A Problem of Communication: Keir Starmer’s Labour Leadership

In the broadest terms, Labour is splintered between two generalisable tendencies that can broadly be described as ‘Corbynite’ and ‘New Labour/Centrist’. Since 2015, the Labour Party has been all but transformed by the infusion of a rank-and-file membership who now hold deeply held left-wing values, alongside a Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) that has within its ranks MPs elected under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Those who joined the Labour Party during Corbyn’s 2015 leadership, and many of those MPs first elected in 2017 and again in 2019, remain deeply loyal to Corbyn’s values. For them, Corbynism is more than simply a political project, rather it is a moral crusade to transform the Labour Party and with it the broader left, into an activist-led protest movement designed to showcase values over government policy and their implementation through a Labour administration. The New Labour/Centrist factions within the party continue to also prescribe remedies to Labour’s polling woes which appear to disregard the changed nature of the party. Indeed, for the New Labour faction, the party can repeat the processes used against Militant Tendency under Kinnock, Smith and Blair, with the view to recapture the heart and soul of the membership. The problem with this is that the New Labour is no longer in the dominant position it was, nor does it enjoy the same modernisation strategy and policy renewal process initiated by Kinnock. Indeed, for the New Labour faction today, their prescriptions relate simply to surface appearance rather than genuine ideological change, thereby denying the realities facing Sir Keir Starmer as the current Labour leader