Labour is divided: about whether the general election result was good enough or not. The party’s remaining Corbynsceptics point to the backdrop of austerity and falling wages, a government that had been in power for seven years and a maladroit Conservative campaign. Yet Labour couldn’t win. To make matters worse, they say, many people voted Labour only because they thought that Jeremy Corbyn would not be prime minister. Labour, it is said, maximised the number of seats it could win with the votes of graduates, the young, city-dwelling social liberals and ethnic minorities. In other words, this was Peak Corbyn.
However, this small band of critics no longer has much influence in the party. Most MPs and trade unionists believe that the election result was remarkably impressive, with unexpected gains in Scotland as well as in affluent English constituencies such as Kensington in west London and Canterbury in Kent.
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