Imagine this: You have just lost an election to a party led by a serial liar who is (as Winston Peters might say) demonstrably, palpably incompetent, self-serving in the extreme and can’t even say how many children he has fathered (add your criticism here – there is a long list available). How do you explain that to the people who desperately want a better future?
Explain also how the party you tried to defeat presided over a period of austerity that has divided society in the most brutal way, wrecked public services, created the conditions for the breakup of a once steady union of nations and undermined the viability of the economy.
Explain that. How on earth is it possible?
But it has just happened in Britain where Boris Johnson has led the Conservatives to a landslide victory leaving the Labour Party so far behind it is questionable whether they bothered to campaign.
This means since the Second World War the Labour record as defined by their leaders is as follows: Clement Atlee -1945-1950, Harold Wilson – 1964-70 and 1974-76, Tony Blair – 1997-2007, Gordon Brown – 2007-2010.
To paraphrase Tony Blair, there is a lot to like about the British Labour Party, except its habit of losing.
And it has lost again.
As soon as the enormity of the Conservative victory became clear via exit polls, the recriminations began. Labour stalwarts put the blame on Brexit. Johnson ran a simple “Get Brexit done” message and an electorate tired after three plus years of inconclusive efforts to leave the European Union chose to back him.
But it is not a simple as that. If it was so crystal clear that Brexit was the main issue, why was the Labour Party message so opaque? This lack of clarity must be sheeted home to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who, at the last election, was an unlikely hero for not losing too badly to the ‘Maybot’, Theresa May. This time around he is the villain as he deserves to be.
The cold hard fact is that once the glow of the last election faded, British voters found they did not like Mr Corbyn. They disliked him so much that even as voters identified public health (not Brexit) as their main concern, they trusted Johnson over Corbyn to make things better.
Remember, Johnson is a man who lies instinctively. When asked what his favourite leisure pursuit was, he said he painted buses complete with passengers on cardboard boxes. Seen the artwork lately?
Some in Labour have argued that the Corbyn problem only became clear during the campaign. They had their heads in one of Johnsons cardboard boxes. Polls have been showing for a long time that Corbyn was a dead man walking held up by the sect-like nature of the Party he had built around him. He lived in a bubble of his own creation believing that once voters saw his manifesto they would rally
around.
Well, they came, they saw and they gagged
In defeat Corbyn says that he was not the problem and he remains proud of his manifesto.
This is exactly what Tony Blair was talking about back in the 1990s as he struggled to make Labour electable. There is a strong element in British Labour who, deep down, do not want to be in government (1). They believe it is the voters not them who are misguided. They would rather write a manifesto demonstrating what socialism has to offer and lose than make themselves electable. They demand instant change when democratic politics is inevitably about the long haul and the ability to focus on the way things are not the way you want things to be.
Never mind that losing means that not one single policy will see the light of day. Never mind that the Conservatives are now likely to stretch their current run in Government to at least 20 years. It is worth it to remain pure.
Corbyn fits this description. He will eventually step down from the Party feeling proud for himself and sorry for the voters. He will blame the media (who deserve some blame) for not giving him or his policies a fair go (no British Labour leader has ever been given a fair run by the media).
While there may be some truth to these claims, Corbyn and those who chose to prop him up should have faced up to the realities of politics. Voters must understand and support the policies. The media (or at least enough of it) must be won over. Believing that everyone is an idiot because they do not think like you belongs to protest movements, student common rooms and the pub - not political parties wanting to be the government.
What you get for thinking this way is not only defeat but also the risk of irrelevance. Labour is all but dead in Scotland, nowhere in Northern Ireland, on life support in Wales and driven South into the larger cities of England.
Conservative MPs now represent what were once safe Labour seats. (Even Sedgefield, the seat held by Tony Blair with a majority of 25,000, has gone). Meanwhile, despite its rhetoric about the working class, Labour today is more likely to be seen as the party of identity politics.
Boris Johnson and his Conservative Government will struggle over the next five years. Brexit will take more time than Johnson appears to think and the problems caused by Conservative governments over the last decade (yes they were in Government and caused the problems they say they will now cure) will be difficult to resolve. This will allow Labour to rebuild. But it will not be enough to win government unless Labour is prepared to fundamentally change. I have my doubts this is possible. There will be a purge of those surrounding Corbyn and a lot of deep thinking will take place. Perhaps a review will be
ordered.
But unless Labour is in the hands of those who want to win elections rather than using Labour to debate the finer points of class warfare and socialist ideals, get ready for another long period of Conservative rule.
1. I should note that I got to know the Labour Party reasonably well during the early 1980s during the time of Neil Kinnock and through subsequent visits.