The Guardian view on Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour: it should be a broad church
The seeds of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership victory of 2015 were sown more than a decade earlier on the floor of a Labour party conference in Brighton. Then the Labour leader was Tony Blair and he had, in 2003, taken Britain into the Iraq war with predictable and disastrous consequences. By 2004, when Iraq was descending into chaos, Labour members were furious. Mr Blair only avoided an embarrassing defeat in Brighton that year when trade union power helped see off a conference motion calling for the early withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. Mr Blair won the vote, but he lost the argument with members. Mr Corbyn’s campaign was built on this disaffection. Key to Mr Corbyn’s appeal as Labour leader was that he promised not to let members down again.
Yet this year Mr Corbyn is accused of doing just that over Brexit. Instead of Labour going into an election with a clear pro-remain position, something that the majority of ordinary members want, Mr Corbyn – with the backing of the big trade unions – will, it seems, bulldozer his “fudge” policy through. His plan seeks to persuade voters that compromise is needed to reconcile warring Brexit tribes. This is a brave and not unwelcome move in our polarised times. Mr Corbyn’s policy is for a Labour government to renegotiate a Brexit deal and put it to a plebiscitary vote within six months of winning an election. There would be a special conference to determine Labour’s position in that referendum. On Sunday Mr Corbyn refused to say how he would campaign in it. This approach recognises that the country is divided and that give and take might be required to bring people together. It allows those Labour MPs in leave constituencies to campaign in the next election as leavers, and those in remain constituencies to campaign as remainers.
Mr Corbyn has spent his life advocating internal democracy, where the party makes policy, not the leaders. Why is he not pushing that idea now? The lesson of 2004 for trade unions who back the leadership over party members is that they can become targets for organised attacks, laying the ground for insurgent rivals. Last year Mr Corbyn managed to ensure that there was no showdown with the membership at the party conference because shadow cabinet heavyweights Emily Thornberry and Sir Keir Starmer backed him. This year, from Brighton’s seashore, they have defied him, saying Labour should campaign to remain. Perhaps they would not have done the same thing if the conference had been held in Blackpool, where leave won two-thirds of the 2016 vote. Nevertheless, without the support of Sir Keir or Ms Thornberry in bridging divides, Mr Corbyn could lose the membership and see his project become isolated, much like that of his old foe Mr Blair.
Mr Corbyn’s party of moral character is at risk of becoming the party of the-ends-justify-the-means. Politics at the moment in Britain is not for the faint-hearted. However, the move against Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, who is no Corbynite, was wrong and made all the wrong headlines. The resignation of Mr Corbyn’s long-time aide Andrew Fisher also highlighted divisions. The Labour party is nothing if not a broad church, encompassing different traditions working with – not against – each other. In a post-industrial world everything is some kind of coalition. If not, the party is simply a religion of true believers in a multi-faith polity. Over decades, Labour activists, interests and voters have broadly agreed on a common purpose – to elect Labour governments that can redress the imbalance of economic, social and political power in Britain. That broad-church approach has served Labour well and has served Britain well too. This is still an irresistible case, even in tough times, as politics fracture, and especially in the face of Brexit’s continuing disaster. Mr Corbyn needs to restore such an understanding of Labour. This conference is a chance for Mr Corbyn to do so. He should seize the opportunity.