Drawing the Battlelines

At moments an exercise in hagiography, The News Agents' profile of Morgan McSweeney is interesting and worth a listen. It goes into his history and explores, such as one exists, his theory of politics. They characterise him as less Blairite and more old Labour right, because of an apparent concern with working class politics. There is discussion of him as an operator, but his skulduggery is diplomatically passed over. We learn he replaced Sue Gray because she was not political enough. Again, there is no suggestion of untoward shenanigans. Sources need protecting and lthe grapevine into Number 10 has to be maintained, after all.

About McSweeney's politics, he impresses the easily impressed because it's all about winning. And what Labour needs to do now it's won office is make good its promises and deal with the people's priorities. This, the piece argues, is where he believes other centre left governments in Western Europe have gone wrong. For example, their support do not want mass migration and yet that's what they get. The result is their chances going down the tubes and the far right piling on electoral weight. From our point of view, McSweeney is an instantiation of Labourism's most backward characteristics - office for careerism's sake, an absence of the possibility that things might be better, a commitment to a model of leadership that tails, rather than leads, public opinion, and hostility to wedge issues, regardless of how popular they might be. For all the hype, under his political direction Keir Starmer is already treading the same steps that has undone social democratic parties on the continent. It remains to be seen whether the outcome will repeat history as tragedy or farce.

This post, however, isn't just about McSweeney. With the Labour left back in its box and the left outside wondering what to do next, the sort of bickering and jockeying we saw during the Blair and Brown years is never far away the surface. Already, there is disquiet that Starmer passed over time servers to appoint newbies to plum positions. Some are unhappy that key ministerial roles have gone to unelected appointees. With a bloated parliamentary party and only so many jobs to go round, what work might the Devil make for these idle hands once the new cohort have got over the novelty of office? Clearly, Starmer is already worried hence the immediate suspensions following the benefit cap rebellion, and we learned last week about the Labour whips' ham-fisted efforts to curb dissent. Does this look like a strong government confident in its politics to you?

While McSweeney appears not to have a hand in these moves, he does have a side-project that could exacerbate inner party struggle. This can be summed up in three words: stop Angela Rayner. Over the last four years, the apparat has gone out of its way to clip her wings and, to be frank, humiliate her. There was the not-at-all dodgy disposal of Sam Tarry, the blocking of Rayner's supporters from shortlists across the North West, the pettiness of refusing Andy Burnham a platform at Labour's conference, the concealing of information from Rayner and her allies in the cabinet, the endless consultations and watering downs of the workers right agenda she's made her own, and last week's brutal mugging of Louise Haigh. McSweeney and mates are on a mission to keep Rayner from getting the top job. It's partly political: her journey from enthusiastic Corbyn ally to enthusiastic Starmer stooge suggests a fundamental political unreliability. If she becomes leader, her soft left Labourism not only differs from the Milquetoast managerialism McSweeney and Starmer prefer, like Ed Miliband she might inadvertently open the way for a left revival. Then there is the personal. Rayner and her allies have not forgotten nor forgiven the slights against them, and there will be a reckoning if she lands in the driving seat. It follows this preoccupation with Rayner will continue with her being cut out of decisions, her allies presented with trays full of fait accompli, their policies spiked, and efforts at making the party safe for a right wing successor to Starmer. McSweeney is counting on the services he rendered scores of new MPs for when the moment comes.

The beginnings of Labour's new psychodrama is there, and for a man who is reputedly political to his finger tips McSweeney will have a hard time leaving off his vendetta against Rayner and the soft left. What else might one expect now the adults are in charge?

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