For a start, the leadership race is all happening too
quickly. Miliband was wrong to step down
immediately after the election result.
He should have stayed to hold the party together in the aftermath and
set things up for a leadership race which would set the party up to find a new,
better leader who stands a chance of being the long term leader and Prime
Minister. Instead, Miliband abandoned
ship (and, quite literally, country) leaving Harman to prevent the complete
falling apart of Labour. Not that I
think Miliband would have been particularly good at maintaining order, no doubt
attacks on him from within the party would come in thick and fast, but it
couldn’t have been worse than disappearing for a month. Back to the point – the leadership race is
not going to give Labour a strong leader.
Let us look at the current contenders. Andy Burnham seems to be the front runner –
does anyone remember that he ran for the leadership back in 2010? And does anyone remember how he did? He got a first choice preference of just
8.67%, marginally beating Dianne Abbot and falling far short of Ed Miliband on
34%. Burnham lost by a landslide
compared to the Miliband(s). By this
logic, he’s not just second best to Ed Miliband but also to David Miliband and
Ed Balls - by whom he was also beaten.
How can he possibly be the person Labour needs to turn things around for
them? Quite simply, he is turning into
too much of a compromise candidate: the balance between right and left, and
therefore, he can’t.
I’ll admit that I don’t know too much about Yvette Cooper’s
bid to become leader, however she doesn’t seem to be inspiring her
audience. Again, she appears to be a bit
of a compromise candidate – not being a committed lefty or Blarite. Is she capable of pulling together a
fractured Labour party and win a general election in 5 years time? Unlikely.
Finally, the real left wing candidate – Jeremy Corbyn. Out of all of them, Corbyn would probably
make the best leader. His political
convictions mean he would drive the party more to the left than they have been
for a large number of years, and his leadership would a real leftist agenda
(compared to what Miliband introduced).
This may appeal to some, but certainly not all and most likely not even
the majority of members of the Labour party.
If his ideology can’t appeal to the majority of the Labour party, then
it stands no chance appealing to the average voter. As I’ve written previously, Labour can’t win
on the left.
So therefore Labour are stuck. Going on like this, or with any of these
candidates as leader, they won’t win the next election (so long as the Tories don’t
self-destruct over the EU). And after
that? Who knows. Labour do face the real possibility of being
out of office for at least the next ten years – perhaps even more. It’s happened before – to both Labour and the
Tories – and there’s no reason to believe it will be any different this time.
By: Toby Gould
The future of Labour doesn't look good
Reviewed by Admin
on
11:26
Rating:

No comments:
Share your views here! But read our Comment Policy first, found on the about page.