Party appears to have settled internal Brexit debate - for now, and key players have acquired air of polished seriousness

Brexit pressures have been contained – for now

Keir Starmer did a widely-praised job of channelling the tensions on Brexit into a policy statement that puts the option of a referendum firmly on the table, if the prime minister’s deal is rejected by parliament, and Labour cannot secure its first choice of a general election.

But as the negotiations in Brussels reach their endgame, Labour faces an ongoing struggle to reconcile the enthusiastic support for reversing Brexit among its members, with the concerns of MPs in leave-voting constituencies.

Five key themes in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour conference speech Read more

EU flags, “Bollocks to Brexit” stickers and bright red “Love Corbyn, Hate Brexit” T-shirts were on prominent display; but in the bars and cafes around Liverpool, it was not difficult to find MPs despairing about what their voters will say, to the idea that Labour wants to re-run the referendum.

Stoke Central MP Gareth Snell, for example, warned that while a shift towards a stronger remain position might pile up more votes for Labour in safe metropolitan seats it already holds, it would lose many voters in his constituency and others.

Jeremy Corbyn gave a nod to both camps in his closing speech, underlining the fact that all options are on the table if Theresa May’s Brexit deal is rejected by parliament – but also promising to support the prime minister, if she can strike a deal that includes a customs union, and protection for environmental and labour standards.

Radical is the new sensible

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John McDonnell at the Labour party conference. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Corbyn and John McDonnell are keen to press ahead with their longstanding project of bringing socialist policies into the mainstream of Britain’s political debate. They believe voters are much less chary of ideas such as nationalisation and worker empowerment than the political establishment has been for several decades.

So while McDonnell’s conference speech included a series of bold new plans, including handing workers in large companies the right to elect a third of the board, for example, Labour was keen to insist that the party’s ideas were now “mainstream” and “common sense” – both words used in Corbyn’s speech.

For several months after last year’s general election, Labour’s hastily-compiled red manifesto was widely regarded as the star of the campaign – and the policies it contained the practical expression of Corbynism. But it became evident in Liverpool that the document did not mark the limit of the party’s ambitions.

In case there was any lingering doubt about how far Labour has come in the past three years, McDonnell said the principles of clause four, the century-old expression of Labour’s founding purpose, abolished under Tony Blair’s leadership as an anachronistic relic, were “as relevant now as they were back then”. It committed the party “to secure for the workers, by hand or by brain, the full fruits of their industry”.

Government in waiting

Corbyn’s Labour has long been able to put on slick and well-managed events; but it was noticeable in Liverpool that the key players have now acquired an air of polished seriousness.

Shadow ministers bustled around with a phalanx of suited advisers, clutching briefing folders. And with McDonnell and shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett keen to show Labour is a government-in-waiting, each has a list of worked-up policies.

Before last year’s general election campaign, at which Labour confounded expectations to wipe out the Tories’ majority, some of the policies espoused by the frontbench had an abstract air about them. But with the next six months looking extraordinarily fragile for Theresa May, at least some – most noticeably McDonnell himself – have spent time thinking themselves into their first hours, days and weeks as ministers in a Labour government.

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Whose democracy?

Listening to the debates on the conference floor, one of the more compelling aspects of this week has been the growing clash between Momentum, the grassroots campaign group set up to back Corbyn, and the trade unions.

Both groups are strongly supportive of the Labour leadership; but Momentum is keener on handing individual Labour members greater control over everything from policymaking to how a future leader is chosen.

When a recent meeting of the national executive committee (NEC) agreed compromise proposals on how Corbyn’s successor will be picked, and what local members must do to dislodge a sitting MP, Momentum reacted with fury, blaming the unions – which have been intimately involved in Labour since its foundation. Tensions bubbled up on the conference floor, with shouts of “shame” directed at union delegates.

With more proposed reforms set to be debated over the next 12 months, the question of who owns the Labour, and how best to fulfil Corbyn’s longtime project of democratising it, will continue to grip the party.

Who’s next?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Emily Thornberry gave a wide-ranging and punchy speech that was well- received inside the hall. Photograph: Michael Bowles/Rex/Shutterstock

Corbyn has the backing of his half-a-million strong party for as long as he wants it; but there was plenty of chatter on the sidelines in Liverpool about who could succeed him.

The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, gave a wide-ranging and punchy speech that was well received inside the hall, and regarded outside as a thinly-veiled leadership pitch. And Starmer’s deft handling of the delicate Brexit issue impressed many members. The shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, is another consistently strong performer.

For many though, the star was Angela Rayner, who was ubiquitous, whether pledging to end the academisation of schools in her day-job as shadow education secretary; or DJ-ing at the CWU’s late night party.

In fact, Rayner was being tipped as a shoo-in for the new post of a second deputy leader, which would have been created as a counterbalance for Tom Watson, under one of the party reforms recommended by the NEC.

The plan was withdrawn at the last minute, after Watson himself threw his weight behind it, raising questions about whether the leadership was nervous about having a strong figure with her own personal mandate at the top table.

Other loyal, left-leaning MPs namechecked by Corbyn in his speech were the shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, whose media profile has increased, and the shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey. Another newbie MP well-liked by the leadership, Laura Smith, blotted her copybook by telling a fringe meeting Labour should back a general strike – a bit too radical even for Corbyn’s “new political mainstream”.



