Labour members cannot repeat the mistakes of the past when choosing the new leader

What Jeremy Corbyn wistfully calls a “period of reflection” is rapidly turning out to be a civil war. It should be, too: the scale of what shadow chancellor John McDonnell calls a “catastrophic” defeat demands it.

The blame for what happened in the general election needs to be apportioned, because it is part of Labour’s learning process. The elections for a new leader and deputy leader will benefit from that painful process, and from the personal visions and manifestos that will come forward from the contenders. A few trends, some worrying, are already apparent.

First is the growing assumption that Labour’s new leader must be a female from outside London, as if their views and policies and abilities are irrelevant. Mr McDonnell suggests this tick-box approach. This could be simply a ploy to manoeuvre a Corbyn continuation candidate into place, such as Rebecca Long-Bailey, rather than the bookies favourite, Keir Starmer. More generously, it is a recognition of Labour’s loss of support in the north.

It is not, though, much of a criteria for choosing a leader, this particular set of attributes. After all, Boris Johnson, the man who put Bolsover, Workington and Blyth Valley into the Conservative list of gains, is an MP for a London seat and doesn’t sound like he’s walked off the set of Coronation Street or Emmerdale. So far from being a female, many see him as a sexist. Further back, William Hague’s Yorkshire brogue was no use against Tony Blair’s smooth RP. Accent really isn’t everything, and nor is geography.

A novel thought: it might be better to choose a leader not on the basis of their gender or the region their constituency happens to be in, but on their personality and their policies.

Do they, say, perform well in public – in the Commons, at rallies, up against Andrew Neil or Emily Maitlis? Would they freeze, Theresa May-style, when encountering people who don’t agree with them? Do they understand just how important winning is? Do they put the politics of power before the “politics of hope”, as Mr Corbyn did not? How much do they understand the potential of social media and new channels of communication to win for Labour? Can they make a speech? Can they explain things? Can they add up?

Soon, in hustings and TV studios, the various personalities (and some nonentities) will be tested. That work needs to start straight away because the opposition cannot afford to be absent for long from the action at such a crucial moment, and Labour will take time to rebuild.

Is the choice too wide? It might be argued so, yet the last Conservative contest was an even bigger field, and in the end it did not matter. Better for any hopeful to go through the fair process and lose than for them to harbour delusions about being cheated (the lesson of Gordon Brown’s failure to stand against Blair in 1994).

There are promising names being mentioned: Keir Starmer; Angela Rayner; Lisa Nandy; Jess Phillips; David Lammy; Dawn Butler; Rebecca Long-Bailey. It might now be time, too, for Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn to come out of exile and make their own case for change.

John Ashworth, who suffered when it was discovered that he had said such unkind things about his party’s campaigning before polling day, now looks like a Mandelsonian strategic genius. Maybe he too could come out as a Corbyn-sceptic and add battlefield experience to the discussion.

It is a “beauty parade” because leaders need a bit of charisma (or some overwhelming compensatory virtues). But the candidates for leader and deputy leader also need a policy manifesto, and will needs to answer questions on it cogently.

Should Labour advocate rejoining the EU? Should the party scale back on the plans for borrowing? Abandon nationalisation? Offer Scotland a second independence referendum? What are the candidates’ spending priorities? Who will pay more in tax? Will they invite others locked out during the Corbyn years to join the shadow cabinet? Will they retain those who were promoted under Mr Corbyn? How will they end the antisemitism scandal?

Those who vote in the leadership election – the members – cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. Their leader must listen to them, yes, but they in turn need to listen to what the public has just told them, or else they will lose more seats next time around.

The emerging candidates for the leadership have a duty to be honest with themselves and their party about what they believe has to be done, when and how. Beating Boris Johnson in 2023 or 2024 is not impossible. The economic and social conditions during a post-Brexit recession will add to the pressure on the Tories. There is a path to power for Labour, though the pathfinder has yet to appear.