The long revolution: why the left needs a strategic and long-term perspective

F or a political party to suffer a defeat as catastrophic as that which befell the Labour Party in December 2019 clearly presents its leaders and members with serious problems. How are they to understand the causes of their defeat? What degree and kind of rethinking of political assumptions does it call for? What actions and strategies should follow from it, to achieve recovery and recuperation? With no constitutional requirement for a further general election until December 2024, and a Tory majority easily large enough to sustain a government until near that date, these problems are serious. What does a party that is devoted, in its dominant mode of functioning, to winning a Parliamentary majority and forming an elected government actually do when this prospect may well be denied to them for five years?