A dry and stage managed effort by Labour HQ has done little to enhance the reputation of the party
As a member of the Labour Party for almost 15 years, in the event of Jeremy Corbyn winning I will wish him well as he seeks to take on the Conservatives. For all my disagreements with him, and there are numerous, I nevertheless remain of the view that a Labour government is needed to address the devastation that the Conservatives are inflicting on the country.
Many on the left of the party have attacked so-called ‘mainstream’ candidates for selling out on their principles for the pursuit of power. Principles are indeed important. They define us. They send a message to the public about who we are, what we stand for and the story we have to tell. But principles without power mean little.
If Corbyn wins the leadership, he will have done so partly because of the clear vision he has given, but also because of a failure within Labour HQ to conduct the campaign as it should have done.
The first mistake was to run a leadership campaign at the same time as the party sought to understand why we did so badly at the General Election. Harriet Harman’s decision to appoint Margaret Beckett to chair an inquiry into what went wrong was a good idea.
Why then, did the party not decide to let this work take place first, properly considering the results at the party conference before starting the firing gun on the leadership election?
It would also have been invaluable for the party to properly digest Jon Cruddas’ work, which found that we lost the election in large part because voters believed we were anti-austerity. Sadly, such serious work from an MP respected across the party has been lost.
By starting a leadership contest without first understanding why we lost was akin to putting the cart before the horse.
The second mistake was to allow a near-open invitation for all and sundry to join the party as supporters throughout the campaign. I’ve been in the party for many years and it is quite frankly absurd that the campaign has, and I use this word carefully, been hijacked by what I suspect is a new influx of ‘supporters’ with an agenda to destroy the party.
One wonders just how many of the new supporters and members will actually be heard making the case for the Labour Party once Corbynmania has died down.
Labour’s former first minister in Scotland Jack (now Lord) McConnell is right to have argued that a deadline should have been set for members to join the party to vote in the contest. This should have coincided with the deadline for leadership contenders to be nominated by the parliamentary Labour Party. Lord McConnell has dubbed the current situation ‘ridiculous’, and I concur.
And finally, the third mistake has been the woeful organisation of the debates up and down the country.
When the leadership campaign began it was billed as an opportunity to reach out to and engage with the public.
What we’ve had instead is a series of old school set piece speeches and leadership hustings which, I feel, have been irrelevant. When candidates each get 30 seconds to answer questions on topics as big as the economy and Trident, then you know there is something wrong.
I wanted to see our candidates cross-examining each other, debating with party members and the public, understanding what went wrong in May and articulating clear visions for the future of the party. What we have had instead has been a dry and stage managed effort by Labour HQ which has done little to enhance the reputation of the party.
The party now stands on the abyss and faces the prospect of being irrelevant. Sure, with Corbyn in power we can all continue to complain from the sidelines, but what will this achieve?
Will it take a single child out of poverty? Will it protect the most vulnerable in our society? Will it save the NHS? Will it improve the life chances of everyone in this country? Will it create the jobs and provide the education people need? Will it make our communities safer?
And will it give people hope that there is a genuine and serious alternative government in the waiting? The answer to all these questions is a resounding no.
It’s time to get serious. We are electing a leader of a party that should aspire to be a government in waiting, not a leader of some increasingly fringe movement. It’s worth repeating: principles without power mean nothing.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor at Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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71 Responses to “Three mistakes Labour has made in the leadership contest”
John
Well at the risk of sounding redundant I’m not convinced a labour party IN power would have saved the NHS, protected the vulnerable, alleviated child poverty, create (actual) jobs, improved life chances and eductional oppurtunities.
Labour lost my trust under Blair and Brown did nothing to win it back. Labour may have lost because they were anti-austerity but they were RIGHT to be anti-austerity and if they had the conviction to stand by that, and argue it properly, they would be in a much better position now.
But a party is only as good as their spokesperson. Labour had Miliband.
Margaret Tombs
The Labor Party absolutely should be anti austerity, it is an appalling policy which will only make the disparity between rich and poor worse and will not help the economy in any meaningful way except to help the rich get richer. The Labor Partys big failure was in not getting this message over to the public in a way they can understand and allowing the Tories to call the shots on the major talking points.
Also in their betrayal of the Scottish people by siding with the Tories over the referendum and assisting them with spreading misinformation about what independence would mean for the Scottish people, and the consequences of a No vote.
Comrade Darling
Having looked back to when the special conference was held to decide the new leadership election rules I am struggling to find the above authors criticism of it, so I’d be grateful if he could send me the link.
I can find plenty of criticism from the left of the party concerned that the rules were an attempt to reduce Union influence. I can find Blair’s support for the changes. I can find Harmon’s speech at the launch inviting anybody, including supporters of other party’s, to vote in what she hoped would be a national debate, but try as I might no criticism back then from the author.
Fact of the matter is there would be no criticism right now had the ‘right’ person been leading and what we see is yet another example of a right winger bemoaning the fact that the system they introduced has exploded in their faces and looking for somebody to blame.
Barbara Gelder
Interesting article, I think the main problem might be that it’s not the party that makes policies but the public who are lead by a mainly right wing press. Sadly some people believe everything they read and so drive political thought. It is good that there is Jeremy point of view which has merit but sadly the majority of actual voters don’t see the need for fairness but for personal gain, so it makes the chances of labour government slim, if he is elected. It is a case of head over heart. If we want some change then we need to be elected.
Sean Garrity
From what I remember of the general election Labour were not an anti-austerity party but were a pro-austerity party just a slightly lighter one than the Tories. They were offered an anti-austerity alliance with others but were too arrogant to accept.
Moving on from their disastrous result I still see no sign of Labour challenging the pro-austerity minority except from Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.
The reason Labour did so badly was because they failed to challenge the Tory lies with enough conviction and were too focused in trying to woo Liberal/UKIP voters to vote for them hence totally ignoring the vast numbers of disaffected would be Labour voters.
Labour needs to decide what they stand for and have the courage to say what that is no matter how badly it plays in the Tory dominated press.
Cameron knows his 28% share of the vote will not hold up for the life of this parliament it is up to a united Labour party to have the courage of their convictions and show the public he is correct and bring this cruel nasty government to its knees.