If there is one issue in British politics on which the Labour party has always spoken for the public, it is the National Health Service (NHS). Through bad times and good, the opinion polls have almost always put Labour ahead of the Tories on the NHS. No matter how hard former prime minister David Cameron tried to boost his standing on this issue, and at times he tried very hard indeed, the best he ever managed was to dent Labour’s lead.
Until now, that is.
The post-referendum opinion survey by the Britain Thinks market research company feels like a watershed. It sends the kind of message of doom to Labour that the ravens abandoning the Tower of London is supposed to presage for the kingdom as a whole. What is the most important single priority in post-referendum Britain, asked the pollsters. The answer that came back was a well-funded and efficient NHS. And which party leader is most trusted to deliver that?
Here’s the killer: Prime Minister Theresa May, by 38 per cent, to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s 30 per cent. Plenty of people have tried to make a case that Corbyn is more popular with the public than his critics think. I’ve tried to keep an open mind on that debate. It is true, for instance, that Labour has held its own in parliamentary byelections since Corbyn became leader, though it is also true that Labour incumbents have been blown away in local council byelections in recent weeks. It is also true that the Tory lead over Labour, which shot up when May became Prime Minister, has now begun to shrink.
But there is no hiding from the fact that Corbyn’s own poll ratings have steadily lurched from just about OK a year ago to downright awful today. When Corbyn took over from Ed Miliband in September 2015, his satisfaction rating among voters in Mori’s poll series was -3. Today it is -31. Among Labour voters a year ago, Corbyn was at +31. Today he is at +1.
When Labour members were asked in late June what the party’s chances of winning the next general election were, the score was “likely” 35 per cent and “unlikely” 57 per cent. This is a place from where it is very hard to return. It is possible of course that all this will change if, as assumed, Corbyn is re-elected Labour leader today. But it will also be a surprise. One problem is that people have formed their view of Corbyn. They like him or they don’t. John Curtice, a political scientist who is right about most things in these matters, says Corbyn is no longer an unpopular Labour leader but simply a divisive one. We will soon hear a lot about the section of the public that thinks Corbyn is great. But as Curtice says, that section is simply too small. But Corbyn has two great problems, not just one. He isn’t popular enough, as his challenger Owen Smith kept saying.
And, as Smith didn’t say enough, he is wrong about too many things. On Europe, Corbyn is half-hearted. On Syria, he can see only western wickedness. On Nato, he is evasive. On Ireland, he is naive. On economic policy he simply seems to favour nationalisation and to think that the money tree will pay for everything. Why is May trusted more than Corbyn on the NHS? Because people don’t believe the money tree is the answer.
Assuming that it wants to turn all this around, what can Labour actually do about it? There will be lots of appeals for unity at the party conference over the next few days. They have started already in Corbyn’s interviews. Unity is good. It is better than disunity. But unity has to mean more than simply demanding that those who disagree with Corbyn fall into line and say things they don’t believe and aren’t true. A man with Corbyn’s long years of not falling into line will struggle to make this sound credible.
Corbyn could certainly claim himself a bit of moral high ground by saying today that the venomous verbal and sometimes physical attacks on his critics do not speak for him. He could tell them to stop or face the consequences. He could also give himself some political elbow-room by calling off the dogs on the deselection of MPs. He could welcome a return to MPs electing the shadow cabinet.
Few politicians are less curious about the changes that have happened in Britain in his lifetime than Corbyn. Above all, he could invite his party to help him make a priority of finding an answer to the most difficult question facing the centre-left in every developed country and certainly in Britain: How can political institutions shape globalisation in ways that ordinary people feel part of and confident about? If he took that kind of open and conciliatory approach, Corbyn would be entitled to ask for something in return from those who oppose him. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom, as Edmund Burke once observed. But the question is whether that is what Corbyn wants. Few politicians are less curious about the changes that have happened in Britain in his lifetime than Corbyn. Few seem less ready to compromise.
And anyway, so far, the strategy has been the opposite — to intimidate, harass and bully critics out of their posts and even out of the party, not to bind them in. “I have realised in the past year that John McDonnell is the real leader of the Labour party, not Corbyn,” says one former shadow cabinet member. “And McDonnell’s strategy is simply to take over the party.”
“If there is hope, it lies in the proles,” writes Winston Smith in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.” If there was hope it must lie in the proles because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the party ever be generated. The party could not be overthrown from within.” Much of that is true of the Labour party’s perilous situation today.
There will be no breakaways or splits today or any time soon. Increasingly, in fact, it seems that only the verdict of the electorate in a general election can compel Labour to face up to its own peril — and there is no guarantee of even that. That’s why so many Labour MPs, even some who face defeat, want an early election and to bring that moment on. If there is hope for Labour it lies with the voters. Only they can change the party. But until that happens, the voters will be the ones who pay the highest price for Labour’s chosen current paths of irrelevance and failure.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Martin Kettle is an associate editor of the Guardian and writes on British, European and American politics, as well as the media, law and music
