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Politics

16th Jan 2020

Who will win the ideological battle for the Labour party?

With Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer the hot favourites to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, Paul Mason discusses the internal ideological battle

JOE

It’s a two horse race

Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer have emerged as the two frontrunners in the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, representing two separate factions of the left.

Long-Bailey has been dubbed the ‘continuity candidate’, having been a prominent ally of Corbyn’s throughout his turbulent spell at the helm. Meanwhile Starmer, whose politics sit closer to the centre of the spectrum, is would take the party in a new direction after their disastrous defeat in the 2019 election, which handed a majority to Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party.

Paul Mason was a vocal advocate of the Corbyn project. The Labour party’s biggest election defeat since 1935 changed that, and he now supports Keir Starmer for leader. He spoke to Oli Dugmore about Labour’s future and what went so badly wrong.