I rejoice that Corbyn was crushed...but here’s why I hope Labour can get its act together

Do I sound a little pious if I express the hope that the Labour Party will get its act together so that it can fulfil its constitutional duty of being an effective opposition?

needless to say, I don’t mean a Corbynista Labour Party. Last Thursday evening at 10pm was one of the happier moments of my life. The usually reliable BBC exit poll predicted a stonking majority for the Tories.

How sweet it was to know that a class warrior, 1970s Marxist throwback, IRA sympathiser and protector of anti-semites — namely Jeremy Corbyn — had been soundly rejected by the electorate, including millions of erstwhile Labour voters.

What a disagreeable man he is — someone ‘without honour and without shame’, according to defeated Labour MP Mary Creagh, and ‘ a type of preening narcissist’ to boot.

A Jewish friend told me a couple of days ago that she had decided to leave the country if Corbyn had won. For many weeks she had lain awake at night worrying what would happen to her in the event of a Labour victory.

I’ve no doubt many thousands of Jews felt the same. How shaming and appalling that a major British political party should have given rise to these terrible fears.

Corbyn should hang his head in ignominy. He should don sackcloth and ashes. He should apologise to decent former MPs such as Mary Creagh who were sacrificed because of his disgraceful former affiliations and idiotic, unbelievable policies.

Instead of which he drones on in his metronomic way about his ‘pride’ in the Labour manifesto, poses for selfies with hare- brained acolytes, and betrays not the slightest awareness that it was he, Jeremy Corbyn, who messed up on an epic scale.

MEANWHILE, he and his blinkered lieutenants blame everybody and everything but themselves — the media including the BBC, Brexit, and, by implication, the British people, who were too stupid or ungrateful to snap up the wonderful goodies he had set before them.

I mean, for example, the promise to supply free broadband to every household, and the commitment to shell out more than £50 billion (none of it budgeted) on the so-called Waspi women pensioners. These were incredible bribes, and voters knew it.

no, if what is going to be on offer is more Corbynism with a younger nutcase in charge, I don’t want the party to achieve power because it is not fit to hold it.

We may just have to do without a functioning opposition for a while, and hope that Boris Johnson doesn’t get too big for his boots, and is held in check by his own people.

Isn’t it obvious that Labour will never govern again unless it reverts to being the moderate and decent party that it has been throughout most of its existence?

The British don’t want to be ruled by socialist extremists who side with other countries over their own. The last time they were offered warmed up Marxism by Labour was 1983. They spurned it then — and they did the same last week.

everyone can understand this except the far-Left. Like many people, I’m no fan of Tony Blair, mainly because of his lies and evasions over the Iraq War.

But it’s impossible to disagree with the former Labour prime minister’s prophecy yesterday that a continuation of Corbynism will ‘lead to 15 years more of Tory government’.

He spoke of Corbynistas being ‘marooned on a fantasy island’. Labour should never have fallen into the ‘elephant trap’ of agreeing to a ‘ Brexit election’ without a clear position, and with a leader who had a ‘ net approval rating of minus 40 per cent’.

Admittedly, Blair is an ardent Remainer and would have liked Labour to have campaigned wholeheartedly in that cause, which would have further split the party and alienated even more of its natural supporters.

nonetheless, the basic analysis of the man who won three successive elections with either huge or comfortable majorities can’t be gainsaid. The party won’t win power as long as it stakes out its territory on the hard-Left.

How can it become moderate and tolerant again? Is it even possible? It doesn’t seem likely given the overwhelmingly Left-wing bias of those who will be voting for the next leader of the party.

To fully understand how the fiendishly complicated system works, you would have to wrap a cold flannel around your head and drink several gallons of black coffee. Making sense of football’s baffling new VAR system is child’s play by comparison. What it comes down to, though, is relatively straightforward. Voting is on a one- person- one- vote basis. The people allowed to cast a ballot are either party members, registered supporters or affiliated supporters. Most are fervently Left-wing.

The powerful national executive Committee, which is dominated by hard- Left Momentum types, can determine the timetable and set the fee for registered supporters to exercise their one-off vote.

It seems probable that the learn-nothing Left will plump for an extremist candidate. The favourite is Rebecca LongBailey, a protegee of outgoing shadow Chancellor and hardliner John Mcdonnell, and a paid-up Corbynista.

HER likely running mate, Angela Rayner, is only a few inches to the Right. Both women sound rather similar, and neither seems sparklingly bright.

A host of ‘soft-Left’ candidates are showing interest, of whom the most plausible may be sir Keir starmer, a rather wooden lawyer, who was anxious yesterday to emphasise his Left-wing credentials so as not to alienate the Corbynista rank and file.

But the Long-Bailey/Rayner ticket looks to be leading the field. If they should emerge victorious when the final vote is held in March, disaster will doubtless ensue.

They will promote the same failed policies of confiscation, nationalisation, stratospherically increased state spending and higher taxes, not just on the rich but also the less well-paid.

Can anyone stop them? I don’t have a crystal ball, but I do have a sinking feeling that Labour has fallen into the hands of ideologues who are keener on maintaining the purity of their Leftist views than they are hard-headed about regaining power.

The Labour Party has no God-given right to exist and, if it can’t adapt itself to the hopes and expectations of ordinary voters, it will eventually shrivel and die.

Just conceivably, should Rebecca Long- Bailey and Angela Rayner gain control, there will be a breakaway of moderate MPs who can no longer stomach the takeover by Momentum of their once rational party.

The only trouble is that such people have so far not displayed conspicuous gallantry. A small revolt led by then Labour MP Chuka umunna last February has led to electoral oblivion for all the rebels. I wouldn’t bet on others following.

Tony Blair said yesterday that Labour’s predicament is worse than in 1983, because that setback was the second in a row, whereas last week’s trouncing was the fourth consecutive defeat. He’s right.

one way and another, the omens are bleak. The choice seems to be between the slow rehabilitation of the Labour Party and its eventual side-lining, with the odds heavily on the latter.

That may sound good for the Tories, but in the long run it’s almost certainly not. For their good, and for the good of the country, there needs to be a sane and sensible opposition party holding Boris Johnson to account.