Lisa Nandy’s ferocious attack on New Labour gives her a final stab at victory
Lisa Nandy has what looks like an impossible task in what is now a three-way contest for the Labour leadership. She has to persuade Rebecca Long-Bailey supporters that she is very left wing, and a better salesperson for the Corbynite dream of socialism, while at the same time persuading some Keir Starmer supporters that she is not too Corbyn-like and, frankly, they really ought to have a female leader.
I’m assuming that Emily Thornberry won’t be on the ballot paper when nominations close on Valentine’s Day. She hasn’t got any nominations from trade unions, and so she needs 33 local Labour parties to support her instead. That is going to be very difficult for a candidate who is currently going to come fourth in most ballots of constituency parties.
According to a YouGov poll of Labour members, without Jess Phillips in the race, Starmer is likely to win on the first round of voting with 53 per cent of first preferences. That is why Nandy needs to bring Starmer down, so that she can at least take the voting to a second round. But she also needs to close the gap between her and Long-Bailey, which when the poll was taken last week was between 10 per cent for Nandy and 33 per cent for Long-Bailey.
Hence today’s assault on New Labour from Nandy. She said on the Today programme: “It is certainly true to say that the consensus that Thatcher built lasted all the way through the New Labour years.” This sounded very much like an echo of Zarah Sultana, the new Corbynite MP for Coventry, who called for an end of “40 years of Thatcherism” in her first speech in the House of Commons – and it was Sultana who introduced Long-Bailey at her leadership campaign launch.
Nandy’s view is not as crude as Sultana’s. She praised the minimum wage and investment in health and education under the last Labour government as “complete game-changers” – but also said that in her work with homeless teenagers and child refugees she saw only “tinkering at the edges”.
She also refused to say who her favourite Labour leader was, telling Nick Robinson it was a “daft question”. It is also a dangerous one, because she knows that the same YouGov poll found that Jeremy Corbyn is the most favourably regarded leader by Labour members (71 per cent favourable; 29 per cent unfavourable). Naturally, Tony Blair, the most successful Labour leader, is the least favourably rated (37 per cent favourable; 62 per cent unfavourable).
So that is why Nandy’s campaign has run against New Labour – despite her resignation from Corbyn’s front bench in 2016, and despite her role as campaign manager for Owen Smith’s challenge to Corbyn’s leadership that year.
Her first answer to Andrew Neil, when she boldly took him on last week, talked about how she had “battled” the last Labour government over child refugees and fought her own party over “free schools when we supported them”.
Her calm yet combative style in interviews is a huge strength. There will have been many viewers – not just Labour supporters – who cheered when she asked Piers Morgan this morning why he brushed off claims of racism against the Duchess of Sussex: “If you don’t mind me saying, how on earth would you know? As someone who’s never had to deal with ingrained prejudice?”
Her attempt to reinvent herself as a born-again Corbynite is unlikely to convince sectarian Momentum members, but her poses against what they see as the bad side of New Labour, as well as her composure on TV and in hustings, may well impress the so-called soft left among the wider Labour Party.
If it is true that 100,000 new members have joined the party since YouGov surveyed them last week, and if it is also true that many of them have joined or rejoined to vote against the Corbyn legacy, then Nandy may have a chance of closing that gap between her and Long-Bailey.
And if she can overtake Long-Bailey, who knows what could happen in a run-off between her and Starmer? It is a hard road to victory, but despite appearances it is not impossible.
