‘It is not smiles, gritted teeth and flag waving pretence’

THE ONE constant of every Labour Party conference since Jeremy Corbyn became leader has been internal but very public arguments.

Many have seen it as a sign of weakness in the Labour leader and his left-wing followers - that their ideological purity means they cannot make the necessary compromises for Government.

This year there is expected to be friction over Brexit and the selection process for parliamentary candidates.

But for Emma Hardy, Hull West and Hessle’s MP for little over a year, this is simply what happens when a democratic party chooses to form its policy through open and public debate.

“It’s not a stage managed theatre show, which I feel like the Conservative conference is, you know - ‘we’re all going to smile, grit our teeth, wave our flags and pretend we’re friends’,” she says.

“Whenever you are openly deciding policy there is going to be a difference of opinions because that’s what it’s designed to do, it’s designed as a space to debate and decide and agree and move forward.”

Nevertheless, the 38 year-old does not want the conference to be dominated by an expected argument over calls from the Corbyn-backing pressure group Momentum for “open selections” of parliamentary candidates - seen by so-called moderates as an attempt to purge certain MPs and replace them with leftwingers.

Ms Hardy, who is an aide to respected Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer, thinks there are far more important issues for the conference to consider.

“Conference needs to make a decision on selections and when they make that decision let’s look no more inward, let’s look outward and let’s focus on issues like Brexit,” she says.

In a week where Theresa May suffered humiliation at the hands of EU leaders, who torpedoed her Chequers plan in Salzburg, it is hard to argue.

It is difficult to see where the Prime Minister goes next, but Ms Hardy is in no mood for sympathy.

“This is of her making, she made this mess, she put her red lines down too early on, she said she wasn’t going to go back on them, she allowed the infighting, this is her mess,” she says.

Following the Salzburg debacle, the odds of a no deal Brexit, a general election and even a second referendum have surely gone up.

It may well influence delegates at Labour conference, with the party expected to come under sustained pressure from the grassroots to back a so-called People’s Vote on any final deal.

Ms Hardy insists the option has always been “on the table”, an attempt by Labour not to box itself in like the PM.

“This idea that you can, as Theresa May did, rule things out and say I’m never going to do this and I’m never going to do that and then have to backtrack on them and roll back on them is really bad - it’s really bad political management and it’s really bad indecision for the whole of the country. She’s put together a proposal to try and heal the rift in her own party which has managed somehow brilliantly to alienate everybody, including Europe who she’s trying to negotiate with.

“She needs to get a grip and try and sort this out and put together something which is going to be accepted.”

Labour has been accused of failing to set out a real alternative and was yesterday criticised by Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell for not putting