A Labour leader with the correct political position could win the next election

The Tories could be beaten at the next election but only by a leader who recognises how abjectly the left has failed.

Sir Keir Starmer, left, is a clear favourite to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Picture: AFP

The Labour Party loses so often it is tempting to think that, at some level, it must enjoy the experience. Something about the retained self-righteousness, the continued purity, the unsullied refusal to bend towards electoral whim accords with a party whose advocates are so tediously fond of reminding you of the importance of their values. Watch Jeremy Corbyn’s extraordinary performance on Wednesday at the first prime minister’s questions since he delivered Labour’s worst election result since 1935. Shouting pieties into the void, Mr Corbyn carried on as if nothing had happened.

There is a risk that the contest to replace Mr Corbyn is conducted in the language of impending doom. So far Sir Keir Starmer, the clear favourite, appears to be auditioning for the leading man in a gritty and miserabilist Ken Loach remake of A Very British Coup. His opening remarks have all been about standing on the picket line at Wapping and the importance of attending the Durham Miners’ Gala.

It is a good job his first name is Keir. Imagine the uproar if his parents had called him Tony. Only Ramsay could be worse.

With the correct platform and political position Keir Starmer could win an election, says Philip Collins. Picture: Getty

Most leadership candidates play to the gallery to some extent but the risk of pandering is that it can be hard to escape later. The main effect of campaigns is usually not to change the result but to define the candidate. Sir Keir started out talking like a loser and he needs to shift quickly into the idiom of victory. This is because Sir Keir is very likely to win.

The error of the left in this contest was in letting John McDonnell retire. Quite apart from the folly of choosing once again politics that have been decisively rejected, Rebecca Long Bailey is too new to politics to be ready to lead.

Rebecca Long Bailey is too new to politics to be ready to lead. Picture: Getty

The left vote is likely to splinter as plenty of young Momentum activists prefer a candidate (Starmer) who fought the good fight on Europe and plenty of others know that another way of spelling RLB is IDS. Barry Gardiner would not have suggested he might run if he did not think the support of Len McCluskey and the Unite union could be up for grabs.

The prospect that the left really does not have a candidate is causing all sorts of excitement among Labour supporters of the Blair and Brown vintage. Their true candidate is Jess Phillips, who will invigorate the contest with candour even if she does not win. Ms Phillips will not be cowed out of telling the party the truth it knows but wishes to avoid – that their own choice as leader in 2015 was a catastrophe.

Jess Phillips is the true candidate of Labour supporters of the Blair and Brown vintage Picture: Getty

Frankly, anyone who ever thought Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister doesn’t know what they are doing. The mysterious one-off election of 2017 blinded the Labour left into the belief that all the rules of British politics had been repealed and that it was now possible to win from the left. They haven’t and it is not; the Labour Party never wins when the left is in control.

In fact, the Labour Party does not win very often, whoever is in control. Since 1979 there have been 28 years of Tory government, which will stretch to 32 by 2024, and only 13 years of Labour, all of which were won by Tony Blair, the unperson. By 2024 Labour will have been out of power for 14 years.

In peacetime Labour has only found, in Harold Wilson and Tony Blair, two winners. Since 1945 Labour has had 11 leaders, of whom three have won elections (Attlee, Wilson and Blair). Attlee and Wilson also lost elections and so join the seven other losers (Gaitskell, Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock, Brown, Miliband and Corbyn) in Labour’s roll call of failure.

The only two who were unbowed were John Smith, who died before fighting an election, and Tony Blair. Of the 13 leaders of the Tory party since 1945, only three have not become prime minister. They were William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, all seen off by Blair.

Since 1979 there have only been 13 years of Labour, all of which were won by Tony Blair, who has recently warned that “the only people speaking the language of Reality to the Labour party are those that don’t aspire to lead it.” Picture: AFP

It might be wise, therefore, to listen to what the man has to say on the matter. In a long article just after the election Mr Blair wrote that “the Labour Party is presently marooned on Fantasy Island. I understand would-be leaders will want to go there and speak the native language in the hope of persuading enough eventually to migrate to the mainland of Reality. But there is a risk that the only people speaking the language of Reality to the party are those that don’t aspire to lead it.”

This is advice Sir Keir Starmer would be well advised to take to heart because he could, conceivably, win. Not just win the Labour leadership but, with the correct platform and political position, win an election.

The Conservative Party is going to find government difficult. The economy is fragile and its new coalition of voters in the Midlands and the north will be impatient for the benefits of the policies that Boris Johnson has yet to devise. The Tory victory contains a lot of marginal seats and, 14 years into Tory rule of one kind or another, a Labour leader who looks and sounds prime ministerial could definitely win in 2024.

That will require a political choice. Labour has to abandon the canard that its manifesto was popular. The public was not fooled by its catalogue of free jewels. It was obvious that Labour was an incredible party of government and Mr Corbyn an incredible leader. Emily Thornberry, whose leadership campaign is struggling to take wing, now declares that the people around Mr Corbyn worried her. This is the gang she was campaigning to put into Downing Street. It is a good thing the rest of us acted on what she thought rather than what she said.

The early stages of the leadership contest have been an attempt, by all except Ms Phillips, not to besmirch the magnificent legacy of Mr Corbyn. The candidates are scared of their own party but they must not be. Sir Keir will find, much as Ed Miliband did, that if he does win a victory by pandering, then betraying that victory later is harder than it might seem. Better to win a victory you are proud of, and which is serviceable later, than one you are forced to disown.

If the winner were able to stand on a firm platform there could be a glimpse of light for the Labour Party. After the Thatcher victory of 1979 Labour took a detour through its hard left and gifted power to the Tories for 18 years. By 1983, four years in, Neil Kinnock had begun the slow process of recovery.

Labour is now ten years into opposition and has only just got rid of its worst ever leader. Time is short and, as Auden wrote, history to the defeated may say alas but cannot help nor pardon. We will find out now if they are serious about winning or not.

The Times