The Labour Leadership Race, 2020 and beyond

Fresh off the drawn-out resignation of Jeremy Corbyn, a new leadership contest for the Labour Party kicked off with the first hustings in Liverpool on Saturday. Five candidates made it to the mercy of the Labour membership each having won the required 10% of nominations from Labour MPs and MEPs. Rebecca Long-Bailey, Jess Phillips, Emily Thornberry, Lisa Nandy, and Sir Keir Starmer took the stage.

The early stages have presented Starmer as the comfortable front runner, despite the clamour for female leadership, which subsequently presents an undercurrent of tension as Labour desperately wrestles with its identity yet again.

What was said?

Unsurprisingly, there was a fairly general consensus about the task that is facing Labour. Themes of division, unity, and, ultimately, winning dominated the conversation surrounding topics such as Brexit, anti-Semitism, and the shape of the party for the next five years.

However, as things stand, there is not huge cause for optimism.

Naturally, there was the odd bit of playing to the Liverpool crowd in pursuit of a defining moment. Long-Bailey frequently drew on her northern roots, whilst outsiders (southerners, or midlanders) such as Thornberry likened tackling Labour’s anti-Semitism issues to Oswald Mosley being driven out of Liverpool in 1930s. There was also Starmer’s stance on refusing interviews to The Sun newspaper, which, worryingly, felt like a very spur of the moment claim. Immediately, he has placed a noose around his neck for the entirety of his potential leadership, promised in one of the areas that Labour still comfortably controls.

With regards to the debate itself, Starmer did not otherwise perform badly, drawing on his experiences travelling around the country and having frank and honest conversation with people. He based this for his calls for party unity, ending labelling the party and its supporters in sections and calling it ‘unstoppable’ when it is able to unite. It was a personal approach that appealed to the individual level of politics and Labour’s divisions between its supporters, members, and MPs.

Lisa Nandy similarly talked about forming broad alliances in the party and in support with her ‘Red Bridge’, also talking about moving the Labour HQ out of Central London. However, coming away, I can understand why she is not the favourite, there just felt like there was not a particular consistency with her delivery and a timid nature to her tone, which I cannot envisage being a popular personality when Labour voters consider who they would want going up against a personality like Boris Johnson.

Attacking Johnson was Emily Thornberry’s thing, presenting herself as the only person who has been there on ‘the right side’ throughout ‘taking it’ to the ‘Charlatan’ Johnson. It did feel at times that all of Thornberry’s shouting was compensating for something, it did not seem appropriate for a Labour Party that is facing deep internal divisions to be attacking the other side before its own house was in order.

Jess Phillips’ approach sought to allude towards this kind of change, calling for people to start talking to people’s hearts and in a language that people hear and receive. She said this was the approach that had made the Johnson campaign so successful, however, the notion that doing what made Johnson successful does not strike as a successful leadership pitch, nor did her projection of this message particularly hit home with myself listening.

Then there is very much the continuity candidate, and Starmer’s anticipated most direct competitor, Rebecca Long-Bailey. Her approach called for a green industrial revolution and constitutional reform, including the abolition of the House of Lords. This felt very much like a recital of the election manifesto that the electorate has just emphatically rejected, but one that presented ideas that party members did and, therefore, in very large parts are still likely to favour to certain extents.

What does this mean?

The perception coming away from it all with Starmer as the growing favourite, is that he offers some sort of bridge between party divisions. Whilst his own record does not reflect a radical departure from Corbynism, he is a fairly experienced pair of hands with the willingness to unite party members with the electorate. A Starmer leadership offers some sort of ideological middle ground that MPs can get behind without throwing the baby out with the bath water, to put it in his terms.

His anticipated most direct competitor, Rebecca Long-Bailey, went beyond this with the continued push for significant and radical change. However, whilst there remains an appetite for socialism within the Labour ranks, the gloom of Corbyn’s 2019 defeat is still very much in the mind. Whilst there is nothing fundamentally undesirable with Long-Bailey’s ambition, the sense currently is Labour needs to change something, which is not something a Long-Bailey Labour Party would offer.

The immediate issues that have damaged trust in the party need the most immediate remedies. The fact Starmer’s calls to eliminate labelling individuals as some novel concept shows the depths division has come to. But it did not take a genius to identify the themes of Labour’s issues and one bit from Starmer during the discussions about having honest and decent conversation with people across the breadth of the country shows him adopting that position.

Nevertheless, the focus is also on the horizon: Winning.

Labour obviously has a lot of trust to earn back but what will be intriguing, Starmer has already alluded to, where will the battle lines lie in 5 years?

Incredibly, we will have had a full term of a Tory government for the first time since 1992, and the strongest since Thatcher. We will have been out of the EU (hopefully) for 4 years and the political landscape and its battle lines will be dictated by the direction Johnson’s One Nation, Global Britain takes.

Naturally, in opposition, it is Labour’s job to hold Conservative management of these looming years to account, something it has until this point, struggled to convey to voters. Most likely to be Starmer, Labour’s leader requires the personality to grab the party and nail its colours to the mast, to offer an option to voters that is clear, concise and holds the consequences of Conservative management up to the light, whatever that may be.

Currently, Starmer’s moderate approach has appealed and it is clear to see why it has fairly broad support from party members. However, how his command as a leader fundamentally reshapes the party and faces up to the challenge of Boris Johnson remains to be seen and currently, I am cautious.