Asked by an audience member if Labour will simply “try Corbynism again”, Long-Bailey says there were numerous reasons people abandoned Labour – including media attacks on the leadership. “But, ultimately, there was Brexit,” she says.
Asked what elements of Corbynism she would ditch, Long-Bailey says the policies were good but the party failed to communicate them.
Starmer says Labour has lost four elections in a row and needs to come up with the answers. He says the leadership of the party, Brexit, the “manifesto overload” and antisemitism all came up on the doorstep. But none of those on its own explains it, he adds.
Asked what was wrong with Corbyn’s leadership, Starmer says it was partly press vilification and that the former leader set up Labour as an anti-austerity party, among other things.
Nandy says the party either gets the move from Corbyn’s leadership right or it dies, adding that she believes many voters will give Labour only one more chance. She lays the blame at the door of the leadership, saying voters did not believe Corbyn was “for” them.
Nandy adds that deindustrialisation of core Labour areas and an orthodoxy that insisted overall progress as a result of the current global economic system was more important than the prosperity and concerns of individual communities that did not fee they had benefited to the same degree.