The Socialist Ideal in the Labour Party: From Attlee to Corbyn
Martin R Beveridge
Merlin Press £14.99

IT IS easy to forget in more pessimistic moments — and Keir Starmer is banking on us doing so — that despite Labour’s recent forced march back towards the right, since 2015 the party has been living through one of the most ideologically fecund revivals in its history.

While the demonisation of Jeremy Corbyn by his successor and parliamentary partners in crime sowed the disunity that Labour’s right then employed as the chicken-and-egg narrative to unseat him, the former leader achieved something remarkable.

Corbyn was able to restore social democratic ideals and ethical socialist principles, invigorated by the participatory enthusiasm of 21st-century social movements, to the heart of Labour’s identity — something Starmer has been singularly unwilling to build upon.