DAVID BLUNKETT says Jeremy Corbyn has no one left to blame for Labour’s catastrophic defeat 

This time there is no one else for Jeremy Corbyn to blame.

No ‘Blairite’ conspiracy that plotted to bring him down. No failures by other ‘comrades’ but simply the wrong policies with the wrong tactics, and a total failure to understand the very people on whose votes victory counted.

Above all, though, there has not been a word of contrition, of apology to the British people and the Party.

Jeremy Corbyn just finds it impossible to say ‘sorry’.

The clique running the Labour Party clearly regarded compromise as betrayal, because it dilutes their ideology. But the real betrayal is to have failed to compromise and thus to have achieved nothing.

What is even more staggering than Corbyn’s intransigence is the calibre of the opponent who defeated him. Boris Johnson is universally distrusted, disrespected and ridiculed. He had just one morsel to offer the British people, a pledge to ‘get Brexit done’.

By contrast, Corbyn and his cult-like followers were promising the world. Their programme grew so unbelievable as days went by, that even those promoting his promises no longer seemed able to believe they were true.

It was an ill-judged campaign, badly carried out by those with little experience of winning anything outside the confines of the Labour Party itself.

But this is not a failure for Corbyn alone. This is an end to the hard Left’s chance of proving their contention that the British people would ever vote for their outlandish and radical programme, in the face of all the evidence of the last century and the lengthy periods of Labour languishing in opposition.

The simple reality is that if you are in Government you can act, you can invest, you can change the world for the better – but in opposition you can do precisely nothing.

Those responsible for this defeat that wrecks the hopes of millions goes way beyond the clique around Corbyn.

It is the fault of those who helped put him there in the first place, the trades union leaders who allowed themselves to be bullied by Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite the Union.

Frankly, we have been subjected to schoolboy politics. To the ideology of those without any grasp of statescraft or empathy with working people or the reality of how to bring about change.

They allowed enthusiastic and committed new recruits who signed up in their tens of thousands to keep believing that there would be a better tomorrow and that victory would be theirs.

It is the fault of armchair socialists, whose principles fly in the face of reality – people who prefer to deny the evidence of the past than tell the truth to the present generation.

The result is likely to be disillusion among the young – who are the very ones we need to be engaged and enthusiastic about our democracy in years to come.

This election defeat will cost us more than sensible policies of long-term investment in our infrastructure, which might have revitalised the North and the Midlands. It has robbed us of more than the money that Labour could have invested in health, education and housing.

The real long-term disaster of Corbyn’s election defeat will be the sense of hopelessness and alienation among so many voters, brought about by the absence of any alternative to a Tory Government.

We have a new administration that I believe is devoid of any real programme for change and which is led by a PM who, by the testimony of his own Conservative supporters, is an unpredictable showman. 

We face the prospect of a hard Brexit at the end of 2020 and –given the success of the Scottish National Party and poor performance of the Ulster unionists – the prospect of a dis-United Kingdom with unknown consequences for years to come.

That is why the Labour Party has to get its act together.

This task has been made doubly difficult by the fact that an ultra-Left wing sect of losers still holds control of the party machinery and what remains of its funds. 

Corbynistas might potentially still command the support of members who have not absorbed the enormity of defeat nor the implications for what is needed next.

It is now essential that the trade unions take their historic role seriously. They have to step forward to get a grip on Labour’s National Executive Committee. It’s their job to force Jeremy Corbyn and those around him to step down.

Because Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, left at the beginning of the General Election campaign, it is possible for Labour’s ruling body to nominate an interim leader.

A leader from the parliamentary ranks who will command not only the respect of fellow Labour MPs but also of the country as a whole.

Only by doing this can we demonstrate we are once again a serious Opposition, able to lead the democratic process of holding Boris Johnson and his colleagues to account.

He or she could take emergency steps to sort out urgent challenges such as the issue of anti-Semitism, and welcoming back experienced and competent people into the administration of the party.

The rump of the Corbynista cult within Parliament itself should be clear in no uncertain terms that putting up another ‘Corbyn’, either male or female, is not acceptable. 

For the second time in the 100 years since Labour emerged as a serious force in British politics, it has suffered four straight defeats – and this time of seismic proportions. We have fewer MPs on the Labour benches than in the debacle of 1983. The message to the leadership is very clear.

You have had your chance and you have fluffed it. You have made the offer to the British people and they have rejected it. There aren’t any other people to blame this time – not the media, disaffected former MPs nor anyone else. The blame for this appalling and avoidable failure is yours.

Were you to try to cling on, then in my view, the party’s MPs and peers in the Commons and the Lords would simply have to declare themselves to be ‘the Labour Party’, take on any legal challenge and present an alternative social democratic programme to the British people, removing top-down command and control and replacing it with real engagement with the people who abandoned us on Thursday.

We must unite with an alternative vision of a country, brought together by a desire for something better for our future.

With Boris Johnson in the process of assembling the least impressive, least able Cabinet in British history, a credible and workable opposition is needed more than ever.

Above all, Britain must be able to show the world that its democratic processes are durable.

The message to Jeremy Corbyn is one that has echoed down the ages of Britain’s parliamentary history. It was first spoken by Oliver Cromwell more than 350 years ago, and echoed by L.S. Amery in 1940 when the very essence of our democracy was under threat.

It is these few immortal words: ‘In the name of God, go!’ – and go now!