Labour is disunited, and could remain so for quite a while

To say the Labour Party is in trouble is not remarkable; it always is. To live in Labour is to live with a pack of wolves in the next room, unable to leave. There are two ways to deal with these wolves: You can either try to befriend them, encouraging an “all in this together” narrative, or you can beat them either into submission or brooding indignance. Keir Starmer’s leadership pledge indicated he would do the former, but his actions since being crowned leader of Britain’s largest progressive political party have shown the latter, mainly towards progressives. As somebody who voted for him, this is disappointing, but it’s early days. In a sense, Starmer dug his own grave by even proposing unity. Unifying Labour is slightly more difficult than walking on water, and requires a lot more finesse. Attempts to do so are often a waste of time, resulting in a weak tea of a policy platform that usually involves bowing to racism for some reason. Unity is nice, but it isn’t worth fighting for, especially when it’s not likely, or wise, for anyone to leave. Splinter groups aren’t rewarded in our voting system – does anyone remember Change UK?

Sadly, Change is no longer with us (someone get the violin), but the vanity project masquerading as a political movement was important in showing us the dangers of hubris; irrelevance comes for us all. No Change MP is still in Parliament under any banner, despite their best efforts. Chuka Ummuna, once regarded as Britain’s Obama by some (he’d be lucky), jumped ship to the Lib Dems, despite saying their work in the Coalition was “unforgivable” only two years ago. Evidently he found the kindness in his heart to forgive them, standing for a seat under Jo Swinson, herself soon to be resigned to the scrapheap of ambitious politicians. As one of his former constituents, I can confidently say he’s been upstaged by his replacement in a matter of months. 

While this is of course very funny, there is an important lesson to be learnt. With the way we currently do politics in Britain, there’s barely enough room at the Inn for the Lib Dems, let alone two Labour Parties. The Change contingent wanted to set up a movement that could project their views and hijack them to prominence. While it should be remembered that these people are not political titans – a blink and you’ll miss it leadership candidate and a landlord-backing stopgap chancellor are not going to be chronicled – their plight should serve as a warning for any justifiably despondent leftists. Until the voting system is changed, any splinter group is far more likely to sink than to swim, and the progressivism of the past five years could be placed in jeopardy. A political grouping as broad as Labour is weird, often uncomfortable and often leads to arguments, but until the system changes, we have to embrace it.