Corbyn is going nowhere - and neither are his critics. So what next?

The alternative to there being no alternative government is 20 years of one-party rule – 2010 to 2030, and perhaps beyond

Jeremy Corbyn (PA)

The year ends with some senior Labour figures wondering whether their party will ever govern again. A year ago, most Labour MPs assumed they had at least a chance of returning to power in some form or another after the election. They have leapt from tentative, nervy, uneasy optimism to apocalyptic gloom. A dark consensus is implicit in all the internal angst.

The Labour party has become dysfunctional, for those on the left and right. Jeremy Corbyn’s followers face the formidable obstacle of recalcitrant MPs. The expanding party membership presents an equally intimidating barrier to the MPs if they want a change of leadership. For the still sizable non-Conservative part of the electorate, the Labour party is an even greater source of frustration.

The Labour party lost a winnable election in May. Now the Government is divided over Europe, experiments messily with forms of reheated Thatcherism and faces a tricky leadership contest – and all this with a tiny majority of 12. Yet a lot of senior Labour figures now expect the Conservatives to win by a landslide in 2020. If they are right, the Conservatives will not be dislodged in 2025 either. It takes more than one election to wipe out a landslide government.

It is far too early to forecast what will happen in 2020, but even the possibility of Conservative rule until 2030 should focus the minds of those who are not Conservatives. Yet part of Labour’s nightmare is that when various minds are focused they travel along routes to discover only a series of dead ends.

One logical response to a defective Labour party is the establishment of a new party on the centre-left. This would enable Corbyn to lead one party without being troubled by dissenters. In a new party the dissenters could make their pitch at one with a leader and membership. The former adviser to Tony Blair, Peter Hyman, made this argument in a long article for the Observer on Sunday. Hyman articulated a strong case for the clean break, but was noticeably more woolly on what form the policy agenda of a new party would take.

This is one argument against the formation of such a party. As yet there is no compelling policy agenda to propel a new party into being. Some senior Labour dissenters also point out that on the left memories of Ramsay Macdonald and the national government formed in the 1930s are still vivid, the sense of betrayal burning as brightly as ever. They argue that if the political choreography before the Second World War is recalled freshly, the formation of the SDP in the 1980s is like looking back at what happened last weekend.

Labour might be dysfunctional – but it has a good memory. The SDP split the anti-Tory vote, giving Margaret Thatcher the space to win overwhelming victories. Another senior figure points out yet another obstacle: that, in modern politics, only a big charismatic figure could lead a new party and make a significant impact. There is no such individual. So the agonised, circuitous discussions continue and continue, leading nowhere. In the short term at least, the status quo will remain. This puts a huge responsibility on those at every level of the Labour party because of the wider context in which they make their moves. There is no other alternative government for the UK; not the thriving SNP, not the nearly invisible Liberal Democrats and not Ukip. The alternative to there being no alternative government is 20 years of one-party rule – 2010 to 2030, and perhaps beyond.

Let us accept that Corbyn is going nowhere, as he put it in an interview, and the dissenters are not going anywhere either. What can both sides do next? From Corbyn’s perspective he needs to do more to reach out to internal opponents. In fairness he has done quite a lot already. As a Bennite, Corbyn would almost certainly campaign to leave the EU if he had a free hand. Instead he has agreed that Labour policy is in favour of membership. He conceded a free vote on Syria, while opposed to the military action. His shadow Cabinet is the broadest of broad churches, to the point of silliness. But as a leader Corbyn can do more to make his absurdly broad church work.

Tony Blair is not exactly a model of leadership for Corbyn, but one of Blair’s more widely applicable strengths as a leader in opposition was to step away from the day-to-day frenzy and look at ways in which he could “bombproof” potentially explosive policies.

Over the relative lull of Christmas, Corbyn should plan to defuse some of the bombs set to land in the middle of his restive party. The most obvious is the renewal of Trident. There is almost certainly a majority of MPs in the Commons who will vote for renewal whatever Labour decides, so why inflict a major civil war over the issue and change nothing?

At the moment there is an inbuilt civil war with Ken Livingstone and Maria Eagle conducting a “review” of the policy – one against renewal, the other in favour. Corbyn should follow the Syria model and announce early next year that there will be a free vote on Trident. The review should be downgraded to a detailed exposition of the pros and cons of renewal. If there were a chance of making a practical difference to the Government’s policy there might be a case for Corbyn to ignite a civil war. There is no such chance so he would be wiser to avoid the destructive battle while retaining his personal opposition to Trident.

In return, the noisy dissenters have no choice but to keep quiet for a bit. Corbyn won. They did not. He has shaken things up and dares to hold his ground against fashionable orthodoxies that are often proved to be wrong. It is much easier to attack a leader than to work out how to lead. If both sides in the civil war are not going anywhere they better try harder to work together. Of all the dead ends this, it seems, is the least dead for now.