Jeremy Corbyn, and his opposition to all things nuclear, is to blame for Labour’s historic defeat in the Copeland byelection, argues Roger Liddle
Labour has held Copeland and its very similar predecessor constituency of Whitehaven, continuously since 1935. 82 years ago, Frank Anderson, a railway clerk, won the seat back from the Conservatives by a narrow majority of 352: it had however only been lost in the 1931 debacle by a relatively narrow margin of 2031. These figures tell you something about elections in this constituency in my native county of Cumbria. Labour’s majorities have never been massive (apart from the exceptional years of Tony Blair’s landslides), but the Labour vote has historically been very stable and loyal – until this byelection.
The Labour core of the seat is the town of Whitehaven and old coal and iron mining villages that surround it, like Cleator Moor and Distington (for which our by election candidate, Gillian Troughton, is a fellow Cumbria County councillor). It was on the back of Whitehaven and its mining that the Lowther family (the Earls of Lonsdale) built their huge fortune in eighteenth and nineteenth century; they treated Whitehaven as their ‘pocket borough’ until the Labour party united the working classes, previously riven by Orange and Catholic rivalries and resentments against the immigration of low wage, non-union Irish labour. There is a moving memorial in the centre of Whitehaven to the several thousand miners who paid the human price in lives lost in the local pits that ran under the sea. My own mother who was brought up in a West Cumbrian mining family, was a strong supporter of the post war development of nuclear power in Cumbria because it meant we could in future obtain our energy without incurring this terrible sacrifice.
For 35 years, from 1970 to 2005, Whitehaven was represented with distinction by Jack Cunningham, parliamentary private secretary to Jim Callaghan in the 1970s and an early member of the Blair cabinets. Cunningham held the seat with majorities of around 1900 in the disastrous general elections for Labour of 1983 and 1987, even when the Labour party‘s national policy was officially anti-nuclear by being a champion of the industry. Why didn’t these traditional loyalties hold this time?
There was nothing at fault in the local campaign. Troughton is a well-respected local figure who would have made an excellent constituency member of parliament; and she was unequivocal in her support of the nuclear industry as her predecessors, Jamie Reed and Jack Cunningham, both had been. There was also an excellent local issue which should have turned the campaign in Labour’s favour: the Tory plan to denude Whitehaven hospital of its maternity and A&E services. There was real concern about this on the doorstep. It should have been a by-election winner. Why didn’t this happen?
I am afraid there is only one explanation: Jeremy Corbyn. I canvassed in the constituency on several occasions. I cannot recount the number of times I heard people say ‘I’m Labour but I’m not voting for Corbyn!’ Some argue that the anti-Corbyn tide was because the Tories distorted his position on nuclear power. And Labour’s official policy is, of course, supportive on new nuclear power. But distortion is what opposing parties tend to do in elections. Also, it cannot excuse the fact that our leader gave an interview on the early evening Border TV peak news programme in which he came across as equivocal on whether he supported the proposal for a new nuclear power station next to Sellafield. It was devastating to the many local people who watched it.
This episode in itself of course provides Corbyn with a ‘get out of jail free’ card. He was just reflecting the consistency of his lifelong convictions against all things nuclear, some say – this makes Copeland a unique defeat that Labour can, if not ignore, at least explain away. In my view, this argument is specious.
Although it is wonderful that we held on in Stoke and great that we saw off Ukip leader Paul Nuttall, the result was terrible there as well. To be less than 3000 votes ahead of the Conservatives in a byelection in a safe Labour seat after seven years of Tory government in a period of unprecedented hostility, is very worrying.
The reason for our weakness in Stoke is the same as for our defeat in Copeland. If the public do not trust our leadership, and feel we are failing to understand the fundamental importance of jobs, no amount of campaigning on the NHS will bring us success. That was the mistake Labour made in the 1980s and we are making it again. Of course the National Health Service is of vital importance. But without the confidence that Labour will deliver a ‘strong economy’, we are simply not credible.
