John Harris was too kind to say that the single force holding the parliamentary Labour party together is that we no longer know what we collectively stand for (When are Labour ‘moderates’ going to effect more than moan?,2 January). Each of us has ideas on representing Labour in parliament, but we’ve long ceased to be on a collective journey. To win we must regain the ability to respond to what people see as their fears and hopes, or not what we judge those fears and hopes should be.
Jeremy Corbyn will lift us into the next election unless the PLP has an alternative candidate. But we won’t have a candidate until we have worked out what we stand for on the agenda that is already engulfing the country. To say Labour stands for the least advantaged is too easy by half. Voters’ loyalties move out from their loved ones,getting progressively weaker as they view their community, our nation and then the world. It’s Labour’s inability to respond to issues within this framework of loyalties that kills the party’s electoral prospects.
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Source: theguardian.com