By David Osland

Conventional piety dictates that any discussion of Labour’s electoral prospects must include the clichéd formulation, ‘There can be no room for complacency’. So let’s start by ditching conventional piety.

Barring such contingencies as nuclear war – which unfortunately cannot be barred right now – the advent of a Keir Starmer-led Labour government in at most little more than two years from now is as close as anything in politics gets to certainty.

At least a dozen Tory MPs – most notably former chancellor Sajid Javid – regard wipeout as inevitable, to the point where they are not even willing to defend their seats.

One recent projection suggests that if a general election were held now, Labour would win 452 seats, a majority of 257. The eventual victory surely cannot be as off the charts as that. But the win will be substantial.

Complacent? Frankly, I’m feet up with a book and a drink.

The backlash from the farcical six-week farrago that was the Truss administration saw Labour open up a 30-point opinion poll lead, the kind of huge gulf not enjoyed by any opposition party in decades.

Starmer will be in possession of a mandate to remodel British society as comprehensively as the Attlee and Thatcher governments. But I’m not overflowing with confidence that the day will be seized.

The ambition is minimal. Much of the rhetoric and symbolism is overtly authoritarian and rightist, from the ubiquitous Union Jacks to the hymns of praise for NATO, nuclear weapons and the royal family, and the ominous pledges to be ‘tougher than the Tories’ on immigration and crime. Daily Mail leader writers, eat your heart out.

Where there is even a hint of radicalism, the wording is characterised by constructive ambiguity. The focus group-vetted pledges to levy VAT on private schools, abolish the House of Lords and end non-dom status are caveated to death, and given Starmer’s track record of ripping up campaign pledges, may not be implemented anyway.

The number of socialist MPs will not be augmented. The blatant intervention of the leader’s office in what should be democratically-decided local selection decisions will make sure of that.

Some of the knifing in the back has been more clumsily overacted than the average amateur dramatic society production of Julius Caesar. At best, a handful of lefties might somehow slip through.

There is not even any guarantee that the Socialist Campaign Group stalwarts reselected so far will be on the ballot paper on the day.

Once the election is called, they could find the whip withdrawn on any spurious pretext that may happen to be lying to hand, and more pliable candidates imposed in their place. The treatment of Jeremy Corbyn sets a precedent for that.

The left must be prepared for political marginalisation at the parliamentary level, to an extent not witnessed even in the New Labour era.

But the chasm between the policies this country needs and the policies Labour will deliver won’t go away.

The perennial economic headaches of low investment, poor infrastructure and huge regional imbalances will still be there, and all of them will be exacerbated by the hard Brexit to which Mr Second Referendum is now committed.

While there may be some tinkering around the edges, the class system will stay in place, handicapping the life chances of those on the wrong side of it.

Britain won’t be a republic, won’t have proportional representation and the trains won’t run on time. No serious proposals to tackle inequality are even on the table. The exigencies of climate change cannot be met by a milquetoast Green New Deal.

The housing crisis, an underfunded NHS and second-rate schools won’t be magicked away within the constraints of the Jeremy Hunt austerity framework within which Labour says it will operate.

In short, the mid-2020s demand transformative politics. And right now, they appear to be in short supply.

David Osland is a member of Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP and a long-time left wing journalist and author. Follow him on Twitter at @David__Osland

mage: Keir Starmer. Source: https://api20170418155059.azure-api.net/photo/X9dwBvuR.jpeg?crop=MCU_3:2&quality=80&download=true. Author: Chris McAndrew, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.