There is another point as well. Brexit dominates the whole political scene as it will in my view for many years to come. May comes across as having a strong and clear position – of wanting to get on with it – which, I sense, is where at the moment the majority of the public are, with little understanding of the complexities and potential hazards. But Labour has no clarity at all. My view, and I accept others differ, is that we must campaign unequivocally against the hard Brexit that May’s Lancaster House speech promises. We could have done that very effectively in Copeland but completely missed a trick. The government’s white paper on Brexit makes an extraordinary commitment to pull the UK out of EURATOM, as a related European Union body. Yet without the regulatory framework that EURATOM provides on questions like safety and the transport of nuclear materials across borders, Sellafield simply could not function. It could no longer fulfil its obligations to the Japan and the United States on nuclear waste. It would be a case of the Tories risking 12,000 jobs.
It is not just that the public has no confidence in the Labour leadership. Frankly, it is that it is politically incompetent as well.
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Roger Liddle is a Labour member of the House of Lords and Cumbria County councillor for Wigton. He tweets at @liddlro
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Just as Labour had barely won Copeland in 2015 (I don’t know where this safe seat business comes from; is that just because it’s “Up North”?), so the Conservatives barely won Copeland last night. But they did win, and they did so on Theresa May’s left-of-Ed-Miliband programme.
Meanwhile, UKIP died at Stoke Central, and its only MP appeared on Question Time to say that that was because it was not, “A traditional working-class party of Keir Hardie.” This country’s sinistrisme is complete. Between them, there is nothing that cannot now be enacted by two Party Leaders who are respectively a Left Christian Democrat and a Left Social Democrat. Opposed only by the MPs who signed the anti-Bercow motion. And there are all of five of those. Five. Out of 650.
If most people, including most Leave voters, never heard the word “Brexit” again, then it would be too soon. A high proportion of those who voted in the referendum did not, do not, and will not vote in elections, including yesterday’s elections. The Right died last night. Copeland ended any possibility of a challenge to Theresa May, or even of a critique of her, from that wing of her own party, in which she now has a completely free hand. Meanwhile, Stoke Central ended UKIP altogether.
Based on May’s staggeringly left-wing domestic programme, the centre is now whatever Jeremy Corbyn happens to say. Just so long as she still gets to be rude about him personally while reading out the policies that two years ago were peculiar to him and to John McDonnell. The death of UKIP means that there is no one to object to that from the Right. Her reading out of Corbynism in the style of Margot Leadbetter is now as far right as British politics goes. She has entirely accepted Corbyn’s terms of debate.
And the capture of Copeland (hardly Bolsover, but even so) cannot be seen as anything other than a vindication of that acceptance. That is what Britain now is. A country in which the Christian Democratic Left seeks to enact as much as possible of the Social Democratic Left’s programme while holding it up as a bogeyman for electoral purposes. It seems to be working.
as an aside, I would hardly say Mr Cunningham served as a MP with distinction. Wasn’t he tied up in an expenses scandal and didn’t he seek to sell his services on retirement?
On nuclear power if Corbyn is right about its dangers and the science show it to be unsafe – and the Lords Environment Committee says new stations are not value for money then I am not clear what he should have said.
It is clear a ‘progress’ type leader would act opportunistically and say nuclear is wonderful but a principled one will not. What we have seen ids workers in the nuclear industry and those dependent on it in Copeland voting to protect themselves and their privileges – fair enough.
And now there are no miners, steel workers or slate quarries to outweigh them.
I thought it was very kind of Red Jez to get another woman in to Parliament.
Her being a Tory doesn’t matter a win is a win for Operation Pinkbus…
As someone from the Copeland constituency I completely agree with this analysis. Gillian was an excellent candidate and would have made an excellent MP.
We have a lot of work to do. Firstly we have to stop this infighting – name calling is not helpful. We have to unit.
JC has got to go – this was a major factor in Copeland as to why people would not vote Labour. His position is not going to improve and the sooner this is recognised the better. We have plenty of good younger candidates – Chuka, Dan, Lisa and Rebecca LB.
Having a sound economic policy – opposing a hard exit – opting for the single market – this does not mean we are in the EU but is better for trade and business.
Protecting services ohs, schools, railways.
We have a lot of work to do.