If the polls, the bookmakers and a sizeable number of Conservative MPs are right, Labour will soon achieve the rare feat of returning to government after a single term in opposition. But anyone who stumbled upon the party’s conference in Manchester would never have surmised that this was a party on the brink of power. Rather than an infantry advancing remorselessly on Downing Street, Labour resembled a wounded army in need of convalescence.
If the party appeared traumatised, it was partly because, in the Scottish independence referendum, it suffered what the Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, described as a “near-death experience”. The fraught effort to save the Union confirmed many of the worst fears of Labour MPs: that they are now regarded as part of the establishment, rather than as a force for change; that their core vote is atrophying and decaying; and that seemingly solid poll leads can melt away in the heat of the short campaign. That McCluskey is said to have privately favoured independence (Unite’s position was officially neutral) is further evidence of the fissure in the Labour family.
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