Everyone’s itching for a fight at the Labour conference – and why not?

The left loves nothing more than fighting itself and, because of the pandemic, it has not been able to partake in its favourite activity for two years, writes Marie Le Conte

A vote taking place at Labour’s conference in Brighton (Reuters)

I walked into the conference centre in Brighton on Sunday afternoon, hoping to find some colour for this column. After about three minutes, I managed to get caught between John Spellar, the founder of centrist Labour First, and left-wing journalist Owen Jones. The latter was trying to interview the former; the former wouldn’t speak and kept walking, and I comically got stuck between the two.

It was as good an omen as it could have been; the Labour Party has gathered by the seaside for the first time in two years and absolutely everyone seems to be itching for a fight. It all began when an allegedly well-refreshed Angela Rayner called the government “a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynist, absolute pile of banana republic Etonian piece of scum” at the northwest Labour reception on Saturday.

The dig did not go down well with many corners of the party, with an unnamed shadow cabinet minister telling The Times that “she’s an imbecile and until she realises that the party will never be credible”.

On Sunday, frontbencher Wes Streeting hit out at the “audacity of well known faces” in the Labour Party who keep intervening and won’t let Keir Starmer lead and “clear up the mess they left behind”. Elsewhere that day, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham complained that metro mayors “haven’t got the full weight of the movement behind us”, and said he was “a little impatient” with Labour on levelling up.

Speaking to the BBC, he added that the “party has to move beyond ‘oh we’ll set out plans at the next election’”, and that the “leader and the shadow cabinet need to connect with the public”. On Monday, London mayor Sadiq Khan joined in on the action, pointedly telling a fringe meeting: “Message to those in our party who think it plays well slagging off London is you will not get a national recovery without a London recovery.”

On top of all this, the party has also been arguing about transgender issues, as well as the amount of power and influence MPs should have in a Labour leadership contest. Momentum’s The World Transformed, meanwhile, was rocked on Sunday by a Corbyn vs Corbyn bunfight, in which Piers heckled a panel his brother Jeremy was on.

Amazingly, at time of writing, there are still two more days to go and I fear the odds of a punch up having occurred by the time you read this are non-negligible. This Asterix-like brawl has been amusing to witness as an observer, as it is well known that the left loves nothing more than fighting itself, and it’s always pleasing when parties live up to their reputation.

It probably has been a worrying sight for Labour supporters, however, as divided oppositions rarely tend to succeed electorally, and it is tough to picture this particular lot leaving Brighton arm in arm on Wednesday. Starmer supporters especially should feel nervous; after all, their candidate won the leadership contest by promising to bring the party together, and it is not clear he is up to the task.

Or perhaps they shouldn’t. The left loves nothing more than fighting itself and, because of the pandemic, it has not been able to partake in its favourite activity for two years. A leadership contest came and went without anyone being able to shout at each other in conference halls, hotel bars and nearby pubs.

There is a lot of pent up energy and resentment, and it needs to go somewhere. The Conservatives are clearly not going to call an election any time soon, so why not get it all out of the way now? At risk of being too cynical, it isn’t like Labour is doing especially well at the moment anyway. They may as well clash on anything and everything down here, then smarten up again once back in London.

I suppose this is my message to the party. Go on, tear pieces off each other like there’s no tomorrow. We’ve all had a terrible 18 months and it is what you love doing the most. Don’t lie to yourself, you know it’s true. Treat yourself to a good, old fashioned scrum; you’ll feel better afterwards.