Lisa Nandy for Labour Leader

In the final guest post in this mini-series on the Labour leadership contest, Andy Newman - a GMB activist and best known as chief contributor to the Socialist Unity blog - makes the case for backing Lisa Nandy.

The Labour Party last won a general election in 2005, and in December 2019 was comprehensively defeated by a Conservative Party that had proven itself unable to govern, and was lurching from crisis to crisis. The very credibility of our party to pose as a potential election winning force is now in question.

However, while there has clearly been a protracted secular decline of Labour’s vote since 1997, we must not allow a lazy narrative to ignore the anomaly of the 2017 election, where although we did not win, Labour’s vote pushed north of 40%, and where the party did electrify and enthuse a significant proportion of the voting public. I was a parliamentary candidate in 2015 and 2017, and the second of those elections was much more positive. So what changed between 2017 and 2019?

There is of course a factor that a soufflé doesn’t rise twice, and the insurgent anti-establishment nature of Corbyn’s appeal to some voters had a limited shelf life, and the longer Corbyn was leader, the more apparent became the gap of language, aspiration and experience between his supporters and traditional labour voters. This is not a phenomenon unique to the UK, and last year the Australian Labor Party suffered a debilitating loss, as it proved unable to bridge the gap between its big city supporters, often graduates with fairly liberal and green views, and its working class voters in places like Queensland.

In 2017, our party supported Brexit on the basis of respecting the referendum result, which neutralised a highly divisive issue. The subsequent drift by the party towards remain had two components. Firstly immersing the party in parliamentary games and Westminster Bubble shenanigans, which angered Labour leave voters and made Labour seem utterly part of the establishment. Keir Starmer was largely responsible for this, though he was not alone. The second aspect was a complacency that Theresa May’s struggles in parliament were damaging the Conservative Party so much, that Labour just had to wait it out. This strategy is associated with Len McCluskey and colonised the party’s leadership, including Rebecca Long-Bailey. Both of these developments demobilised the party from the type of active campaigning in towns and communities we needed.

Alone of the current leadership candidates, Lisa Nandy correctly argued that Labour should have continued to respect the referendum result, and that we should have shown leadership in promoting our own type of Brexit, consistent with our Labour values, and forcing Theresa May to back us. This was good judgement, that would have put us in a much stronger position in the general election.

Another thing that changed between 2017 and 2019 was a further retreat by the Corbyn supporting left towards into a self-referential bubble. Ever since Corbyn was elected it was clear that his support was not connected with an increase of activism in social movements or trade unionism, that would have engaged with ordinary voters. But this weakness was partly concealed by the accident of the 2016 leadership challenge, which forced Corbyn himself, and Momentum, into an outward looking campaign, albeit an electoral one.

The constitutional endowment of the Labour Party is based upon two strong institutional components, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the affiliated trade unions. The membership in the constituencies holds a weaker hand, in terms of its institutional weight, though obviously democratic participation of the membership is vital for the health of the party. As a mass electoral party, the most effective way of moving opinion within the party is to shift opinion in the outside world, among the voters. Unfortunately, a large part of the energy by Corbyn’s supporters has been squandered on internal battles within the party, where, for example, constituency delegates have stood up at Conference to attack the trade unions, and huge effort has been spent in pushing to deselect MPs. The result has been a party seemingly more at ease with infighting than in seeking to become elected as a Labour government. Long-Bailey’s commitment to “Open Selections” is a mistake. There is already a perfectly adequate mechanism for local parties and trade unions to remove a sitting MP, through the trigger process, and the fact that it is rarely used is because most Labour MPs are doing a decent job. Parties that do have “open selections”, such as the SNP and LibDems, are no more likely to replace their sitting MPs than Labour, suggesting that the issue is being raised as a signal of support for constituency parties to exercise discipline over the PLP, which would be a recipe for protracted civil war in the party, and unelectability.

The issue of “electability” is a constant theme of Keir Starmer’s supporters, and there does seem to be an implicit suggestion that because of all the candidates he most looks like Hugh Grant in Love Actually, then he would be taken more seriously. However, Keir’s pitch is very much that he would be the best performer at the dispatch box. So what? Voters don’t care about PMQs, and given the size of the Conservative majority, as soon as this leadership contest finishes there will be almost no media coverage of what Labour does in parliament. What Keir Starmer offers is a return to the safe territory where Labour’s vote has been in long term slide and from where we don’t win. Once embarked in that direction, caution and conservatism will gradually dilute policy away from the transformative agenda that we need.

Rebecca Long-Bailey offers a more radical policy proposition, but there are three weaknesses. Firstly, paradoxically her base of support seems narrower rather than broader than Corbyn’s. Secondly, her emphasis on open selections suggests that she would have an uneasy relationship with the PLP. And thirdly, although she is a northern woman, her policy pitch seems divorced from the concerns of those traditional Labour voters that we lost to the Conservatives in 2019.

A strategic weakness of Corbynism was to overestimate the social and electoral weight of left liberal voters in big cities, and of younger voters who for conjunctural reasons feel insecure due to precarious jobs and accommodation. These factors are certainly relevant, but inequality of wealth and power in Britain is not just generational, but also predicated upon class and geography. Small towns, especially that have been deindustrialised or in coastal communities, feel forgotten and ignored, and many voters there feel that Labour no longer speaks for them or understands them.

Focus groups and voter feedback show that Lisa Nandy is liked by those voters we lost, she is promising a turn towards campaigning rather than focusing everything on Westminster, and she will deliver stability to the party. Furthermore, if you agree that the worst outcome would be a Keir Starmer victory, then it is more likely that Lisa could beat him on second preferences than Becky could.

Rebecca Long-Bailey for Labour Leader

In the latest guest post in this mini-series, Naomi Waltham-Smith (@auralflaneur on Twitter) makes the case for backing Rebecca Long-Bailey. Naomi is an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick and a member in Keir Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency.

The case for Rebecca Long-Bailey rests upon the three Es or what I want somewhat cheekily to describe as an up-to-date alternative to that traditional training ground for the ruling class, PPE, and one more fit for the global grand challenges we face today: Political Education, Environment, Economics. Together these add up to a clear, decisive response to the most urgent and intractable obstacle facing centre-left parties today: the crisis of democracy. Of the three candidates, only Rebecca has a cogent analysis of the backlash against the market-liberal consensus found across rich democracies today (see the excellent work by Jonathan Hopkin and Mark Blyth on this) and, crucially, a compelling narrative about how to forge a return to politics from a place of anti-political disaffection.

After 40 years of Thatcherite deference to the market and entrepreneurial subjectivation, we need an economic and political revolution on the same scale as 1979 to give back power to those who justifiably feel they have lost control over their own lives. This is how you knock down “Get Brexit Done,” and not, as Keir Starmer has suggested, by calling into question the credulity of Tory switchers and, by implication, their appetite for change and empowerment. This anger, difficult to assuage, will need to be channelled, as Rebecca acknowledges and as the more insurgent Corbyn of 2017 did, but it is Bernie who is giving the future Labour leader a masterclass in this.

