LABOUR’S MODERATES HAVE BIG DECISIONS TO MAKE

TALK of a mass walk-out of Labour MPs to form a new party has swept around Westminster once again following another woeful fortnight for Jeremy Corbyn. Moderates appalled at their hard-Left leader’s mealy-mouthed response to Russian belligerence and revolted by the flood of accusations about anti-Semitism within party ranks are wondering whether the time has come to start afresh.

“Excitement grows about a new centrist party being formed,” the former Labour MP Tristram Hunt, who keeps in close touch with ex-colleagues, wrote in this week’s Spectator magazine. Labour backbencher John Woodcock, a frequently outspoken critics of Mr Corbyn, is said to be “on the brink” of resigning the party whip and sitting as an independent. Former frontbencher Chuka Umunna is understood to have talked to some pro-Brussels Tories about the possibility of including them in a new party.

Such speculation has repeatedly arisen during Mr Corbyn’s leadership yet never comes to fruition. Labour moderates are always “on the verge” of going but fail to make the leap. The suspicion at Westminster is that, for all the hopelessness of their position, they would rather stay put and enjoy a cosy life on the opposition benches than face the gruelling task of trying to build a new political force from scratch with all the risk of disappearing into obscurity.

Britain’s electoral history suggests that, under the first-pastthe-post voting system, any attempt to “break the mould” of the current two-party duopoly has little hope of success.

Yet new political groupings do have a role to play in forcing establishment parties that have lost their way to regain their senses.

In the 1980s, the Social Democratic Party failed to replace a Labour Party that had swung too far to the Left. But by splitting the left-of-centre vote, the SDP did concentrate minds and pave the way for New Labour. More recently, Ukip managed to get only one MP elected to the Commons yet their electoral threat turned the Conservatives into the Brexit party.

Labour’s moderates may have to accept that sacrificing their careers by splitting their party may be the only way to save it.