Is the decision to block Jamie Driscoll in the North East ‘out of control’ by Labor factionalism?
The so-called “last Corbynista in power” may soon cease to be in power. The revelation comes after it was reported that North Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll had been dropped from Labour’s longlist for the newly created North East mayoral post.
As mayor of North Tyne, Driscoll touted his support for a wealth tax and shared ownership of public services, both of which are Corbyn-era policies long ago scrapped under Keir Starmer. While he has previously described his nickname of “the last Corbynist in power” as “inaccurate”, Driscoll describes himself as a “socialist from his teenage years” who has “proved that socialist policies work” at a regional level.
So the move to block his candidacy in the North East has sparked accusations of factionalism from Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which boasts a majority of Starmer supporters.
The NEC’s decision appears to have been made in light of an interview it conducted with Ken Loach, the left-wing director who was expelled from the party in 2021. This was confirmed by Jonathan Reynolds, Labour’s shadow business secretary, in an interview with Times Radio on Sunday.
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Reynolds said: “To have a man share a platform with someone who was himself expelled from the Labor Party because of his stance on anti-Semitism, for opposing the necessary and essential action by the Labor Party under Keir Starmer to correct the shocking position we were in anti-Semitism”.
But this official explanation did not prevent Driscoll’s fate from being interpreted as a factional crackdown by pro-Starmer Labor elements.
“The refusal to admit the current mayor even to the long list of elections shows that the factionalism in the party is completely out of control. There can be no other motive,” said former shadow chancellor John McDonnell.
Another former Corbyn shadow cabinet minister, Richard Burgon, added: “As an elected Labor mayor, Jamie Driscoll has an excellent job in office.”
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham and Mayor of Liverpool Steve Rotherham jointly condemned the NEC’s treatment of Driscoll in a letter to the party’s governing body. The pair said: “While we appreciate the NEC’s important role in upholding standards in the party and rooting out any form of anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination, it also has a responsibility to ensure that decisions are democratic, transparent and fair. Excluding a sitting mayor from the selection process without a right of appeal does not seem to us to be any of that.”
For Keir Starmer, the decision to block Jamie Driscoll’s candidacy will serve to underline his zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. Sharing a platform with someone who has been kicked out of the party over the issue is now considered reason enough to keep that candidate out of the longlist stage of the selection process.
On another note, the interventions of Andy Burnham, the outspoken mayor of Manchester and former Labor leadership candidate, are becoming more frequent and potentially more problematic for Sir Keir.
Burnham is a strong supporter of the introduction of proportional representation in Westminster elections, which the Labor leadership has distanced itself from. In fact, just last week Burnham called for changes to the voting system in Westminster at an event attended by key Labor figures including former prime minister Gordon Brown, Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford and West Yorkshire mayor Tracey Brabin.
Speaking at the Make Britain Work for Scotland rally in Edinburgh, Burnham called for MPs to be elected by proportional representation as part of Labour’s plans to “radically reshape Britain”.
But undoubtedly the key takeaway from the decision to block Jamie Driscoll in the North East is his extraordinary factional result.
Even so, this is not an episode that the Labor leader will interpret as direct damage.
You’ll rarely hear a Labor leader say anything overtly partisan, but in many ways angering the left and soft-left factions of his party is fundamental to his political approach. Indeed, it has been a consistent tactic under Sir Keir to provoke the left wing of his party, refuse to back down and subsequently delay a hostile reaction as evidence of the isolation of the Labor left.
“What I said about changing parties, I meant it,” Sir Keir told reporters at a press conference in March as he welcomed the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s decision to remove his party from special measures. It served as a platform to announce that Jeremy Corbyn, with whom he served in the shadow cabinet from 2016 to 2020, would not stand as a Labor candidate at the next election.
It was a moment of high symbolism when the Labor leader, anticipating Conservative attacks, made a critical break with the past.
Today, with a general election looming, Conservative attacks on Sir Keir as dependent on his party’s left wing – especially in a hung parliament or a narrow majority scenario after 2024 – will intensify. Such attacks could even become a vicious circle for Sir Keir, in which capitalizing on fears that left-wing Labor could exert a strong influence after the election in turn makes a hung parliament more likely.
So, throughout the Labor Party nomination process, the Labor leader’s allies have worked for some time to undermine such criticism.
The Labor Party currently has 196 MPs, of which 14 have announced that they will stand down in 2024 or face removal. If Keir Starmer is returned with a majority at the next election, it means that huge parts of his parliamentary party will be relative political novices. Thus, the struggle for the election of MPs is closely related to the wider struggle for the ideological leadership of the Labor Party. Senior allies know that a new set of moderate MPs will help define the ideological structure of the Labor Party after 2024 and, crucially, weaken the influence of the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group (SCG).
Starmer’s allies therefore hope that the absence of Labor candidates for parliament will reduce Conservative ammunition as the party seeks to admonish Sir Keir as a weakling in and around his own party.
At mayoral level, too, Labour’s NEC decision on Jamie Driscoll – and its political implications – shows that things are going according to plan for Sir Keir.
It is the latest evidence of the isolation of the left under Starmer. It will be difficult for the Conservative Party to exploit Labour’s factional politics when the bloc targeted for defamation is essentially silent.
