Labour still has to show voters it’s sorry for inflicting Jeremy Corbyn on the country, key Shadow Cabinet ally of Sir Keir Starmer warns
- Sir Keir spent much of past year trying to distance himself from his predecessor
- He even suspended Jeremy Corbyn from Parliamentary Labour Party last year
- But senior Sir Keir ally said ex-Labour voters still punishing party for toxic legacy
- The Shadow Cabinet source said that Labour had to demonstrate that it is ‘sorry’
Labour still has to show it is ‘sorry’ for inflicting Jeremy Corbyn on the country, a key ally of Sir Keir Starmer has warned.
Sir Keir, who marks his first anniversary as Labour leader tomorrow, has spent much of the past year trying to distance himself from his hard-Left predecessor.
The new leader even suspended Mr Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour Party last year following a row about anti-Semitism.
But a senior ally of Sir Keir said former Labour voters were still punishing the party for the toxic legacy of Mr Corbyn’s four-and-a-half year reign.
Labour still has to show it is ‘sorry’ for inflicting Jeremy Corbyn (file photo, pictured above) on the country, a key ally of Sir Keir Starmer has warned
The Shadow Cabinet source said that Labour had to demonstrate that it is ‘sorry’ for imposing a leader whose values were so out of step with those of many traditional supporters, particularly in the North and Midlands, where the party lost a swathe of Red Wall seats to the Tories.
‘Corbyn still comes up a lot in canvassing, even though he’s been kicked out,’ the source said. ‘I don’t think you can overstate the damage done to us by having that idiot in charge for years. We get people saying, “You put someone in front of us who was not fit to be prime minister, who was a danger to our country, and it is going to take a long time for me to forgive that.”
‘People get that he is no longer there and that we have new leadership, but there is a lot more to do to show the Labour Party has really changed and that we are sorry for what happened.’
Allies of Sir Keir point out that he has had to rebuild Labour from the rubble left behind by Mr Corbyn, who led the party to its worst election defeat for decades and alienated the Jewish community.
At this point last year, Labour was almost 20 points behind the Conservatives in the polls. Under Sir Keir, Labour quickly drew level and even went ahead of the Tories for a time.
But recent polls suggest the party has slipped back and now trails the Conservatives by about six points ahead of local elections and Scottish and Welsh government elections next month. When voters were asked to say why they were not voting Labour, the main reason given was: ‘It is unclear what Keir Starmer stands for.’
Sir Keir (pictured on March 31), who marks his first anniversary as Labour leader tomorrow, has spent much of the past year trying to distance himself from his hard-Left predecessor
In an interview this week, Sir Keir declined to give himself a mark out of ten for his first year, but said: ‘I mean, it’s tough. We’d had the worst election results since 1935 when I took over as leader.’
Sources say his decision to play a supportive role in the Government’s pandemic efforts has led to tensions with his deputy, Angela Rayner, as well as criticism that he has failed to provide opposition.
But he hinted this week that he will adopt a more combative approach as the country emerges from the pandemic, saying: ‘As we come out of year one into year two, I want to take the mask off and open the throttle.’
Labour business spokesman Lucy Powell yesterday acknowledged that the party still has ‘an enormous mountain to climb’ to win back traditional Labour voters. She told Times Radio: ‘I don’t think Keir is under any illusion about that.’