Never has a major party leadership election felt so insignificant. Whereas the race which followed Labour’s 2015 defeat felt like a battle for the soul of the party, the 2020 equivalent has nowhere near the same sense of urgency. This partly reflects the severity of Labour’s defeat in last year’s general election, and the Covid-19 outbreak has only served exacerbate the perceived low-stakes of the contest. Why should we care, now of all times, who leads a party so far from power?
But it also reflects the success of the Corbyn project within Labour– on a policy level at least, the next Labour leader will be a Corbynite. All three candidates still in the running have committed to a platform based around on heavier state intervention in the economy, a significant re-expansion of government funded social programs and a more radical green agenda than adopted by almost any country, anywhere. Judging candidates is less a matter of evaluating policy outcomes than predicting their success at uniting the party and winning back support Labour lost during the 2010s. This article is an attempt to assess the challenges each candidate would face were they to win the nomination.
Keir Starmer
It has become something of cliché to talk about Keir Starmer’s stance as one which ‘defies labels’. Whilst it would be remiss not to acknowledge his remarkable ability to avoid categorisation in such a factionalised party and partisan political landscape, this campaign has positioned Starmer as the candidate best representing the liberal, southern wing of the Labour Party.
In a recent piece of well-crafted political theatre, he told the Guardian, “I don’t find the badging of people helps, really. I don’t need somebody else’s name tattooed on my head to know what I think”. It’s an approach that appears to be working in the short term, given that at the time of writing Starmer is widely considered to be the favourite to win the leadership contest. Nevertheless, if he does win the nomination, his first major battle will be persuading huge swathes of the party that he can represent Labour’s core values with conviction.
His supporters tend to highlight his career as a human rights lawyer as proof of his principles, but his detractors point to his mixed record as head of the Crown Prosecution Service, where his reluctance to prosecute police officers for brutality came under particular scrutiny. Many on the left of the party haven’t forgiven him for his decision to resign from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in 2016, many in Leave voting seats haven’t forgiven him for pushing Labour’s Brexit policy so far towards Remain as Shadow Brexit Secretary. And despite the reputation many senior barristers have for rhetorical flair, Keir is a measured rather than uplifting speaker. I don’t expect to see too many staunch Starmerites thronging the streets to hear Keir speak at a protest march any time soon. At best Starmer is the ‘adult’ choice. At worst he’s uninspiring.
One major upside to some of these perceived weaknesses is that being difficult to label, for good or ill, makes you difficult to attack. Unlike Long-Bailey, Starmer has managed to survive the leadership campaign without going through the media ringer, and he’s held up well in the candidate debates. If he the UK’s notoriously brutal news media are going to give any candidate an easier ride, it seems likely to be Keir Starmer. That is partly because he’s succeeded in avoiding labels, but partly because his style leaves him less open to mockery. Calling Corbyn a dangerous firebrand, whether you think that label is fair or not, made sense to a lot of voters who were worried by his defence of Communist regimes, his perceived sympathy for terrorist groups and his aggressive manner. Labelling Starmer a ‘dangerous’ choice would be rather more difficult.
Perhaps Starmer’s most clever piece of political manoeuvring is to make himself seem like more of a moderate than he is. His platform is still substantially Corbynite in focus.
Yet for all the rhetoric by all three candidates about the Labour Party’s ‘broach church’ mentality, Starmer is the candidate who best embodies that ideal. At a time when the Liberal Democrats seem a spent force, Labour’s ability to occupy the centre ground of British politics might be crucial to their chances at the next election. A leader who can do that and reach out to the Left could be a dangerous combination for the Conservatives.
Rebecca Long-Bailey
Rebecca Long-Bailey has suffered early on from her close association with the current leadership. She has been reluctant to distinguish herself from Corbyn or McDonnell on policy, and is frank about the major role she played in writing Labour 2019 manifesto. She has defended Corbyn’s character stringently, and when asked to score Corbyn’s tenure out of ten, she gave him ten. The explanation she gives for Labour’s defeat also sound familiar, blaming the media’s bias against Corbyn first and foremost.
Like Corbyn, she has passionate supporters who have alienated the rest of the Labour membership. Like Corbyn, she was slow to act on anti-Semitism allegations at best. Like Corbyn, she is only really looks comfortable speaking publicly when at rallies, and her other appearances in this race have not been reassuring. In short, Long-Bailey shares many of Corbyn’s vulnerabilities, and it’s tempting to assume by extension that she is ‘unelectable’.