When Rebecca spoke enthusiastically about wanting to see members debating economics, it was music to my ears and not only because, as a lecturer, I have skin in the game. After a bruising defeat in which Jeremy’s leadership was seen as a significant factor, much of the debate in this leadership campaign has centred on the issue of electability. We are witnessing the forceful re-emergence of the false choice between principle and power. In 2012 Stuart Hall bemoaned that “the left has no sense of politics being educative, of politics changing the way people see things.” Laura Pidcock was right to argue recently that the ambition of politics ought not be to adapt your principles to what is popular but “to make popular your principles.” If Labour doesn’t, it will cede the ground to the right—with disastrous consequences.

To galvanise the electorate around a socialist vision, popular political education — not simply for but organised by the grassroots — will be essential. Lisa Nandy’s positioning as the candidate who’s listening came spectacularly unstuck in her interview with Andrew Neil: “I’ll empower you but only to do what I judge to be empowering.” Rebecca, by contrast, recognises that there’s no point in listening without making room for debate and disagreement, and without ensuring that there is equality when it comes to the power of voices heard. This is why one should not fall into the trap of assuming (as figures on the left including Andrew Fisher and Laura Parker have done) that the apparent policy convergence around the 2017 manifesto means that there’s little to choose between the candidates. On democratisation, Rebecca is the only candidate unafraid to give members a say in selecting candidates and in policy-making. When Keir and Lisa argue against open selections and in favour of empowering councillors instead of members, the electorate will see this for what it is: holding onto the reins of power by meting it out to the lower rungs of middle management (who can be easily managed) out of fear that unleashing the power of grassroots might shake things up — and they’ll vote again for the Eton-educated racist who is promising to do just that in their name.

Keir makes the same mistake on political education by reducing it to a training “college” for the next generation of councillors, MSPs, AMs, and MPs. Of course, we need to foster more working class talent and break down the obstacles to holding office (as the Ashcroft report confirms, the perception is that too many Labour councils, mired in inertia, are not on the side of the people they were elected to serve), but a top-down approach flies in the face of this ambition. The rhetoric of accreditation also capitulates to the profoundly undemocratic marketisation that is eroding education in this country and its capacity to be a vehicle for social change. Trickle-down education doesn’t work any more effectively than its economic counterpart. Rebecca’s vision for democratised political self-education is about restoring a deliberative, agonistic dimension to public debate, responding directly to calls more direct forms of democracy as faith in institutions has crumbled. One cannot hope to beat a right populist with moral paternalism.

This belief in the mobilising power of political education underpins Rebecca’s strengths on environmental and economic issues. There is no doubt that, as one of the authors of Labour’s Green Industrial Revolution, Rebecca far outstrips the other candidates in her commitment to rapid decarbonisation, ecological restoration, and climate justice, as well as to the industrial strategy and extension of democratic public ownership required to achieve these goals. The climate emergency is the single most urgent issue facing the world today and, as Labour for a Green New Deal’s scorecard confirms, Rebecca is head and shoulders above the pack on this. Nothing more really needs to be said, except that communicating this urgency and the power of her proposals to make a real difference remains a challenge. It wasn’t just that the 2019 campaign failed to put the GIR front and centre, as Rebecca has rightly observed. As Alex Wood points out, if the GIR is to bridge the cleavages in the coalition Labour needs to build, its potential must grasped by all its elements for it to make good on its promise to promote a new socialist common sense and this will be most resilient if communities are able to cultivate for themselves an understanding of how the just transition will materially benefit them. Again, Rebecca understands that the GIR needs to be embedded in collective, democratic struggles for power and for a reinvigorated, socialist notion of the good life, rather than emanating from a moralistic injunction to do the right thing.

To defeat the Tories, education in economics is also solely needed to wean the electorate off old wives’ tales now engrained as common sense. The tide is already turning against austerity — which is why an anti-austerity platform isn’t going to cut it against Johnson’s gestures towards greater state interventionism and investment — but there are lingering misconceptions around affordability and credibility. In 2019, Labour undoubtedly got its messaging wrong, but it also failed to tackle the false, yet widespread, analogy between state and household finances and the zero-sum conception of the economy. Similarly, a recent survey showed that, while voters want fairer taxes, the myth of the deserving rich persists in the national psyche. Bernie is challenging this by teaching the American electorate about the labour theory of value! Only when Labour’s potential voters can articulate for themselves the measure of their exploitation will the movement from below needed to propel Labour to victory below take off. Rebecca gets this.

To take on Johnsonomics at a time when the hegemony of neoliberalism is wobbling and offer compelling alternatives to his economic nationalism will require rigour, agility, and a willingness to listening to the most forward-thinking economists. Rebecca hasn’t got the attack lines on this quite right yet, but she alone among the candidates has demonstrated the intellectual curiosity and aptitude for learning about economic policy needed for this task. She’s enquiring enough to revive the Economic Advisory Committee convened by John McDonnell, but not every member and certainly not every potential Labour voter is going to read Ann Pettifor or Marianna Mazzucato, so grassroots self-education will be key.

It may be that Keir should be taken at his word, but the case for Rebecca doesn’t depend on distrusting him. Without the big vision and analysis, defending the policy platform of 2017 or even 2019 won’t be enough. Nor will competence. Bland talk of unity effectively dilutes politics into the technocratic management against which electorates are rebelling. Rebecca’s imagination and capacity to grow can reignite collective politics when it’s most needed.

Keir Starmer for Labour Leader

This is the first of three guest posts by comrades on the left putting the case for their choice for party leader. The author, Cllr Susan Press (@susanp80 on Twitter) has been on the left of the Labour Party for decades, and sets out why she's backing Keir Starmer.

Somewhere out there in a parallel universe Labour is getting set for its first General Election with Jeremy Corbyn as Leader. The past five years have been tough and it took time to win over the PLP and general public but after a narrow escape from leaving the EU with a close referendum in 2016 the polls suggest it’s finally “Time For Real Change’, to use the 2020 election slogan. What a relief it will be to see Prime Minister Cameron finally depart after 10 years of austerity.

Nice fantasy but it didn’t happen did it ?

If I am entirely honest with you I am not sure that I ever thought it would.

Long before the thrills of Glastonbury and Seven Nation Army, I would chair modestly attended Conference fringe meetings with what would now be regarded as a stellar line-up. Corbyn, McDonnell, McCluskey, Owen Jones, and the marvellous Tony Benn. How proud was I to be a bit player in this determined fight back against Blair and New Labour. I still am and always will be.

But in those days the idea of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader would have been met with looks of astonishment from all of us small band of Labour lefties. Here was someone who had devoted his life to the most unfashionable and difficult causes. We used to jokingly refer to him as the ‘ alternative Foreign Secretary” as he was always on the way to or back from Palestine or South America. You never met anyone with less ego or less interested in personal political aggrandisement. And then the world turned upside down.

