Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour shouts down its own message

Labour was supposed to be having only one big row this week at conference – on Brexit. Instead, it’s ended up having two: one about how the party will campaign on Britain’s future relationship with Europe and the second on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Today has not seen a good recovery from the Labour leader after yesterday’s attempt to oust Tom Watson. Corbyn appeared to save the day by refusing to allow the motion to go ahead at the NEC meeting, but is much wounded by the fact that the putsch was attempted at all. That there are suspicions one of his own aides, Karie Murphy, was part of this plot, hasn’t helped. But far more damaging is the resignation of Andrew Fisher, which I covered this morning. Corbyn wasn’t able to close down either the Watson or the Fisher story when he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show, and neither did he offer a particularly convincing line on Europe.

This means that it is going to be even harder for Labour to get its message out. It wanted to spend this week talking about ‘People Before Privilege’, with insiders arguing that the party’s strength is in the domestic policy sphere, where voters believe it is on the side of ordinary people. Many of the policies coming up this week are focused on universalism rather than means testing in public services, with the party trying to extend the values of the much-venerated NHS to other areas too. John McDonnell’s speech tomorrow will contain one such plan.

Then there are the ‘Abolish Eton’ type stories, which are designed underline the ‘privilege’ aspect, given this is a negative association for Boris Johnson.

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