Labour has a secret weapon to kill Corbyn ... apathy

His enemies will let him lead the by-election battle – because they know he’ll be crushed

TOMORROW the deadline closes on nominations for Labour’s candidate in the upcoming Copeland by-election in Cumbria. That’s the by-election caused by sitting Labour MP Jamie Reed’s pre-Christmas announcement that the atmosphere within his party had become so toxic he could no longer stand it, and was moving to a job at the nearby Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant instead.

As a result – and as I reported last week – Labour’s warring tribes are drawing up their battle-lines.

Jeremy Corbyn and his team are mobilising behind their favoured candidate, Rachel Holliday, a local health campaigner.

Meanwhile, Labour moderates are putting their own efforts behind former Dunfermline MP Thomas Docherty, the man who memorably described Labour’s Scottish 2010 election campaign as ‘self-immolation for dummies’.

So unwittingly – or given his well known antipathy towards his leader, entirely wittingly – Jamie Reed has triggered a nuclear chain reaction.

His departure has opened up a contest in one of Labour’s most marginal seats, (majority 2,564), at a time when Corbyn’s personal approval ratings and Labour’s national poll ratings are experiencing their own psephological China Syndrome.

With the Tories inserted by the bookies as favourites to claim the seat for the first time since 1931, defeat would throw Labour into fresh turmoil, and in turn pile even more pressure on to Corbyn’s embattled leadership.

Normally, this would leave the party with only one viable option. Find out which candidate Corbyn wants to select, work out what campaign strategy he wants to pursue, then do precisely the opposite.

But these are not normal times for the Labour Party, or for British politics in general. And the moment has come for desperate measures.

In Copeland, Labour needs to stand squarely behind Jeremy Corbyn. It needs to select his candidate. It needs to run a campaign based unashamedly on Corbyn’s own principles. In short, it needs to let Corbyn be Corbyn. Or, as one Labour MP said to me: ‘We need to let Copeland be Corbynite.’

Since Corbyn’s victory in the second of what are fast becoming Labour’s annual leadership elections, Labour moderates have settled on a new strategy.

They have decided they will kill him with apathy. There will be no more co-ordinated agitation. There will be no more high-profile rebellions. There will not even be much public criticism.

‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ one former Shadow Cabinet member told me just before Christmas, ‘every time I go on TV I have to make a conscious effort not to say anything bad about him. It’s destroying me.’

Maybe. But it’s also working. Deprived of a Blairite Fifth Column to mobilise against, Corbyn is operating in a political vacuum. Unable to turn on his enemies within, and incapable of landing any significant blows on his opponents without, he is slowly suffocating – with the result that it is now former loyalists such as Len McCluskey who are raising questions about his future.

So in Copeland Jeremy Corbyn should go for broke. And he should be allowed – indeed encouraged – to go for broke. Rachel Holliday appears to be a good, local choice – her inexplicable affection for Corbyn not withstanding – and was recently awarded the accolade Cumbrian Woman of the Year for her work with the homeless. She has earned the right to carry her hero’s banner.

Then Corbyn should demonstrate the political courage and principle that his supporters consistently tell us are the mark of the man.

HE SHOULD make a series of high-profile visits to the constituency – not the solitary trip currently scheduled. He should remind local people of his longstanding commitment to nuclear disarmament, and opposition to the modernisation of the Trident fleet.

Most importantly of all, he should proudly repeat the statement contained in his first leadership manifesto, in which he proclaimed: ‘New nuclear power will mean the continued production of dangerous nuclear waste and an increased risk from radioactive accident and nuclear proliferation.’

Admittedly, this would represent a high-risk strategy. And not all Labour MPs are willing to embrace it.

Seasoned by-election fixers Andrew Gwynne and John Ashworth have already been despatched to the seat to effectively act as human shields, insulating Labour’s campaign from excessive contamination by their leader – a move that has not exactly endeared them to some of their colleagues.

‘Corbyn’s team are using puddings like Gwynne and Ashworth to be the shop window in Copeland,’ says one grizzled veteran of the 1980s struggle against Militant.

‘And then, of course, they will have co-ownership of the defeat.’

Maybe they will. Or perhaps Corbyn could upset the odds, and lead his party to a game-changing political triumph.

But either way, it would at least represent a defining moment.

And that’s what Labour desperately needs. A moment of decision.

Up until now, the Corbynites and moderates have been engaged in a phoney war. Actually, a private war. MP v MP, activist v activist, member v member.

The voters – the people who in whose name this conflict is supposedly being waged – have been completely excluded from the debate. So in Copeland, Corbyn should have the courage to finally let them in.

It is a marginal seat, but still a Labour seat. Yes, Labour are doing badly in the polls, but incumbent governments rarely seize opposition seats mid-term.

If the Corbynites still have faith in their man – and if he still has faith in himself – then here is the opportunity to put it to the test.

Can Corbynism at least hold the line? Is there any evidence, any at all, that its leader has any chance of pulling his party out of its death spiral?

I think the answer to that question is ‘no’.

I think if Labour run in Copeland on a Corbynite manifesto they will lose, and lose heavily.

Just as I think that if Labour runs on a Corbynite manifesto nationally they will lose, and lose heavily.

But this is Corbyn’s chance to prove me wrong. To prove all his critics wrong.

So go for it, Jeremy. Go to Copeland, and go nuclear.