If The NDP Move to the Right They Will be Eaten Alive

There is an interesting column in the Star by Dave Goutor, assistant professor of labour studies at McMaster University.

Aside from the soothsaying about election results, he questions just where the NDP stand in today's political climate.

They appear to have stagnated, hovering somewhere between wanting to help workers and wanting a piece of the right-wing. Unfortunately, they can't have both. The right-wing is flailing, and that's not where they want to be.

The current political discourse is calling out for someone to get the public to step back and assess the damage of free-trade policies, tax-cutting, deregulation and the slashing of social programs. The free-market, fiscally conservative policies that have prevailed at least since the election of Brian Mulroney have never been more vulnerable to wide-ranging attack ... Countries that have embraced right-wing economic policies, led of course by the United States, are generally the ones in the biggest trouble. Ireland, to cite another case, used to be the darling of free-marketeers everywhere, including Tory Finance Minister Jim Flaherty; it now stands as an example of not only the catastrophic results of unrestrained financial recklessness, but also the failure of austerity measures to reassure financial markets.

So you can imagine my dismay when I read that they have decided to go the other way and support the Neoconservative agenda, even accepting the upcoming corporate tax cuts.

They have sold out and I think they will regret it, because Stephen Harper will eat them alive.