I Don't Like To Say I Told You So, But...

With about half the local council election results in, the conclusions are already clear. The strategy of the Stalinists behind Corbyn has been a disaster. All of the pro-Brexit parties including Labour have lost seats. The more Brexity they are, the bigger proportion of seats they have lost. Meanwhile, the big gainers have been the anti-Brexit parties, and this is without local elections in the main pro-Remain areas such as London, and Scotland, and in areas that polls suggest now clearly back Remain, such as Wales, where voters have clear anti-Brexit candidates, and alternatives to Labour such as the Liberals, and Plaid. It is before the anti-Brexit Small Change UK Party enters the fray, to take further votes away from Labour, which can be expected now to get hammered in the upcoming European Parliament elections. 

Yet, the brain-dead Brexiteer elements within Labour are still trying to push the idea that Labour has lost seats because of not being Brexity enough! Absolute nonsense. 

The main takeaways from the results so far are this. 

1. The most Brexity Party of all – UKIP – is on course to lose two-thirds of the seats it held.
   
2. The second most Brexity party – Tories – are on course to lose around 800 seats.
   
3. The third most Brexity Party – Labour – are on course to lose between 150-200 seats.
   
4. The most anti-Brexit Party – Liberals – are on course to win around 600-700 seats.
   
5. The next most anti-Brexit Party – Greens – are on course to win around 100 seats. 

The Brexiteer elements within Labour point to where Labour has lost seats in Leave voting areas, but as John Curtice pointed out, before the results came in last night, looking just at seats won or lost does not tell the whole picture. What the overall picture of seat gains and losses shows is the overall dynamic, of Brexit supporting parties getting hammered, and anti-Brexit parties gaining support. View the results in that context, and the picture of where Labour lost seats, also becomes clear. 

In fact, that picture is precisely what I had described, and have been describing for months. The majority of Labour voters oppose Brexit, even in areas that overall voted Leave. Even in heavily Leave voting areas, around 60% of Labour voters – and I mean actual Labour voters, not just the people who some Labour members think should be Labour voters, because of where they live - oppose Brexit, and support Remain. But, in those areas, Labour's pro-Brexit stance has given them no reason to support Labour, given that Brexit has become the main order of the day. In 2017, many of them gave Corbyn the benefit of the doubt, and so did many Liberal, Green and other voters in those areas, who thought that Labour's “constructive ambiguity” on the issue was just a tactic that would eventually end up with Labour opposing Brexit. In the last two years, Corbyn has destroyed any such hope they might have had that that would be the case. 

Labour has appeared as just as much a pro-Brexit party as the Tories, but a party that has been even more dishonest than the Tories in the way it has proceeded over the last two years. Leave supporting Labour voters in those heavily Leave supporting areas, have seen no reason to back Labour on the issue, rather than vote for the Tories or UKIP. But, that should not have mattered for Labour because they constitute only a small proportion of Labour's vote in those areas. Labour should have more than compensated for that, by attracting more of its core vote out to vote, a core vote that overwhelmingly backs Remain. It would also, in many seats have also won over Liberal and Green voters, to block the election of Leave supporting, hard Brexit Tories. But, it didn't do that. 

On the contrary, Labour has done everything to push away its core Remain supporting voters. It has continually emphasised its intention of pushing through Brexit. Its own version of Brexit is reactionary, and in any case unachievable. Having failed to get anywhere with that, Corbyn has then turned to a class collaborationist popular front approach with the Tories, fully in keeping with the old disastrous Stalinist tactic. Corbyn appears desperate to ensure that some Brexit, however fudged, however bad, goes through parliament, and to avoid, at all costs, having to oppose Brexit, or even call for another referendum with Remain on the ballot. 

