Ever since Tony Blair handed the keys to No.10 over to Gordon Brown, the Labour party – and, by extension, the British left – has been in free fall. The general elections in 2010 and 2015 left us battered and bruised, and the Brexit vote seemed to be the coup de grace. Under Ed Miliband, the Labour party felt like it was headed for government, only to have victory snatched away, first by John Curtice’s exit poll and then by reality itself. This is the background to last night’s extraordinary resurgence, a triumph of socialist ideals that has – perhaps only for one golden evening – put the ‘party’ back in the Labour party. For beleaguered left-wingers – who can scarcely remember the last vote that didn’t go calamitously in the wrong direction – it is a defeat that feels a lot like a victory.
Putting aside the irreparable damage the result has done to Theresa May’s reputation, it has also served to bandage the deep wounds within the Labour party.
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