“Intelligence enough to conceive, courage enough to will, power enough to compel. If our ideas of a new society are anything more than a dream, these three qualities must animate the majority of the working-people; and then, I say, the thing will be done”
— William Morris.

WHY Labour has lost the election despite the immense efforts of thousands of committed activists and the most progressive manifesto in years is a crucial question to orientate the next phase of socialist politics and class struggle in Britain. Indeed, the battle of interpretation over the result will be a determining factor in the ongoing internal fights within the labour movement, the strategy and tactics moving forward for the radical left and for the lessons drawn by the wider working class.

One interpretation which is already being pushed by the liberal left is that Labour (read Corbyn) were too slow to articulate the politics of Remain. As such, the argument goes, Labour ended up electorally betwixt and between, when it should have embraced the virtues of Remain, while bringing recalcitrant Leave-voting working-class voters with it.

This argument is being pushed by groups like Another Europe is Possible and the usual coterie of liberal commentators in the Guardian and elsewhere. But this analysis draws all the wrong conclusions from the last five years and would set the left up for further failure if it gained traction.

Another view, pushed by elements on the right of the Labour Party, is that Labour lost touch with the “socially conservative” or “traditional” working class — this is as mistaken and detrimental an approach as that advanced by the liberals, and both should be rejected by the socialist left going forward.