After the comprehensive drubbing it received at the ballot box, all hopes for peace and goodwill within the Labour Party this Christmas have died.

Labour is now in open warfare on multiple fronts:

• Long quote tweet spats between the blue ticks on Twitter;
• Emoji and Gif crusades on the Facebook forums;
• Harsh words in CLP branches;
• Shouting matches on the TV couches.

My piece, written from an outsider’s perspective by a former Labour member turned Conservative, seeks to get to the heart of why Labour is in such a state. It sets out 6 key giant problems facing Labour as it looks beyond its bleak winter to the future.

It’s written as an intellectual exercise, rather than in gloating terms, but to be frank I would like the Conservative Party to capitalise on Labour’s weaknesses in some of these areas in terms of our own positioning.

I delve into each of these in turn, but at the headline level these are the 6 giant Labour problems stalking the landscape:

1) Loathing of the foundations of New Labour’s appeal, electoral longevity, and success in office.

2) Antisemitism, “Tory scum” and the broader conspiracy culture.

3) An unbridgeable divide over Europe and the quagmire of Rejoiners Vs Aligners ahead.

4) The shift from working class to woke political orientation.

5) A preference for comfort zones over competitiveness – Labour fairy tales.

6) Factionalism, screech mode communication, and “me, me, me” attitudes.

On 1) Loathing of the foundations of New Labour’s appeal, electoral longevity, and success in office

This is obviously a fundamental issue for them. They don’t just find Blair to be an an embarrassing uncle. Some of them see him as being akin to a serial killer who must be erased from the family tree.

The fundamentals that built New Labour’s 3 strong, durable electoral coalitions are constantly mocked and relativised. The formula of accepting the benefits of a market economy and speaking to the aspirations of a broad spectrum of voters – not just those you see as worthy – are seen as a betrayal of Labour’s mission. The need to improve public services through reforms that make them centred around the user and accountable and efficient is ignored. All policy development is driven by a concern for appealing to the producers of the public services, and the answer to every policy challenge is more money.

There has been a closing of the Labour mind to new ideas and to the need to cultivate credibility with the business community. There’s a weird pride taken amongst Labour’s activists and opinion formers in being as jagged and confrontational as possible towards figures from the New Labour era.

Personally I don’t believe a brick by brick reinvention of the New Labour formula and policy agenda would be the answer to their electoral travails. But there are certainly things they could learn in terms of the locus of political positioning and policy development. Long may they choose to loathe rather than love Blair.

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On 2) Antisemitism, “Tory scum” and the broader conspiracy culture

The rise in anti-Semitism is an absolutely damning stain on Labour’s best traditions and drawing this poison from Labour’s veins will be an imperative. But it is a challenging, time consuming process and I’m not sure the next Labour Leader will really lean into the challenge if the process leads the party to some uncomfortable home truths about prominent senior figures.

“Tory scum” culture is nothing new – But it has been significantly exacerbated by Momentum and tacitly encouraged by Corbyn’s outsiders like Andy McDonald, Laura Pidcock and Richard Burgon.

While it may be superficially emotionally satisfying to Labour activists who buy into the tropes, it paints a pretty unedifying picture to less tribalistic voters in the electorate who have Conservative family members and friends.

When a party’s support base and opinion formers openly revel in describing its opponents as vermin, scum, monsters, sub-humans and assorted other slurs it tends to end up signalling that the party isn’t mature enough for office.

The third strand is conspiracy culture whereby the whole “establishment” has got it in for Labour. From a ‘shadowy global elite patriarchy’ to Emily Maitlis and Laura Kuenssberg the Labour Party ultras see enemies who are “all in on it” in terms of a concerted campaign to destroy Labour. The proclivity of this mindset is linked to the exponential rise of social media and fake news and “hot take” culture. The right (especially to the right of the Conservatives) also has some issues with this, there’s no denying that, but it seems to be a hugely acute issue on the left.

This is one of the 6 points where I’m very concerned about the health of our democracy and is not an area where I want the Conservatives to be “exploiting” Labour’s behaviour.

For the good of the country, I actually want Labour to heal in this space and come back to the democratic mainstream. This is going to take years and it’s going to take moral leadership from Labour’s leaders. It will be painful and I’m not sure they yet have the stomach for the task.

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On 3) An unbridgeable divide over Europe and the quagmire of Rejoiners Vs Aligners ahead

This is a huge opportunity for the Conservatives. Labour is hopelessly snookered now. If it becomes the party of prime cut Rejoin it risks further setting itself back in the North and the Midlands. If it chooses the path of building a policy agenda of “alignment” with the EU while remaining outside membership it risks alienating Labour Leave voters AND more idealistic pro-EU voters who may look more favourably at a future Lib Dem prospectus.

Keir Starmer’s decision to pull out of being the guest speaker at the People’s Vote Xmas Party is a highly symbolic exemplification or the problem Labour’s Europhiles now have.

The Emily Thornberry vs Caroline Flint show down may well escalate into legal action in the coming weeks – this will again expose the cultural divisions within Labour’s family and electoral coalition to the country.

The Conservatives will rightly be looking for ways to up the ante and capitalise on Labour’s divisions in this space and it’s not impossible that European policy ends up being the issue that leads to a significant split up of the Labour Party.

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On 4) The shift from working class to woke political orientation

This segues from the last point quite neatly. There is a huge cultural divide between Labour in London and Labour in its traditional heartlands. But more importantly there’s a growing cultural divide between Labour MPs and activists in traditional Labour voting working class constitutes and the voters there. Many clever people on the left will try to rubbish this and say the real divides are generational. I’m sorry but that’s real comfort zone thinking.

