If UK Labour does not reinvent itself it will deserve to perish

Now a fossil of its industrial past, the party must stop downing pints — or whatever it is Keir Starmer imagines working people like to see — and start building a new progressive alliance 

Labour leader Keir Starmer offering another brewery photo-op on the campaign trail in Hartlepool — represented by Labour since the constituency was formed, but now ceded to the Conservatives in last week’s by-election.  Picture: Ian Forsyth/WPA/Getty Images

In the end, it wasn’t even close. The dam was breached 18 months ago; now the floodgates have opened. 

Like bankruptcy, political downfall happens slowly but then very fast. Labour’s leadership will rightly say they have only been in charge for a year— and what an extraordinary year! But their problems are much deeper than they know or care to admit. They have wasted a year papering over deep fissures — another wasted year in the long decline of Labour.