These are the times that try men's souls

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As a famous son of Sussex once observed in other circumstances of defeat, “these are the times that try men’s souls”.

After a disastrous General Election result for our party it’s worth paraphrasing the further words of Thomas Paine; “The summer campaigner and the sunshine activist will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their Party; but those that stand by it now, deserve the love and thanks of man and woman.”

The working people of this country need the socialist policies of our 2019 manifesto, which many have rejected this year in favour of “getting Brexit done.” Only our Labour Party can offer the hope which has now been defeated by despair. 

If you joined Labour, full of enthusiasm, to support (or defend) Corbyn’s leadership and were enthused by our unexpectedly strong performance in 2017 it is now that your commitment to socialism will be tested.

Jeremy Corbyn was right to respond to this result by signalling that the Party needs a period of reflection and those, such as Hove MP, Peter Kyle, who are calling for an immediate change of leadership are mistaken. Labour is – and must remain – a democratic Party in which policies and political direction are determined by our mass membership through our democratic structures. This takes time.

In general we should be suspicious of all those who tell us now only what we already knew they thought beforehand, whether that is the Blairite remnants who blame Corbyn and the left, “Blue Labour” elements who think we should have tacked to Brexit and hostility to immigration, militant “remainers” who think we should have opted sooner for a “People’s Vote” or ultra-lefts who blame the leadership for not responding more robustly to exaggerated allegations of antisemitism in our ranks.

Having said that, your humble blogger does not intend to announce here and now why I think we lost across the country. Anyone who tries to say that they know the whole answer to this question in the next couple of weeks will be either a fool or a charlatan. We need to take some time to reflect and understand, to listen and consider (including considering the fairly obvious differences in results across the nations and regions of Great Britain).

What I will say is that I am very proud to have been part of Labour’s campaign in Brighton and Hove, where we held Hove (gained in 2015) and Kemptown (gained in 2017) – and held our clear second place in the unique progressive constituency of Brighton Pavilion, which has been held by the Greens since 2010.

The disappointing fall in Labour’s share of the national vote (7.9%) exceeded those in Kemptown (6.8%), Hove (5.8%) and Pavilion (4.0%) and we have kept the Tories out of our city, where the Labour administration of the local Council will need to continue to work in partnership with the Green opposition to protect local people from the attacks which we can anticipate from a majority Tory Government.

Under a Tory Government more people will need food banks, more tenants will need support and representation against rapacious landlords, more workers will need workplace organisation (as our trade unions are shackled ever more) and the victims of injustice will need a voice. Our Labour Party, locally and nationally must be central to the organisation of this resistance, and to do this we cannot go back to the past. We have to become a fighting organisation of our class, rooted in our communities.

In a generally miserable evening, hearing the election results, the high point for me was listening to the acceptance speech of Lloyd Russell-Moyle who pledged that we will fight this dangerously right-wing Government in Parliament, in the courts, in the workplaces and on the streets. Lloyd correctly identified the source of the problems facing the people we represent and set out what we need to do.

The cause for which Tom Paine was fighting in 1776 was eventually victorious, and our cause of socialism can – indeed must – also be victorious. It is in our hands, as Labour Party members, to build our Party in order to achieve that victory.

Update on 17 December.

I still think we need more time to think, but have written a bit more about;

·      How our election defeat compares with the experience of other European social democratic parties recently;

·      How our election defeat looks in the light of our vote in recent elections, and;

·      Why we should not blame our 2019 result on factors which were also present in the 2017 election.