No change for Labour

Labour’s protracted leadership contest moved into its final phase yesterday when party members were invited to vote for one of the three candidates vying to succeed Jeremy Corbyn. Even now, the process will not be concluded until April. By the time either Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-bailey or Lisa Nandy is garlanded, nearly four months will have elapsed since Labour endured its worst drubbing at the polls since 1935.

Yet despite all the talk of the “need for change”, the candidates are reluctant to ditch any of the Corbynite baggage that sank them in December, not even the outgoing leader himself. Two of his would-be successors have said they would invite Mr Corbyn to serve in their shadow cabinet, as he appears keen to do. Sir Keir would not be drawn on his front-bench dispositions but nor did he rule out a place for the current leader.

Moreover, the three candidates appear to think their rejection by former supporters in the North was a function of Labour’s confused message over Brexit. Up to a point this is true. But it was also a repudiation of the politically correct cultural priorities that Labour’s leadership insists on embracing – its obsession with “trans rights”, for instance, or anti-monarchism.

Its difficulties were further exposed yesterday when Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, outlined the Government’s points-based immigration policy. Labour finds itself in the extraordinary position of supporting businesses wanting to employ cheap workers against Conservative efforts to push up the wages and enhance the skills of the less welloff. If Labour does not know why it lost in December then another few weeks of campaigning are unlikely to enlighten them.