Oh dear. Labour’s loss of Hartlepool on a 16 point swing to the Tories has not gone down well with Keir Starmer’s most vocal critics. Lloyd Russell-Moyle was first out of the blocks this morning, tweeting shortly after midnight that ‘Good to see valueless flag waving and suit wearing working so well… or not?’ Fellow members of the Socialist Campaign Group have piled in too, with Corbyn-era frontbenchers quick to offer their expert analysis as to why Labour lost a seat they had held since its creation.
Onetime shadow Lord Chancellor Richard Burgon declared ‘We are going backwards in areas we need to be winning. Labour’s leadership needs to urgently change direction’ while his former colleague Diane Abbott pronounced it a ‘crushing defeat for Labour in Hartlepool’ and that ‘Starmer must think again about his strategy’ as it is ‘not possible to blame Jeremy Corbyn for this result.’
Ex Corbyn adviser Steve Howell remarked that ‘Jeremy Corbyn won four out of the four by-elections held in his first year as leader’ and ‘still the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] tried to oust him’ – conveniently ignoring the 2017 Copeland defeat which (like Hartlepool) was one of the few times a postwar governing party gained a by-election seat.
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