Yellow At The Edges?

Unlike the Labour Party, both candidates to lead the Liberal Democrats, one of whom was a Cabinet Minister in the Coalition, are now calling for the Universal Basic Income and for higher taxes on the very rich. Whether or not they mean it, they are saying it. And their party has been in government a lot more recently than Labour has.

Both Ed Davey and Layla Moran also admit that the policy of a second referendum on EU membership, in order to campaign for a Remain vote, had been electorally toxic, even to the point of losing Jo Swinson her own seat. I remember telling supporters of Owen Smith that trying to tell people to vote again until they gave the right answer would be "ballot box cancer" in places like North West Durham. I was right.

Not that Labour ever quite said that it would campaign for a Remain vote. But of course the policy of a second referendum was meaningless without that implication. And of the 56 English and Welsh seats that Labour lost in 2019, 54 had voted Leave in 2016. In the meantime, all 56 had of course voted for Jeremy Corbyn and his programme in 2017.

The man who lost Labour the 2019 General Election so catastrophically, by losing it the Red Wall probably forever, was not Corbyn, but the Shadow Brexit Secretary to whom, yes, Corbyn was wrong to capitulate. That Shadow Brexit Secretary was Keir Starmer, under whom Labour is accordingly always eight to 10 points behind.