Labour has embraced all manner of woke causes and attitudes that make it vulnerable to its residual electoral coalition being torn asunder in the coming years.

Labour’s growing obsession with identity politics and the “checking of privilege” is a gift to the Conservatives and the BXP/ Reform Party. Equally there’s a real discord between city-dwelling Labour keyboard warriors and the traditional ethos of working class patriotism and respect for the military.

The Conservatives will have to tread carefully in ethical terms in this space as it seeks to further unwind support for Labour and solidify support in its new gains in the north and the midlands, but there are real opportunities here for the Conservatives to corner the market as the “common sense, common ground” party.

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On 5) A preference for comfort zones over competitiveness – Labour fairy tales

This particularly links back to point 1. There’s a really strong tendency for the left to self-diagnose its problems and argue that with better communication and “more feeling” it can break through.

There’s a marked tendency amongst most of the Labour factions to stick religiously to tried and tested arguments that don’t really cut through – [Insert amount of time] left to save the NHS from the Tories who want to kill it.

There’s a tendency to believe most voters basically see and experience public services and the economy in the way Labour members view it.

There’s also a stubborn ideological insistence that the global financial crisis in 2008 has broken the spell of capitalism and made voters ready to embrace a socialist future. Labour’s 3 further defeats, while running on “we can do much better than Anglo Saxon capitalism” platforms since being ejected from office have done nothing to dampen that sense of certainty.

While capitalism is certainly not in rude health electorally, Labour has fundamentally misdiagnosed the electoral dynamics.

Mr Corbyn and others on the left like John McDonnell and Richard Burgon are having none of it though. Nor, does it seem, are many of their supporters. “We won the argument” they proclaim. “If you look at the polling our policies are popular”.

The sheer chutzpah to proclaim you have won the argument, morally and intellectually, when you have just lost 2.6 million voters and 59 seats will not be lost on voters.

There’s also been very little interest in Labour circles in trying to recapture the kind of voters Tony Blair won over to Labour’s side between 1994-2007 and in the meritocratic, middle-class friendly aspirational positioning he utilised as he did so.

If anything Labour seems to revel in the fact that it despises “triangulation” and “compromise with the centre-ground”. The whole ethos seems to be that the “policies are popular” with “the many” and therefore things will effectively be alright on the night.

I don’t actually see this changing all that much – this culture actually predates Corbyn. It was fully on display in Ed Miliband’s premiership.

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On 6) Factionalism, screech mode communication, and “me, me, me” attitudes

This one is huge – and deserved to be a point in its own right despite its overlap with some of the earlier themes.

Labour has always been a factional party, but that factionalism is far deeper now than ever before.

There’s very little goodwill or collaborative spirit – you are either in a tribe or you’re not and those who seek to build bridges tend to fall into the ravine.

There’s also a very toxic call out culture on the left – I call it screech mode. Getting angry, using expletives, and questioning the integrity and morality of those you disagree with (even in the same party) seems to be the way to signal good intentions and virtue in the Labour Party.

The screech mode culture isn’t limited to any particular faction. They all sneer and scream at each other and at the parts of the electorate and the media they don’t like. Social media is an absolute curse for Labour in this regard – it’s impossible to keep a lid on the tensions.

You also have some very mendacious Labour blue tick types in “new media” who live for drama and excel in “call out” communication. Getting their base of followers to be very irate and very active in making their anger known to intimidate those they don’t agree with.

The final point here is that for all Labour’s states emphasis on collectivism, solidarity and the needs of the “the many”, its political culture is highly oriented around individual sentiment.

When Jess Phillips takes to the air waves you hear a torrent of “I” – it’s all about her and her personal importance and personal feelings.

The same is the case with many of the Labour keyboard warriors – there isn’t a sense of duty to the wider party. Every political message and policy is framed through a prism of deciding whether it speaks to *their* values and vision, not what may be the right move in terms of building a broader coalition of support.

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Seeing Red in a sea of blue

Hot takes and hot tempers abound -and mono-causal explanations appear at this early stage to be the favourite dish of each faction.

For some it is all about Corbyn and Corbynism in equal measure.

For others Labour’s problems are the product of the “Brexit election” and the Europhile purism of the PLP’s soft left and moderate factions.

For others, it’s more about Corbyn and over-promising than it was about the individual merits of the policies in the platform. This group might be described as the “One more heave with better PR” gang.

One thing is certain: the period of reflection Jeremy Corbyn described will not be quiet, civil and thoughtful. Bedlam will be the order of business, and in truth many see this as a battle not just to control the strategy of the party but to define its soul.

Most of the Labour Party seems to have firmly made up its mind about the source of Labour’s failure and has firmly closed the books, and their minds, in regard to further, deeper, more nuanced examination of what went wrong.

Personally I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’ve been a very happy member of the Conservative Party for over 8 years and have never regretted leaving Labour in 2011. It was a departure that was several years overdue in truth.

In my experience, Conservatives are generally better at accepting the basic reality that parties are internal coalitions and in turn have to build electoral coalitions where there will be policies and approaches that they don’t really like. Conservatives moan of course, but they don’t go into histrionics at the drop of a hat.

There’s more of a willingness to accept that the party isn’t their personal fiefdom or values vehicle and that they must co-exist within it with people who have differing social attitudes and priorities.

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