MPS open commission to examine reasons for defeat

A GROUP of Labour MPS will today launch a commission to try to understand why their party lost the election in a Tory landslide.

MPS and campaigners will ask Labour activists and members to complete a survey, asking which messages were convincing to voters.

The initiative is run by Labour MPS Ed Miliband and Lucy Powell, and is backed by Labour Together, a group calling for unity within the party.

The commission has pledged to take a “balanced view” and aim to “bring the Labour movement together so that it can come to a collective view of what needs to change,” a spokesman said.

It will hold focus groups in Labour heartlands that the party lost in an attempt to understand why voters swung so strongly to the Tories.

Ms Powell said: “We should have taken the time to understand our losses previously. It’s now profoundly important for the future of our party and country that we take a real and meaningful look at why we have fallen short.

“This inquiry gives us the opportunity to listen to members, candidates and the public and I hope our whole movement takes it in the spirit it is offered and takes part.”

The Labour Party will open its own internal investigation into why it performed so poorly at the polls.

In the meantime, Labour figures have wasted no time in giving their view on why the Conservatives won.

‘It is profoundly important for the future of our party that we take a meaningful look at why we fell short’

Ken Livingstone, former Labour London mayor, appeared to suggest Jewish people were at fault for the loss, telling journalists on election night: “The Jewish vote wasn’t very helpful.”

A document by the Labour campaign group Momentum released on election night encouraged MPS and activists to blame Brexit for the loss and insist that the party’s policies were popular.

Many MPS have since said Mr Corbyn was responsible, reporting that the party’s leader came up often in conversations on the doorstep.