Labour has long been divided. But these are not normal times, and arguments between factions may hand power to Farage
The steady drip of knee-jerk policy announcements revealed a government in chaos; hardly surprising given the string of scandals over the past year, often for mistakes as basic as failing to report donations.
What’s more, Keir Starmer’s top team has suffered a weekly resignation or firing for five weeks running now – No 10 strategist Tom Kibasi, deputy leader Angela Rayner, US ambassador Peter Mandelson, senior aide Paul Ovenden, and communications director Steph Driver – and Labour has been behind Reform UK for over 100 consecutive polls, even facing wipeout in the party’s traditional Welsh heartland.
It’s these polls in particular that have the party panicking. If speeches from ministers on the main stage sounded like a direct response to the rise of Reform, it’s because they are. In the fringes and the bars, delegates talked about little else. They tended to see the problem in one of three ways, and can be split into three distinct groups accordingly. Taken together, these factions are deeply revealing about the fault lines of Labour politics.
The steady drip of knee-jerk policy announcements revealed a government in chaos; hardly surprising given the string of scandals over the past year, often for mistakes as basic as failing to report donations.
What’s more, Keir Starmer’s top team has suffered a weekly resignation or firing for five weeks running now – No 10 strategist Tom Kibasi, deputy leader Angela Rayner, US ambassador Peter Mandelson, senior aide Paul Ovenden, and communications director Steph Driver – and Labour has been behind Reform UK for over 100 consecutive polls, even facing wipeout in the party’s traditional Welsh heartland.
It’s these polls in particular that have the party panicking. If speeches from ministers on the main stage sounded like a direct response to the rise of Reform, it’s because they are. In the fringes and the bars, delegates talked about little else. They tended to see the problem in one of three ways, and can be split into three distinct groups accordingly. Taken together, these factions are deeply revealing about the fault lines of Labour politics.
Continue @ Open Democracy.
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