IT was billed as a re-booting of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, a chance to clarify the Labour Party’s priorities and lay out its vision for Britain’s post-Brexit future. After hearing Mr Corbyn’s keynote new year speech in Peterborough, however, many voters – Labour or indeed otherwise - may be as confused as they were last week about what the party now stands for.
It was certainly a wide-ranging speech, covering immigration, industrial relations and austerity in the post-Brexit landscape. What it failed to do, however, was offer strong and convincing evidence that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn is ready, willing and able to take the country into its new future. And with the Tories in disarray on Brexit, that inability is only likely to alienate the party further from many of those who abandoned it to vote Tory in 2015.
That’s not to say Mr Corbyn’s speech, delivered to whoops of support from his loyal acolytes, did not have some merit. He was surely right to outline how vital immigration is to the UK economy, how important migrant labour is for public services, how wrong it is to scapegoat immigrants for continued austerity. He was right, too, to refuse to bow to pressure and play into the hands of UKIP by supporting a reduction in immigration after Brexit.
But on a number of other issues the Labour leader seemed all at sea, not least freedom of movement, that most fundamental of European Union principles and the issue that is likely to determine whether the UK gets to stay in the Single Market following Brexit. This speech gave Mr Corbyn the chance to make clear his position on this vital issue; instead, he insisted Labour was “not wedded” to the principle, but added that neither did he want to rule it out. One could almost hear the collective sigh of frustration from UK industry and the higher education sector, both of which rely and thrive on free movement of people.
Elsewhere, Mr Corbyn’s promise that a new post-Brexit economy would be underpinned by technology and green energy, seemed laughably general in the current circumstances. And his claim that closing cheap labour loopholes and strengthening employment laws would “probably” reduce migration to the UK appeared hollow and unlikely to impress those who voted for Brexit and feel let down, whether rightly or wrongly, by out of touch politicians.
Such confusion is bad news for the Labour Party, of course, which is increasingly struggling to find relevancy in the mainstream, either north of south of the Border. Almost a year and a half after his leadership win, the polls suggest Mr Corbyn is still failing to garner the sort of wide-ranging support needed to win a general election. The party membership is higher than it has been for decades, but with the majority of these new members seemingly happy for Mr Corbyn to take the party further from the centre ground that general elections in Britain have been won on for decades, it’s difficult to see where the votes will come from.
The Tories, meanwhile, continue to ride high in the polls despite their vacuous thinking on Brexit. Yesterday was an opportunity for Mr Corbyn to capitalise on this. Sadly, it was an opportunity missed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here