The lessons Labour can learn from the SNP

The Labour party should be experiencing its best time in recent politics with victory very much expected at the next election. Yet it’s not all plain sailing at Labour HQ. Not only does the party still lack a convincing agenda, there is disquiet about the nature of the Starmer leadership, in terms of what it believes in, how it does politics inside the party and how it manages dissent.

Discontent has been bubbling away for a while, with the left accusing the leadership of a plan to oust Corbynistas to create a new loyal Labour party. But now the internal fallout has burst into the open with the potential expulsion of Neal Lawson, head of the centre-left Compass pressure group for the past two decades and party member for 44 years. Lawson has been threatened with expulsion for daring to support greater co-operation with the Lib Dems and the Greens.