Labour figures launch post-election autopsy to find out what went wrong
Ex-leader Ed Miliband and his 2015 campaign chief are among those who will be looking into how Labour can get back into power.
Monday 23 December 2019 16:14, UK
Senior Labour figures will launch a post-election autopsy into how the party lost 59 seats and handed Boris Johnson's Conservatives a large majority.
Ed Miliband, leader from 2010-15, is one of those setting up a commission to "learn the lessons" of this month's snap poll by "rising above the factional infighting".
He will be joined by Lucy Powell, a Labour MP who ran the party’s unsuccessful 2015 election campaign, backbencher Shabana Mahmood, a trade union representative, and an MP who lost her seat - Jo Platt.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell's economic adviser James Meadway and editor of the website Labourlist Sienna Rodgers are also on board.
The commission is promising to take a "balanced view of what happened in the campaign" by taking evidence from defeated Labour candidates, holding focus groups in heartland seats the party lost and doing "deep, objective analysis" of election data.
It wants to map out a route back to power for Labour by working with different factions, including Momentum, Labour First, Open Labour, Progress.
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Labour so far has been in opposition for nine years and suffered its worst result since 1935 just 11 days ago.
Ms Powell, the Manchester Central MP, said Labour could not just "hope" changing their party leader - with Jeremy Corbyn due to be replaced in the New Year - would improve their popularity with voters.
She told Sky News: "People will say Jeremy Corbyn as being their issue, because he's the person that, as far as they're concerned, is the Labour Party.
"Do they mean him personally? Do they mean policies? Do they mean his position on Brexit? You've got to unpick and unpack that as well.
"But it's not just about the leadership. Many of these trends were coming in the previous election in 2017 and we obviously lost two elections before that as well.
"The ground has fundamentally changed for the Labour Party and we haven't really taken stock of that.
"To simply hope that just by changing the guy at the top, or the woman at the top, that somehow everything's going to snap back into place, we would be sorely mistaken and we wouldn't be learning the right lessons from this election."
It comes as an anonymous survey for candidates, activists and others involved in the campaign to share their concerns has been posted online.
One Labour MP told Sky News: "This commission of people who lost the 2015 campaign, which has appointed itself, is unlikely to deliver the brutal hard truths the party needs to hear.
"We need an independent firm to do a proper job, including hearing from people who have been involved in winning and losing over the years.
"From what I've seen on this survey there aren't specific, detailed questions about voters' views on the leader; or the organisational failures in the campaign."
It is understood that the Labour Party will launch its own rival inquiry into the 2019 campaign.
But efforts to unify Labour still seem some way off.
MP Siobhain McDonagh confronted new colleague Sam Tarry on Twitter for claiming "the Tories are clearly scared" of peoples' right to strike and vote.
"I am sure the Tories are terrified," she wrote.
"They won the Brexit Bill vote by 124 votes. They have a Commons majority of 80. While Jeremy Corbyn remains in place until March & one of the leadership contenders asks a Stalinist to run her campaign! Yep they're terrified!"
Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to remain leader until his successor is elected, with a timetable expected to be published in the new year.