‘I don’t think it’s about Jeremy Corbyn – I think it’s about a disaffection that’s been growing for a very long time. We lost most of our voters in 05 and we haven’t got them back. They were yearning of something else, none of the above.
‘He’s opened up a space, Jeremy’s opened up a seam, a rich seam of you like disaffection, disengagement with politics. People want to come back in now and engage, that’s a really good thing.’
Starmer suggested Labour’s problem is that it’s ‘very good at saying what we’re against, but we’re not very good at saying what we’re for’ and warned that only the ‘first leg’ of the journey is over and said the temptation to ‘close down the space’ for discussion should be resisted. Caroline Flint, the former shadow energy secretary and deputy leadership candidate, also raised the challenges Labour faces to return to power — pointing out that the party needs a swing of ten per cent to get a majority of just one seat in 2020, i.e. just like the 1997 landslide.
But to do this, Flint said Labour needs to remember that social media is not the real world:
‘If I used my Twitter account as a guide to how we’re doing in our general election campaign, I should be Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Ed Miliband should be Prime Minister. It’s an echo chamber, it’s a morale booster but it’s not the reality that represents the view of people.’
Labour MPs appear to be broadly split into two camps on dealing with Corbyn: those who think his victory is a blip and others who believe something major has happened in the party. Starmer and Flint fall into the latter category but they both seem to believe it’s not about Corbyn himself. If the space for discussion remains open, Starmer and co will have to think up how to take on Corbynmania with their own solutions for Labour’s future. But right now, the mood of conference suggests there is little appetite to listen to them.
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