Uk politics

Quite extraordinary scenes here at the Labour Party conference. I’m typing this in the main conference hall and have just watched Mike Katz of the Jewish Labour Movement give a short speech against anti-Semitism. This ought to be utterly uncontroversial, but it has become a wedge issue between the two tribes who now make up the Labour Party. Between those who were members before May 2015, and those who joined after. There have two very different outlooks, and are at war with each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msl8Hm0GZp0 Katz’s speech was cheered effusively, like a rallying call, by about a third of the hall. And, amazingly, heckled by other members.

Whether or not to serve on Labour’s frontbench is a question of the same order of asking whether the deck chairs on the Titanic should face north or south. But Labour MPs do have to work out what’s best to do while their ship is being captained by Jeremy Corbyn - and we’re starting to see signs of splits within the moderate camp on how best to do this. This evening, centrist MP Johnny Reynolds is reported to be returning to the Labour frontbench as City Minister, which may mean Labour actually holds meetings with people in the City as opposed to ignoring them. But it is also a completely different approach to that being mooted by a number of his like-minded colleagues.

Now that Jeremy Corbyn has won, the fight moves to the jungle of Labour Party rules, regulations and procedures. Whoever controls these controls the party. Last Tuesday, for example, an eight-hour session of the party’s governing National Executive Committee (NEC) concluded that Scotland and Wales should each have their own member on the NEC. This seemed a bizarre, almost trivial outcome: so much argument and such a paltry outcome? The answer is simple: if the Corbynistas want to proceed with a purge of the Labour Party they’ll need a majority on the 33-member NEC. At present, power is balanced - but if there were Scottish and Welsh members then the moderates would have the balance of power. The moderates managed to win this argument.

The Labour Party is in a sour mood at present, that much we already know. Usually, most of the sourness expressed by MPs is directed at their own party comrades. But this afternoon, at the Labour Women’s Conference, speaker after speaker decided to turn fire on Theresa May. Angela Rayner congratulated her on being the second female Prime Minister of this country, but said ‘I cannot celebrate her arrival’. Kezia Dugdale attacked both May and Nicola Sturgeon for not being real feminists, saying: ‘Look at Theresa May - she has the audacity to wear a ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirt.

By the time Labour party conference begins on Sunday in Liverpool, the party will have announced its new leader. And it is likely to be its old leader, Jeremy Corbyn. For those who have nailed their colours to Owen Smith’s mast, it is quickly becoming clear that Corbyn is about to consolidate power. As a result, there will need to be a mass rethinking of the anti-Corbyn strategy. Most analysis of Theresa May’s decision to fight for grammar schools has focused on the internal politics of the Conservative party, but the debate has also inadvertently played into Jeremy Corbyn’s hands. Finally, after more than a year in the job, Corbyn has a domestic policy that he actually cares about.

Sunday is the second anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum, the second 'Here's what you could have won' day of thanksgiving. Or, if you prefer, atonement. The referendum is only over in the purest, most technical, sense. The campaign continues and it is clear to everyone that, at some point, on some day, Scotland will have to be tested again. The SNP demand a mulligan and will not cease until such time as they're given a second chance. They haven't gone away, you know. And, in one sense, that is reasonable. The SNP didn't spend eighty years losing elections to give up now they're can see the winning post at last. One more defeat, even a large and significant one, doesn't sting so much when placed in that historical context. There is always next season.

Nigel Farage has just delivered his speech at Ukip conference, in which he declared that he had put 'absolutely all of me' into Britain leaving the EU. 'I literally couldn't have worked any harder, or couldn't have been more determined - it's been my life's work to get to this point. I want my country back, but now folks I want my life back,' he said. He went onto claim that Ukip had 'changed the course of British history' and suggested that the party had 'brought down a prime minister' and had 'got rid of a chancellor'. On Theresa May's premiership, he suggested there was a 'great political battle ahead', before raising concerns that she might go for a 'soft Brexit'. Farage then couldn't resist taking a swipe at Douglas Carswell, his party's only MP.

The leaking - accidental or otherwise - of a list of Labour MPs allegedly guilty of abusive behaviour towards Jeremy Corbyn is yet another illustration of quite how divided the party is, and quite how messy things are going to be when Corbyn tries to reassert his authority following what looks certain to be his re-election to the top job. We now have MPs such as Neil Coyle consulting legal opinion on whether to sue their party leader. If you wanted the antonym of ‘happy ship’, the Labour Party is a pretty good option. The Labour leader and John McDonnell today took questions on the matter after a speech on the economy and public services (awkwardly trailed as ‘pubic services’ in a press release), and both insisted they were trying to heal the party.

‘I don’t think we are a charity.  We are a successful, multi-national educational institution,’ explained the public school head to me. And he was right. As it happens, he was a highly progressive head committed to using the wealth and resource he enjoyed to collaborate with an under-performing local academy.  For the first time, their partner school now had maths graduates teaching physics and a new range of language options.  But he had no doubt that he should not be in receipt of charitable status and tax relief.  Which is why one of the few components of Theresa May’s school reforms I can support is the Prime Minister’s determination to introduce ‘stronger, more demanding public benefit tests for independent schools.