Rebecca Long-Bailey’s sacking from Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet underlines just how comprehensive Corbynism’s defeat has been — first in the country, now in the party. With the Labour left disoriented and largely focused on its own internal factionalism, Starmer appears to be in commanding control. While he promised “unity” in Labour ranks, the London Times notes approvingly that for his strategists this is “not about singing Kumbaya with your internal enemies, but marginalising them.” After Starmer’s dominant victory in the leadership election this spring — taking double the vote of left-wing challenger Long-Bailey — it was never going to be otherwise.

So, it’s likely that ever since appointing Long-Bailey as shadow education minister, Starmer had been looking for a pretext to remove her. For many on the Right of the Labour Party, any fodder to attack the Left will do, and Long-Bailey’s resistance to the government’s attempts to reopen schools early — and, in particular, her determination to stand up for the demands of the teachers’ union — had supposedly riled Starmer’s aides and senior front-benchers.

This episode has served as a sharp reminder of the Left’s impotence and confirmed — if it wasn’t already clear — the emptiness of Starmer’s promises of an end to factionalism. But the specific way it played out was telling. Long-Bailey was sacked for tweeting a link to a long interview in which the actress Maxine Peake said, in passing: “Systemic racism is a global issue . . . The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”