Labour must find its way back to the political centre ground

The good news is that political parties have a capacity to regenerate themselves after electoral shocks

Related video: Jeremy Corbyn says he will step down in early 2020

Traditionally, the Labour Party, like all parties, usually loses general elections because it drifts too far away from the political centre. How “centrist” or “extreme” a party is has long proved a reliable guide to political success and collapse.

So it is easy to conclude that Labour’s historic failure in this general election is because it has, once again, wandered too far from this electoral happy hunting ground. And yet it is not entirely clear where the political centre now resides as we enter the third decade of the 21st century. It has been convulsing rather spectacularly, and confusingly. That is why The Independent has commissioned a series of articles on the elusive centre-ground and its future, starting today with a thoughtful contribution from Sir Vince Cable.

In fact there seem to be two centres of gravity. One is the traditional one, the class-based political model that favoured parties that triangulated themselves into a point equidistant from the extremes. The mass of voters were to be found towards the middle of the space, and that is where an election would be won or lost.

That still exists – it would be silly to declare it dead, because so many people still demonstrably choose between parties on those grounds.

However, Brexit has, as Jeremy Corbyn and his allies argue, introduced a new axis on the political map, overlapping with the old contours. In this case the mass of voters on the Brexit issue are to be discovered in large bunches occupying the extremes of Leave and Remain. Unlike the class-based model, there are relatively few in the centre ready to accept, say the Theresa May deal. These voters’ views on Brexit mirror their other views, such as on punishment for criminals, stronger policing, social conservatism, immigration and the protection of the more popular parts of the welfare state, such as the old-age pension and the National Health Service. In this spectrum, voters are defined on more or less on populist lines, on generational ones, and by educational background in what are sometimes termed “culture wars”.

The problem for Labour is that its leader, policies and image were not particularly attractive to any of these various groups of voters. It lost the election because it wasn’t actually sure where the centre ground was. and it wasted time and effort wandering around trying to find it.

It is an elusive quest, but it is fair to conclude that the Conservatives showed a more acute instinct for identifying their target voters and then, frankly, promising pretty much whatever they wanted. It might not be ideologically pure, principled or consistent – indeed at times it was none of those. But it did work, and Mr Johnson has shown himself anxious to retain the loyalty of his new Trumpian political base in the old Labour heartlands. When Brexit finally fades away, he will still need those Leave-inclined ex-Labour voters to keep his grip on power.

Labour’s next leader will need to exercise the same degree of flexibility (and cunning) as Boris Johnson and his strategists if they want to rival him in reaching out across old tribal divides. The party’s challenge is to win back those who now say they could not possibly vote for it, whether because of Brexit, Mr Corbyn, the antisemitism scandal, economic policy or some other reason.

This will not be easy, but the greatest danger is perhaps to overthink matters. Witness the success of the Boris Johnson-Lynton Crosby-Dominic Cummings-machine. They focused on a few memorable simple pledges and even more memorable short, sharp slogans across their various referendum and election campaigns – the £350m a week for the NHS; the 40 new hospitals (fraudulent as there were); and, of course, “Get Brexit Done” and “Unleash Britain’s Potential”. They did not spend much time trying to reconcile any of these with Thatcherite values or free-market principles – they just went for it quite ruthlessly. Labour, on the other hand, had hundreds of policies costing trillions of pounds, plus a Brexit policy that took too long to explain. The voters found it all a little too hard to take in, or believe in.

The good news is that political parties have a capacity to regenerate themselves. It is not a divine right – plenty curl up and die – but the British Labour Party has shown remarkable resilience to episodes of self-harm – though the recovery time can run to decades. It would be wise for Mr Corbyn to step aside, such has been the abject failure of his leadership, and to make way for an interim leader more able to stand up to a newly invigorated Mr Johnson. This person might be chosen by the shadow cabinet and would stay out of the leadership contest that needs to start as soon as possible. John McDonnell has ruled himself out of such a role, but there are others who would be able to do so.

There are some plausible contenders for the next leader: Jess Phillips, Angela Rayner, Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey and others. To succeed they will need to embrace party figures long locked out of the leadership team during the Corbyn years. Talents such as Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn and Ed Miliband need to be brought in to serve in the most effective way: they are not best deployed on the back benches. As the defeated Caroline Flint pleads, Labour has to once again understand its rational voters, and rebuild the broad cross-class, cross-generational coalition that has served it well in the past. Above all, it will need a team that is focused on winning the next election, because it is a mountain to climb.

The 2019 election campaign, and all that came before it, has been exhausting, but more hard work must begin straight away if Labour is to rebuild itself in time for the next one.