I’m sceptical of this view. Firstly, any predictions about an election four years from now are profoundly unstable. Even leaving aside Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath, the government will still have Brexit to negotiate. Who knows where the Overton window will shift, and which political stance is going to be most appealing by that point. If the world is about to slide into a depression, Long-Bailey’s radicalism at the next election might well be more appealing than Corbyn’s was at the previous two. Moreover, until we get to know a leader’s style, how they respond to crises in the top job and how they handle criticism, getting a read on their electability just isn’t going to happen.
Besides that general health warning, there are good reasons for Labour members to be more optimistic about a Long-Bailey leadership.
At 40, Rebecca Long-Bailey would be the youngest Labour Party leader in history, as well as its first female leader. Born into a working class family in Salford, she represents Labour’s northern heartlands and has pitched herself as the candidate to regain the ‘Red Wall’ seats the Conservatives took in 2019. The prospect of her at the ballot box across from the undeniably aristocratic Johnson might be one which Labour strategists relish.
Whilst Long-Bailey is right that the media gave Corbyn a rough ride, arguably more damaging was insurgency within Labour itself. Corbyn suffered greatly from early challenges to his leadership within the party, and in the minds of many voters never recovered the authority to lead the country. The Labour Party Long-Bailey would inherit now bears little resemblance to that which Corbyn did in 2015. With left-wing Ian Lavery as chairman, a pro-Corbyn NEC with substantial influence over legislators and five years of Corbyn led policy consensus to work with, the candidate best placed to thrive within Labour could be Corbyn’s heir apparent. Between appearing in place of Corbyn at Prime Minister’s Questions and representing Labour at one of the election debates, there’s no doubt that Long-Bailey fills that role. If Nandy or Starmer win, they’re going to have to tread carefully to retan their authority within Labour – otherwise they may find themselves expending energy and capital on battles within the party rather than with the government.
A Long-Bailey manifesto would probably bear close resemblance to Labour 2019 offering, but the emphasis she wants to place on radical economic restructuring rather than undoing Tory cuts is a meaningful change in strategy. The Labour Party’s overreliance on attacking austerity didn’t resonate with voters, and given Johnson’s administration wanted to expand public spending even before the Covid-19 outbreak it probably won’t resonate 4 years from now either. Long-Bailey’s flagship plan to hugely increase investment in green industry is a gamble – it’s far from clear how much public appetite there it, but that may depend on how apparent the consequences of climate change are by the next election. Whether that gamble is worth it remains to be seen.
Lisa Nandy
Unlike Starmer or Long-Bailey, Nandy’s candidacy has grown in strength more gradually. She didn’t begin with as established a support base as either, and as the Left and the Establishment wings have broken for Long-Bailey and Starmer respectively, she’s worked hard to tread a path between the two. The question is – has that left her without an identity even as the campaign wraps up? A major selling point of her candidacy has been appealing to working class Northern voters who abandoned Labour at the last election – that was the pledge she made in the letter published by the Wigan Post which announced her candidacy. In spite of this, Nandy hasn’t been clear about just what she’s offering those voters.
This is partly a function of her confusing political record. She co-chaired Owen Smith’s push to unseat Corbyn in 2016 on a pledge to hold a second referendum, but she then failed to support a second referendum herself. Despite lacking front runner scrutiny, she’s been somewhat self-contradictory when clarifying her policy positions. Whether she supports free university tuition or not remains unclear, as does her position on nationalising key industries. Her strategy has, at times, seemed more like an inelegant version of Starmer’s non-factionalism than an original approach to party leadership.
Nandy’s strength seems to lie away from mainstream political issues. She’s been particularly vocal on advocating for left behind regions, forming the ‘Centre for Towns’ thinktank. Her work on regional development are surely central to Labour’s strategy to regain northern seats, and like Long-Bailey her northern background will certainly lend authenticity to that. Relocating power away from London and the South is certainly appealing for many more traditional Labour voters. She’s also performed strongly in major interviews and at party debates. She’s been successful in articulating the reasons for Labour’s election defeat that don’t fixate on Brexit or the media. She may not win the leadership, but whoever does could do well to take a leaf or two out of Nandy’s playbook.
None of these candidates are guaranteed to win at the next general election, and all of them come with significant vulnerabilities. Leading Labour back into power will depend on their ability to learn from the party’s travails in the last decade to overcome their personal weaknesses. They have to unite the party, they have to build a broad voting coalition and they have to learn how to deal with media scrutiny. Otherwise, the 2020s may well turn out to be just as painful as the 2010s for the Labour Party.