Historically, Labour has been a broad church uniting a range of left-of-centre opinion to win elections in a first-past-the-post system. Keir Starmer has taken a narrower approach. While that did bring electoral success on 2 May, it also led to significant losses to independent and Green candidates on issues such as Gaza and the climate crisis.
If Labour is to win a victory at this year’s general election, Starmer urgently needs to resume services at the broad church.
Keith Flett, Tottenham, N17
The above letter appeared in the Guardian on 6th May. On 5th May Keir Starmer had written in the Observer that ‘Labour is for everyone’. Clearly he took the Fletter seriously and was hard at work redefining Labour’s Broad Church.
By Wednesday hard-right Tory MP Natalie Elphicke had been admitted while Diane Abbott remained firmly barred. However as Lord Kinnock who did a great deal of redefining of Labour’s Broad Church when he was Labour leader, the Broad Church does have walls and it may be that some should remain outside of them. So far there isn’t much sign that Elphicke cares for the order of service and hymns to be found in the Labour Broad Church
“While that did bring electoral success on 2 May…” Really? In the light of Tory collapse almost everywhere, is there really that much sign that Starmer’s Great Moving Right Show was a major factor?
arguably but the same was true for Blair in 1997, not that this might be gleaned from most histories of the period