The activists were at the rendezvous for the annual Labor conference which opened on September 25 in Brighton (southern England). But the mood was seriously gloomy. Instead of exploiting the woes of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in the midst of a storm with the gas and truck driver crisis (so lacking that gas pumps are no longer powered), the Labor Party has flaunted its divisions and its leader, Keir Starmer, struggled to impose his authority there.
The conference started off badly: Mr. Starmer had taken it into his head a few days earlier to pass a reform of the appointment of party leaders with the unacknowledged goal of giving more weight to the votes of Labor deputies , and less to those of the 400,000 members of the party, deemed more radical, in order to avoid the return of a leader “à la Corbyn”. Jeremy Corbyn was elected head of Labor in 2015, in part thanks to the “one vote, one vote” rule.
With his radical proposals (nationalizations, exit from NATO, etc.), he had developed a real “Corbynmania” among Labor militants, but aroused the rejection of the traditional voters of the party. The latter suffered a historic defeat in the general election at the end of 2019, and conceded a majority of 80 seats to the Conservatives in the House of Commons. Mr Starmer, 59, former Attorney General for England and Wales, was appointed in April 2020, amid a pandemic. Deemed to be cautious but a little dull, he has so far not had many opportunities to stage himself more.
Hidden War
The reaction of the left wing of Labor, which has resisted Mr. Starmer’s attempts to refocus for months, was not long in coming: the militant network Momentum, unwavering support of Mr. Corbyn, John McDonnell, his ex- right-hand man and most of the central labor organizations (Labor’s main funders) have stepped up to scuttle Mr. Starmer’s proposal. The latter had to partly backtrack on Saturday, defending only a minimal reform: to be elected, the future leader should collect 20% of the votes of Labor deputies. “I am very happy, because we now have a series of possibilities which (…) will allow Labor to focus on the state of the country while some of our internal rules were pulling us back ”, he defended Sunday, September 26 at the BBC, to look good. Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn sold out on the sidelines of the conference, with an event on the climate emergency.
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