Years before in 2006 my first encounter with Jeremy Corbyn was at a Labour Briefing pre-Conference curry in Manchester. At the time John McDonnell had just announced he would be standing for the leadership when Blair resigned. Despite our 100 per cent support for this brave attempt to overturn the status quo – which ultimately failed when the now Shadow Chancellor couldn’t get the nominations for the ballot against Brown - Jeremy agreed with me that sadly it was highly unlikely it would ever be the case in the foreseeable future that a left candidate could win. The rest is well-documented history. How it was basically Buggins turn in the Campaign Group and the debate needed broadening. How Jeremy got on the ballot with a minute to spare. And how in a heroic campaign he defied 100-1 odds to become Labour Leader.

But for Brexit I still believe things could have been very different. But amid the horrors of the early hours of December 13 I also thought at least on a human scale that I was glad Jeremy Corbyn would not have to endure much more personal abuse. Four years of media hatchet jobs had done their work big style.

Day after day voters would tell us in my marginal constituency that they had always been Labour but wouldn’t vote for Corbyn as PM. It was heartbreaking. Whatever had saved us from annihilation in 2017 it sure as hell wasn’t going to save us now.

It is hard to part company with comrades on the left but the truth is it was crystal clear we were heading for catastrophe and we didn’t have an oven-ready candidate experienced enough to replace Jeremy. Had the result not been such a disaster, there was a lingering if unlikely hope that John McDonnell (who had actually wanted to be Leader and would have commanded support still) might be persuaded to stand. But that ship sailed with Johnson’s 80-seat majority.

These days I am not just a Labour Left activist. As a councillor for the past six years I represent a ward in West Yorkshire with two food banks and a lot of deprivation. But there are also people who are doing OK, people who didn’t vote for us last time or even vote at all. We need all of them on board to stand any chance at all of clawing back ground – let alone forming a government.

Does the PLP bear any responsibility for this? Sure they do. However the turn the Party as a whole took after the so-called chicken coup by MPs didn’t just lose us support. It spawned a bunker mentality and understandable determination to protect the leadership from the top right down to the grassroots. It got toxic. Very. Any criticism of Corbyn and you were a Tory. Anti-semitism was an invention (trust me as a member of the NCC, it wasn’t). Any concerns about election prospects were dismissed on an increasingly hysterical social media amid the cries of ‘bring it on’ and JC4PM. To be frank a lot of it was delusional. And as much to blame as Brexit for what followed.

So here we are with another leadership campaign. But it is not 2015. What made that campaign so amazing was its message of hope and authenticity from someone who had spent his life in the labour movement. Someone who didn’t have to keep saying the s-word as everyone knew he was a socialist and always had been. We wanted a fundamental shift in the Labour Party after years of watering down our values and we were right even if it went wrong in the end. Hindsight is easy and luck wasn’t on our side as neither was the media but that has always been the case even if this time it was unprecedentedly vile. A lot of mistakes were also made by the LOTO office according to those closer to the coal face and all that will no doubt be revealed in due course. However there has been a game-changing shift. Which may help us in the difficult years ahead.

Not one of the leadership candidates could in all honesty be described as on the right of the Party. And whatever silliness is being said about ‘ true’ and ‘proper’ socialists, after 40 years on the left of the Party I am not buying the line there is only one candidate we can vote for. Truth is there is not a batsqueak policy-wise between them.

So like that well-known Blairite Paul Mason I am voting for Keir Starmer - the candidate who has best chance of inspiring trust and convincing the unconvinced to come home to Labour. Who can cope with the pressure and take Johnson apart at the dispatch box and hold him to account when Brexit unravels. And, with no disrespect to the others, someone with a much longer track-record of standing up for human rights and social justice.

Emily Thornberry: What was the Point?

"Our leadership debate isn’t going to be as interesting, passionate or fun without Emily Thornberry. She brought so much to this debate. She’s a true fighter, a tough opponent, and a good friend", so says Lisa Nandy. I suppose she has to be nice or, to put it in the wonkish vernacular of Keir Starmer "model the behaviour" we'd like to see in the party. Yeah, Emily is a good laugh. She can be charming and sounds like a jolly companion for an evening of gin tasting, but I don't see why we have to fool ourselves. Emily's leadership bid was completely pointless and possibly, from her point of view, damaging.

Falling short of the required CLP nominations threshold by two, she took to Twitter to thank her supporters, her team, and made the standard warm unity noises. The only clue it gives for her motivations is a desire to "widen the debate." But widen it to what purpose exactly? Back in 2010 and 2015 there was a clear rationale in this direction for letting Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn onto the ballot paper. In 2019, you could make a similar argument for accepting Ian Murray onto the ballot paper, despite the craven, obsolete politics. The "debate" isn't a fun exercise in interesting discussions but about the vision and strategy required to take Labour back into government. What did Emily bring?

According to her website, she's been a campaigner and an effective performer in the Commons, which meant she was the right sort of person to lead Labour's comeback. This is certainly true - of the field she was by far the most experienced parliamentarian. And she is good at the despatch box, if Westminster theatre is your thing. Yet none of this tells us where she stood. Looking at her answers to questions, we get bits and bobs on campaign technology, on anti-semitism, on experiences and resources, and the most perfunctory of analyses on why Labour lost the general election (it was because we offered too many policies). That answer might suit the dwindling Progress groupies, but kinda overlooks the main reasons. Perhaps there was an element of avoiding a mea culpa here as, during the election campaign and long before, she was quite happy to carry on making the case for a second referendum and is partly responsible for the switch Boris Johnson exploited with alacrity.

On the one occasion Emily did venture into offering a political position during this contest, it was a disaster. Speaking at the Bristol hustings earlier this month, she was all for seizing empty properties from landlords to help resolve the housing crisis. Good stuff. But alongside this she has her frankly horrible social housing scheme whereby young people wanting a council property would be put into a lottery to get one, but then be kicked out when they reached the age of 30. "More radical than Jeremy Corbyn", indeed.

When it comes down to it, the lack of a pitch - which the other three candidates have - failed completely to differentiate her from the crowd. Relying just on character or the opinion that "I'd be rather good at being leader" isn't going to impress anyone thinking about how Labour can retool and win back lost ground. Sad to say, as much as a laugh Emily is, conveying the message that the main thing wrong with Corbynism was its being led by Jeremy Corbyn as opposed to Emily Thornberry was a hiding to nothing. For this reason, there was nothing to gain from "widening the debate" and allowing her the opportunity to rob Liz Kendall of her record for the lowest vote in a Labour leadership election.

Has her leadership bid improved her chances for a big job in the next shadow cabinet? Very low. If Keir gets it, then I can see her shuffled into a less showy, more minor role. He will want to appoint some MPs keen on returning to front line action after their self-imposed exile toward the rear of the opposition benches. And, unfortunately for her, Emily proved herself to be a loose cannon - something I can't imagine the frontrunner wanting to deal with as he's busy establishing himself in the public eye. As for Rebecca Long-Bailey, despite the threats by the usual moaners, she is likely to have a greater pool of people to pick from than Jeremy did as some, especially on the soft left (and no doubt encouraged by her appointing Lisa to something). Again, the indiscipline and hard remainism counts against Emily here and therefore I'd expect RLB won't be too keen either. You see, here is her big mistake. If the motive for making a leadership bid was the acquisition of a new, or maintenance of her senior position afterwards, you've got to show you bring something to the table. With her baggage, and her poor showing at the nomination stage all Emily has accomplished is a demonstration of her dispensability. No following, no weight, sadly she might just have done the next stage of her career in.

