Miliband Should Not Resign

Within the next half hour, Ed Miliband may well announce he is standing down as Labour Leader.  He shouldn't.  In the past, Labour leaders, like Harold Wilson, lost elections, and remained party leader, and even when they did stand down, they did not stand down immediately.  Its sensible to stay in place, whilst the party takes time to analyse, before moving on.  More importantly, if Miliband stands sown, it will open the door for those who are actually responsible for the current situation, to launch a putsch.

The Blairites, like John Reid, are already ridiculously claiming that Labour's failure is due to them being too left-wing.  The reality is that Labour did not lose all but one of its seats in Scotland because it was too left-wing.  Quite the contrary, the roots of Labour's decline in Scotland goes back  to the role of Blairism.  It failed to provide even a social democratic response to Thatcherism.  Instead of providing a working class solution for workers in Scotland, it gave them instead a typical diplomatic solution, retaining Blairite policies for the party as a whole, with a blunting of its edges via a devolution of powers to Scotland.

Nor indeed, could Labour's failure to breakthrough in England be put down to its being situated too far to the left.  Again quite the opposite is true, and again it opened the door to nationalist solutions, this time put forward by the Tories and UKIP, and focussed dangerously on withdrawal from the EU and attacks on immigration.

Miliband should stay on, and the party should spend time in calm contemplation of hat has happened, before making any further decisions.