Ex Labour MP Tom Harris on why break-up is only way to save party from extinction
Supporters need to gracefully accept relationship has come to a natural end
Anyone who’s ever been through a divorce will know exactly how Labour MPs are feeling right now.
There are two types of divorce. There’s the kind of split where the couple maintain civilised relations, usually for the sake of the children. They amicably and gracefully accept that the relationship has come to a natural end, wish each other well, and move on.
Then there’s the less friendly type of divorce, the one where household objects get thrown across the room, where every conversation is shouted instead of spoken and the atmosphere is bitter until one of them finally agrees to move out of the marital home.
It’s that second kind of split that the Labour Party is heading towards.
And the only thing that can prevent it happening is if the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is defeated by his challenger, Owen Smith, in September.
But that’s not going to happen, is it?
Assuming Corbyn, the political cuckoo in Labour’s nest, hangs on, where do the rebels go next? One tactic that’s been mooted is to continue challenging Corbyn year after year. But why would next year’s result be any different from this years? Or last year’s?
Albert Einstein said that repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different result was a sign of insanity…
However much they might deny it publicly, Labour MPs are seriously talking about
divorce. Who can blame them? What other choice do they have?
They came into politics to govern, not to oppose. And Labour under Corbyn isn’t
remotely serious about winning elections.
But every time such a radical divorce is even raised, three letters are never far from
the conversation: SDP. David Owen’s breakaway party in the 1980s almost broke the
mould of the two-party system. Opinion polls regularly predicted it might replace
Labour as the main opposition to Thatcherism. But ultimately it failed.
Partly that was because of tribal loyalty to the old two-party system. Yet at last year’s
general election, Labour and the Tories barely managed to secure 70 per cent of the
vote between them, down from 95 immediately after the war.
We’re long past the stage where millions stuck with the party their parents voted for,
so maybe there’s hope for a new centre-left party this time round.
RELATED STORIES
But the other thing that killed the SDP was the first-past- the-post electoral system,
which naturally favours the two biggest parties. So a new Real Labour, or Independent Labour Party would find it almost impossible to succeed where Owen
failed.
Almost.
Inevitably, this being the Labour Party, there’s no agreement about the way forward.
There are many, even among the 172 MPs who voted against Corbyn in July’s vote of
no confidence, who urge caution. We can still win, they say. We just need to organise,
in parliament and, more importantly, in the constituencies. Vote by vote, argument by
argument, the Corbynistas and the revolutionary Trotskyites who have been attracted
to his cause can be out-manouevred. It will just take time.
But time is running out. If Prime Minister May goes to the country early, she will
secure a massive majority, almost all of it at Labour’s expense. Do moderate MPs
seriously want to go into battle under Jeremy Corbyn’s banner? Are they willing to
face the voters’ judgment on his manifesto?
What credibility will they have if they stand on a platform of unilateral nuclear
disarmament, high taxes, belligerence towards the west, friendship towards Middle
Eastern terrorists and unaffordable public spending?
Do they really still want to be members of a party that welcomes back into the fold
members of Militant, who were expelled in the 1980s for advocating violent
revolution?
And since Labour is certain to be defeated at the next election anyway, what on earth
have the rebels got to lose?
Whether it’s formally recognised or not, Labour is no longer a single party. It is two
warring parties whose supporters despise each other and everything they stand for.
They’ve tried counseling and it didn’t work. For the sake of the children, it’s time to
behave like adults. Consult the lawyers, divide the family home and sort out the
finances.
It’s time to start over.