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Len McCluskey on Corbynism

... and many other things. The Labour leadership election, the state of trade unionism, his new book, and who his favourite sitting Tory MP is. Well worth a watch.

Keir Starmer: A Qualified Defence

Comrade Keir Starmer? Some folks have been advocating for him on the basis of past Trottery, and not least the good works his campaign have heavily promoted from before his time as Director of Public Prosecutions. Peculiarly, his plans to hand out 10 year sentences to people done for fiddling social security isn't so highlighted. Realising he can't live off past glories forever, or "borrowing" material from Rebecca Long-Bailey's campaign, Keir's campaign have released 10 pledges of their own.

What do we have? Increasing income tax for the top five per cent and a clamp down on avoidance. Abolish universal credit, defend universalism and the NHS, and abolish fees and keep with the life long learning programme. The Green New Deal and tough action on air quality. The introduction of a Prevention of Military Intervention Act(?) and a review of arms sales. Common ownership (qu'est-ce que c'est?) and no to outsourcing. Defence of free movement for EU citizens, a compassionate immigration system and a call to close Yarl's Wood and similar. Repeal the Trade Union Act. Abolish the House of Lords, a properly federal system with devolved powers, and localised investment banks. A pledge on equalities. And lastly, a united party, a mass membership, and forensic opposition to the Tories.

I know some comrades have cast a critical eye over the pledges, locating this as a (cynical) attempt to shore up support among leftist members who are unsure about RLB and like the cut of Keir's jib. And yes, his proposals are less specific than her positioning and give him plenty of wriggle room later on. Nevertheless, this is much better than Lisa Nandy's offering, and at least he doesn't have to lie about his opponents. Anyway, I'm sure we'll return to these over the coming weeks and, if he wins, the next four-five years. What is interesting is, despite Keir being a centrist-friendly candidate, how a little bit of leftism has brought actual centrists out in a rash. For James Bull, this is pale pink Corbynism destined to lose. For David Aaronovitch, abolishing universal credit and tuition fees "are plain dumb" and will bring Labour difficulties on the doorstep. And for the ever-bloodthirsty John Rentoul, Keir's military pledge is "spineless". Considering a left programme twice got more votes than the centrist efforts of 2005, 2010, and 2015, you might think this elementary fact would give them pause.

This needs situating in relation to the slow rewrite of the election result by the Labour right and their chummy hacks. Instead of a ruinous intersection of Labour's pitch to remainism and the monstering of Jeremy Corbyn, an unforgivable slandering of a good man they had no small part in, the real reason for Labour's loss was its being too left. What the electorate really wanted was a distillation of purist Blairism. Yes, because that is exactly why millions of former Labour voters supported Boris Johnson's Tories with its promise of "change", and why canvassing team after canvassing team returned with tales of enthusiasm for "public sector reform", increasing the retirement age, and keeping hospital car parking charges.

This is so self-evidently stupid. With increasing polarisation along the lines of property (or lack thereof), growing private debt, blocked career aspirations, a different experience of being working class, and the small matter of global heating, a centrist prospectus that offers nothing but backward-looking nostalgia is so pathetically inadequate to the moment that even the Tories aren't touching it with a barge pole. That and the small matter Labour's new base won't vote for it, nor would it win back the former Labour leavers who find wonky, technocratic politics repellent. Say what you like about Keir Starmer, he at least seems to understand this basic fact of contemporary electoral politics.

The other aspect of this is less a reaction to Keir's pledges, but the opposition of assorted Blairist riff-raff to the idea Labour should do something different, like community organising, building the party as a movement and, as per Richard Burgon's suggestion, setting up a free paper. They just don't get it. But then again, it's not surprising. These people got their moneyed positions thanks to a previous generation's factional manoeuvring in the party. They not only lack the first clue about organising, as Change UK reminded us, they just assume everything clicks together. Having glided into their seats via the helpful efforts of others, from their point of view politics isn't about organising and struggle. It's a matter of marketing. Hence why we get idiocies like we want to win power, not spend time protesting. Or that organising communities is a waste of time.

News flash. While it might be the case Labourism has, from inception, been quite accepting of its role as the B Team of politics and has preferred to pretend there is no relationship between its roots in the organised working class and the kinds of things it should do in office, those days are long over. Or they have to be over if Labour is to ever have a sniff of power again. When the party is locked out of politics, which demographic imbalances, Tory institutional advantage, and the coming gerrymandering will do their best to cement, the only thing the party can do is organise. Only by linking up with community groups, listening to what's happening in areas we need to win, campaigning on the concerns that matter, produce our own media work-arounds of the anti-Labour monopoly, contest the political terms of our predicament and, unusually for Labour, offer political leadership on the key issues of the day instead of capitulating to Johnson and his mates in the editorial offices, this is the only way Labour will get anywhere. The prospectus offered by the likes of the ludicrous Ian Murray is, well, the utter failure the Labour right have manufactured in Scotland. Now that's what I call an inspiring vision.

Before the last election, we heard a lot about how know political party has a God-given right to exist. In their hostility to Keir's pitch, let alone RLB's campaign, what we see is the kamikaze willingness of Labour's idiot tendency and the party's false friends to test this - and us - to destruction.

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On Flouncing Labour MPs

Up to 50 MPs are planning on quitting the party if Rebecca Long-Bailey wins the leadership election, so writes Rachel Wearmouth over at HuffPo. According to ever-anonymous "party insiders", this bloc of 35-50 (depending on who you ask) would either sit as independents or resign immediately and force by-elections. In an uncharacteristic display of honesty, Neil Coyle revised down the figure and said about a dozen were plotting away. And why? Because continuity Corbynism would be a "recipe for disaster".

Let's unpack this. One of the whingers who put the figure at 50 MPs is obviously bullshitting. When you look at the complexion of the parliamentary party, the mood - if anything - is characterised by an absence of factionalism. The division between remain ultras and Brexiteers has vanished, though largely thanks to the near wipe out of the latter - despite their best efforts. And while demarcations exist between the Socialist Campaign group, the soft left, and the self-described (and identifying) "moderates", those embittered and twisted by anti-Corbyn hatred number, well, about 12 to 15 MPs. Furthermore, these irreconcilables are somewhat marginalised in the parliamentary party. They might be spoiling for a purge-tastic revenge on the left and will be looking for any excuse to launch one (hello EHRC report), but given the torrid five years we've just been through the desire for a witch-hunt is the preserve of the few, not the many.

