Reader TTS

The response to the “Labour Together” report has shown it to be something of a Rorschach test. Most people can see something in there to disagree with, most people can find something there

to agree with. Depending on their current level of annoyance with the Labour Party, they will focus on one or the other. If, for example, you are a Corbyn supporter, your focus will be on

the long term decline of the Labour vote — and you might particularly emphasise that this took place from 2001 onwards . You are less likely to look at the parts of the report that talk

about the view of the leader and how poorly the operation was run. If, on the other hand, you believe that it all went wrong when Blair left office and accelerated when Miliband was elected,

the long term decline narrative is an insult to a Labour government that did so much to change lives. You are far more likely to point at the devastating impact of Corbyn’s stance on things

like the Salisbury poisonings and the ridicule and sense of general disbelief aimed at the 2019 manifesto. If — like me — you have fought against Brexit tooth and nail, you point at the 1

million remain voters Labour lost between 2017 and 2019, highlighting the vacillation and inaction that led to deep levels of frustration among those voters. If — on the other hand — you

think that Labour’s eventual position of supporting a second referendum on Brexit was undemocratic and wrong, you point to the 1.7 million Leave voters lost (a number which is actually low,

as it doesn’t count those already lost in 2017.) And If I am going to insist other Labour supporters should be honest, I should be so myself. The truth is that, in a first-past-the-post

election, geography matters. And it is highly likely that the leave voters who were lost made more of a difference in marginal seats than the remain voters. I still believe I am right about

Brexit being a disaster. But I can’t pretend that Labour didn’t suffer from putting that argument to voters who already thought Labour was ignoring them. The truth is, the report is right to

conclude that there wasn’t one reason the party lost the election — there were multiple reasons, and they ran deep. The issues break down into three basic categories: cultural, political

and organisational. All have deep roots and all will need to be addressed systemically and in conjunction with each other. Culturally, Labour’s loss was not just about Brexit, but that one

issue helped to crystallise a long-held feeling. It was not just the sense that Labour weren’t listening to people outside the cities. It was that when Labour did talk internally, the things

we talked about were baffling to the outside world. So we fought each other into the void over all sorts of issues, when most people were really asking: “Will my child have secure

employment and be able to buy a house?” Politically, Labour have again lost their way. They get stuck in seminar rooms arguing over the correct way to disentangle wealth redistribution from

income protection. We banged out a stream of consciousness manifesto that the public thought wildly undeliverable and then added on a litany of further promises just to drive the point home.

Meanwhile, the Tories promised to “Get Brexit Done”. It might be nonsense, but it’s politically astute nonsense. The organisational problems of Labour must be solved. They go back a long

time and were vastly accelerated under Corbyn’s leadership. In theory, Labour Party staff are meant to act as pseudo civil servants — loyal to the party, not to any faction within it. In

truth, if you want to work for a political party then it’s more than likely that you have political views. It’s how these are managed and how they affect the organisation that matters. For

far too long, people have been promoted beyond their competence within Labour, to solve a political and factional problem, rather than to complement the strength of the organisation. This

happened before 2015 (and many of us complained about it then) but it definitely accelerated under Corbyn. The Labour left has long been focused not on grasping the means of production, but

on controlling the workings of the Labour Party. Putting people with “the right politics” (i.e. ultra-loyalists) into key positions wasn’t an afterthought — it was the project. This was why

the Party was so incapable of dealing with its anti-Semitism crisis, even had the will been there. They didn’t have the organisational nous to prioritise it. The Labour Together report is

long and worth reading if you want to see the mountain the party has to climb in responding to devastating defeat. That it exists is a good first step. But it is not even the beginning of a

solution to the crisis the party still faces.