Labour’s persistent failure to address its electorate’s salient concerns is behind the protest vote, asserts DIANE ABBOTT
IT WAS hardly possible to miss the politics around the European football championship. Indeed the traditional cries of “keep politics out of sport” were very muted.
“Patriotic” Tory MP Lee Anderson refused to back the England team because they were taking the knee against racism. Boris Johnson and Priti Patel were relaxed about racists booing the team until they found out they were doing well — then they started cheering them.
Sport and politics have a long history and no more so with the challenges socialists have made back to the 19th century to try to keep the interests of capital out of it. There was even a Workers Wimbledon from 1932-1951, which may seem a little odd to some who currently frequent the championships.
Research shows Farage mainly gets rebel voters from the Tory base and Labour loses voters to the Greens and Lib Dems — but this doesn’t mean the danger from the right isn’t real, explains historian KEITH FLETT