Why are they moaning then? After all, at various points in the past we had been assured that the policies weren't the problem, Corbyn was. Or the variant of domestically the party's on the same page, the difference instead is over foreign policy and defence. Well, RLB's platform is where most of the party is. So much so, Keir Starmer and Lisa Nand are helping themselves to select morsels. And yet she hasn't made any noises about withdrawing from NATO, abolishing the secret services, or handing over the launch codes to the Kremlin. Perhaps they were lying all along about the domestic policy consensus and believe the counter-productive policies of 20 years ago are just the ticket, despite getting roundly rejected in 2010 and 2015. Or, as is more likely, they can't stomach serving in a party where their eminences goes unrecognised and they have to submit to mandatory reselection. And perhaps they're not pleased by RLB's pledge to deal with their shenanigans "ruthlessly" should they carry on their scorched earth nonsense.

Whatever the cause of their beef, there's no reason to try and treat with them because, as Wes Streeting(!) observes in the same HuffPo piece, the Change UK failure demonstrates there's no viable future outside of Labour for a centrist split. It's much worse than that four our would-be splitters, I'm afraid. As Chuka Umunna and Anna Soubry found after abandoning their parties, the lobby hacks just weren't as interested in listening any more. If your relationship to the media is built on being a reliable leak-happy "insider", making yourself a rent-a-quote outsider is like signing the redundancy papers. If Margaret Hodge, Neil Coyle, Liz Kendall and whoever go on their merry way they can look forward to a very quiet five years on the back benches without even the excitement of knife edge Commons votes temporarily puffing up their importance. And what is more, they do not represent anything but themselves. Remember how pitifully their anointed one did? Seeing them depart Labour's ranks contains nothing but upsides for a RLB-led Labour Party. A pity then that for the reasons just mentioned few if any will resign themselves to anonymity and sadly, no focus-grouped visits to Nando's.

Do things change if one of the other candidates wins? Yes, in the sense they won't be petulantly dropping resignation hints every five minutes. But no because they will find other reasons to rag on Lisa or Keir, and make themselves the big I am. In the first, it will be Lisa's principled defence of the Palestinians and her chairing of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. And for the latter, it will be his keeping key Corbynist policies and having some figures from the last five years stay in the shadow cabinet. When the situation requires an anonymous quote, the sectarian right will only be too happy to stump up the goods.

Unity with these people then will only be achieved at the expense of jettisoning Labour's entire platform, becoming a pale pink imitation of the Tories, and looking forward to permanent electoral defeat. And the price of keeping them in the tent is the prospect of interminable factional warfare, the sapping of members' morale, and making Labour look an unserious laughing stock. If RLB wins she should immediately move against them, and if there's anything about Lisa or Keir, they would do so too.

The Weird Left on the Election and After

Recorded very shortly after the general election, Nadia Idle, Jem Gilbert and Keir Milburn get together to mourn the defeat, explore the shock this has sent through the movement and think about its recuperative powers as the left debates the way forward. Highly recommended.

On Blairite Obsolescence

Only one group of people can stir the passions among the self-styled hard heads and master strategists of the Labour right. If you said the Tories, the you'll have to try again: it's the left. Over the last four years their wrecking antics and scorched earth sectarianism yielded not one scintilla of policy, or rumour of an alternative to Corbynism. Which helps explain why Jess Phillips, the failed standard bearer of the of the right at this leadership election, had nothing to talk about except herself before her campaign collapsed like a souffle. Now Jess has sailed off to spend more time cultivating her hack mates, and with the remaining field more or less assimilating the Corbynist framework, where does the honest (and I use that term advisedly) apostle of the Labour right stand now?

Handily, our good mate Margaret Hodge has had a stab at articulating such a position. She acknowledges what happened in December was "not down to Corbyn and Corbynism alone", but Hodge is not about to cop for the role she and others played in the party's misfortunes. No, this is not a place for truth-telling. For example, she divulges this gem:

... I felt the manifesto was one of the most reactionary documents I had seen. Its emphasis on a big state and on state ownership, a vilification of success and an obsession with the producers of public services, rather than the citizens for whom those services are for, together served to frighten rather than inspire the public. Recycling the policies of the 1970s proved neither radical nor transformative.

If you can't argue honestly, I wouldn't bother arguing at all. But then again, I'm not a MP who affected opposition to apartheid South Africa while profiting from it. Digression over. After venting, Hodge eventually pierces the fugue of her petty vendettas and get down to brass tacks. Much of our old base has gone and growing life expectancy (she didn't get the memo) spells trouble, support is dropping among the C2DEs (ahem), trade union membership is low and there is little relationship between members and general secretaries (true enough), the number of Labour seats with marginal majorities have grown, the trumping of identity politics over economic self-interest opposes working class voters to Labour's "middle class" support base (wrong), and the party machine is outdated and incompetent (again, true).

So we have a set of problems framed in a superficial and light minded manner, but where do we go? On this, she slips back into the Labour right's comfort zone when it comes to dealing with existential questions: silence. Knowing Hodge's politics and her rubbish about championing service users over producers' interests, she'd be content with a negligible programme with a dribble of green wash, a la Chris Leslie's centrist manifesto. Which is no surprise. If Corbynism is over, we're still waiting for a centrist analysis that moves beyond conspiracy theories and tendentious nonsense. Might I suggest that understanding why Labour failed means coming to terms with how it nearly succeeded in 2017 too, and that raises questions about class and the new political economy that shows up the obsolescence of centrist politics, even as a means of governing the status quo. As Emmanuel Macron is ably demonstrating across the Channel.

There are then two sets of politics most appropriate now. The national populism of Boris Johnson, and a new left politics that takes the best of Corbynism and builds on it. At the moment, Johnson has proven himself more adept at navigating contemporary class politics than the left, though how long for remains to be seen. For Labour's part, making that pitch to older voters and breaking them from the Tories cannot come at the expense of our base among the new working class. How we do this means a critical reckoning with our record and those of other left insurgencies elsewhere, including other centre left parties that haven't fallen into disintegration and disgrace. And of this one thing is certain. There is nothing, nothing positive the likes of Hodge can offer this project. Except a period of welcome silence.

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Stoke Central Labour's Nomination Meeting

Stoke Central Labour Party met up this Saturday morning to make its nominations for the leadership and deputy leadership contests. Spoiler alert, we voted to endorse Rebecca Long-Bailey and Dawn Butler. When you consider how in 2010 the local party endorsed David Miliband, in 2015 it gave Yvette Cooper the nod and, despite voting to endorse Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, selected Gareth Snell over a Corbyn supporter in 2017 for the Stoke Central by-election, how did the party move to nominate two left wing candidates this time? Without the time nor the inclination for another blood and guts analysis of local politics, we should have a goose at what happened on the day.

In all, 61 voting members turned up, which was significantly more than the equivalent meeting in 2016. And the politics? With the leadership debate up first it was clear there was a mood for unity ... against Keir Starmer. Regardless of who was speaking, criticisms came from all corners criticising him for bouncing Labour into support for the second referendum. In the end, the fall out of Brexit for Stoke Labour proved too much and overrode the conditions of support that's causing him to scoop up nominations hand-over-fist in CLPs elsewhere. With a desultory three votes to his name, he at least managed to triple Emily Thornberry's tally. And so it quickly became apparent - folks were either speaking for Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey.

