It’s hard to cast the affable former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson as the Terminator but something about the leadership of his party these days brings out vitriolic despair in former loyalists. Asked who he thought might do a better job in fraught national circumstances than Jeremy Corbyn, Johnson (the Labour one) sighed: “Practically anyone, actually. Because Jeremy is not just pious and sanctimonious, he’s useless at leading, which is why he has people around him to do his shoelaces up [and] pull his strings.”
Corbynites will counter that this is the voice of the despised “moderates”, a group so incompetent they dominated British politics for 13 years and presided over a period of optimistic alignment of Britain and the major European powers. Dark days, indeed. But fear for the state of Labour goes a lot deeper than Blairite oldsters. A failure to seize the mantle of Remain has left Corbyn inhabiting an archipelago of varying positions on the most significant matter of the era — how or if Britain should leave the EU.
The road to No 10 is about seizing the moment and squeezing through narrow gaps to win power. Two years after the “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” moment at Glastonbury spooked the Tories, there’s embarrassed foot-shuffling from all but the most loyal about Corbyn’s grip on the leadership. The public has followed suit: more people think he should resign than stay — Ipsos MORI’s poll last week found 62 per cent in favour of heaving him, up seven per cent on a year ago.
A contest that has accelerated abruptly from the slog of Theresa May’s hopeless attempts to pass the withdrawal agreement to higher-octane, higher-risk politics is leaving Labour behind. On two pressing questions, the party doesn’t really know what it wants.
One: it fears the very general election it repeatedly called for. The insistent demands for an early poll (which have quickly abated) were predicated on the expectation that the Tories would never grant one. A new leader who is prepared to take that risk calls the bluff of his opponents: the Conservatives have a bare majority in the Commons but a lead in the country, and an election would most certainly be a gamble for Boris Johnson, but it looks like more of an uphill battle for Labour in its present mood of cross introspection.
Two: Labour has never really connected its broader strategy to its Brexit arguments. The shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer valiantly links forces with Tory Remainers (with Philip Hammond, the former chancellor, joining the fray openly). A shadow cabinet member jokes: “Sometimes, Keir even lets Jeremy in on his plans.” But there is no joining the dots with Corbyn’s other preoccupations.
Senior Labour MPs were shocked to find that after Johnson barnstormed into his first Prime Ministerial statement, there was no sense of direction about what to do about it. “We just melted away, no contact, no phone calls. And, of course, the Dominic Cummings machine presses forward while we were in the corner.”
It does not get easier. If no-deal Brexit is a working assumption, the road to halting it leads through a no-confidence vote, which in turn leads to an electoral showdown soon in the autumn. A leading Labour member of the all-party Commons group against no-deal says: “Boris made a better start than many (on the Remain side) thought. His message is ‘We’re British, we can get through this’, and pushing forward on policing and the NHS.” Labour is on the defensive when it should be harrying the Government. A very modest funding announcement yesterday put Boris where he wants to be: on TV visiting a hospital.
There’s now embarrassed foot-shuffling from all but the most loyal about Corbyn’s grip on leadership
Another key figure involved in planning for a confidence vote admits to uncertainty about what happens next. Some MPs consider it better to wait and let panic about the prospects of no-deal gather force in September. Others argue that allowing a new team in No 10 to gain momentum could be fatal.
That leaves the thorny question of what follows. The favourite option among parliamentary Remainers is a “national government”, which would extend Article 50. Who would head it? The thought of Jeremy Corbyn heading to the Palace is improbable. “You can forsee the optics problems with that one,” observes one Labour MP involved. So this outcome is dangerous to Corbyn’s authority. Most Labour MPs I have spoken to think leadership of a “unity” government would go to a veteran Remainer who can command respect across the benches. Add this to the “13 reasons why” Corbyn himself might have reservations about the plan and its consequences for his role.
Many of these questions are about confidence and psychology. Labour’s interpretation of the Tory position was that the Government feared an early election because it was so split over Brexit. But it has become clearer in the last week that Johnson is prepared to negotiate to the edge on no-deal.
Of course, the Prime Minister might be wrong about his chances of winning an election. He would need to convert a good number of Labour seats in the North and also win back voters who have defected to the Brexit Party. Yet the animal spirits don’t feel like they are galloping towards a Labour win right now — and a Liberal Democrat resurgence could eat into Labour Remain seats as well as challenge Johnson in Tory ones (those pesky moderates again).
Whatever sequence unfolds, the question hurled at Jeremy and Co will be: “Which side are you on in the final throes of Brexit battle?” The answer, as currently fudged, will be: “It depends”. Labour’s official stance is variously that it accepts the outcome of the 2016 referendum; that it is (now) in favour of a second referendum, deal or no deal; and that it will go back to the EU with “fresh negotiating priorities”. No one seriously thinks these positions cohere.
So while we have watched the Conservative rollercoaster pitching hither and thither, the collapse of faith in Labour has deepened. A life of preparation for political street-fighting has culminated in the battle Jeremy Corbyn looks most ill-equipped by belief or temperament to fight. Labour’s helmsman is missing in action — just as the the combat starts in earnest.
- Anne McElvoy is senior editor at The Economist
