Labour’s factions are readjusting under new leadership

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner pushed ahead with their show of unity at the top of the Labour Party with a Zoom call for members last night. The new leader was clear about this shift, saying: “You will see a very united team with me and Ange… There won’t be any splits or differences between us.” They plan to attend member and stakeholder meetings together, and it was notable that on Monday the pair issued a joint statement about the leaked internal report.

Addressing that subject in the video call, Starmer said he shared members’ concerns, adding: “We have to stop the factionalism in our party. We have to create a different culture.” He warned: “Everybody who’s being factional is not just letting down the party but letting down the very people that most need us.” Rayner noted that the report had “really deeply upset people” and explicitly stated that the independent investigation was “not to long-grass it”.

Former general secretary Iain McNichol has now stepped down from Labour’s frontbench – he was a whip in the Lords – while the independent probe into the report is carried out. Vastly different reactions to the report are still emerging. GMB Labour Party staff branch has said that the leak is “causing immense stress” for the workers named. The Unite branch passed a motion that paid particular attention to the alleged workplace racism, which sparked debate among staffers. Len McCluskey has written up his response for LabourList in a piece that is both incredibly critical of the former HQ but also concludes that this should not be a crisis for Starmer whose mission is to unite Labour.

Labour’s factional groups were already having a conversation about how they should adapt under the new leadership, and this report has underscored the importance of that debate. Progress and Labour First were the first to make a move with the launch of umbrella group ‘Labour to Win’. We recently saw the formation of Forward Momentum (not a distinct group but a campaign for reform), while Momentum’s executive has indicated that it wants to go in a different direction (the key difference being a stronger emphasis on trade unions). Red Labour, Jewish Voice for Labour and the Labour Representation Committee have now joined forces to create a new network backed by ex-MP Laura Pidcock.

It looks as if the Corbynites were held together only by Jeremy Corbyn and there is significant fragmentation now, which does not bode well for their chances of success in internal elections. Will there be more interest from the left in the idea of introducing the single transferable vote (STV) for national executive committee (NEC) contests? That is certainly what the soft left group Open Labour is focussing on, with the launch of a new campaign today. STV for all internal elections is a totemic issue for this wing of the party – it will be interesting to see whether it gets any support from the leadership.