Ten Years In The Death Of The Labour Party

by Tom Harris

For the first eighteen months of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, Labour MPs were in open revolt. The party seemed to be heading back to the early 1980s, when old-school Marxists tried and failed to take over the party, at a shocking electoral cost.

The snap general election called by Theresa May for 8 June 2017 looked set to consign Labour to the history books. But the best-laid plans of mice and men...

How long can the uneasy peace between moderate, anti-Corbyn MPs and the leader's loyal grassroots activists last? What does Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party have in common with the Labour Party of Attlee, Wilson and Blair? Is there even a future for either version of 'democratic socialism' in the twenty-first century?

Or is the Labour Party, as generations of voters have known it, finally coming to the end of its useful life?

The seeds of Labour's travails and its hostile takeover by the hard left were sown years earlier, during the turbulent, chaotic last years of the Labour government. In Ten Years in the Death of the Labour Party, columnist and former Labour MP Tom Harris turns the spotlight on the decisions that doomed the party's fortunes and the people who made them.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2018

Reviews

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enjoyably pacy walk through Labour's history since Brown (easy to forget how tumultuous the last decade has been in UK politics, even without the gaping arsehole that is Brexit). There's nothing really here that close-ish observers wouldn't know already, but I like the thesis that Labour's putrefaction began with Brown's decision to not call an election during his early honeymoon period and that 'Brown begat Miliband begat Corbyn'. And it's appropriately despairing of the course that a once decent party has since taken.

For all of Brown's faults and hopeless communication skills, it's Milliband who - fittingly - gets the greatest kicking here, for changing the rules to effectively allow entryism and shortcut the PLP (to say nothing of his wretched do-nothing position on Assad). That reform then of course gave us the current Jew-baiting Putinist weasel who now leads what is to all intents and purposes a Party for Racists.

I left Labour on the 12th of September 2015, the very day Corbyn was elected. I had followed his career pretty closely, knowing all about his support for Holocaust deniers, 9/11 Truthers, the IRA, Hamas, etc. He's not as poisonous as George Galloway - a genuine Mosley de nos jours - but he's close and he's far better at disingenuous evasion and fibbing ('didn't see the mural'; 'helped secure peace in Northern Ireland', 'referred to Hamas as friends as a figure of speech').

That incredible patience for the company of racists and cranks. I stopped talking to at least a dozen acquaintances after learning that they were Corbyn fans. The whole thing has been our generation's Dreyfus, really; people one thought were nice, sound, anti-racist even were, you realised, willing to look the other way at antisemitism and apologists for kneecappers, gay-hangers and tyrants. Nobody gives a toss of course, 'Because NHS!'.

Worth a look. Though don't expect to be cheered by this. Unless you think that Rothschilds and Mossad made me write this review to undermine Jeremy's visit to Crich Tram Museum tomorrow.

[moo · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

“but this does not mean that the fundamental fault line in the party has disappeared, merely that it has, for now been camouflaged effectively.”

oh 2017 corbynmania if only not for the coup .. and if they knew what awaited

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Politics isn't a big part of my life, but I always enjoy reading about it when it's written in an accessible, fast-paced way. Tom Harris' book, a criticism of the Labour Party and those running it between 2007 and 2017, is such a book. It offers a fast-moving tour of the many crises and events that rocked the party during a tumultuous decade, and it's written in an even-handed way with many players and much in the way of examination of what went wrong - particularly the ways in which Labour failed to capitalise on the equally seismic events rocking the Tories at the same time. It's sometimes amusing, sometimes hilarious, and horrifying elsewhere, and overall it's an enjoyable book.

[Michael Macdonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facsinating tale of the rush of Labour to popullst oblvion,firmly balmaing the mainstream for a a lack of vision and toy-town politics. Dismal posturing led to a revival of the hard left/centrist split in the Labpir party with the Left being wildy popular with activists and bizarrely uenlectable even when facing the worst Givernment in memory. Donot agree woth the narartive but a good contribution to a serious debate about the futureof Englsih politics if anyone really wants one.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good but depressing read

An engaging summary of the state of Labour over the last decade from an authoritative source. Read Alex Nunn, Owen Jones etc for balance on Corbyn but I can think of no defence for Ed Miliband.

[Claire Meadows · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spot on. And reminds me why I can’t get on board for the ‘Cuddly Ed Miliband’ nostalgia trip. He was an architect of destruction.