Labour will become a ‘pressure group’ if Corbyn wins, says Tristram Hunt

Labour is waking up this morning to the news that Jeremy Corbyn might stand a chance of actually become Labour leader. The question many are asking is how genuine this shift to the left is and will the poll ensure the party autocorrects itself onto a more centrist track. On the Today programme, the Blairite shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt argued that Labour has a ‘desire to return to some old certainties’ following its general election defeat:

‘The danger is that the Labour party, one of the great governing parties of the 20th and early 21st century that did enormously important things for Britain and Britain in the world, would be on a trajectory to becoming a pressure group – would not that have broad reach into all parts of the United Kingdom.’

Hunt expressed his concern that if Corbyn did happen to win, the Labour party would be giving up any hope of returning to government in the near future:

‘For the Labour party, our future cannot lie as a sort of Podemos-style party, a anti-austerity populist party because in the long run, that’s not going to put us into government.’

Does this make Jeremy Corbyn the Syriza candidate in this leadership contest?

‘Yes, I think this is a populist anti-austerity movement within the party and we’ve seen what’s happened to the Greek people thanks to some of the Syriza government.’

Hunt’s prescription for winning again is a simple one that Liz Kendall has been attempting to talk up: persuading ‘lots of people who voted Tory in 2010 and 2015’ to come back towards the Labour party. He argued that this can only be done ‘with a broad church, winning from the centre ground.’ Hunt will no doubt be labeled a Tory traitor for pointing this out.

Although Hunt was happy to warn of the dangers Corbyn poses, he also accepted that his wing of the party has to shoulder some of the blame for the direction the leadership contest has taken:

‘It’s also a sign that perhaps those of us on the progressive, modernizing wing of the party haven’t made the case internally to the party that issues like welfare reform, issues like balancing the books, we want to pursue not just for electoral reasons but because they’re good social democratic policies.’

Hunt is right in saying there is a ‘ big philosophical struggle inside the party’ at present. But if the new YouGov poll is anywhere near correct, it’s one that his side appear to be losing.