With the Tory party imploding, Labour needs to reinvent itself – fast
Paul Mason
Corbyn can’t afford to wait five years. After the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith, the next election could be sooner than expected
‘As he tries to reforge Labour as an alliance, Jeremy Corbyn will have to manoeuvre around the same iceberg that sank IDS: welfare.’ Photograph: Peter Powell/PA
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When a Conservative minister arrives in the offices of a newspaper or broadcaster, they’ll often see the faces of friends, ex-colleagues or even horseriding chums. It’s the same in the City, the same for business, the same across the thinktank world. Because of this it can seem, from the inside, that the party has dense roots and political resilience. And as long as you’re talking only about this elite horizontal stratum, it does.
But
the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith shows the fragility of the project. Cameron became prime minister with the support of just 24.3% of registered voters. The recovery has petered out. The fiscal rules are broken in their entirety. There is every possibility that Osborne will be forced out; that Cameron will be challenged; that Brexit will happen, triggering a new election; and after that, a second Scottish independence referendum.
Labour’s frontbench can notch IDS up as a tactical victory: they
prepared their own fiscal rule, pitched their budget response around Osborne’s failure and lack of fairness, and conducted themselves competently. As a result, they have probably killed off Blairite dreams of a coup, even if some of the plotters continued on autopilot, attacking their own leadership while the Tories imploded.
But now, to become ready for government,
Labour has to make hard choices – and in areas the radical left has little experience of: party management, political strategy, and compromise with one’s own principles.
Corbyn has the firm support of most unions, tens of thousands of new and active members and about a quarter of the PLP. His enemies are isolated. But his real problem is the unenthusiastic centre: the legion of Labour councillors swept up into Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse” farrago; the centrist Labour MPs who just want to win; and, above all, the swing voters waiting to see what Labour becomes under Corbyn.
Given the urgency, and the soreness of political wounds, there is an obvious solution: for Corbyn to make an explicit offer to the right and centre of his party that allows them space, gives them responsibility and even allocates them control of certain policy areas. In return he – and the party membership – should ask that they turn their Twitter accounts and millionaire-funded private offices against the Conservatives, not the left.
Corbyn might have to face down resistance to that from some in the Momentum group, whose activists believe over the long term they can transform the entire party. That may have been true over a five-year opposition term, but Labour now has to plan for a shorter turnaround.
With the Tory party imploding, Labour needs to reinvent itself – fast | Paul Mason
