WOKE ROAD TO NOWHERE

A caller from South Wales has told LBC's Iain Dale that Labour are not going to be winning an election any time soon if it keeps pandering to its membership.  James, from Merthyr Tydfil, slammed the party's identity politics and 'woke' attitude:  "If they want to go and hymn to the minority of the Labour party, the 500,000 people, you will never get into power".  James predicted that Corbyn's successor will be a dead duck and the party won't recover until the next leader after that, at the earliest.  Dale noted that there is some precedent for opposition parties being out of power for three successive leaders - following the 1979 election Labour had Foot, Kinnock and Smith before regaining power with Blair (although it should be noted that Smith died and never faced a general election).  Following 1997 the Tories had Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard before Cameron regained power, albeit as part of a coalition.

Regular followers may recognise James's voice from our popular 'Remoaners' video.  His voice appears towards the end in which he tears into Labour's Barry Gardiner.  Prior to the 2019 general election James predicted Gardiner and Labour would be getting a 'wake-up call' from South Wales.  As it happened the red wall stood tall across the Valleys on December the 12th.  Most of these predominantly Leave-voting seats had never been anything but Labour and just one Labour seat fell, albeit the party's majorities slumped across the region.  Certainly the likes of arch Remainer Owen Smith shared James's expectations as he stood down from his Pontypridd constituency before the election.  Owen could have stayed on - Labour still have a near 6,000 majority in Pontypridd, down from over 11,000.  What will it take for South Wales to ditch Labour?