Will Corbyn’s comeback force Labour to get its act together?
Chief reporter Martin Shipton reflects on the implications of the General Election result for the Welsh Labour Party’s uneasy relationship with Jeremy Corbyn
LESS than a week ago, discussion about what was in store for Labour after the General Election focused on whether Jeremy Corbyn would resign as leader immediately or wait until after the party conference in September.
The consensus was that he’d cling on until the autumn, so conference delegates could pass a rule change that would make it easier for a hardleft candidate to get on the ballot paper for the next leadership election.
The almost universal assumption was that Theresa May would win a thumping majority, and that the Corbyn “project” would suffer a severe setback. No-one who thought they were in the know believed that Labour would actually pick up seats and deprive the Conservatives of a majority.
But that’s what did happen, to the surprise of many Labour MPs and activists who had expected the party’s civil war to move into a new phase, with those on the right redoubling their efforts to oust Corbyn and those who support him trying all means to thwart that.
We’re in new territory now, and while those who’ve had a problem with Corbyn aren’t about to sign up to his fan club Momentum, neither are they plotting to get rid of him.
Darren Williams is one of Corbyn’s most prominent supporters in Wales. Until recently a Cardiff councillor, he sits on Labour’s ruling national executive committee and argues strongly that the new political circumstances should mark an end to party infighting.
He said: “I would hope and expect that those who have been so critical of Jeremy would change their stance and acknowledge that the campaign he led was a success. Clearly the policies that were put before voters had electoral appeal and Jeremy was able to connect with many people who warmed to his message of hope.”
While the party’s members and supporters were delighted to win three seats from the Conservatives in Wales, Williams believes Welsh Labour fought too defensive a campaign: “I think we could have won seats like Vale of Glamorgan, Aberconwy and Preseli Pembrokeshire if we had put more resources in and believed that we could advance. Instead we were defending seats that ultimately proved to be quite safe.”
The concern expressed by Williams arises out of a belief held by those on the left that the Welsh Labour machine was not supportive of Corbyn and didn’t want to be associated with him. It’s certainly the case that the name of Labour’s leader was not mentioned once during Welsh Labour’s General Election campaign launch in Cardiff’s Swalec Stadium. Instead, the Welsh campaign centred on Carwyn Jones and the achievements claimed by the Welsh Government under his leadership.
Williams believes that a minority Tory government propped up by the “sectarian bigots” of the DUP, as he describes them, will make the Conservatives more unpopular, and that Labour is in with a very good chance of taking power.
Last week Stephen Doughty was re-elected as the MP for Cardiff South & Penarth with a majority of 14,864 – the highest majority ever achieved by himself or his two predecessors Alun Michael and Jim Callaghan. This was a particularly satisfying achievement for him, given that a poll at the campaign’s start suggested he was on course to lose his seat to the Conservatives.
Yet he has not been a supporter of Corbyn and in January 2016 resigned as Shadow Foreign Minister after a colleague was sacked for condemning “the view that sees terrorist acts as always being a response or a reaction to what we in the West do”.
Like most others, he was surprised by how well Labour did, but he thinks he understands why it happened: “It was partly down to an improved perception of Jeremy Corbyn as the campaign went on, coupled with a very popular manifesto and the mobilisation by the party of students and young people in numbers that hadn’t been achieved before.
“At this election the party was very successful at using social media on its many platforms to get key messages out, especially to young people. But we also did a lot of traditional street campaigning in a way our opponents did not. Quite a lot of people remarked on the high presence of our campaign in contrast to the Tories.”
The poor Conservative campaign also helped Labour, especially in the campaign’s final two weeks, when there was a change of mood on the doorstep.
Looking to the future, Doughty believes there is no chance of a further leadership challenge being mounted against Corbyn any time soon, and that relations can improve within the party if there’s an acceptance that there won’t always be unanimity about policy between the “moderates”, among whom he numbers himself, and the hard left. More MPs will be prepared to serve under Corbyn than was the case in the last Parliament.
It certainly seems that there will be, if not an outright reconciliation between factions, at least a determination within the Parliamentary Labour Party to make the most of the political opportunities that present themselves in the new landscape.
While the DUP’s MPs have been derided for their reactionary and eccentric views, a further telling point that will make them difficult to rely on is their volatility. They may back the Queen’s Speech and the Budget, but getting legislation through will be very difficult.
Labour plans to harry the Government at every turn, putting down subtly drafted amendments that could tempt some Tory MPs to support them or abstain.
On the most important issue of the day, there is a belief within Labour that hard Brexit is dead. They are already talking to Tory MPs who oppose hard Brexit and want the UK to retain unfettered access to the Single Market – and believe a hard Brexit could not get through Parliament.
Since the election produced what for most was a wholly unexpected outcome, there appears to be a new sense of unity within Labour, which sees the possibility of important tangible achievements in the offing.
People within political parties fall out with each other all the time and the causes are just as likely to be personal as ideological. But hugely acrimonious splits that threaten to break up parties tend to occur when power seems a long way away. The civil war that began when Corbyn became leader could have led to such a split, and if the Conservatives had won a landslide it would have become more likely again.
It could be that Theresa May’s inability to deliver strength and stability has saved Labour’s bacon.