The arguments for Lisa came in two batches. For some, there was genuine enthusiasm. One comrade who was originally more favourable to Keir found Lisa's diagnosis of Labour's malaise compelling, and thought she performed very well in front of the media. Especially her Andrew Neil interview was assured and despite his best efforts, never managed to trip her up. Another comrade suggested her socialism was just the ticket because she offered a bridge between the north, where we suffered, and the southern (London) seats. He also said that she listened, which is a sign of a good leader. One suggested she was less likely to come a cropper in the media, and has that elusive (and nebulous) swing appeal.

The second set of arguments were motivated by what we'll clumsily refer to anti-Long-Baileyism. A recurring argument praised RLB for her contribution to the manifesto and that comrades liked her socialist ideals, but we have to row back from that (a position some disappointing melt used in 2015 to help secure the nomination for Yvette Cooper). Another comrade argued we needed someone who wasn't divisive and can unite the party, which is something Lisa can do and Becky (apparently) cannot. A couple of other comrades were more blunt. There's no point the left blaming the hurdles if that's the race you're in (though, it might be said, said athlete might be annoyed if members of their own team had put ground glass in their running shoes beforehand), and RLB will face the same. Another said Jeremy Corbyn was no good and we heard it time and again on the doors. The truth of the matter is people wanted sensible, centre policies, and as RLB carries on where Corbyn left off she won't be able to win.

In the arguments heard for RLB, one comrade pointed out that had the party united behind Corbyn as its members expected the MPs to then we wouldn't be in this situation, because Labour would have achieved even more in 2017. The fact of the matter is politics is now a clear case of them and us, and we have to stand up for us. Another emphasised the importance of the green new deal and, quoting Tony Benn, how we should never let the media choose our leader because it's only a hop, skip, and a jump from them determining our policies. Taking some sound advice, I held back until all the main arguments were heard and then had my three minutes emphasising three points: rebutting the nonsense about Labour needing to be more centrist ("didn't hear any arguments on the doors demanding benefits be cut and more of the public sector sold off"), criticising Lisa's pitch ("can't support someone who misrecognises a stark age division for a problem with working class voters and towns"), and endorsing RLB as the only candidate who gets this and has a strategy to win ("we don't need to build a red bridge between the north and the south, we need to build it between the generations").

The first round of voting gave us, in addition to the figures already mentioned, Becky 29 and Lisa 28. And following distribution ... RLB scooped the nomination by 31 votes to 30. Tight but a win is a win.

The deputy leadership debate was a less polarising affair. Again, there was an outbreak of consensus in terms of the brick bats the erstwhile deputy leader received, and how the next office holder must support and not undermine the members' choice. A few comrades wryly observed that they thought the field for this contest was stronger than the leadership. Again, applying the wait-and-see advice before speaking it seemed like Angela Rayner was going to walk it. Member after member got up to talk about her qualities, nous, fighting spirit, and roots in the union movement. Another comrade said he was particularly impressed with the performance of Dawn Butler and Rosena Allin-Khan, whereas Angela seemed a bit on the flat side. And another said this was a bit of a blind contest because we don't really know who the candidates are and what they might be like in position.

This is where I spoke in favour of Dawn Butler. As some members might not know who they're voting for, it's perhaps worthwhile opening out the contest for a decent debate. As Richard Burgon and Angela have already made it onto the ballot, I suggested that comrades might consider lending her their votes. I also said there were sound political reasons for supporting Dawn too - the Tories will be looking to scapegoat minorities so we need someone in the leadership that can call out Boris Johnson's racism and champion equalities. Also, Dawn isn't a factional player - she supported Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband while they were leaders, and stuck by Corbyn when the rest of the parliamentary party tried to come for him. If we want unity, here we have a candidate who has practised it throughout her Commons' career.

After hearing other members speak, we went to the vote. This time it was more emphatic. In the first round, Dawn was well out in front with 24 to Angela's 18. But then the joys of Labour proceduralism intervened. After eliminating those with fewer votes, on 27 to 26 respectively neither had 50% and after "redistributing" Angela's votes to Dawn she was left with 30, one vote under the threshold for endorsement. How annoying!

In all, not results I was expecting the CLP to come up with but welcome nonetheless. I hope other comrades looking to make the case for Becky and Dawn find this post useful.


NB Dawn Butler's nomination was accepted by the regional office.
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Labour's Impossible Election Choice

As the UK's formal departure from the EU is imminent, it's worthwhile briefly returning to the one thing that determined the outcome on 12th December more than anything else: the timing. Readers might recall a minority of Labour folks (me included) who argued for the party to hold firm in parliament and resist Boris Johnson's goading the opposition into a general election. The major reason was Johnson's strategy from the moment he entered the Tory leadership race was to bulldoze Brexit through regardless of the squealing and the costs. That was his path to cementing his premiership, provided he could get the Brexit preliminaries done quickly.

Having spent the summer fulminating against those who would thwart Brexit and promising to die in a ditch over extending Article 50, Johnson was eventually forced to do just that, rhetoric about disobeying the courts and flouting the rule of law notwithstanding. Once forced into this humiliating climbdown we saw the theatrics and the hysterics about challenging the remainer parties to an election. With the SNP and Liberal Democrats hopping on board the bandwagon, and groundswell among party members - eager to repeat 2017 - getting too much the leadership embraced the opportunity. We know what happened next.

Yet if Labour had held firm and said no, what then? Well, I suppose the question is what would the delays be for. While the parties cooperated well in late August and early September against Johnson we saw earlier in the year how the indicative votes didn't realise majorities for anything except a no to no deal. The second referendum'ers went for bust rather than countenancing a much softer Brexit, and so saddled us with a hard landing. Given the line was thin when there was disagreement over what objective the united forces of the opposition should push for, then Johnson was right: parliament was logjammed. With Johnson bringing back the election time after time and the other parties turning it down, he reasoned support would drain away from them as Brexit blockers and preventing the Commons from discharging its business. In this scenario, Labour would cop most of the blame, most of the pressure, and the disunity in the parliamentary party would likely have bubbled over into tabloid-friendly infighting as Brexity MPs took to the airwaves. The Tories would be shielded from the pain and when the election would finally come, Labour would have been in an even worse position to mount a decent challenge.

Alternatively, despite all this, if Labour held out to the point where Johnson had ask for another extension beyond 31st January, then the more difficult the Tory position would be to maintain. And perhaps then, to limit damage stemming from the paralysis from getting too extensive, in all likelihood he'd have to try and come to some sort of arrangement with the other parties - the very process which triply exposed Theresa May's ineptitude and finally put paid to her career. This would undoubtedly have dealt Johnson a severe blow, and the Brexit Party poised to go from torpor to the hungry devourer of the Tories' right flank. And Labour? Thanks to remain running riot in the party without even token resistance from the top, in this situation it's difficult to see how Jeremy Corbyn could have mustered support from enough of his MPs for a Labour Brexit, let alone be in a fit state to negotiate anything with Johnson. And even if that was possible and a deal reached with Tory and Labour backing, whenever the election came the LibDems and Greens would have been in the perfect position to make extensive inroads into Labour's support.

