In May West London Compass and My Fair London held a joint meeting on PR to explore whether the left could co-operate around electoral reform, and perhaps, then, broader issues.  Our speakers – Rob Telford of the Greens, Sarah Green a social liberal and chair of Ealing Lib Dems and Adam Klug of Momentum chaired by Neal Lawson – opened the conversation with a mixed audience of similar political backgrounds as the speakers.  Other far more significant events have occurred since, but the upshot of the discussion was a general agreement that Labour was not going to win a General Election on its own, and that democratic fairness and, quite frankly, pragmatic realism dictated that  Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens isolate the Tories on the issue with a joint platform for comprehensive electoral reform.  This clearly will not be happening ahead of a General Election and in the meantime the three parties needed to come to some form of electoral pact which would maximise seats across the left.  More of this later.

As I now write we are in the shadow of a disastrous referendum result – for the UK, Europe and, not least, the left – and the likelihood of a  heavy election defeat to a new right wing Tory Brexit leadership later in the year, and all against the background of a coup against Jeremy Corbyn and possible split in the Labour Party. I am not a member of the Labour Party but it  must lead any left challenge against the Tories in the next months and I do have a view on what should happen in the next few weeks.

I am a strong supporter of the movement that delivered the leadership of the Party to Corbyn; I have also spent much of past nine months defending his position while waiting for clear policies to emerge.  I am afraid we can wait no longer. Jeremy was the beneficiary of of the groundswell of support for fundamental change within the Labour Party, and the utter failure of the other leadership candidates to formulate any semblance of a vision for the left.  Corbyn didn’t lose the referendum for Remain – there were more fundamental reasons for this – but he is not the person to lead the Party into the most crucial six months faced by the left since the 1930s.

I am not advocating his replacement by a recycled Blairite pushed into office by a coup of failures from the Brown Government.  We need a new leader for the left, in tune with the grassroots revolution within the Party, able to stand up to a bruising campaign by the rightwing press and Brexit Tories and flexible enough to be able work with others  on the left to deliver transformative change and rescue us from last Thursday’s train crash.  It is essential that this person, preferably a woman, can speak (something other than a London accent would help) persuasively to the inequalities faced by those who failed to turnout to elect Labour in 2015 but queued to vote for Brexit last week.  It is for Jeremy Corbyn to recognise this and – however tempted he may be to prove he can win a second leadership campaign – step aside for the right candidate.

Returning to our meeting on PR in May, the new leader needs to recognise immediately that our chances of beating Johnson and his gang will be considerably enhanced by not running Labour Candidates against Caroline Lucas in Brighton, in any of the seats lost by the Lib Dems in the South West and withdrawing in other areas where others are in a better position to win.  The Lib Dems and Greens must do likewise.  All three parties should have their own manifestos but should also agree on a list of key priorities for action on inequality, climate change and sustainable development and relations with Europe.  These should include a massive injection of Green QE into the regions and a fundamental reform of the tax system; and, of course, proportional representation for future elections.

Stephen Clark

West London Compass