McDonnell’s departure from the race is Labour’s loss

By Paul McInerney

It’s a shame that John McDonnell dropped out of leadership race yesterday. I was at the GMB conference in Southport on Monday listening to the hustings, and everyone I talked to felt that John had won hands down. He answered all questions directly – in contrast to other candidates, who didn’t all seem to be able or willing to – and he came up with new ideas, thinking outside the box. And he – along with Diane Abbott – was one of the few candidates who seemed to have had a real job.

During the general election – a friend of mine who lives the other side of London to where I live – asked me to go door knocking for his local MP. I have been active in the Labour Party for over 35 years and I saw something there I have never seen before: two lifelong Conservative supporters came out canvassing with us, and worked as hard as any of us did. When I asked them why, they replied “it’s not for the Labour Party. He’s a good MP, a good honest man. If it had been any other Labour MP we would vote Conservative.”

That MP was John McDonnell.

The other candidates on Monday were, to my mind, average. Andy Burnham was out of his depth and looked like he was only there to make up the numbers. If you listened to David Miliband for too long you would be under the impression that we had won the last election. If he is our new leader it looks like we’ll move full steam ahead with all the things we did to lose the last election. And I got the feeling that he felt he had already won the leadership contest. Ed Miliband was steady but didn’t come up with any new ideas; he didn’t seem to wish to contradict what his brother was saying about what a great job they had done running the country.

The really sad thing in this nomination process, then, is the lack of choice presented to us by our party, and our own lack of involvement in deciding who we choose from. We have a limited club of MPs vetting who we can vote for, and our new MPs seem to want to only nominate the frontrunners: I wonder why?

John McDonnell would have been my choice – and the choice of many others. It’s a choice we should have been offered.