There is then no comfort or smuggery for those who argued against accepting Johnson's election. Take the chance before Brexit and get hammered, as per what happened. Or stick it out and either end up with a worse starting point when the election is eventually accepted, or strike a deal with Johnson that would heavily damage the Tories but wreak catastrophic destruction on Labour, possibly to the point of completely detaching the new and consolidating base, and we're left with an impossible position. Sadly, Labour lost this election in 2017 when the leadership failed to drive home its hegemony in the party, especially with regard to Brexit. And that meant when it finally came to the crunch there was nothing in front of the party except damaging options. Though, as incredible as it may seem, it's looking like Labour took the least worst.

The Silences of John Harris

Imagine being au fait with politics since the 1980s but only just discovering the work by the New Times group who ran Marxism Today magazine. What might that look like? There's no need to waste time wondering, for John Harris is that man and he's just found the answers to Labour's miserable outing at the general election. Better late than never, I suppose.

Channelling the work of Stuart Hall, Martin Jacques et al, he conjures up an unattributed quote to the effect that the left in the late 80s were stranded in the class politics of the post-war period, and their strategy was about giving the old Keynesian state a lick of paint. True to a degree, and especially of those affecting a revolutionary poise. Except, in John's view, this is pretty much what happened in 2019. Substitute "the many" for the industrial working class, and Labour's manifesto for getting the Fordist gears grinding again, and you have the exact same scenario. The Corbynist Delorean failed to hit 88mph and slammed into the wall instead.

Except this isn't what happened and John's polemic is a load of dishonest rubbish. I mean, to also claim there is a "silence" in and around Labour about what happened is self-evidently ludicrous. Call me old fashioned, but surely you have a duty to represent an opponent's position accurately and fairly. If you're confident in your argument, there is no need to distort the other. Perhaps all those poverty safaris outside the M25 have made John so feverish as to forget his polemical Ps and Qs, because had he bothered reading Labour's manifesto he might have spotted a strategy entirely consistent with the politics pushed by our New Times comrades of yesteryear. That would be lifelong learning to allow workers to reskill in a shifting, "post-Fordist" economy, the opening of the workplace to democracy, and the empowering workers and consumers via Labour's plans for nationalising and democratising transport and the utilities, encouraging the development of cooperatives, and offering a mix of regulation and inducement to manage the transition to green industry. The nationalised industries of old did many things - they provided full employment and helped comprise the backbone of the labour movement - but they weren't democratic and weren't, by design, especially empowering.

And as for treating the so-called many as an undifferentiated mass, please. Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and their advisors had a much better grip on the character of the British class system than those now shouting about towns and the working class. If class was a homogenous blob, we would not have seen policies against precarity and low pay sitting alongside pledges not to put up tax for those earning up to £80k. Far from the male, stale, and pale triptych John provides us of the labour movement, the party's policies addressed young workers and old people, women and men, minority ethnicities and EU migrants, unskilled workers and the professions. Ultimately, even Labour's Brexit position was overdetermined by the class politics of Labour's base. 13 million voted for this two years ago, sans the shift on the EU referendum, and if the party hopes to be in with a shout four or five years hence rolling back and alienating our new core support is about the most stupid thing it can do.

Of course, like most establishment commentators it is John who treats working class people as a regimented strata. The young people in the big cities are somehow less authentic than the retirees who own their homes and have "forthright" views about a great many things. What we saw at this election was, effectively, the clash of class cohorts divided and opposed to one another thanks to their differing relationship to the prevailing political settlement, the experience of work, to an increasingly socially liberal culture, and the sharpening of these tensions by austerity, Brexit, and anti-snowflake propaganda pumped out by the press and daytime television. And, for whatever reason, John and chums cannot or refuse to see it. But someone else did and rode the dynamics of the new class politics more effectively than Labour, and that was Boris Johnson.

Nevertheless, if you want to keep getting the media gigs you have to let reality intrude occasionally, which John does. He jumps on precisely what brings the Labour right out in a rash: making Labour a movement. Rightly, he rails against stitch ups and top-down culture, of opening the party up and looking at ways of empowering voters by organising them, and waging the culture war in more imaginative ways than the yah boo sucks of Twitter. He even makes the outrageous suggestion that Labour in local government should get competent. Yes, yes, yes, the left couldn't agree more. And yet, having offered the glimpse about how it should be, John will faithfully avoid endorsing or encouraging the runner by far the closest to what must be done and embrace the sensiblism of one of the Westminster-as-usual candidates. And when the hour of that inevitability chimes, we have to determine if John is serious about this kind of politics, or whether he's just paid to write left-sounding words.

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A Question of Character

Some Labour supporters are puzzled by how an overt charlatan like Boris Johnson was the preferred option for millions of voters versus Jeremy Corbyn, a man known for his principled (if not always popular) positions on a range of issues, as well as his kindness and unaffected way with ordinary people. Why was Johnson's appalling character profile more acceptable, and how will it matter over the next four or five years as Labour rebuilds? Learning from Jeremy's period in charge, how might the character of the new leader be important?

We know perceptions of politicians are heavily overdetermined by the media but it's not as though Johnson is a stranger to bad press and character assassination. His enemies are legion and to all intents and purposes, his personal life - including his inability to say how many children he has - makes him a laughing stock. And that's before you consider the lies, the laziness, and the incompetence. And yet, despite all this, Johnson won out for two key reasons which, I suppose, are among those few characteristics of politics that approach something of a law.

The first is the fear factor. As a rule, people will not follow or support leaders who make them fearful. Unless said leader has a grotesque apparatus of repression at their disposal. As Labour people, we will not vote or support Johnson because we know what the Tories mean for our communities and our class. We fear the dismantling of the institutions that many of our people depend on, the scapegoating, victimisation, and deportation of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, and the coarsening of public life. And, likewise, plenty of Tories fear Labour too. They fear us because they think we'll take their privilege away, make them cough up a lot more in tax, and speed up the sorts of changes they find objectionable, particularly the destabilisation of, in their eyes, their familiar way if life.

Unfortunately, Corbyn brought with him more reasons to be fearful. In the first instance was his pacifism and anti-imperialism, which was - still is - spun as being pro-Hamas and Hezbollah, pro-IRA and "anti-Western". Then there was the perception he was soft, and would not sanction the requisite tough action required to deal with domestic terrorists. And, of course, the perennial nuclear war issue, of his refusing to countenance a retaliatory strike against any hostile nation that might, for reasons, lob a nuclear missile or two our way. Coupled with the entirely false idea Corbyn is/was a communist, this is a recipe for widening the pool of those who would vote Tory, as well as making many of them more likely to do so. Yes, this fear didn't bloom in a vacuum, but the Tories and their press proved adept at stoking it precisely because it aggravated the collective unconscious of a whole strata of people. Considering how they were in a febrile condition thanks to the drawing out of Brexit - which they mostly supported, and even more wanted done - Labour's second referendum position contained every danger of prolonging matters, or of cancelling it completely.

