Labour may be riding high in the polls, but according to Labour insider Dan Hodges in this week’s New Statesman, there is growing discord within the party supposedly united after Ed Miliband’s election.
Party members had hoped that Ed’s election would have brought catharsis to the party, after a decade of Blair-Brown infighting but – according to Hodges – this has not been the case.
“I wish Ed Miliband hadn’t run,” one Labour MP told Hodges. “We should have had a straight battle between David and Ed Balls. One final reckoning. A fight to the death. Then the Blair/Brown struggle would have been resolved once and for all.”
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Miliband enjoyed the briefest of honeymoons following his lukewarm inaugural leader’s speech. Senior Brownites spoke to Hodges immediately after Ed Miliband’s inaugural speech calling it “a disaster” and declaring that “in two years we’ll have him out and Yvette Cooper in.”
According to another senior Brownite insider that Hodges spoke to, Ed Miliband should be – and is – worried about such a scenario.
“Ed Miliband’s team are terrified of Ed Balls and Yvette. They think they’re going to come and try and kill him. And the reason they think that is because they will,” he told Hodges.
“There’s a sense of a vacuum developing,” he continued. “People are looking for leadership and direction. And at the moment, they’re not getting it,” according to one shadow minister.
Disunity and discord is once again looming over the Labour party. Or as one MP starkly put it to Hodges: “We’re either on the threshold of the new politics or we’re on the brink of a civil war.”
Dan Hodges piece is available to read in this week’s New Statesman, available on news stands from Thursday.