All the calls for unity after Corbyn’s election victory are completely understandable. It is a truism that divided parties can’t win elections. The trouble is that united parties with the wrong policies and the wrong leader can’t win elections either. Unity under Corbyn is a complete charade, particularly within the Parliamentary Labour Party. While the Labour church is notoriously broad, it’s difficult to imagine Presbyterian elders being particularly happy when told the new members of the congregation have chosen to follow the Pope. Pull together, they’re told. We’re all Christians, after all. Here’s a controversial thought. Might it be that disunity and division are exactly what Labour needs right now? Let’s cast our minds back to the early 1980s. The left, with its figurehead of Tony Benn, was in the ascendancy in the Labour Party. A conference in January 1981 endorsed the policies of withdrawal from the European Economic Community and unilateral nuclear disarmam...
Phil Woodford co-hosts Colourful Radio's weekly news review show from London. He previously stood on two occasions as a Labour Parliamentary candidate.