15:08

The controversy in Labour circles about the election of Jeremy Corbyn centres on the issue of whether or not he is electable. While there are divisions about policy, all Labour members are signed up to Corbyn’s broad goals of social justice, equality and peace. But there is a profound disagreement about whether or not Corbyn can get the party into government.

People on both sides have very entrenched views on this. There is no simple way of resolving the question, but here are 10 reflections that might (hopefully) shed some light on what has become the key question in British politics.

1 - “Leftwing” is a catch-all label that covers many aspects of Jeremy Corbyn’s politics - some of which are more popular/unpopular than others. Corbyn is happy to call himself a socialist, and no one has objected to him being called “leftwing”, but it is not always a helpful phrase and his supporters have objected to him being described as “far left” because that implies that he is extreme, and at the margins of public opinion. In some respects he probably is. But in others, he isn’t. His support for expansionary economic policies has more mainstream economic support than is commonly assumed and some of his ideas, like nationalising the railways, a policy often dismissed as irresponsible lefty wishful thinking, have overwhelming popular support.



2 - “Leftwingers” can win - but it does not happen often. The Blairite rule that Labour loses general elections when it heads left has generally been true in recent years but Ken Livingstone offers Corbyn some hope, as he said himself this morning. (See 9.27am.) Dismissed as being on the lunatic fringe, he won two elections as London mayor and ran the capital very effectively. (It is interesting to speculate on what would have happened if Corbyn had stood for the mayoral nomination. While his chances of becoming prime minister may seem remote, given the support he is attracting now, if he had entered that contest he would probably be a dead cert to replace Boris Johnson next year.)

3 - But Corbyn is ignoring what many people believe are the lessons of the general election. It would be wrong to say there is a consensus about why Labour lost the election, but there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that a huge problem (in England and Wales at least) was the the voters did not support the party on the economy, on immigration and on welfare. For example, read the Feeling Blue report from James Morris, Labour’s pollster; the Reconnecting Labour report from Dan Jarvis MP; the review carried out by Jon Cruddas MP; and Lord Ashcroft’s Project Red Dawn report. The academic Matthew Goodwin made a similar point on Twitter yesterday.

Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) 1/2 Cameron to say Corbyn Lab "no longer represents working ppl" & "committed to more spending & borrowing", shows how easy Cons will...

Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) 2/2 deal with Corbyn. Lab has big prob with both groups: econ disaffected w.class & majority who accept cuts/see Lab econ as part of problem

Tim Bale, another academic, has said the face choicing political parties ultimately boils down to “a choice between ‘preference shaping’ (the heroic assumption that you can get voters to see things your way) and ‘preference accommodation’ (the assumption that you need to meet them halfway).” Corbyn’s victory can be seen as Labour putting a monumental bet on “preference shaping”. It can work but, as Bale has pointed out, it can fail too.

4 - A lot depends on how well a leader can change public opinion - and as yet there is little evidence that Corbyn will be a great persuader. He has, of course, had a remarkable election victory, but that does not seem to be because he has changed minds; as he has suggested himself in interviews, it is more because he became the outlet for voters totally fed up with the Labour establishment who found at last a candidate who represented their views. He has shown little interest in what a Labour leader might have to say to win over voters who don’t already agree with him. Indeed, his victory speech this morning was notable because contained almost nothing aimed at appealing to the classic, middle England “floating voter”.

5 - Corbyn’s alternative “expand the electorate” strategy may be flawed. Asked how he could win an election with his policies, Corbyn has highlighted the large number of votes Labour could win by mobilising a leftish coalition of people who either did not register or turn out in 2015, or who voted for other progressive parties because they found Labour uninspiring. It is true that there are plenty of votes in this pool. But a Fabian analysis looked at this strategy in some detail and concluded that the prospects of it providing a route to electoral victory were “bleak”.

6 - Party image matters too - and it remains to be seen whether Labour will enjoy a “Corbyn bounce”. The Tories under Michael Howard and Labour under Ed Miliband have both been in the situation where they have had individual policies that are popular, but where they have found it hard to capitalise on those because the party’s image overall is negative. Will having Corbyn as leader make people feel more positive about Labour generally? It is far too soon to know, but as yet there is no evidence that it will. There have been at least two state of the party polls conducted since Corbyn took the lead in the leadership race, and they have both shown it languishing well behind the Tories (on 31 points and 28 points respectively).

7 - On a personal level, voters may warm to Corbyn. The public probably has not yet formed a settled view on Jeremy Corbyn, but there are some aspects of his character people are likely to find very appearing. He is the antithesis of a career politician (in fact, it would be hard to find a politician less careerist), he doesn’t speak in politico-cliche about hard-working families and he is self-effacing, modest and frugal.

8 - But leaders have to be good at leading - and Corbyn’s leadership skills are almost entirely untested. He could turn out to be hopeless, or he could turn out to be surprisingly good. His executive experience may be limited to chairing Haringey council’s public works committee in the 1970s, but that is more executive experience than Tony Blair had when he became Labour leader and there are different models of effective leadership. Corbyn has said he wants to run a consensual administration (ie, more Attlee than Churchill), and perhaps he will do this effectively. But, equally, many of his colleagues think he will prove temperamentally unsuited to leadership (for reasons Andy McSmith set out here, in the Independent.)

9 - And it is hard (though not, of course, inconceivable) to see Corbyn as prime minister. Ultimately elections are about choosing a prime ministers, and even many Corbyn admirers find it hard to see him walking through the door of Downing Street. That may explain why the notion that he will only be a caretaker leader is so widespread. (In his excellent account of the Corbyn campaign today, my colleague Ewen MacAskill says that, if Corbyn was ever minded to think this way, he has changed during the campaign, and is now “in for the long haul”.)

10 - Everything could change, particularly if some crisis erupts, making all conventional assumptions redundant. The most obvious example would be some sort of economic catastrophe, that could lead to Corbyn-led Labour defying the pundits and taking power in the manner of Syriza in Greece. It does not seem probable but, equally, it is by no means unthinkable.

So, overall, is Corbyn really unelectable? Quite possibly, but no one can plausibly say yes or no to this question with 100% certainty, and ultimately this one is going to have to be resolved by the electorate.

(To be fair, it is also worth pointing out that there are also strong grounds for thinking that Corbyn’s three Labour leadership rivals would also have had considerable difficulties winning the next general election.)