Another future is possible

In 2010, in the wake of Labour’s general election defeat, the party elected the wrong Miliband to replace Gordon Brown. David, the former foreign secretary, was the obvious choice, striding the centre ground any party needs if it is serious about gaining power. Instead, courtesy of the hard left led trade unions, notably Unite, led by Len McCluskey, the wrong Miliband, brother Ed, was victorious. In 2015, after Ed Miliband had led Labour to defeat, his parting gift to the party was a new electoral system which enabled anyone the chance to vote, including those who were not Labour members, if they only paid £3. If the election of Ed Miliband in 2010 had set Labour on course for electoral defeat, the victor this time would lead Labour to electoral disaster.

Jeremy Corbyn was a career politician, albeit a career backbench politician. The only position he had held in his entire political career was chair of the Haringey council housing department in the 1970s. He was also from the hard left in the tradition of the likes of Tony Benn, although Corbyn lacked his intellect. Not only did Corbyn come from the Bennite hard left tradition, he stood for all the same policies that Benn put forward with terrible consequences for Labour. But his election to the Labour leadership enthused a new generation of young people, believing Corbyn represented something new and exciting, as well as much older Trots and Stalinists who suddenly saw all their Christmases arrive on the same day.

Although Corbyn was a hopeless leader and a terrible public speaker, he quickly gained a large cult following. A year after being elected, the majority of Labour MPs saw how hopeless Corbyn was and Owen Smith challenged him for the leadership. Smith lost and Corbyn sealed his position. And with Corbyn notionally leading the party, all the appointments for party positions were from the hard left and the political party within a party, Momentum, owned by the millionaire Bennite, Jon Lansman, organised votes so Corbyn supporters won internal elections. The hard left takeover was complete. But with Corbyn came a lot of baggage.

Corbyn’s past was ugly. He took money – £20,000 – from the Iranian state TV service Press TV to make programmes, at a time in Iran when women were still horribly repressed and gay men were being thrown from large buildings. He was a friend of the IRA. He laid a wreath in Tunisia to commemorate those who murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. He had a long history of associating with anti-Semites, leading many to believe that Corbyn himself was an anti-Semite. There is so much more, not least that Corbyn voted against his own party on more occasions than David Cameron. Above all, though was Corbyn’s inability to be an effective Labour leader. His appearance at Glastonbury, where thousands cheered his name was embarrassing.

In 2017, Theresa May called a general election and ran the worst political campaign of any leader anyone could remember. She started off the campaign saying she was ‘strong and stable’, and indeed said it throughout every speech and interview she ever made, only to come across as weak and wobbly. With the country having voted narrowly to leave the EU, during a campaign during which Corbyn almost disappeared off the radar, almost certainly because he wanted to leave Europe, many people held their noses and voted Labour in order to stop the country crashing out without a deal. Most people thought Corbyn could not win and voted Labour because of that. The Tories still won, although May lost her majority, and Corbyn and his fans seemed to think he had actually won. One more heave next time and he’d be in Number 10.

Instead, Boris Johnson rode to power with a landslide victory against a Labour Party promising free money to everyone. Johnson’s ‘Get Brexit done’ was an effective slogan, even if it was a lie, as are most things that come from Johnson, and Labour faced all ways on Europe. Above all, the public hated Corbyn. This was not because of the hated mainstream media (MSM): its was because voters themselves had worked out he was not the sort of man they could trust to run the country. When the Russians attacked people in Salisbury, Corbyn came up short in condemning Putin. He has always been a supporter of unilateral nuclear disarmament. He has a terrible history of associating with terrorists. These are not smears: they are facts. And his woeful inability to hold the government to account, illustrated by his dismal appearances at prime minister’s questions were not lost on voters.

It has taken over three months to hold the election for Corbyn’s successor. In reality, it is a fight between the impressive Keir Starmer and the robotic continuity Corbyn candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey. As seems likely, Starmer will win and win well. For the first time in five years, Labour has a golden opportunity to become a functioning party of opposition.

When and if Starmer wins, he must act quickly to reform the Labour Party. He needs to form a shadow cabinet based on talent and not politics, although I would make exceptions for Corbynistas who must never be allowed anywhere near Labour’s front page. He must purge Labour of the well-paid Stalinist and Trot place men and women and appoint a brand new team. And he must act immediately to expel those guilty of anti-Semitism. In essence, Starmer must give marching orders to the hard left who should return to their crank parties and organisations on the fringes, like the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party (Militant).

Labour needs to embrace not just the centre left of politics but the centre ground. Those at the top of Labour since 2015 have been overwhelmingly middle class, attended grammar and private schools and went to elite universities and indeed many of Corbyn’s cult following comes from the affluent middle classes. To many of them, the idea of a pure hard left government is a nice idea, but if that hard left party loses, it barely effects them at all. But when Labour loses, the very people who need Labour most of all lose. Unlike the middle class hipsters who worship the ground Corbyn walks on, they are the ones who will struggle. If Labour ignores the poor, the sick and the vulnerable, then what’s it for?

It will not be easy for Starmer because Corbyn and his fans will not go quietly. They will cry ‘betrayal’ when Corbyn’s poisonous legacy is taken apart and I have no doubt that the comrades will make life as difficult as possible for the new leader. That is what the hard left do, it is what Corbyn has done for a living. He and his ilk need to be sidelined, ignored and hopefully voted out.

Corbyn’s version of Labour does not believe in aspiration or ambition. It does not regard success in work or in business as a good thing. It is petty, it is jealous. Yet find me a working class person who does not want their children to be better-off, successful and, yes, middle class. In Corbyn’s Labour, the only people allowed to be middle class are the comrades themselves.

We can have it all, if we want. We can have a fairer, more equal country and we can encourage aspiration and recognise success. It is not either or.

Another future is possible and I hope it will start tomorrow when Keir Starmer succeeds Jeremy Corbyn. Any other result and Labour is dead.