The Dewsbury test

Labour and party’s next steps

EARLY EVIDENCE suggests Labour has not learned any lessons from the party’s election defeat as potential successors to Jeremy Corbyn prepare to launch their leadership campaigns.

Sir Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry who, like Mr Corbyn, represent north London seats, fail to understand how their proRemain stance left working class Brexit supporters feeling belittled.

And then there is Rebecca Long Bailey who is in denial about the extent to which voters saw through a Labour manifesto bereft of economic credibility because it had made so many prohibitive promises.

Yet, if Labour is to become an Opposition of stature, and significance, the leadership contenders should spend time in those Yorkshire constituencies, like Dewsbury, that were captured by the Tories on election night.

This is the seat that Paula Sherriff had represented since 2015. And, even if voters disagreed with her stance on national issues like Brexit, they respected her record as a community campaigner with a social conscience and fine record when it came to championing women’s health and, for example, additional provision of smear tests.

A MP who knew how to work with other parties to make a difference – she helped to secure an agreement with WH Smith to stop the high street chain inflating prices at its branches in hospitals – she lost her seat, and her job, because voters did not trust Mr Corbyn, or Labour, to lead the country. And, until Labour becomes credible and electable in working class communities like Dewsbury, the party’s future will be even bleaker than it appears at present.