In the rush to lay responsibility for these results with everyone but themselves, the Labour leadership has got its excuses muddled, writes Conor Pope
The leading Labour quote on the BBC news bulletins this morning was John McDonnell saying that people need to wait for all the local election results to come before making any judgements.
That is a delaying technique. There are certainly some judgements you can make on the back of the results that are in as of this morning: you can see it is going badly for Labour.
I am not the only one making that kind of early judgement. You only need to look at the quote Jeremy Corbyn’s team put out at the close at polls last night (I say ‘put out’ – it appears to have only been given to the Guardian) to see that the leader’s office had been making their own judgements before any votes had been counted.
This is not unusual in itself: setting election expectations is one of the most important things a party can do, regardless of how well they do, as Theo Bertram has pointed out. But once you have done it, it is a bit harder to claim that it is too early to come to conclusions. Especially if, as last night’s quote did, you not only seek to set expectations, but seek to lay blame.
It was tough to read on the way home from nine hours on the Labour doorstep last night. They blame candidates. They blame councils. They blame the United Kingdom Independence party. They blame ‘unique circumstances’. They blame the general election. They blame everything, in fact, other than the one factor that has been raised on the doorsteps time and time again. While I was trying to get Labour supporters to polling stations yesterday evening, Corbyn’s office was briefing that the reason they would not go is everyone’s fault but theirs.
The scatter-gun approach to excuse-making means that the reasoning does not quite add up. It seems quite a coincidence that every place that went to the polls yesterday would have uniquely bad circumstances for Labour. It is almost as though there could be a link between them all.
The idea that the post-Brexit Ukip collapse should only help the Conservatives is demeaning. Complaining that voters are moving in ways that are unhelpful to you is not like complaining about the weather; it should be something you can affect. Indeed, it was only this week that McDonnell made a direct pitch for Ukip voters, who he said have ‘had enough with the British establishment’.
Similarly, ‘the distorting effect of 8 June’ is not something that is only affects the Labour party. Every party that has done well so far will also standing in the general election. What the looming general election does do, in fact, is focus voters’ minds on the national picture, and makes it harder to convince the public that these elections were about local issues. When it came to deciding their vote, many simply did not seem to care that Corbyn is not on their borough council to vote out.
Now, there are reports that Corbyn has requested the voter contact rate in every council seat lost: they actually want to pin the blame on the activists too. As Richard Angell noted last night: ‘The fact is there is one factor that is raised on the doorstep again and again, and it is unfair to try and shift any blame onto those who have had to deal with it.’
But above all, it is outrageous that the leadership would try and palm off any responsibility for bad news onto those who pin on a Labour rosette and put themselves forward for election at a time like this for the party. It is insulting to them, and to the thousands of activists who gave up time to campaign for them. Those candidates do not deserve this. They deserve thanks. And an apology.
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Conor Pope is deputy editor of Progress. He tweets at @Conorpope
John McDonnell apologise? There is more chance of blind monkey typing a Shakespearean sonnet.
Time to think of a new name for the website. Any suggestions?
I blame the Tory-lites and their constant sniping. It was New Labour that turned our voters off.
Is there no honour? Every leader in history has admitted their defeats with the exception of dictators. Only dictators think people didn’t mean to vote against them. Frightening.
Well we didn’t have to wait long for the right-wing of the Party to blame the Leader, and play up the success of the Tories (as they did after the last local elections) – a self-fulfilling prophesy where you slag off the leader as weak and useless -giving the media their narrative and undermining the Party – then you say “Oh look i told you so!” Of course the Labour vote has been much more resilient than the likes of Steven Kinnock could hope for – as they campaign to lose the General Election. One only laments where we would have been if the Right had shown some unity and pulled behind the leader. If you think 500,000 members will just drift away after an election defeat – rather than address the actions of those who have so harmed the party, you are being very optimistic.
Well said Conor – Corbyn and McDonnell cannot however accept blame in any way, otherwise they fear having to stand down.
