TWO years ago, following his successful bid to become the Labour leader, Keir Starmer announced to the waiting press, “We’re under new leadership,” then went on to say: “We’ve just lost four elections in a row. We’re failing in our historic purpose. Be in no doubt I understand the scale of the task.”

What Starmer ignored was that despite losing the election, in 2017 under Jeremy Corbyn Labour succeeded in securing more votes than Tony Blair achieved in 2005. And yes, it could have been built on to secure a victory in 2019 — however, as we now know, many in Labour put more effort into getting Corbyn out of office than getting Johnson out of Downing Street.

In the end, it was the decision to change Labour’s stance on Brexit that would finally do the damage — a path that was suggested and encouraged, of course, by Starmer. After all, only a naive person would suggest losing 52 seats to the Tories of which 50 were in constituencies that voted Leave was a coincidence.