Owen Jones, writing in the Guardian yesterday, pleads for the return of Ed Miliband and a “drastic reboot” of the Labour party. He claims that Brexit has tarnished the “optimistic, idealistic gloss” of Corbynism, dampened the enthusiasm of its supporters, and robbed the project of its identity. He might be right, as Corbyn has certainly taken a kicking from all sides of the political spectrum. Yet if Ed Miliband is the answer – then what is the question?
The question to ask is surely this: do we step back into the past, or jump forward into the future? Because to bring back Ed Miliband would be an unmitigated disaster; a slap in the face to the millions that put their hope in Corbyn in 2017; and a defeat for the most radical left-leaning electoral machine in a generation. It would signal a return to brand over values; to polish over policy; and would restore a politics to accommodate neoliberalism rather than one to supersede it. Likewise, the Murdoch press would eat the story with relish: Miliband's back – The Man Who Couldn't Eat a Bacon Sandwich. The response to such a turn would be a savaging at the ballot box. And rightly so.
Still, Owen's diagnosis is correct, as Labour has been tarnished by the Brexit brush. Tarred by the early triggering of Article 50, tangled in a policy of ‘constructive ambiguity’, and tainted by recent non-negotiations with the Tories, voters in the EU elections deserted Labour en masse. Of course, this may just be a protest vote in an election with little impact on the politics of tomorrow. But Labour would be foolish to ignore what this teaches us today, even if last night’s astonishing YouGov poll putting the Lib Dems top and Labour and the Tories tied in third place, turns out to be an outlier or temporary bounce.
