Corbyn’s ‘proud we lost in the right way ‘article is so infuriating as are the bizarre contortions of Labour loyalists. But for anyone who has locked horns with this movement in recent years it’s all par for the course as I was trying to explain in this thread 👇🏼
I know everyone sees their own hobbyhorse as the true reason for the loss but I do think there was a wider lesson in how the faction in control of Labour handled the upsurge in antisemitism. Denial, alternative facts, striking out, lack of empathy. It’s a pattern of behaviour.
Ultimately Corbyn’s own cataclysmic flaw was lack of empathy which I imagine cut through to many who saw him interviewed, and it contrasted so markedly with the image which his supporters both tried to project and, oddly after what happened, believed
The inexcusable failure to address evidence, and empathise with victims, of anti Jewish racism was a terrible look for a group pitching to run the country. I don’t think voters were so worried about Jewish people (very few people will have cared before) but this worried them
And here’s the rub. Forget policies, who is ‘radical’ or ‘left wing’. Until Labour again learns to *listen* and *empathise* with people who might not share their world view, may even criticise them, nothing will change. Corbyn’s article shows how far away they are from that
This isn’t just a switch you can turn on or off. Listening and empathy have to be built into an institution from the ground up and through its factionalism and extremism Labour has lost that institutional ability. It will take years to build that culture again
So these arguments about policy etc are missing the point. Labour is currently structurally and institutionally incapable of understanding what content it’s offering should have. It‘s laser focus must be on leadership, culture and for god’s sake making people welcome again
The starting point should be that democracy *works* and the nation rejected what Labour were offering. Not just by a bit but by a landslide. And it wasn’t false consciousness (for god’s sake) or the ‘system’ or ‘the media’ it was YOU. The party. The leadership. The package.
And of course there will be a more sophisticated analysis building in all sorts of issues but the very first thing to accept is that the current leadership, party structures, decision-makers are not the people to be doing the analysis. They are responsible and should step away
And to get to the real point here, it is obvious to everyone except the people in the bubble that the hard left, and their zero sum politics, lack of empathy, dinosaurism, cannot be part of the future of the party. Certainly not at the decision making level. They are responsible.
Some of the stuff I have seen from the hard left over antisemitism has been as shocking as anything I have experienced in my career. And I have seen a lot of bad behaviour. It needs to end and it’s going to be a huge fight - they control all the party committees and leadership.
They may have some good policy ideas. That’s missing the point. There is zero chance the country will trust them to deliver those ideas and god helps anyone who criticises them. They - Corbyn, Lansman, Willsman, JVL, LRC etc - are not fit to lead this party out of a paper bag
Here is John McDonnell ‘apologising’ and ‘owning’ the loss but when challenged he is really apologising for not being able to get ahead of the evil press barons who stopped the gullible voters seeing the true Corbyn and unbeatable Labour policies 
The lack of humility is astounding. Or perhaps it’s not. These are people who are perhaps suited to fighting a long term campaign to achieve a narrow aim, not to gain widespread popular support in a first past the post electoral system.
