How tacking centre left will help Labour win the next election | Andy Beckett

Tribalism and political ambiguity worked with a less fragmented electorate. The party must reconnect with its base – and be open to work with other progressives Led by a probably doomed prime minister, presiding over a struggling economy, exposed by an ongoing scandal, besieged by populist insurgents to its right and left, ambushed by a war that will bring higher inflation and public debt, and predicted to win just 75 seats at the next general election, according to the website Electoral Calculus, Labour is in an unprecedented crisis. The party will have to do unprecedented things to get out of it. One could be making its political approach both narrower and more expansive. This would require Labour to drop habits and orthodoxies which have become ingrained since the 1980s. By narrower, I mean abandoning the failed attempt of Keir Starmer’s government to simultaneously appeal to voters on the authoritarian right and the liberal left: for example, by launching ever harsher immigration policies while also standing up for a multicultural society. Back when most voters always chose between Labour and the Tories, parties often had to be politically ambiguous – “tough on crime, and tough