Jeremy Corbyn is displaying Tony Blair’s vices without his virtue

Jeremy Corbyn has been shamelessly using his position to try to thwart the will of the grassroots. Picture: AFP.

When Jeremy Corbyn said at the weekend that “my whole mission has been to democratise the Labour Party” he was guilty of either a stunning lack of self-awareness or a blatant attempt at obfuscation. The Labour leader likes to describe himself as the “servant” of party members, and his conference podium is emblazoned with the slogan “people before privilege”, but in Brighton this week he has been shamelessly using his position to try to thwart the will of the grassroots. His hero Tony Benn, whose Campaign for Labour Party Democracy was dedicated to rebalancing power between leader and activists, must be turning in his grave.

For years Mr Corbyn railed against the control freakery of moderate Labour leaders who sought to sideline leftwingers like him but now that he is in charge he is using even more extreme methods to assert himself over his party. Although Labour members are overwhelmingly against Brexit, last night the conference rejected a motion calling for the party to campaign for Remain if there is another referendum. Two big unions, Unite and the GMB, voted as a block against the motion and the left-wing pressure group Momentum also whipped its delegates to oppose it. There was chaos in the conference hall after Wendy Nichols, the chairwoman, said the motion had passed, then following an intervention from Jennie Formby, the general secretary, changed her mind but refused to refer the question to an accurate card vote. Even if it wasn’t a stitch-up it added to the confusion surrounding Labour’s Brexit policy.

In fact, had the Labour leader got his way the conference would have been denied the chance to vote on the pro-European motion altogether, and simply been asked to rubber-stamp his own preferred position of neutrality. The party’s ruling national executive committee was not allowed to meet to discuss the issue. Instead the members of the governing body were emailed by the leader’s office and given an hour to endorse Mr Corbyn’s plan. It was a cynical political ambush, as well as hypocrisy of the highest order. Even among the leader’s long-standing allies there is a sense of disbelief about the increasingly authoritarian approach he is taking. “We the left took over the leadership of this party promising internal democracy [and] a new kind of politics,” the MP Clive Lewis said, “and yet here we are with a leadership apparently determined to shut down democratic debate on the crucial issue of the day.”

It feels in Brighton as if the tide is starting to turn against Mr Corbyn. The moderates have never trusted him but now disillusionment is growing among leftwingers who feel that their idealism is being betrayed. Jon Lansman, the Momentum founder, condemned the way in which Labour’s Brexit policy was being decided as a “travesty” and insisted that those attending the conference should feel free to vote with their consciences. “I’m completely supportive of Jeremy’s leadership but I’m incredibly disappointed with the process by which today’s NEC statement on Brexit was produced,” he tweeted. “There was no meeting, no discussion, no consultation with the membership.” This was a bit rich from a man who himself launched an abortive coup against Tom Watson, the party’s elected deputy leader whose pro-European views are much more in tune with the grassroots than Mr Corbyn’s constructive ambiguity. Mr Lansman was, as Mr Watson told him to his face in Brighton, “the hitman that missed” but it was an assassination attempt that set the tone for a conference dominated by division and discontent.

The program for the Corbynista World Transformed festival, running alongside the official Labour event, promises that “we will be practising a kinder and more generous form of discussion and encouraging a politics based on creativity, open mindedness and comradeship”. That is not how it feels for those on the receiving end of pressure from Mr Corbyn’s allies. Even Andrew Fisher, his head of policy, has quit, denouncing the “lack of professionalism, competence and human decency” in the leader’s team and saying he is sick of the “blizzard of lies and excuses”. Michael Chessum, a pro-European Momentum activist, echoed this sentiment saying: “We are witnessing a nasty, unaccountable, bullying mode of politics here. It was wrong under every other leader and it’s wrong now.”

Labour Students, the party’s hardworking youth wing — whose members danced along to the New Labour 1997 campaign song Things Can Only Get Better at last year’s conference — has been abolished. Harriet Harman, the veteran MP, has been warned that she could face a left-wing challenge in her constituency if she becomes House of Commons Speaker. Although attempts to deselect moderate MPs through so-called “trigger ballots” have mostly failed because those targeted have strong local support, the leadership has embarked on another potentially more significant attempt to remake the Parliamentary Labour Party in its own left-wing image. Last week the NEC was informed by the general secretary that the selection of candidates in seats where MPs have defected or are standing down had been suspended. No explanation was given, but under party rules candidates can be imposed on local parties once a general election is called. Several members of the ruling body raised concerns, fearing another power grab by the leader’s office, but the decision has so far not been reversed. According to one shadow cabinet minister, more than 200 seats are affected, including about 20 that Labour is targeting or already holds. “It’s not unusual for there to be gaps in hard-to-win seats at this stage of the cycle but to suspend selections in retirement seats is straight out of North Korea,” he said. Already a furious backlash is growing in constituency parties that want to choose their own MPs.

The truth is that Mr Corbyn is losing his grip and the leftwingers around him sense power slipping away from them. They want to influence the leadership succession and are looking to secure internal victories, rather than thinking of how to win over the voters. “Leninists don’t believe in democracy except as a means of taking control,” says one former cabinet minister. “It wouldn’t be so bad if they wanted to use control to impose self-discipline and win the election but this goal seems far from their minds.” Ironically, Mr Corbyn is emulating all the vices he hated in Tony Blair — control freakery, spin and triangulation — but without the virtue of moderation that secured three election victories. Instead of trying to reach out to a broad range of voters he is engaging in self-indulgent sectarianism, poisonous purges and bitter class warfare which may be why he has become the most unpopular opposition leader since polling began.

The Times