Labour refuses to learn the lessons of defeat
Having overseen Labour’s worst defeat since the 1930s Jeremy Corbyn called for “a period of reflection”. Unfortunately, this overlaps with the campaign to replace him, so instead of ruminating on the reasons for their electoral humiliation Labour MPs are busy pandering to a party membership that still thinks Corbyn was right and the voters were wrong.
Shadow business secretary and darling of the Momentum group of hard-left activists Rebecca Long-Bailey was asked yesterday to rate Corbyn’s performance as leader out of 10.
Having considered, presumably, a charge sheet that includes a lamentable failure to deal with antisemitism and the small matter of setting his party back 70 years, she declared “ten”.
This will go down well with the party members but less so with fellow MPs, not to mention all those former MPs.
Ageing Marxist John McDonnell — who says he wants to slide into the role of “elder statesman” — insists Long-Bailey has his full support.
He also backs the hapless shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, to be her deputy.
Burgon has been a painfully loyal supporter of Corbyn, but his talents don’t appear to extend much further than that. Labour’s chairman Ian Lavery flirted with a run at the top job but has pulled out and now backs Long-Bailey.
This will deprive the opposition of a candidate who remains best known for pocketing £165,000 from a 10-member branch of the National Union of Mineworkers which he ran before becoming an MP.
The main challenger, then, is Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary. While he’d likely give Boris Johnson a run for his money, it’s unclear how a committed Remainer would win back votes in the party’s
Leave-backing (former) heartlands.
At least the race for deputy leader offers some light relief. Tooting MP Rosena Allin-Khan has proposed a “Ministry of Fabulosity” which would “be dominated by fabulous MPs and come out with fabulous policies”.
When pressed yesterday by ITV on what sort of fabulous ideas this ministry could produce, she claimed that in politics “there is room for a dance off”, adding “we all love a boogie”. And she’s one of the more sane and competent Labour MPs.
We won’t know who will emerge from the rubble, clutching a battered crown, until 4 April. This means that Corbyn’s final outing at Prime Minister’s Questions will be on April Fool’s Day. That’s a headline we can write in advance.
Main image: Getty