Labour insiders point to lack of strategic focus, leadership confusion, and say Corbyn had all but given up by the final week

As Jeremy Corbyn sped through Stroud in Labour’s battlebus on Monday, he was asked whether it had been hard to land a blow on serial liar Boris Johnson during the six-week election campaign. Screwing up his face in distaste at the pugilistic metaphor, he replied: “I’m not a boxer!”

He was much more comfortable reeling off a long list of constituencies he had visited in the past few days – something one close ally described as a “coping mechanism” – as a bruising campaign drew to a close.

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Another exasperated colleague complained that by the campaign’s final week Corbyn had all but given up the fight, and his advisers were beginning to cast around for a leftwing successor to keep the flame alive. “He almost gave up the leadership,” said one frustrated Corbynite frontbencher.

Within minutes of the catastrophic exit poll being published on Thursday evening, the recriminations began, with many defeated Labour candidates pointing the finger at Corbyn’s unpopularity on the doorstep, particularly among working-class voters.

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The former cabinet minister Alan Johnson complained that Corbyn “couldn’t lead the working class out of a paper bag”.

Meanwhile, Corbyn’s allies quickly laid the blame with the party’s Brexit stance, pointing to the fact that Labour’s losses were greatest in leave-leaning seats.

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The party chair, Ian Lavery, said: “Ignore democracy and to be quite honest the consequences will come back and bite you up the backside.”

Over the coming weeks and months, this row will shape the battle for the future of the Labour party. Races for the leadership and deputy leadership are about to ensue, after Corbyn said he would step down, though most likely not until the new year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Corbyn talks to members of the media outside his home on Friday. Photograph: Reuters

But the Guardian’s experience following Labour throughout the election campaign, speaking to many senior figures along the way, suggests neither voters’ scepticism about Corbyn nor the party’s Brexit position tell the whole story.

Insiders complain of clashing egos, confused messaging, and an infuriating lack of clarity about both day-to-day planning, and where the party’s battleground lay.

Many Corbyn allies in key positions during the 2017 general election complained bitterly at the time that veteran party officials, including the elections chief Patrick Heneghan, had restrained them from running an offensive campaign. Some believed a more aggressive approach, pressing forward into Tory-held seats, could even have won them the election.

Since then the last vestiges of the Miliband era, including the former general secretary Iain McNicol and a slew of other party officials, have left and been replaced by Corbyn loyalists, overseen by McNicol’s successor, Jennie Formby.

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Rather than the cautious approach of two years ago, party strategists made clear from the outset of this campaign that they were determined to make inroads in Tory territory, targeting up to 100 seats.

Corbyn visited 10 Labour targets in the first few days of electioneering, as a signal of Labour’s determination to make gains. But campaign veterans say there was a lack of focus, followed by a refusal to retreat to a more defensive stance as polling and campaign data continued to point to a Conservative majority.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The exit poll is projected on to the side of the BBC’s Broadcasting House building in London on election night. Photograph: Ollie Millington/Getty Images

“We ended up with 150 target seats,” said one Labour insider, who revealed that campaign chiefs were so reluctant to abandon any seats that each time a sitting MP signalled they were in trouble, their seat would simply be added to the list, without removing others.

Many candidates in marginal Labour seats reported feeling frustrated that hundreds of activists were being sent to Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge seat, for example, when some elsewhere were having to cancel canvassing sessions because of low turnout.

The lack of focus also appeared to extend to Labour’s policy offer, and the strategy for communicating it to a wary electorate.

The slimline manifesto of 2017 – and its “For the many, not the few” slogan – was ditched in favour of a weightier document and several subsidiary booklets about nationalisation, boosting investment and a string of other policies.

Instead of the Tories’ fearsome message discipline, which saw their “get Brexit done” slogan hammered home at every opportunity, Labour appeared to flit from one issue to another. The new slogan – “It’s time for real change” – also appeared more nebulous than its predecessor.

“One day we’re talking about workers’ rights; the next day we’re talking about pensions; the next day we’re talking about free broadband. It’s pick and mix,” said an insider. Another complained of “policy incontinence”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Labour’s previous manifesto slogan of “For the many, not the few” was replaced this time around by: “It’s time for real change”. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

An exasperated party veteran said that while watching a Conservative press conference from Labour’s Southside HQ, a young press officer was heard to remark: “These Tories are so boring: they say the same thing over and over again.”

There was also intense frustration, even among diehard Corbyn loyalists, about the lack of organisation that left them unable to answer the most straightforward questions about Labour’s plans for the days ahead, or what its key messages would be.

