As the leadership moves Labour’s Shadow Cabinet decisively to the right, three of the figures who have found themselves unwelcome in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party are set to appear at this year’s The World Transformed festival.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll and Compass think tank founder Neal Lawson are set to risk further antagonising the Labour leadership by appearing at The World Transformed (TWT), a political festival which has taken place at the same time as the Labour Party conference since 2016, but has adopted a more adversarial attitude towards the Labour leadership as Sir Keir Starmer has purged left wingers from the Party and junked a series of progressive policies.

TWT is characterising its attendees as “the real opposition”, and its “no one is coming to save us” slogan reflects much of the left’s belief that Starmer offers no hope for working people. Sessions announced so far include titles such as ‘Marx 101’, ‘Does Electoral politics matter?’, ‘How to run a rent strike’ and ‘How to stop an immigration raid’, all of which are likely to antagonise Labour’s dominant faction. 

Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the Labour Party in 2020, and although he was subsequently reinstated, he has not had the whip restored and will not be selected as Labour’s candidate in his seat of Islington North. 

North East Mayor Jamie Driscoll was barred from the selection process to determine a Labour Party candidate for Mayor of the North East, leading to accusations of McCarthyism. He resigned from Labour and has since announced he will fight the 2024 North East mayoral election as an independent.

Compass founder Neal Lawson received notice in June that he may face expulsion from the Labour Party – after 44 years of membership – because of a May 2021 retweet supporting tactical voting in some local elections.

Yesterday, Keir Starmer reshuffled his Shadow Cabinet. As Owen Jones observed, “The standout theme from this reshuffle is the ascendancy of the Blairites, cementing the repudiation of Starmer’s ‘Corbynism with competence and unity’ 2020 leadership pitch.”

Momentum agreed, a spokesperson saying, “We have witnessed the promotion of a narrow band of Blairites unwilling to offer the decisive change the country is crying out for. It is deeply concerning that the Shadow Cabinet will no longer have dedicated representatives for mental health or workers’ rights, as they have had in recent years. Amidst a Tory mental health crisis and sustained attacks on Labour’s New Deal for Working People, these issues need championing more than ever. We hope that this is not a sign that Labour’s commitments in these areas will be watered down.”

“Elsewhere, it is frankly alarming to see Liz Kendall appointed to the work and pensions role, despite her track record of supporting Tory attacks on benefits,” the spokesperson added. In 2015, Kendall stood for leader on a platform that included backing welfare cuts and secured a paltry 4.5% of the vote. Her campaign manager then, Morgan McSweeney, is now Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff.

Owen Jones added: “The reshuffle represents humiliation for figures associated with the ‘soft left’. Take Lisa Nandy, whose loyalty to the rightward-marching leadership has been brutally repaid: stripped of levelling up, she instead takes international development, a junior ministerial position without a department. Journalists have been briefed that Starmer didn’t want her at all.”

Ed Miliband survives for now, as does Angela Rayner whose independent mandate as elected Deputy Leader makes her harder to sideline. As for the rest of the newly promoted – Pat McFadden, now national campaign coordinator, Darren Jones, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Peter Kyle, Shadow Secretary of State for Science – they may have the  requisite Blairite credentials, but whether they have the ability to deal with the crisis Labour will inherit is an open question.

Rosena Allin-Khan, who was ejected from the Shadow Cabinet told Starmer pointedly, “you made clear that you do not see a space for a mental health portfolio in a Labour cabinet.” It was left to The Voice editor Lester Holloway to note that “David Lammy is the only Black person in Sir Keir Starmer’s new shadow cabinet. A fivefold reduction from Jeremy Corbyn’s team.”

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/52637282813. Creator: World Economic Forum. Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)