The absence of organizations of belonging and solidarity, and yes, the lack of urgency and the ability to recognize that what is happening is happening!

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