Labour moderates gain ground as hard-left begins to unravel

Are there signs of life among Labour’s moderates? It depends.

Liam Byrne’s selection this week as Labour’s candidate for the West Midlands mayoralty seems at first glance like a victory for the Labour party’s more sensible wing. The MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill is, usually, thought of as being on the right of the party. He served as a minister in the New Labour years and co-founded the Blairite think tank Progress. Salma Yaqoob, former leader of the Respect Party, was firmly defeated by Byrne despite securing the backing of Unite and Momentum.

These days regional and city level politics is increasingly important. These places have often served as redoubts for political factions currently out of favour with their leadership. Ken Livingstone being mayor of London helped to old left keep a toe-hold in the party under Blair. His successor, Boris Johnson, forged his political career as mayor of London all while lining up his inevitable leadership bid. Now with the new mayoralities created under previous governments there is more scope for this sort of politics than ever. Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham are, respectively, running London and Manchester likely waiting for their time to come. Add Byrne to that and it seems like the centrist and soft left wings of Labour might use these urban bases to stage their comeback.

Byrne’s nomination actually tells a somewhat more complex story – which involves growing tensions on the far-left that are being exposed by the national leadership race. Byrne gathered a strange coalition of backers that included not just former deputy leader and key Corbynsceptic Tom Watson, but also the shadow chancellor and key Corbyn ally John McDonnell. McDonnell’s willingness to back Byrne, and ditch the hard-left favoured Yaqoob, speaks to an ongoing division on Labour’s left – which is only growing as it seeks to plot a post-Corbyn future.

Corbyn had long made foreign policy his focus when on the backbenches, and when he unexpectedly won the leadership he could not bring himself to distance himself from the cavalcade of deeply unsavoury figures he had associated with in the name of “anti-imperialism”.

McDonnell while holding similar sympathies to Corbyn, never made this his focus – and was much more willing to pragmatically cut deals. During the anti-Semitism crisis McDonnell repeatedly took a stronger public line than Corbyn, and urged faster action, apparently contributing to tensions between their followers behind the scenes.

McDonnell’s views also reflect a calculation on parts of the hard-left that if they want to win power they need to distance themselves from issues that contributes to the view they are crankish and unpatriotic. McDonell’s protégé, and the hard-left’s leadership candidate, Rebecca Long-Bailey has flirted with this view in her calls for a “progressive patriotism” and aspiration. However, she quickly backed off the first after it attracted criticism from the sorts of die-hard Corbynites whose support she’s depending on for her leadership bid. It seems she lacks the boldness to forge her own direction and drag her backers with her.

This notably contrasts to her close friend and ally, Angela Rayner. Soft-left Rayner, who served loyally in the Shadow Cabinet, has since the election declared that Labour must steer clear of promising revolution if it wants to win power – and called on key Corbyn aides to be sacked. She is now looks guaranteed the post of deputy leader, with many Labour people wishing she was running for leader instead.

Long-Bailey seems to be trailing Keir Starmer in the leadership race. She has been left in the dust by Starmer in terms of nominations by Constituency Labour Parties – Starmer has currently garnered 191 nominations to Long-Bailey’s 91. While neither of them need these nominations to make it to the final round, having successfully secured the backing of key unions and party societies, CLP nominations are often seen as a proxy for support among the membership. In 2015 they were the first heralds of Corbyn’s unexpected victory. It is also notable that along the way Starmer has gained the backing of MPs and CLPs that had previously swung for Corbyn.

Long-Bailey’s chances will almost certainly have been further damaged by an IPSOS Mori poll this week on what voters, not party members, make of the candidates. Only 14% thought Long-Bailey had the right qualities and 42% thought she didn’t, the worst score of any of the candidates. Starmer led the pack with 32%, followed by Lisa Nandy and Emily Thornberry, on 23% and 19% respectively. While the Labour membership has recently proved remarkably impervious to public opinion it does seem that after the election a touch of pragmatism emerged following the party’s crushing defeat.

For the moment Long-Bailey still does look like Starmer’s most formidable challenger. Lisa Nandy, who also made it through to the final round by securing the backing of unions and societies, still only has 38 CLP nominations. Despite the brief burst of Nandymania in parts of the media after her strong performance in the first two stages of the leadership election it seems she is still struggling to gain traction.

Emily Thornberry continues to underperform given her status. She scraped through the first round, only getting enough MPs nominations to clear the first hurdle thanks to Clive Lewis dropping out and passing on his few nominations to her. Now she has only garnered 12 nominations so far – well short of the 33 she needs before nominations close in a week. While much could change over the next couple of months it seems like Starmer will likely win by overwhelming the Corbynite rear-guard, aided by defections from its ranks.