After corbyn, who will lead labour out of the wilderness? | thearticle

Each time Labour does opposition it does it longer. It took 13 years after 1951; 18 years after 1979. Now it looks like a full 20-year stretch, thanks to Jeremy Corbyn’s disastrous

leadership. I have stood in six elections as candidate and MP and worked in many others. Never, in decades of election door-knocking, did I confront such venomous dislike for a party leader.

To be sure, voters held the triumphant Boris Johnson in contempt as a liar and a man serially unfaithful to every cause, colleague and woman he has ever met. But these frailties of the

sinner and faults in character are personal not political. Corbyn was detested on the doorstep: not because of his personal morality, but because people could not see how a man could

possibly be Prime Minister who refused to root out anti-Semitism from the Labour Party, who did not appear a patriot as he dallied with IRA terrorism, who was hostile to Nato, the EU, and

the British military, or who was anti-American but pro the authoritarians who run Venezuela or Nicaragua. The LOTO (Leader of the Opposition) clique of public school Stalinists with their

nostalgia for Sovietism, who typed out every statement Corbyn made, were seen by voters as sinister. So were the elderly white male trade union bosses, who seemed to pull too many strings in

Labour. Corbyn offered no policy on Brexit. Voters severely punished even Labour MPs like Caroline Flint who kept voting with Theresa May and Boris Johnson on Brexit. Seats like Rother

Valley and Bassetlaw went Tory as Labour incumbents voted for Brexit along with the government. The new Tory MPs now representing these working-class constituencies, which have never

recovered from the great de-industralisation at the end of the last century, will quickly find that they can deliver little for their constituents. Johnson is unlikely to adopt the

protectionist policies and state intervention that former “Red wall” voters believe in. There is going to be a titanic battle between the ultra-liberal, globalised capitalism on which the

City, AI and the gig economy thrive, and the left-behind communities that have just voted against Corbyn, who expect Johnson to deliver well-paid jobs, council homes and better health,

education and old age care services. The last three-and-a-half years have only been a prologue to Brexit in which every firm in Britain kept full access to the EU Single Market. The easy

part was the withdrawal agreement. Johnson accepted what Theresa May refused, namely the separation of Northern Ireland from the mainland British economy. He has a majority for that first

stage of Brexit. But afterwards the real problems begin, as he has to decide between a soft Norway-style Brexit or the full-on amputation which his ERG comrades, Nigel Farage and papers like

the _Daily Telegraph, Sun _and _Express_ all expect him to deliver. If anti-European nationalism triumphed in England, anti-English nationalism has triumphed in Scotland and Northern

Ireland. Centrist politics, in as much as it was represented by the Lib Dems or moderate Tories like David Gauke and Sam Gyimah, has collapsed. The only opposition left is Labour. Already

before the election at least six would-be successors to Corbyn had begun recruiting staff in the Commons from the ranks of Labour advisers and assistants to form teams for leadership bids.

They knew the electoral disaster that was to come and foresaw that Corbyn would have to stand down. Though he is lingering on, he will be a ghost in the Commons and Labour can only be

embarrassed at seeing him still at the Despatch Box as Leader of the Opposition. He should go now. One Left-wing loudmouth, Laura Pidcock, has been silenced: she lost her seat despite her

unwavering pronouncements in favour of socialism. But the new leader should and almost certainly will be a woman. The male, pale, stale Corbyn clique from North London have proven themselves

losers. A female leader can better take on a Prime Minister who, while he loves women, represents male cockiness and an Alpha Male style of leadership in a manner soon likely to grate on

the nation. Two women candidates stand out. One is Rebecca (“Becky”) Long-Bailey, the 40-year-old Salford solicitor. A Catholic mother, she is a relatively new MP, having only arrived in

2015. She wisely kept her head down and did as she was told by her mentor, John McDonnell. Her dull, technical, northern down-to-earth style is reminiscent of Harold Wilson, but there have

been flashes of warmth or expressions of regret over Corbyn’s handling of anti-Semitism which show an independent mind. Expect a new de-robotised Becky to emerge fast. The other is Emily

Thornberry, an Islington barrister, married to a judge, Sir Christopher Nugee. Thornberry is Labour’s comfort blanket, a woman who has lived through all the party’s vicissitudes since her

election in 2005. She is Left but not too Left, speaks well and has an asset in her chief adviser, Damian McBride — once Gordon Brown’s disgraced hatchet man, later rehabilitated after six

years’ work at his Catholic school in Finchley and at the charity CAFOD. The new party leader will be elected by the membership, most of whom have arrived since 2015 and are still influenced

by Momentum. Trade unions will also play a part. The question is: how hungry is Labour for power after a diet of Miliband and Corbyn? It took Labour more than a decade after 1951 and after

1979 to slough off Leftist pieties and find new ways of connecting to voters. Can Long-Bailey or Thornberry recast Labour? Or do they imagine that it wasn’t Corbyn and the Left that lost the

election, but the voters who were wrong? We shall soon find out.