FIRST things first: last week’s elections, functionally, mean nothing. People who voted a certain way will not do so in a general election, because in all likelihood we’ll be out with no deal on October 31.

However, there are one or two ways in which these results can be entrenched and may become voting patterns. If Labour plays into the hands of the ruling class, taking part in the Brexit culture wars by committing ourselves to a second referendum, then we will be rightly seen as the party of the metropolitan elite and punished for a generation. The north of England’s “better together” moment, if you will.

These elections were treated as a second referendum on Brexit — and Leave has won again. If the people have spoken twice and the Labour Party doesn’t listen then our future looks bleak. We can no longer placate student types and politicos because they are angry that their liberal politics lost and think they know better than working-class people.

The actual election campaign for Labour was frustrating, not because “our message wasn’t clear enough” – that’s only because Labour remainiacs have been going on television for months telling people our message wasn’t clear enough.

In fact it, looking at our candidates, who were almost unanimously remain, and some I would say were EU extremists, our message was perfectly apparent. Telling people we were the party of Remain is like telling 52 per cent of the country not to vote Labour — so is it any wonder we have came third?

Andrew Adonis shouldn’t be in the Labour Party never mind be a candidate – he was only ever elected as a Lib Dem, he is an enemy of our class.

The Clinton-style “lesser of two evils” strategy of “Vote Labour to stop the far right” is unambitious and uninspiring. Labour, a visionary and transformative party once more under Corbyn, can do better than that.

Merely pitching ourselves as the only hope to stop the far right’s no better than Macron’s rancid centrism — or our “it’s us or Ukip” message in the 2015 election. It’s a crutch we use to shirk our responsibility to address the concerns of Leave voters, by radically transforming the economy and the country.

We need to start being clear and scientific about who is fascist and who is far right. Calling anyone who supports leaving the EU far right or a fascist is ridiculous. Nigel Farage isn’t a fascist, my family members who voted for him aren’t fascists.

He’s a Thatcherite and the fact people in pit villages and cities like Sheffield and Leeds are voting for him is a problem that lies firmly at Labour’s door. We have to listen. Brexit isn’t itself a far-right project and people making it out to be so are absolute charlatans.

When we say “stop the far right” we mean stopping Tommy Robinson, not stopping 52 per cent of the country who democratically decided to leave the EU.

The apathy amongst some of our members is caused by the softness of the Corbyn project on dealing with our enemies within the movement. The knives are already out once again, the olive branch hasn’t worked yet again.

We cannot meaningfully talk about radically transforming a country and an economy if we are too timid to radically transform our party. The membership sees this and the public sees this. It has to change. We need mandatory reselection. We need to expel saboteurs.

Alastair Campbell’s departure is brilliant start — now we must clear out the other liberals so we can get on with building socialism.

Labour’s position is an honourable and correct one: we should look to bring the country together and look beyond Brexit, but only once Brexit has been delivered. We need to leave the EU as soon as possible and start focusing on our radical plan to improve communities, addressing the material conditions that has created the current political climate.

Our wider policy platform will be heard in a general election, and only Labour is talking of tackling the problems people face in their daily lives: insecure work, the climate emergency, building homes and curbing exploitative private landlords, investing in our communities and public services, developing and investing in an industrial strategy and ensuring jobs are created here (for example in renewables as we have seen this week what happens when there is no strategy to support an industry here), taking our buses and railways back into public ownership and making them more affordable, taking the National Energy Grid back into public ownership as well as Royal Mail.

The planet is literally going to burn if we don’t get on with this.

Jeremy Corbyn has shown that he has a track record in winning support in a general election campaign and Richard Leonard has shown that he is the only leader in Scotland looking for radical solutions to enforce real change in a Scotland that is currently suffering under the continued austerity from the Tories and passed down by the SNP.

We need to treat any coups against their leadership seriously and defeat them as we have before – and the result of the EU elections must be listened to if Labour are going to do so. Those who have failed before both north and south of the border should do us all a favour and keep quiet when it comes to winning elections — they don’t have the answers to the questions of our time.

Only the Labour left does. Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Leonard must have our full support. Emily Thornberry and Paul Mason, not so much.

I want to leave the EU, but it is not the most important issue facing our generation. We need to win a general election so we can address landlords, climate change, and low wages — but we can’t win a general election by becoming the party of Remain.

Full Brexit now. Socialist governments in London and Edinburgh tomorrow.

Tom Flanagan is press and communications officer for Scottish Young Labour.