Blairites want to rebuild a centre-Left force
TODAY’S revelations by the Daily Express show that far from accepting defeat and the takeover of Labour by the hard Left, moderate MPs, who make up the majority of the Westminster party, believe they can take back control.
The Blairites and centrists in Labour are not dead and buried despite being left in limbo by the Corbyn leadership.
When on September 22, 2016, Jeremy Corbyn crushed Owen Smith in a leadership contest, gaining 61.8 per cent of the vote, it was seen by many as the complete victory of the far-Left.
Corbyn’s win two years ago came at the end of an extraordinary period which had seen mass resignations from his front bench by moderates in a bid to force him out.
Meanwhile, his hard-line socialist support in the unions and far-Left Momentum group’s saw the extremists take a grip on the party leaving its mostly centre ground MPs marooned.
But the plotting by moderates means that they believe there is hope yet. Whether that is in a future leadership contest if Corbyn is eventually forced out by anti-Semitism revelations or by creating a new party they believe they can rebuild the Blairite vision of a centre-Left force.
The likely leaders to emerge from the plotters are Chuka Umunna, Stephen Kinnock and Chris Leslie or they could throw their support behind a compromise candidate like Home Affairs select committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper.
They are likely to find it hard to beat the candidate of the left whether that is John McDonnell, Angela Rayner or Rebecca Long-Bailey.
But if somehow the moderates do succeed and take back control of Labour, it will be a long hard path to cleanse the party of the hard-Left’s poisonous legacy and the scandal of anti-Semitism.
It will be harder yet to turn it back into an election winner, especially as Labour’s centrists are all Remainers and their biggest hope is that Brexit will be a disaster.
They may want to turn Labour into the “rejoin the EU party”.
But betting against Britain’s success is not usually a gamble voters take kindly to.