I know that most of you don’t follow me because you love the minutiae of British politics and so I’ve been showing RT restraint (honestly). But Rhett’s given me an excuse to say something to the curious https://twitter.com/rhettlarsen6/status/1390546308046405633

The Tories have been in power now, either singly or as the principal power in a coalition govt, for 12 years. In that time Labour have had three leaders: Miliband, Corbyn and Starmer. You often hear that the Labour Party is “factional” >>

Oversimplifying somewhat, but: its MPs, staff and members/supporters broadly fall into three categories:

(1) socialists/democratic socialists
(2) social democrats/the ‘soft left’
(3) Blairites/the ‘Labour Right’

Obv there variations within and overlaps between each group

The last 12 years have seen each group have a crack at steering the party: Miliband (10 - 15) for the soft left, Corbyn (15 - 20) for the socialists (though many in that camp saw him as a compromise, ie a blend of 1 and 2), and now Starmer for the Blairites

Electorally, in terms of number of MPs and/or vote share (ie % of total voters who voted Labour), Corbyn did better than Miliband. In fact, he helped Lab in 2017 achieve the increase in vote share for the Party since 1945

Even in 2019, more people voted for Corbyn’s Labour than they did in 2010 under then-PM Gordon Brown and 2015 under Miliband

But - and I can’t stress this enough - the Labour Right (LR) dislikes the centre left within the Party and outright loathes the ‘hard left’. During the Corbyn era they did all they could to get rid of him and kill any chances of a leftwing government

This isn’t hyperbole. We’re talking damaging leaks, leadership contests, mass shadcab resignations, hostile media briefings, public criticism and, within the apparatus of the Party (ie the paid staff) active electoral sabotage — see WhatsApp texts below

To the LR, the *only way* Lab can win is with Blair Mk 2. And after five years of agitating, Blair Mk 2 is exactly what the LR think they have (thought they had?) in Starmer: a lawyer, a neat suit and haircut, establishment credentials, ‘credible’ and ‘competent’ and ‘forensic’

Lab members get the most say in who’s chosen as leader. Starmer won the contest by presenting himself as Corbyn without the baggage: he stood on a policy platform designed to appeal to the *hundreds of thousands* of (largely young) progressives that joined the Party after 2015

[Mark Curtis voice] But this was just an illusion. Since being elected, he has jettisoned or disavowed each of the 10 pledges. The LR knew they needed members’ votes, so they had their man present himself as the perfect hybrid: Blair’s ‘electability’ + Corbyn’s politics

Now fully in control of the Party, the LR have seized their chance to kill off the socialist (and to a large extent the soft left) tendency once and for all via MP sackings, member suspensions, layoffs and abuse of power at boring-but-important Party infrastructure level

As a consequence, the young, passionate left wingers who joined the Party under Corbyn have deserted in their tens of thousands. Membership is down 100,000+. Donations - and thus Party finances - have tanked, and there’s no longer an activist base to campaign for Lab candidates

None of this would matter - from the LR’s perspective - if Labour were polling well. They’re not. Despite the pandemic, despite 160,000 deaths, the Tories are *widening* their lead.

For Labour members and supporters this is all phenomenally high stakes: it’s a very pronounced battle between two ideologies, each attempting to use Labour as a vehicle for getting into power.

The LR’s critics note that their plan for electoral success is to out-Tory the Tories; to attack Corbyn and the ‘hard Left’; and to denounce as naive or ‘woke’ the actions of the Party between 2015 and 2020 - a strategy that offers voters no alternative to the Tories, and no hope

The LR say 2019’s huge GE defeat is definitive proof that voters don’t want a leftwing government. (We could spend a lot of time interrogating this, but the thread is long enough already.)

Anyway! This week, ‘Super Thursday’ marked the biggest electoral event (outside a general election) in British history: elections to national assemblies/devolved govts in Scotland and Wales, city mayors, local councils across England, police commissioners etc.

Plus - very significant - a by-election in Hartlepool which would see a new MP elected (so basically a general election on microcosm). Hartlepool has had a Labour MP since 1976, which means voters there chose the red candidate while Corbyn was leader in 17 and 19

Super Thursday and the Hartlepool by-election in particular was seen by the Labour Right and Left alike as the first real test of where the party is heading. It’s the first time since Starmer became leader that the LR’s strategy has come into contact with the voting public

The results have been *disastrous*. Labour lost Hartlepool by a colossal margin (the biggest swing in favour of a sitting government since WW2); and a huge number of previously Labour-held English councils have swung to the Tories, the Lib Dems or the Greens.

Where Labour *have* held onto (or even gained) council seats, it’s tended to be where candidates have stood on Corbyn-era socialist policy platforms. Similarly, Labour have a majority in the Welsh parliament thanks to a left-leaning leader

Does the LR see this as a repudiation of their strategy? Of course not. It is, as always, the fault of the hard left. The results are to be used as an excuse to rid the Party of its socialist tendency altogether

And that’s where we are. Some say Labour is in an irreversible death-dive, with the LR prioritising a purge of the left over electoral success. It’s hard to disagree.

Final point: I get why some people look at Labour and get frustrated because they think “factionalism” in the sense of People’s Front of Judea-style hair-splitting. That tends to happen amongst niche Left movements *outside* Labour.

Inside, it’s more about the three competing routes to government *and the actions that Labour will take once in power to improve people’s lives*. That’s why these tensions and these power struggles matter

*Tories have been in power for 11 years (since May 2010), not 12

Feels like 110