The war in the Labour Party has begun. For one side, Jeremy Corbyn is to blame. For the other, “If it wasn’t for Brexit...”. Fortunately for them, both sides can agree that more tactical voting could have saved the day.
All of these responses to last night’s devastating result fail to interrogate the thing they criticise. All treat their preferred scapegoat as an ephemeral phenomenon, as though it can just be herded away, dismissed.
The idea that Corbyn’s personal popularity was the problem, just like the idea that Ed Miliband’s personal popularity was the problem, or that Gordon Brown’s was, fails to take account of how public opinion is formed.
