Labour: We’ve got a mountain to climb
2019 election catastrophe was ‘a long time coming’
‘Factionalism and patronage’
LABOUR’S toxic culture was partly to blame for its disastrous election result, an independent review has concluded.
And it warned there was ‘a mountain to climb’ for the party to win the next general election.
The 150-page report said the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and multiple organisational failures were also responsible for the poll rout last December.
Labour Together, a group including MPs Ed Miliband and Lucy Powell, party members, union leaders and media figures, investigated a result that it said was ‘a long time coming’.
The review set out the political, organisational and digital failures that resulted in Labour’s worst result since 1935.
The report warned the end of Brexit as a campaigning topic and a change of leader – from Mr Corbyn to Sir Keir Starmer – would not be enough to defeat the Conservatives.
It did, however, point a finger at Mr Corbyn and issues on his watch, including anti-Semitism, saying concerns about his leadership were a ‘significant factor’ in the huge loss. A call to ‘stop Jeremy Corbyn’ was a major driver in the Conservatives’ success across all their key groups, including previous non-voters and the swing voters who Labour lost.
‘Very low poll ratings on leadership going into the 2019 election cannot easily be disentangled from the handling of issues like Brexit, party disunity and anti-Semitism,’ the report said.
The review also showed that Labour has lost many voters due to the issue of Brexit, with more deserting the party before the referendum than in last year’s election.
The report said: ‘There is a broad consensus across the party – mirrored in the results from the survey of Labour members – that a combination of concerns about the leadership, Labour’s position on Brexit and Labour’s manifesto not being seen as deliverable damaged Labour’s chances in the election.
‘The commission concludes that the weaknesses going into this election were interlinked, and indivisible. They catalysed long-term trends between Labour and its voter coalition.’
The group said various parts of Labour must accept their part in divisions that affected the party’s ability to ‘present a united front to the public’.
‘Our party has spent substantial periods of the last five years in conflict with itself resulting in significant strategic and operational dysfunction, resulting in a toxic culture and limiting our ability to work effectively,’ the report said.
‘Labour went into the 2019 election without a clear strategy of which voters we needed to persuade or how. Labour was unprepared for an election, with no clear message compared with our “For the many, not the few” campaign in 2017.’
Labour was also heavily outperformed by the Tories on the digital and social media front, with research for the review showing the Conservatives ‘invested heavily in digital’.
The Tories had far more success online, making ‘much better use’ of Facebook.
The report said Labour should build ‘a culture of inclusion and diversity, generosity and teamwork, not factionalism and patronage in the party’.
A Labour spokesman said: ‘We thank everyone who contributed to this independent report. Its attempt to understand the challenges and opportunities facing the Labour party is welcome.’
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