Can The Labour Party Thrive Under Corbyn’s Leadership?

Ever since the UK voted to leave the European Union, scrutiny of the Labour Party has been even more relentless and intense than it was before. It is important for Britain to have a strong opposition to the elected party otherwise there would be nothing to stop them from becoming complacent and passing Bills with no resistance. Currently, the Labour Party is incredibly divided, to the point where they tried to replace Corbyn with Owen Smith last year. This naturally made Labour voters question how strong Labour is as an opposition to the Tories if they can’t even agree on a leader and of course, many people blamed Jeremy Corbyn for this.

There is no shortage of theories as to what makes Corbyn a bad leader but some Labour voters believe that Corbyn does not fit with people’s expectation of what Labour should be today. For the last two decades, Labour has been a centre-leaning party and they won three elections under Blair who was nowhere near as left-wing as Corbyn. While Corbyn has won a lot of support from left-leaning youth, Corbyn has lost national support from older voters who preferred a Tony Blair-style of Labour. Similarly, many Labour MPs also still prefer the centre-leaning Labour.

Critics of Corbyn believe that Labour could never win an election with him as leader. Currently, he has a lower rating than Michael Foot, the Labour leader who lost against Margaret Thatcher in the general election. Reasons for this could include his stance on the IRA, Hamas and the Falkland Islands, the fact that he wasn’t very active during the Brexit debate or just how far to the left he is.

In short, if Labour wants to become a strong opposition to the Tories again, it will need to massively reduce the ideological divide that exists currently. Every Labour MP should have the exact same objective for the party and until Corbyn makes this happen, it is very unlikely that Labour will win the next General Election.