Labour: heading for a split?

Britain is becoming a “one-party state”, said Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. Her Majesty’s Opposition – that “vital corrective” in a healthy democracy – is rapidly ceasing to function. The “biblical” flood of resignations from Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench means that more than 60 of 115 shadow cabinet positions are unfilled. And with 81% of Labour MPS backing last week’s vote of “no confidence” in their leader, Corbyn barely has a party to lead. The Opposition literally cannot do its job: it doesn’t have the manpower to table questions, amend bills, or participate properly in debates, committees and departmental sessions. Yet even in the face of this constitutional crisis, Corbyn refuses to resign. Last week he released a video in which he insisted he would stay on to serve the 60% of Labour members who voted him in as leader.

And so we return to the age-old question, said Sean O’grady in The Independent: “Who owns Labour?” From its very inception as “an uneasy coalition of intellectuals and trades unionists”, the party has been caught in a tug of war: on one side, the grass-roots members who choose the party leader and help decide policy through the national executive; on the other, the MPS whose job it is to represent their constituents in Parliament. This tension has been hugely exacerbated by the rush of hard-left entryists – the so-called £3 members – who joined the party last year in order to vote Corbyn in as leader. These zealots aren’t interested in winning elections, said John Mcternan in The Times. Like Corbyn, they are allergic to compromise and pragmatism. “For them, ideology trumps all.” Even if there is a new leadership election, Corbyn’s supporters will probably succeed in voting him back in – thus ensuring Labour’s continuing irrelevance.

Labour’s best hope now, said Rachel Sylvester in The Times, may be to split and “start again”. Corbyn’s intransigence, together with the shock of the Brexit vote, is forcing moderate MPS to consider new possibilities. With Labour moving to the left and the Tories to the right, the centre ground is opening up. There is excited talk about starting a new “party of the 48%”: centre-left, pro-eu, pro-business but socially liberal. Only the ghost of Roy Jenkins stands in their way, said Janan Ganesh in the FT. They fear a repetition of the 1980s, when Jenkins broke away from Labour to form the SDP, thereby splitting the left-wing vote. But in truth, Labour has nothing to lose this time. It cannot win an election anyway with Corbyn at the helm. And there are voters just waiting to be snapped up. The progressive, centrist 48% need a party to “speak for them”.