Thoughts and Media on Labour’s Longest Reshuffle in History
By 
Don’t piss me off.
As LGM’s Senior British Correspondent, I discuss how the opposition Labour Party has just completed a reshuffle of its front bench team. Because nothing screams “clickbait!” like a good reshuffle.
Reshuffles are common in parliamentary systems for a variety of reasons. The most recently executed Labour reshuffle did have some legitimate motivations; of the three shadow ministers sacked or moved, two (with excruciatingly minimal profiles) had been explicitly criticising the very leadership of which they were participants, and one (Maria Eagle) held a policy position in direct opposition to the Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn.
That’s all well and good. Michael Dugher, former shadow minister for culture, had written at least one column in the New Statesman directly critical of the leadership (to the point where immediately following the sacking, Dugher edited his Twitter bio to read, in part “MP for Barnsley East. Sacked by Jeremy Corbyn for too much straight talking, honest politics.” which is sort of funny). The sideways shift of Eagle from defence to culture is more problematic; she’s in favor of the renewal of Trident, which is Labour Party policy, but Corbyn is stridently opposed to Trident and wanted a defence spokesperson consistent with his views.
It’s critical that the leadership of either party speaks with a common voice and presents a coherent face and message to the nation, the overwhelming majority of whom are not paying any attention to politics at the present time. Furthermore, this is consistent with the very concept of collective responsibility. While the rank and file in the back benches are free to publicly criticise the party leadership (though it is preferable that they do not) to have the leadership team sniping amongst itself is highly problematic. However, when you’re conducting a reshuffle a mere three and a half months into the leadership, you quite clearly got it wrong in the first instance. Furthermore, this was a laughably amateur reshuffle:
“On what planet is it even slightly a good idea to take four days to reshuffle what turns out to be a derisory number of posts?”
While it took four days, this does not take into account the briefings to the media that kicked off in mid-December.
This speaks to two more profound problems afflicting Labour at the moment. First, the leadership under Jeremy Corbyn (whom I voted for) has not accomplished what it needs to: to craft a clear, succinct, shared narrative offering a credible alternative to the policies of the Conservative Government. Second, to varying degrees the narrative that the media are running with is that the Labour Party is at war with itself, not only within the Parliamentary Labour Party:
Of course the media are partly to blame, though I scarcely see the point complaining about it. If the British press wasn’t overwhelmingly hostile to a Labour leader who opposed the status quo, then it wouldn’t be the British press. If the British press really could just brainwash the public into thinking what media moguls wanted them to believe, we might as well give up. The dysfunctional relationship between the Labour leadership and the broader parliamentary Labour party (PLP) – inevitably exploited by the media – is something that can be addressed. All Labour leaders reshuffle their top team: but media-savvy Labour opponents of Jeremy Corbyn, such as Michael Dugher, have capably framed any changes as a “revenge reshuffle”
But beyond, as well:
What we have seen in the past days is a collective attack on Corbyn by the right-wing press, the right-wing Tory party, and many of the right-wing members of the PLP who are so very wrongly dubbed as ‘moderates’ within Labour. An attack that is being used by all the groups named above as a way of deepening the rifts within the Labour party, in an attempt to discredit the leader.
Yet when people look in on the Labour party and see the great chasm that the party has become, the Bitterites blame it all on the leadership and use it for their personal, ideological advancement. The Bitterites claim to want to oppose the Tories, yet they are stopping their party from being one of effective opposition, and are creating great divides within the party.
The reason I include that as “beyond” is that piece represents a broader battle being fought even at the local level. Bitterites? Placing all the blame on the Blairite wing of the party? Come on, improve or you’ll convince nobody of your position. I have two good friends, both activists in different parts of the country who represent two different wings of the party (one clearly Corbynista, the other a centrist within the context of the party itself) who have grown somewhat disillusioned because of the interminable in-fighting within the Party itself.
An awkward bit of my role here is that I’m often called upon by the media to comment on stuff. When the topic is Donald Trump, I’m in a very safe space, free to (perhaps overly enthusiastically) speak my mind. However, when it’s about British politics in general and the Labour Party (of which I am a member and activist) more specifically, I walk a fine line; I speak as an academic, not a member of the party. Twice this week BBC Radio Devon called on me to offer commentary on the reshuffle:
Wednesday 6 January (about 38 minutes in, following a quite inspiring Phil Collins track)
Tuesday 5 January (about 1:30 in, following an equally inspiring piece on naming teddy bears).
Note, the above will expire a week after the interview. Thankfully.
