No rest for the wicked – Thursday made a Remain vote all the more crucial

So on Friday after much delay, it was confirmed that London once again has a Labour mayor – and a fantastic one at that. Sadiq Khan has been an inspiring candidate running an impeccable campaign, responding to challenges as they arose and seeing off a nasty, lacklustre effort from the entitled Zac Goldsmith that has retoxified the Tories on race. He has led with authority as the anti-Semitism crisis has buffeted Labour. Within a fractious Labour Party, his brand of savvy soft-leftism helped him unite Momentum, Progressites and the vast bulk of members in between behind his effort (last summer I voted Tessa Jowell partly as a safety choice and even put Sadiq third behind David Lammy, and while I wrote in support of him in September, I’m happy to admit I got my original vote dead wrong). Turnout was up somewhat on last time and Sadiq now wields the largest personal mandate of any British politician in history. As a liberal Muslim he is showcasing London’s pluralist values to the world, and he will tackle the housing and cost of living crises that hit working Londoners. And further, London Labour also retained its strong presence on the Assembly that works on the mayor’s budgets – Labour gained Sadiq’s backyard of Merton and Wandsworth and Andrew Dismore held his Barnet and Camden seat, despite the anti-Semitism row and Goldsmith winning the area. 

However, we must be honest. If we look at the national picture, Thursday’s result was still too close to comfort to last year’s. I was lucky enough to spend polling day 2015 in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, one of the handful of Labour gain seats on a night that was very dark for the party as a whole, but as then, urban English Labourites can’t let our local joy blind us to the state the party is in nationally. In Scotland, Labour slipped into third despite an energetic campaign from Kezia Dugdale, with Ruth Davison’s Conservatives seemingly presenting themselves as an effective, unionist alternative to SNP hegemony in a political landscape where national identity now trumps the bread-and-butter issues Labour is strongest on. Carwyn Jones’ well-oiled machine will still govern Wales, but will do so without a majority and UKIP gained new seats.

Worst were the council elections in England. It’s true that our vote held up better than might have been feared in our existing southern councils, and we gained Stockport and the elected mayoralty in liberal Bristol (and also an unexpected PCC post in Leicestershire). But the party still took a net loss in seats, an indignity Labour has not suffered from opposition since 1985. While we increased our notional vote on 2015, it was mostly by racking up votes in our existing urban strongholds, not by advancing in the English and Welsh marginals (continuing the self-fulfilling demographic spiral of a party seemingly unaware that it is getting “deeper, not wider”). UKIP saw northern gains and there was a big swing to the Conservatives in symbolic Nuneaton. And all this is despite an unloved six-year incumbent Conservative government suffering splits over the EU, a senior cabinet member resigning to attack its own collapsing budget and a string of humiliating u-turns. These results show us that much of England doesn’t necessarily even see us as an attractive protest party, let alone a party of national government.

However, none of this will move internal Labour politics. Jeremy Corbyn’s team (and his critics, we must say) managed to set the expectations so low that he was able to proclaim that “we clung on”. Labour dislikes moving against its leaders, Jeremy Corbyn is still beloved by the membership, and even soft-left members and trade union leaders who get some of his problems tend to hold his PLP critics equally culpable. And while London will provide a distraction, part of me suspects George Eaton was right when he predicted that even a shock loss for Sadiq wouldn’t have changed things much. If you were a member in the Miliband years, this should all be eerily familiar - we are the undead party, ambling towards national defeat while always finding just enough reason not to act (though at least Ed had the expected midterm poll leads and council gains).

All this brings me to the EU referendum. Labour’s odds of winning the 2020 election were long even as the dust settled on the morning of May 8^th 2015, but our own choices may have locked in our fate, and put 2025 beyond reach as well. That means the horror of a long spell of Tory rule in Westminster, and a need for Labour to think hard about how to constrain it and protect working people from opposition. There are many vital reasons we must stay in Europe, but it should be remembered that for the Labour movement specifically, a key moment in its conversion from historic Euroscepticism to a mostly pro-European position came in 1988, when amid the gloom of the Thatcher years commission president Jacques Delors addressed the TUC. Delors assured delegates of his commitment to a ‘social Europe’, pledging to mandate employment protections and invest European funds in regional development and combating unemployment (it’s said that at that conference, Delors received a standing ovation and delegates sang him with a chorus of 'Frère Jacques'). It is true that the European project has changed much since then, but the predicament Labour once again faces and the winds of a globalising world make that social Europe even more essential now than it was then.

When I blogged in February about Labour’s approach to the referendum, I did say one thing in Corbyn’s favour – his instinctive Euroscepticism can make him a more persuasive Remain voice to a similarly Eurosceptic public. Since then, he’s given a good “warts and all” speech in defence of a social Europe, arguing that “by working together across our continent, we can develop our economies, protect social and human rights, tackle climate change and clamp down on tax dodgers” (and added “Nothing I've ever done has been half-hearted”, with a dab of his lauded authenticity). He’s also avoided inflaming the issue of free movement and migrant benefits, where his instincts (and those of the left as a whole that he represents, really) are at odds with the voters who will decide the referendum. And it is worth remembering that while David Cameron was once viewed as an asset for Remain, his personal rating has taken a kicking over the chaos in the Tory party and the Panama papers, creating a leadership gap in Remain that desperately needs to be plugged. If he leads from the front, then part of Jeremy Corbyn’s enduring legacy can be helping to guide Britain and Labour through a difficult referendum and avoid the disaster of Brexit.

Likewise, we in the Labour movement as a whole need to give it our all. While we should respect those campaigning for Labour Leave, I would urge them to consider again Jeremy’s call. Remain Labourites knackered after Thursday’s elections - even moderates unhappy with the state of the party - must summon their energy and campaign through to June 23^rd, and then take a long overdue and deserved rest. I’ve seen pictures today of Labour In for Britain cranking into life locally and video of Tom Watson speaking, hopefully a good sign of things to come.

With few elections coming up for a while thereafter, I heard a stressed-out Labourite say they might allow themselves to become a less active member for a couple of years after June. To be honest the same thought has crossed my own mind (though I’d stress still being a member). But it can be no sooner than that – our place in the EU is too important and there cannot be any half-measures.