When you hear Welsh activists saying ‘vote Carwyn not Corbyn’ and voters here in Sussex chuckling at the very thought of Corbyn as PM, you know you are in big trouble. Mass membership without thinking it through has caused a lot of serious problems for the Party which Ed Milliband must take a major share of the responsibility for. Policy took over form actually wanting to win power.
What is the Labour Party really for in this Election? This election is a Brexit Election but Corbyn cannot talk about it so is regarded as pretty irrelevant. It feels awfully like Michael Foot’s disastrous General Election. I’m urging everyone to vote tactically to at least reduce the potential Tory landslide to manageable proportions
Listening to reports coming in from all over the country of a Labour Meltdown was not a real surprise for many of us. We knew 2 years ago this would happen although imagining the poorest parts of Glasgow, or Merthyr Tydfil or Blaenau Gwent or losing the 21 seat Labour majority in Derbyshire including former mining areas – even these can surprise. But why should it? …to put before the voters, a leader who as one FT writer said today is not 1980s he is 1970s – and got stuck their all his career. A man who so alienated the working class they are voting massively against our party for our indifference, our idiocy in letting these Corbynites disseminate their insane dogma and their rebel lost leader.
If anything I blame the moderates for being too moderate, too meek and mild in what we knew would be a cataclysmic performance. After the 80% no confidence and the shadow cabinet resignations MPs should have said no to his leadership in parliament , no to his boot boys at the door. To our eternal shame our tolerance of the Corbynite experiment is to totally destroy the links between Labour and its angry traditional working class voters let alone regain a fraction of middle England, Wales or Scotland..
so all Progress offers is a faction fight.
For goodness sake will everybody stop this nonsense. This election is between Labour and the Tories. Every Labour vote is precious as it shows that millions of people despite this endless dispute still believe in our shared values. The weakening of the SNP and the collapse of UKIP are things to celebrate. The former means that eventually Labour will start to regain seats in Scotland and the latter means the desertion of the working and lower middle class to fascism in England and Wales is over. Of course Labour will lose this election but it will continue to exist rather than spawn 2 new parties called progress and momentum. We owe it both to those who have gone before and those who will follow to understand there is more that unites us as the Labour Party than this sad squabble and naval gazing
John I hear what you say but we have heard it in a way for two years from the Corbyn cult. We knew it would fail : it has. No another hard Left leader does not mean I will fight to save the party I love …etc it means we do need to split into a hard left party and asocial democratic one. Defending a dysfunctional party is futile; move on Macron did it …you can not in a post modern age predicate a socialist party on a 1980s class war state socialist model. It’s over. New Labour mainly got that.
So are we as momentum beginning to divide between the Splitters and the Stayers. I advise the Splitters to simply join the Lib Dems. Remember that Tony Blair was a stayer in 1983. Reclaiming the Labour Party for the Centre Left will be a long term project say 5 to 10 years at least. If you do not want to struggle so long then by all means leave now. I suspect this debate will be had following this election.
Sorry Progress!!
Freudian slip
Yes and we were lucky that Gordon and Tony got such a great and bright team around them but this current situation is worse than 1983 in terms of the coming lost MPs, the current leftist party membership and our lost angry working class voters.
It’s a point of critical change and no the Lib Dems cannot do a Macron although I support their position on many issues and support their anti Brexit position. They have too few hitters. If a Corbynite wins in the Autumn it’s all up for a normal Labour Party; the time for bravery, boldness and recognising that our voters are now eager for a newly refreshed modern centre left party has arrived.
Clearly your new party will have to merge with the Lib Dems as unlike France we have a fptp electoral system. The result was that the SDP failed and resulted in the Lib Dem coalition with the Tories which ultimately resulted in Brexit.
Surely if you believe in Macronism in a fptp electoral system then joining the Lib Dems is your answer. You will then find a comfortable political home.
This will be a long march which will take a decade or more. If McDonnell is the next leader so be it. He will lose in 2022 but by less than JC this time.
I intend to spend the next decade in my allotment (like Jeremy) did.
I better call an end to this sequence and follow it up at the Progress Conference.