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Originally Posted by Damien
Yes. One of the big 'left-wing' things was to be against the 'neoliberal' view of the world. The W.T.O has enemy no 1. Now I don't think they've all become pro-business liberals but I think that the lines are blurring and people are shifting.
I haven't quite crystallised it in my own head yet. But look at Trump. Some of the things he has been saying are not conventionally Republican. He is quite protectionist, he wants to put up tariffs to 'save American jobs', he wants to spend a lot of money. Look at Labour. It used to find it's support though a collection of traditional working class, labour, type voters and (for want of a better world) metropolitan liberals. Now they seem to be sitting on the biggest divide in politics.
Like I said it's hard to know exactly but I think things are changing.
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Traditionally the TTIP was something that broadly speaking the left were against and the right were in favour of. In the US, the right as represented by Donald Trump are against it whilst the left represented by the Democrats are in favour of it.
I think in the UK, the left are still broadly against the TTIP. The cliche about the Conservative Party in the UK is that it is stuck between the self-made who favour free trade and those who have family wealth and are opposed to it but this ignores its appeal to many other people. I think there's an element of truth to the cliche as the Conservative Party have attracted the free trade business people who would have favoured the Whigs before that party was sidelined by the emergence of the Labour Party.