So, given the overall dynamic of the elections, its clear what happened in those Leave supporting areas, where Labour lost seats, or even just failed to win them from the Tories. Firstly, given that Brexit is the main issue of the day, Labour failed to win any UKIP or Tory Brexiters, with its fudged pro-Brexit stance, and even if it had had a clear pro-Brexit stance, would not have been a substitute for the real thing, as presented by UKIP and the Tories. Secondly, all of those Liberal and Green voters who lent Labour their votes in 2017, because it appeared as the best hope of stopping a hard Brexit Tory government being elected, have deserted Labour, as Corbyn has turned Labour into just another pro-Brexit also ran party. Moreover, many of the new Labour voters, especially amongst the young that came to Labour in 2017, expecting not just a more radical social-democratic agenda from Corbyn, but also its corollary, a progressive, internationalist approach to Europe, have been bitterly disappointed, by Corbyn's Stalinist, bureaucratic, backsliding, and nationalistic approach. Many of them will have simply sat on their hands, or switched to the Greens, or potentially, where they had a better chance, the Liberals. 

So, where Labour should have been taking seats hand over fist, via a clear anti-Tory, anti-Brexit stance, it has instead been tarred with the same old pink Tory (as a result of Corbyn's class collaborationist talks with the Tories) flag waving nationalism brush as the Tories. Time and again in the Brexit debate, Labour has found itself as the Tories second eleven, pushing for reactionary demands such as an end to free movement, and stricter immigration controls. That is not the kind of progressive radicalism and internationalism that Labour's new young voters were looking for. 

So, in those areas, Labour lost some of the votes it had won in 2017, because of its pro-Brexit stance, whilst that pro-Brexit stance failed to win it any support from the pro-Brexit bigots, who continued to vote UKIP or Tory. As a result, even in areas where Liberals or Greens were not in a position to win, the switch of votes, seen nationally, away from pro-Brexit parties, to anti-Brexit parties was enough to deny Labour the votes it needed to win against the Tories. 

Had the anti-Brexit parties formed an alliance to fight these elections, on a Stop Brexit platform, they would have done even better. There is still a lesson for them ahead of the European Parliament elections in three weeks time. The writing is on the wall for Labour. As a national poll, there will be no hiding place. Labour will get annihilated in Scotland, and suffer heavy losses in Wales, where the SNP and Plaid offer voters a clear anti-Brexit alternative, which, in most seats, has a credible chance of winning the seats. In the Liberals traditional strongholds, like the South-West, Labour will again see its vote shredded. 

Labour's strategy, driven by a combination of Corbyn's Stalinist backers, and right-wing Labour MP's such as John Mann, Caroline Flint et al, has been disastrous. It has not only abandoned any concept of socialist principle, by not opposing the reactionary nationalist agenda of Brexit, but it has also led Labour into a class collaborationist, popular front with the Tories to try to push that agenda forward, against the wishes of the vast majority of Labour members and Labour voters. At a time when the Liberals and Greens should have been consigned to the dustbin of history, rolled over by the juggernaut of a half million strong Labour Party, they have instead been given a new lease of life. And, not just them. The Blair-rights should also have been a distant memory. Instead, Corbyn's reactionary nationalist agenda has given them political space, and a large pool of potential support to swim in. By failing to push through democratic reforms in the party – which its obvious Corbyn was reluctant to introduce because it would have meant him also being more accountable – all of those Blair-right MP's sitting behind him, with their Leader, Tom Watson, sitting waiting to organise the next putsch, are set to sweep Corbyn aside, and now there will be far fewer members with the enthusiasm to back him, and resist such a move. 

The local elections should be a wake up call to party members. Reverse the NEC Clause 5 Meeting decision on the Manifesto. Labour should come out clearly to oppose Brexit, in the European Parliament elections. Labour should pull out of the class collaborationist popular front they have entered into with the Tories. Call off the Brexit talks now. Demand a General Election, with Labour committed to scrapping the disastrous Brexit agenda, and instead committing itself to working alongside the Left in Europe to transform the EU, and build a Workers' Europe.