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Best of the Spectator

Labour's indestructibles: Can anything stop the hard left?

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4785 Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2016

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With James Forsyth, Nick Cohen, James Delingpole, Fraser Nelson, Taki and Jeremy Clarke. Presented by Lara Prendergast.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This podcast is brought to you by Barry Brothers and Rudd, sponsors of great conversation.

0:09.6

Welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Laura Prendergast. This weekend, the Labour Party will convene in Liverpool for its annual conference.

0:17.7

And by that point, it will have a new leader, who, if all current polling is to be believed, will be the same as its old one.

0:24.8

Jeremy Corbin looks set to defy the wishes of his fellow MPs and strengthen his hold on the party.

0:30.2

In his cover piece this week, James Forsyth looks at the whole of the far-left movement from the leader's office to the grassroots activists,

0:38.4

and observes that they are tightening their grip over the party from top to bottom something the blarets never did

0:43.7

so what's next for the labour party does it have a future appealing to moderate social democrats

0:49.8

or has it truly been lost to the momentum of this new movement?

0:58.7

I'm now joined by the spectator's political editor, James Forsyth, and the observer's Nick Cohen.

1:01.8

So James, the battle for the Labour leadership's over. What's next?

1:07.0

Well, this leadership contest was designed to either topple Jeremy Corbyn or weaken him.

1:15.7

The idea was, you know, if you didn't get him this time, you get him next time. It's actually had the effect of strengthening him. I mean, to use one of Jeremy Corbyn's favorite words, he's got a renewed mandate now.

1:19.9

He is able to turn around and say to Labour MPs, look, you know, you didn't accept my leadership.

1:28.4

You went back to the party and tried to ask me, and the party has re-elected me. So now is the time for you guys to shut up and get in line. And I think you'll hear a lot of that from Corbyn and his enforcers in the next few days. I think it also is going to emboldened

1:33.2

the Corbynites. I think they are now going for everyone who they see as standing in their way, from the

1:37.2

deputy leader and the general secretary down to kind of party staff and regional organisers. I think this has catalyzed the kind of hard left takeover of the

1:45.4

Labour Party. I think we are probably now looking, it now seems to be more likely, but there

1:49.7

will be deselections. Those deselections can become kind of mass deselections if the boundary changes go

1:54.7

through and that opens up selection battles in lots of different seats. I don't think it has ceased to be

1:59.4

a sensible centre-left party

2:00.9

as this result shows. And I think the question for those people in the Labour Party who believe

2:04.8

that Britain needs a sensible centre-left party is, are you going to set one up? Because

...

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