“No one was allowed to see the grid,” complained one adviser to a shadow cabinet minister. “Basically the grid leaked early in the campaign, and then they went super paranoid. We had a grid: but because no one knew what was in it, it was completely useless as an organisational tool. The whole point of the grid is that everyone has a vague idea of what’s happening: and who’s going where on what day.” On some days the party sent out two or even three policy press releases for the next day’s papers.

The question of who was in charge of the campaign was at times as hard to answer as what was on the grid. The most senior official was Karie Murphy, whom Corbyn had sidelined from running his office after she disobeyed him over a plan to abolish deputy leader Tom Watson’s job.

The most senior politician was John McDonnell, who had been instrumental in pushing Murphy out of Corbyn’s office. Party sources reported a series of “clashes of personality” between this pair of foes.

Corbyn’s most senior adviser remained Seumas Milne, aided by the Unite chief of staff and longtime comrade Andrew Murray, both of whom were deeply sceptical about the party’s shift to backing a second referendum – a decision ultimately forced through by McDonnell.

Milne and Murray – sometimes referred to, along with Murphy and the Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, as the “four Ms” – had sought over many months to resist the shift towards an anti-Brexit stance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Seumas Milne, Labour’s executive director of strategy and communications, watches Jeremy Corbyn appear on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show last month. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/AFP via Getty Images

They trace the roots of Labour’s catastrophic defeat back to the relentless insistence of Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and others, including close Corbyn ally Diane Abbott, that the party would suffer if it failed to embrace a remain position.

McDonnell ultimately swung to that stance himself, bringing longtime Eurosceptic Corbyn with him, amid fears that Labour’s overwhelmingly remain-supporting activists would never forgive the party for enabling Brexit.

McCluskey blamed Labour’s defeat on this Brexit contortion. “Like most elections, this one was not won or lost during the campaign,” he wrote in a HuffPost article on Friday. “And it is Labour’s slow-motion collapse into the arms of the People’s Vote movement and others who have never accepted the democratic decision of June 2016 for a single moment which has caused this defeat.”

In a striking sign that support is draining away from Corbyn, the Unite general secretary also complained about the party’s failure to apologise for antisemitism – something the Labour leader declined to do in a disastrous interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil (though the prime minister dodged Neil altogether).

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Others used stronger language in private, with one Brexit-backing frontbencher saying that by backing a referendum, McDonnell had “thrown the election away” by doing “a grubby deal with Keir [Starmer]”.

Even senior Labour figures said they were unclear which of the three – Murphy, McDonnell or Milne – were really in charge of the campaign; and there was a widespread perception that Corbyn’s outriders were beginning to look ahead to who would replace him.

While the message may have been scattergun, the messengers were highly consistent: Brexit-leaning Corbyn loyalists Rebecca Long-Bailey, Richard Burgon and Ian Lavery appeared frequently; remainers Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry barely at all.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Emily Thornberry and Keir Starmer were sidelined from Labour’s campaigning. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Starmer, who had hardly been seen in the national media for several weeks, appeared on stage at one event where Corbyn unveiled a leaked document exposing the impact of Johnson’s Brexit deal on the Northern Ireland economy. Despite it being the shadow Brexit secretary’s area of expertise, he was not given the opportunity to give even a brief speech: instead, Corbyn turned to him to help answer some of the journalists’ questions afterwards. Usually a confident media performer, Starmer shifted uneasily in his seat, looking awkward and uncomfortable.

He is likely to be one of several senior figures who will now make a bid to take on the party’s leadership, and the job of rebuilding its reputation in working-class communities. Other likely contenders include Rebecca Long-Bailey, Angela Rayner, Jess Phillips and Lisa Nandy.

As if to underline the changing of the guard, Andrew Fisher, who has been by Corbyn’s side as his policy chief since his early days as leader, emailed colleagues on Friday evening to say it was his last day in the office, telling them: “Whatever the failings of the party overall, you should be very proud of your work and your contribution.”

Labour staffers joked at the start of the general election campaign that for them it meant “Downing Street or the dole”. By Friday afternoon it was clear that for some, it was likely to be the latter. Workers in Corbyn’s office and advisers to Labour frontbenchers received an email from Formby that said decisions on staffing would not be made until next week, and that no one would be let go before the end of the year. Many face an anxious weekend. For the wider party, facing up to the implications of a historic defeat, the immediate future looks equally uncertain.