The second issue is the question of competence. Or, as they say, folks don't vote for divided parties. Boris Johnson's stint as Foreign Secretary, and particularly his callous failures over Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe should bar him from the Commons, let alone the high office to which he has ascended. And yet, as we saw, Johnson was able to use Brexit as a wedge to bulldoze the Tories to a majority. But he was only able to do this by bringing his party to the brink. This autumn's theatre of lost votes, resignations of cabinet members, the expulsion of rebellious remainy Tories made for a heartening show to those who wish the Conservative Party nothing but ill, but it proved his credibility on this issue. You might not like Johnson, but you knew his direction of travel. Unfortunately, for many of these voters, this wasn't the case with Jeremy Corbyn. Likewise you knew (or thought you knew) what his views were, but he lacked credibility because he had a laissez-faire attitude to internal opposition and appeared weak when it came to tackling his own critics. This crystallised when it came to the anti-semitism crisis, which appeared to be allowed to rumble on and fatally damaged his reputation for decisive decision making. And, again, letting the second referendum campaign run riot in Labour's ranks without trying to challenge it. In other words, how can you trust a man with the keys to Number 10 to deliver all these very ambitious and expensive policies if he can't even run his own party. Sadly, we know the answer to this.

What lessons can the next Labour leader draw from this sorry episode, apart from the obvious and banal fact the media will be against them? The first is Johnson will hark back to the credibility on Brexit he's in the process of consolidating, which makes Labour's long leadership election an indulgence. The second comes down to Labour's messaging. As much as remain-minded members supporting Keir Starmer might hope he's going to turn the clock back to the pre-Brexit days, I cannot believe he would be so stupid as to commit Labour to rejoining within the lifetime of this parliament. And the other two serious candidates, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, aren't about to either. Thirdly, it's difficult to imagine any of these would stand for the behaviour we've seen from a persistent core of MPs, some of whom are now deservedly ex, in the event of their becoming leader. As relative unknowns vis a vis the public, they have to be seen as decisive, serious (up to and including wielding the stick if needs must), hungry to win, and with the right answers to the problems the Tories cannot solve.

Here's the thing. Without Brexit, Johnson hasn't got a lot to offer the new Tory voters. Indeed, well-respected strategists are recommending not to unduly bother spending much time pleasing them. And, as if by magic, now the election is safely out of the way local government funding is set to fall in the Tories' recent acquisitions and monies diverted to the Home Counties and the South East. It's almost as if Johnson is determined to mug off his new support. Having accomplished their most stunning victory in decades they are, with unseemly haste, undoing the conditions for a repeat performance. The opportunities for Labour then are there, in fact they're already starting to yawn, but they can only be exploited if we look back at the last four-and-a-half years and avoid the same mistakes.

Comrades for Keir

We started this year with a YouGov poll suggesting Keir Starmer leads the race to be Labour's next leader. Then yesterday, Survation's own weighted poll of LabourList readers but Rebecca Long-Bailey narrowly ahead. In either case, this suggests substantial numbers of Corbyn-supporting members are favouring Keir, so those on the RLB-supporting left have to ask why. Not because it's an interesting exercise in and of itself, but so we can persuade these comrades - because they are comrades - that RLB is the better bet. Here are some thoughts then as to why some find his pitch compelling.

1. Paul Mason notes Starmer carries a professional air about him thanks to his background as Director of Public Prosecutions. He therefore knows the state and its bureaucracy, and has the lawyerly skills of mastering a brief and thinking on his feet. He is, in short, a serious figure. And no doubt he is. Whatever one thinks of the role he played in steering Labour in the direction of a second EU referendum, he did a good job at the despatch box scrutinising the government and having a better understanding of the Brexit deals bought before the Commons by Theresa May and Boris Johnson than his Tory opposite number. While Jeremy Corbyn's performance at PMQs varied greatly over his time, there is the belief Keir would consistently better the Prime Minister which, in turn, would provide the sort of theatre designed to play well on the evening news bulletins.

2. This however would be done from the left. As he was quick to establish, economically speaking, his offering is Corbynism with Keir and not junking the 2017 and 2019 manifestos - a different approach to Lisa Nandy, Emily Thornberry, and Jess Phillips who have either singled out individual instances or some of the policy menu for criticism. And to burnish his stance with a tinge of authenticity, we had that campaign video which saw Keir sticking up for working people and fighting the good fight. Just don't talk about the time he stood with the Tories and the LibDems in putting the screws on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people. Nevertheless, he is left enough for enough and some are prepared to see him account for this before even considering changing their vote.

3. If that can be overlooked, so can his participation in the 2016 coup. After all, he has served loyally in the shadow cabinet and has since hovered above the factions - reports of his favouring Labour First supporters in Holborn and St Pancras CLP elections notwithstanding. Naturally, hiring Matt Pound from the self-same faction doesn't give off non-factional vibes but, as plenty have pointed out, he has experience of campaigning against Momentum during Labour's last round of reselections. Though to credit LF with more than a dozen votes against the triggers is to overstate their reach and influence. Nevertheless, most of Keir's left support are again happy to either ignore the hire or put it down to campaigning practicalities.

4. The assumption of non-factional positioning obviously appeals to leftists worn down by four years of internal warfare, and they want to believe Starmer can heal the ceaseless conflict. Whether he has the appetite for shaping the party in his image and the struggle it brings remains to be seen. Nevertheless, in trying to read the runes and despite Labour First's backing they are not senior to his campaign. LF's backing stems from their anyone-but-Corbyn positioning and, therefore, anyone but RLB. They might fantasise about taking back the party and obviously see a Starmer leadership as a springboard for doing so, but Starmer also knows his best chance at victory in 2024 is peace within the party between now and then. If you stand as the unifying figure, turning against the most substantial section of the party is hardly clever clever politics. And with a PLP also weary of infighting, apart from the scorched earth ultras who've hitched their wagon to the sinking Jess Phillips campaign, the hope a Starmer leadership might see tensions simmer down are not entirely groundless.

5. Ultimately, taking all these into consideration, there is enough ambiguity for some of the left to project their own hopes onto him and see them confirmed by Keir's actions and interventions. So far, and it is early days, there is little suggesting to comrades that the party isn't safe with him, that the policy platform Corbyn stood on will be sacrificed, and that he stands a worse chance of winning an election.

This poses a number of challenges to RLB supporters. We know Becky's not about to junk Corbynism, considering she was central to it and is responsible for its green industrial strategy. But she's up against the competent image, the perception a rapid recovery and election win is more likely under Starmer, and that his leadership would be an antidote to the poison coursing through Labourist politics. This is where the campaign has to be most persuasive because these are the grounds on which the leadership will be won or lost.

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