Labour’s internal agonies have been the dramatic sub-plot of this summer of turmoil. The important political news, the events that actually matter, are Brexit and the reshaping of the Tory government that will implement it.
Labour’s slow-motion fratricide has been a sideshow: compelling viewing, but at first glance unrelated to the story that counts. While Jeremy Corbyn debated Owen Smith for the title of Labour’s Next Prime Minister last Thursday in Cardiff had it — the actual prime minister was getting on with determining this country’s future.
And yet these two processes are not unrelated: indeed, how one plays out will affect the other. The trouble is, one side in Labour’s civil war has so far refused to see the connection. To explain, we need to stand back a bit. What, at root, is the argument between Corbyn and his opponents now about? Until 28 June, when 172 MPs — 80 per cent of Labour’s parliamentary party — declared they had no confidence in Corbyn’s leadership, the battle was partly about ideology, partly about effectiveness.
Put another way, some of his critics faulted Corbyn for marching in the wrong direction, some for stumbling and tripping over his own feet. But after the no confidence vote, the shape of the argument has changed. It is now about something much more fundamental. It is a dispute over whether the centre-left advances its goals through parliament or some other means.
This is foundational for Labour: the party was created by those who believed working people could not rely on others, or wait for revolution, to improve their lives, but needed to have their own representatives in parliament with a view to forming the government. Even so, the argument resurfaces periodically.
It is worth remembering a long-forgotten phrase from Labour’s civil war of the 1980s. When Peter Tatchell stood as Labour’s candidate in the Bermondsey by-election in 1983, he was denounced by the then leader, Michael Foot, not for his militant policies on tax or nationalisation, but because he had written an article calling for “extra-parliamentary action”. That was Tatchell’s offence, making the case for direct action outside Westminster.
And this is the key fault line today. It also explains why the two sides in Labour’s fight can sound like a couple talking at cross purposes. The anti-Corbyn camp pile on the evidence that Corbyn is doomed electorally — the polls that show Labour 16 points behind the Conservatives, or that Corbyn trails Theresa May as the best PM by 52 per cent to 18 per cent, or that close to a third of Labour voters prefer May to Corbyn — and they cannot understand why the pro-Corbyn camp is so unmoved, so insouciant in the face of electoral calamity. They’re failing to realise that many of their opponents simply don’t see winning a parliamentary majority the way they do — as Labour’s raison d’etre and sine qua non.
Similarly, the anti-Corbyn folk produce the testimony of shadow ministers, including those previously willing to do their duty and loyally serve the duly elected leader, who found themselves driven to despair by Corbyn’s failure to engage with, let alone lead on, policy or even the basic business of opposing the government in Westminster. (He likes to claim credit for various parliamentary victories, even though those involved — especially in the Lords — frequently attest that he played no role.)
Yet Corbyn’s defenders are unmoved by such evidence.For the Corbynites, strength and competence in parliament would be nice, but it’s not essential. For some, even the words “MPs” and “parliament” are suspect: that much was visible from the reaction of the pro-Corbyn section of the audience when Smith mentioned them in Cardiff. They smack of the establishment. If anything, the fact that so many Westminster insiders — never mind that these Labour MPs have the mandate of the 9 million ordinary voters who elected them in 2015 — oppose Corbyn only adds to his radical lustre.
Admittedly, some Corbynites will tacitly concede that winning a parliamentary majority matters, insisting that Corbyn would be poised to sweep to power if only the parliamentary Labour Party and the MSM, or mainstream media, would stop undermining him, poisoning his reputation with a British electorate who would, left to their own devices, rush to embrace him. But most don’t argue on those terms. They say Corbyn is engaged in something much more important and long term than simply chasing an election victory. He’s building a social movement. The lead on this comes from the top. Perhaps the best description came in a perceptive Economist column on Corbyn’s admiration for the street movements of Latin America. (He has said that, were he to leave Britain, the place he would choose to live is Evo Morales’ Bolivia.)
Such movements “consider themselves less election-fighting machines than revolutionary upswells; multitudes that primarily exercise power not through the legislature but through the charismatic influence of their leaders and by taking to the streets to give voice to popular anger”.
Recall too that in 2012, John McDonnell listed parliament as only one of three legitimate methods for change, the others being industrial action and “insurrection”. In this context, you can see why Corbyn felt able to ignore an MPs’ no confidence vote that others would have regarded as their cue to exit the stage. He believes that MPs are not the key players. It also explains why his supporters set so much store by the large crowds that turn out for him. In this view, the political drama that matters is not the one that takes place in polling stations and which reaches its climax in Downing Street. The drama that counts is street theatre. (Which is why Labour moderates should not assume that Corbyn or McDonnell would quit after even a crushing general election defeat: for them, so long as they have the support of the members, that’s all that counts.)
In ordinary times, you can see why some left idealists might find this appealing. But these are not ordinary times. The European referendum has changed everything. For we are in a critical hiatus, during which the meaning of that 23 June verdict will be determined. Luckily, article 50 has not yet been invoked — even if that’s what Corbyn called for, on camera, the morning after the vote. (Curiously, he denied on Thursday that he’d said that, even though the video is there for all to see.)
It means that there is much to play for. Many in politics and business, perhaps succumbing to wishful thinking, believe that May would like a soft Brexit, retaining much of our previous closeness to the EU. But she is under pressure from the Brexiteers in her own cabinet, on the backbenches and in the newspapers. There needs to be countervailing pressure on May to push her in the other direction. Some of that will come from the City, insisting that they have the access to Europe on which a chunk of their profits rest.
But the 48 per cent who voted remain need a voice of our own, one that will push May to find a solution that keeps much of what we cherished. That voice will have to be heard on the floor of the House of Commons, as the legislation that uncouples us from the EU works its way through parliament. There are Tory remainers, of course, but they will be constrained by loyalty to the government. What’s needed is a serious, coherent, functioning opposition.
Team Corbyn will say they agree — and the way to achieve that is for MPs to fall in line behind Corbyn. But that’s not easy, not when those MPs have reached the conclusion that the leader is not up to the task and that, when it comes to the remain cause, his heart is not in it. Corbyn’s hard-core support will wave such an argument aside. But those who are open to persuasion should think on it.
If they would like a Brexit that is not a total rupture from the EU, that salvages something from the referendum wreckage, they need a Labour leader supported by most Labour MPs. Such a notion is not an establishment sell-out: it’s why Labour exists.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Jonathan Freedland is a weekly columnist and writer for the Guardian. He has also published eight books, including six best-selling thrillers, the latest being The 3rd Woman.
