There will be no Christmas truce in the Labour Party. One prominent MP compares the state of his party to Passchendaele. The centenary of this strategically inconclusive battle will be marked next year. Lloyd George described it as “one of the greatest disasters” of the First World War. But the metaphor was not chosen idly. Although the battle had no real winner, it was followed by a decisive push and victory within 12 months.
Labour’s weary warring sides feel time running out. Both expect the moment of truth — either Jeremy Corbyn’s departure or the total Corbynisation of the party — to come before 2020, the scheduled date for the next general election.
Corbyn is digging in. He plans to relaunch in the new year as a British Bernie Sanders, left-wing and populist. He is gambling more on both policy and personnel. In defiance of a growing number of his MPs, he insists that unfettered immigration is a good thing.
Two new recruits will give his personal staff a still harder edge. An old friend from his days of protest, Jayne Fisher, a former manager of Sinn Fein’s London office, has been appointed “stakeholder engagement manager”. David Prescott, the fingers behind many of the Twitter punches dished out by his father, John Prescott, will add muscle to the communications team.
“A second coup is unlikely but there is growing confidence among his enemies that Corbyn may crumble
Labour is truly at war, with each side trying to grind the other down. They are not just fighting for the party’s soul. Many believe its existence is at stake as voters haemorrhage to Ukip in the north and to pro-EU parties such as the Lib Dems elsewhere. From different perspectives, Tony Blair and the MP Jon Cruddas are wondering if Labour’s mould will have to be broken for a fresh start.
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No one in Labour is permitted to stay neutral for long. The able and ambitious MP Keir Starmer tried to set an example of dutiful service recently with his Brexit debate. But Corbyn’s praetorian guard sandbagged him over freedom of movement, while from the other side 23 of his MPs opposed his motion because it accepted the government’s timetable for triggering article 50.
In this season of goodwill, I tried fruitlessly to coax Corbyn refuseniks to say anything nice about the performance, not the policies, of any shadow minister. The feeling is mutual. Centrist Labour MPs are still threatened with deselection by the hundreds of thousands who have joined up to support Corbyn.
“They’ve got the numbers and they can come and get me if they want,” one target conceded phlegmatically. But he is one of several under threat who doubt their opponents will move against them successfully. Immigration is a key issue in many constituencies and unions, and the hated “Blairites” and “neoliberals”, not the hard left, have moved to back stricter controls.
The stars and foot soldiers of the last Labour government are trying to establish pockets of resistance from which to contradict the leadership on policy. Select committee chairmanships are highly prized, including those won by Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper.
Then there are moderate voices with leading roles in local government, such as the first minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Andy Burnham hopes to join them in Manchester, as one of several Labour hopefuls standing for directly elected mayoralties in big metropolitan areas.
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Jones joined the leader of Scottish Labour, Kezia Dugdale, to moot greater autonomy from the centre, including a possible federal party structure. Jones and Cooper are both backing curbs on freedom of movement of immigrants.
Corbyn is growing into the role of party leader. He now looks comfortable dressing up for big occasions. His performances at prime minister’s questions are more conventional and better for it, especially in comparison with Theresa May’s beginner’s stridency. But he is unable to make his writ run when it comes to formulating policy. He has given up forcing the party to oppose Trident, a big setback for a former leading light of CND and Stop the War.
The dissenters in Labour ranks accept that the coup against him after the referendum this summer was a pathetic botched job, with no credible candidate to replace him. A second coup, unless it is a coup de grâce on a stricken leader, is unlikely. But there is growing confidence among some of his Labour opponents that he may soon crumble. Even ignoring Labour’s weakness in opinion polls, its humiliating results in this month’s two parliamentary by-elections put paid to Corbyn’s claim that “in real elections” the party is actually doing quite well.
Corbyn is due to celebrate his 70th birthday on May 26, 2019. According to a very senior Labour source, he has said privately he does not want to serve as leader beyond then. He has also hinted that he does not want to fight a general election as party leader.
The date of Labour’s next key battle has just gone into the diary as a result of Len McCluskey’s decision to stand for re-election in April as boss of the Unite union, Labour’s and Corbyn’s biggest sponsor.
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Unite campaigns for earlier retirement ages. If McCluskey had stood for re-election as general secretary at the scheduled end of his second term in 2018, he would have been 72 by the end of his third. Having brought the contest forward to next April, he’ll be 71. Calling the Unite election early is a defensive move for both him and Corbyn — a sign that they are worried about how long they can maintain their grip on Labour.
McCluskey remains favourite to win. Gerard Coyne, the West Midlands regional secretary, is his most serious challenger. Against the backdrop of the Jaguar Land Rover plant in Castle Bromwich, Coyne said union members want “a general secretary who spends less time trying to run the Labour Party and more time looking after their interests”.
McCluskey also played up the workplace in his manifesto but his emphasis was still political, attacking “Scrooge bosses”, boasting of a £35m strike fund and, in a reference to the failed coup, telling Labour MPs that too much is being heard from them.
His closeness to Corbyn could turn out to be a liability. Unite has a lot of members in the defence, nuclear and airport sectors, many of whom dislike the Labour leadership’s opposition to nuclear and Heathrow expansion.
By next spring the tide in Labour’s internal conflict could be beginning to turn. If so, the prime minister’s desire to wait for a general election until 2020 will be tested. She might not be up against the “unelectable” Corbyn by then. First, though, Labour must get through another miserable winter in opposing trenches.