Today’s front pages are emblazoned with details of the policies in Labour’s manifesto. Usually, this level of policy coverage would be good news for a party in the midst of a general election campaign. However, the manifesto isn’t due for a week. Instead, someone has leaked the draft version.
It certainly makes for an intriguing read. As well as nationalising railways, Royal Mail and energy companies and urging ‘extreme caution’ on nuclear weapons, the party promises to put an end to the bedroom tax, scrap strike laws, suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia and implement the Leveson inquiry recommendations. At the moment there’s no total costing regarding how they will pay for all these policies.
There’s been much chatter overnight about who might have leaked the confidential document. But a more revealing question to ask is: who benefits from the leak? Some Corbynites have been quick to blame Labour HQ — the party’s central office, suggesting that the put it out to undermine the party. The Leader’s Office regard those who work at the main headquarters with suspicion and some even refer to them as the enemy from within. However, Labour staff insist that those at HQ didn’t even have access to the full draft manifesto. What’s more, it hard to see what exactly they would gain from it. A ‘clause V meeting’ was scheduled today (and is expected to still go ahead) to go over the draft and make changes — and many moderates would have been hoping to water some aspects of it down in order to appeal to a wider base.
Another option is that someone signed up to the Corbyn cause thought it would be a good idea to get it out before Labour colleagues tried to tamper with it. It is much harder to amend the manifesto now to take on a more moderate tone — people will remember these policies even if a couple are taken out. So, in a way this could be a win for Corbyn in the long term. By showing that his policies are far-left he will appeal to the membership that voted him in (note: Momentum have already branded it ‘brilliant’). These are the same members who he will need to vote for him again if there is a leadership challenge in the aftermath of next month’s election.
However, the final option — and perhaps the most likely — is cock-up, not conspiracy. Corbyn’s team have shown themselves to be inexperienced when it comes to a lot of the complexities of running a party, whether’s it’s an ill-advised Vice documentary or banning hacks from the campaign for writing up an interview. It follows that they may have just been a bit too naive about who was invited to see the draft.
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