“Lose, Lose, Lose, Lose, Blair, Blair, Blair, Lose, Lose, Lose, Lose.” It doesn’t take Peter Mandelson’s words to convince anyone that the English Labour Party is in big trouble. I say English, because we are now seeing clear demarcations in the labour family of Britain’s ‘nations’. While things look good in Wales, Scottish Labour is still more ‘living dead’ than ‘living the dream’. There will be much written about the politics of the past few days. What is often missed is that the Labour Party is an organisation, or a series of organisations, as well as a political movement. As such it is vulnerable to the same organisational dynamics and difficulties of any other body with a long history, deep structures and issues with culture and coordination. 

Anyone who has read Philip Gould’s work will understand that it was organisational as well as political change at the heart of New Labour’s, now distant, victories. Two things seem to be important in an analysis of the last few days. The first is the need to answer a central question: “Does the Labour Party in England want to be in government?” Maybe there is a better question: “Is losing hurting enough yet?” And this is the core of the problem. The obvious answer for English Labour is “no.”  While the current situation is bad, high profile labour leaders will survive, key personalities will persist, key administrators will keep their jobs. The party will persevere, but the purpose of Labour – something that can only be grappled in government, will falter. 

There is no sense yet from Labour’s English leadership that they are on a burning platform. For those not familiar with this concept, it is very simple – a realisation that the ground is literally burning beneath their feet and without a commitment to the radical change required there is only certain failure. This is important but very often it takes a (sometimes literal) burning platform to generate the radical decision making necessary to shift the deep structures that resist change. 

The crisis facing English Labour is becoming existential in its dimensions. A rise in English nationalism and identity politics, the permanent loss of Scotland, the Teflon-like charisma of Johnson, a generation out of government and a visible lack in direction and focus. It is now possible to imagine a scenario where Labour will never be in UK national government again – with the catastrophic consequences for both the labour movement and labour objectives. It’s time for Labour leaders to take a long hard look into the abyss and see how much they like what they see. 

To deliver change, two things are required. The first is a recognition of the burning platform under their feet. The second is a decision to jump into the unknown. Very often in situations like this the focus is on the leader. Starmer will inevitably be damaged. But the real focus should be on leadership within the organisation more generally, and on what the purpose of Labour is within this increasingly unstable environment. 

Within studies of leadership we have for a long time talked about a traditional tripartite approach to leading organizations from failure to success. The advice goes something like this: get agreement on what the organisation is trying to achieve together (direction), effectively coordinate and integration of the different aspects of the work so that it fits together in service of the shared direction (alignment), and making the success of the collective (not just individual success) a priority. 

These are still important and retain a central resonance for an organisation in real difficulty. However, recently some have slightly shifted this approach, identifying Purpose as the significant dimension which makes commitment work. By Purpose, we mean something that is meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the individual or the organisation. This would appear to be a critical point for English Labour. 

While the organisation may survive in the doldrums of English politics, occasionally cheering the success of Khan in London, Burnham in Greater Manchester or Jarvis in Sheffield, they will have to radically alter organisationally and politically to achieve their purpose and to have the opportunity to actively deliver on the grand challenges of climate change, poverty, inequality and instability. Unless Labour can make that jump, the consequences will be felt by all of us.

A good place to start would be an organisational acceptance that English Labour is a distinct party, and that English Labour is part of a federal movement that also includes Scottish and Welsh Labour. All are bound together by the historic cause of social justice, community, prosperity and internationalism and that they are united in a commitment to a federal UK. This requires that the case for Labour is made not from London but from the people and for Purpose to sit at the centre of that. Given the huge changes wrought by Brexit and the pandemic, time is short. For Labour’s leaders it’s much later in the day than they may think.