Jess Phillips as Labour leader would be a gamble – but it’s the only option that would pay off

She may not be a favourite among those further to the left of the party, but if the membership chooses a torchbearer for the flame extinguished on Thursday, it will be jumping on the pyre

Assuming catastrophic defeat is starting to lose its charm, the only relevant question for Labour members is the only question Democrat primary voters should be asking in the US.

Who shall rid us of this turbulent buffoon?

The war between heart and head eternally defines the dilemma faced by parties of the centre-left, but the battle has been lost by the cardiac muscle.

A heartfelt experiment with a socialist platform was conducted. Its failure isn’t the only, or even the primary, reason why Boris Johnson won spectacularly.

Somewhere between the hard rock of Brexit and the deep red sea of Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity lies the explanation. But the brutal rejection of Corbynism, whatever that cadaver represented, is a reminder of what should never have been forgotten.

Not since 1966 has Labour won a decent majority with a left-wing manifesto (and Harold Wilson’s government was for Nato, nukes deterrence and other types of anathema to the outgoing leadership of today).

The 54 years and 14 elections since form an allegorical painting that only the wilfully obtuse could misinterpret. Labour’s two subsequent landslides, in 1997 and 2001, were won by from the centre. Its trio of pulverising defeats came when the party was in the hands of the muscular left (1983 and on Thursday), or perceived as such (1987).

More than half a century and 14 elections tell a compelling tale. This, by nature and convention, is a centre-right country. It has only once elected a radical socialist government – and Attlee’s administration of 1945, as with Wilson’s, had rigidly conventional patriotic values.

You may wish this wasn’t so. I wish it wasn’t so. But wishful thinking is an overrated force for improving the lives of those whose lives could scarcely be worse. For that, you need power.

The first step on the road towards Labour winning in 2024 needs to be a formal repudiation of what “Corbynism” came to mean outside the cult. That doesn’t mean mothballing the values he espoused or policies he peddled. Neither were rejected on Thursday.

It does mean ditching the narrowly sectarian style of leadership and arrogant intransigence of his inner circle. It means expressing those values and selling the policies with a passion that radiates empathy rather than a snort of glacial contempt.

It means trying to persuade those who disagree, not raging at them for being traitors.

Jess Phillips knows what happens when you tell people to f*** off. She announced herself as a refreshing political presence after the spat with Dianne Abbott (although, by Abbott’s account, the incident never happened). Asked what she had said to her colleague, she allegedly replied: “I told her to f*** off.” And in Phillips’ words, how did Abbott respond? “She f***ed off”.

Millions of lifelong atavistic Labour voters did just that on Thursday. They took the advice of social media cultists to “f*** off and join the Tories”.

Whether Phillips could coax enough of them back to win is anyone’s guess. But were I Johnson, she is the last opponent I’d want to face across the despatch box, or in those post-industrial parts – all points north and her native west midlands – he plans to colonise.

The contrasts would not flatter him. His confected persona, with its curious amalgam of dead-eyed psychopathy and fake Edwardian mannerliness, wouldn’t play well against her ringingly authentic Brummie naturalness.

Her genuine wit (posh people and olive eaters, etc) might clarify that his reputation as a comic demigod rests on giving the mesmerisingly unfunny the cadence of a joke.

In an early audition moonlighting as an article, she crystallises why she is Labour’s best bet. “My constituents don’t mind if we disagree,” she writes, “they appreciate a straightforward approach. I think the fact that we saw only a tiny swing away from Labour in my seat was because of our ability to disagree with good humour and a shared vernacular.”

Her star power will have played its part, but I suspect she’s right. Talking down to voters from a rigid ideological plinth is not a winning strategy. Engaging with them as an equal, even a friend, looks more promising.

Picking Phillips to lead Labour out of the wilderness would be a gamble with several massively more experienced operators in the field.

Keir Starmer is the safe choice, though this may not be the moment for a reassuringly stolid 1950s politician. The Mancunian Lisa Nandy has more northerly working-class credentials than Phillips by about 90 miles, but about 10 per cent of her charisma.

Yvette Cooper was almost as impressive a Brexit resistance leader as Starmer, but the taint of the Blair-Brown civil war clings to her.

Angela Rayner has that compelling back story of surmounting poverty, teenage motherhood and the lack of the formal education that is so insanely overrated, but none of Phillips’ raw gift for connecting with people.

Rebecca Long-Bailey is smart and talented, and being the Corbyn praesidium’s choice makes her the early betting favourite.

But being the Corbyn pick should disqualify her. If the membership chooses a torchbearer for the flame extinguished on Thursday, it will be jumping on the pyre.

Phillips would be a gamble, as I said, but who wouldn’t? If the hearts of the membership reckon her a “Blairite”, though she marched against the war in Iraq, and recoil from that, so be it. Perhaps Long-Bailey is the one to prove that 14 general elections over 54 years amount to nothing more than a blip.

But if it is ready to ask itself that one and only question, it might be ready to listen to its head.

Labour only wins when led by a populist centrist with a rare talent for communicating. Wilson and Blair were vilified by those on the left (Blair by few more than me), as Phillips would be too. But anyone who plans to use their ideological purity as a comforting blanket had best make sure it has a fleecy lining, because it’s going to stay very cold out there for a very long time.