Labour under Corbyn cannot provide effective opposition, say Labour centrists miserably. I heard a version of that line again and again during the Labour party conference; and anxiety will be running higher still after David Cameron’s confident speech at the Conservative conference last week. But the centrists are vulnerable to the same criticism.

Whether they are waiting for the Corbyn ascendancy to wane due to its internal contradictions or lack of competence; tackling bigger doubts about the future of social democracy; or wondering about an alternative route to relevance through mayoral elections, in the meantime there are big policy issues on which a Labour centrist approach is missing.

The most pressing one is the cuts to tax credits. Corbyn said in his leader’s speech that Labour will oppose these. Fair enough. Though it is criticism among politicians on the right – David Willetts, Boris Johnson – that has grabbed more attention. In any case, the argument that tax credits facilitate employers in paying low wages has won some credibility, and the prospects of going back to the world as Gordon Brown made it are nil. So what is the centrist approach to helping people who have low incomes in work? A ‘proper living wage’ perhaps, and that is terrific, but that is the chancellor’s territory now. He has already stated the ambition for the national living wage to reach 60 per cent of the median and, subject to experience in moving towards that target over this parliament, he can play other tunes on it too. Labour centrists need their own policy programme.

The government’s spending review, due to finish at the end of November, will reveal other gaps, or opportunities. The government has to meet its fiscal mandate while demonstrating that essential public services will fulfil our expectations. This may be hardest in relation to the NHS. Rising demand will put massive pressure on the budget but government cannot just be in the job of managing that pressure for a full parliament. This is why the prime minister has set an ambition of a ‘seven-day NHS’. The medical professions are unhappy about the implications. The Corbyn approach will probably be to amplify that unhappiness. Yet the government, I expect, is right that most people expect a seven-day NHS. The challenge for Labour centrists is to articulate a programme for modern public services that does not take the side of producers over users.

Next, there is likely to be a major schism between the government’s view on the role of the private sector and Corbyn Labour’s version. The government has a major programme of asset sales, whereas Labour may be arguing to take assets back into public ownership. On the private sector’s role in running services, the work programme will be recommissioned soon; the Ministry of Justice is expanding the role of private and voluntary organisations in the justice system; and there is always a franchise competition for train services around the corner. What do Labour centrists want to say about these issues? There may be a narrow version which focuses on the government’s competence – hitting out where outcomes are poor or competitions are badly run – or a broader one that departs from the dichotomy of private and public to talk about the role of charities, mutuals and cooperatives in running services.

Finally, Cameron’s reassertion of a social policy agenda – made most vividly in his conference speech – provides an opportunity as well as a dilemma for Labour centrists. The opportunity comes from the duality the government now has to manage between keeping to fiscal austerity and trying to eradicate the ‘scourge of poverty’, as the prime minister called it, or the shame of ongoing racial and religious discrimination. There may easily be a large gap between rhetoric and reality. Effective opposition may consist in explaining that gap. However, if that is done with a sneering expression – so often present when Labour people comment on Conservative social policy – then it may not win any new supporters.

None of this work for the Labour centre will be as diverting as a seminar on the future of progressivism in a post-liberal Europe, to coin a title; nor is it easy to do – (some of) the Milibandites already had a go. And, even if the work is done, it may be exceptionally difficult to get a hearing: there is a risk that you line up the pamphlet launch and then listen in dismay as the Labour leader gives an interview about Syria, knowing that the news cycle is gone from you. Equally, ‘collaborating’ with the government will be a wrench for some – a public service with a political risk.

I am not a Labour party member (or indeed a member of any party) so in a way this is not my struggle. But I am a centrist, and it would be good to see colleagues on the Labour side back at work.

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Emran Mian is director of independent thinktank Social Market Foundation. He tweets @EmranMian

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Photo: Christiane Wilke