The Day Before Everything Falls Apart

Tomorrow is election day.

We’ve got thousands of Labour voters who need reminding to vote, and nobody left to remind them. Our get-out-the-vote operation - the thing that saved us in 2017 - has collapsed.

Our Brexit position is political suicide, and everyone knows it except the people making the decisions in Westminster. We’re trying to be all things to all people and ending up as nothing to anyone.

I’m getting it from both sides. Remainers are furious we’re not just backing Revoke like the Lib Dems. Leavers think we’re betraying democracy with our second referendum nonsense. And I can’t blame either of them because our position makes no sense.

We’re saying we’ll negotiate a new deal, then campaign against it? What kind of message is that? “Vote Labour - we’ll negotiate something we don’t believe in!” It’s insane. Meanwhile, Johnson’s got three words: “Get Brexit Done.” Simple, clear, wrong - but effective.

My comrades and I spent Sunday afternoon in Aberystwyth town centre trying to explain Labour’s Brexit position. After three hours, we’d convinced precisely nobody, including ourselves.

And then there’s the elephant in the room. The anti-Semitism crisis is destroying us from within.

Meanwhile, the local Lib Dems are having a field day. Jo Swinson’s positioning herself as the only “true” remain candidate, picking off our seats one by one. They’re utterly shameless - the party that propped up austerity for five years is now posing as the progressive alternative.

But it’s working. In university towns, in middle-class remain areas, former Labour voters are flocking to them. Here in Wales, they’re targeting seats like Montgomeryshire and Brecon. They smell blood in the water.

The irony is painful. We’re losing remainers to a party led by someone who was in coalition with the Tories while we were voting against every cut, every attack on the poor, every assault on the welfare state.

The Tories have revolutionised campaigning, and we’re still fighting the last war. They’re flooding postal votes with glossy, personalised leaflets that must cost a fortune. Professional photography, targeted messaging, expensive printing - it’s like they have unlimited money.

Because they do.

We can barely afford to print black and white leaflets on cheap paper. We’re doing our canvassing with homemade rosettes and clipboards held together with tape. Meanwhile, the Tories are sending out what looks like professional magazines to every household.

The contrast is stark and demoralising. We turn up with our battered folders and worn-out shoes, talking about transforming society. They arrive with slick materials and simple messages that cut through our complex policy positions like a knife through butter.

Tonight should have been our biggest push. The last push to identify our voters and make sure they turn out tomorrow. In 2017, we had multiple volunteers pushing super hard to get the vote out.

Tonight? Twelve people showed up. Eight stayed past 9pm. Our Facebook group for activists has gone quiet. The people who were posting hourly updates in 2017 have stopped responding.

This is what defeat looks like before the votes are even counted.

Compare this to 2017, when we had so many volunteers we ran out of streets to canvas. Tonight, whole villages will go unvisited. Thousands of Labour voters won’t get their reminder. We’re fighting this election with one hand tied behind our back.

In twelve hours, the polls open. In fifteen hours, our fate will be sealed. And we’re going into it with a ground game that’s essentially collapsed.

This is what the establishment wanted all along. They couldn’t beat Corbynism at the ballot box in 2017, so they’ve destroyed it from within. Brexit was the weapon, anti-Semitism was the ammunition, and our own inability to take clear positions was the target.

They’ve turned our greatest strength - our diversity of views - into our greatest weakness. I cannot shake this feeling that we’re too democratic for our own good, too willing to debate when we should be deciding, too concerned with process when we should be fighting.

I’ve been defending Jeremy for four years. Through the leadership challenges, through the media onslaught, through every crisis and controversy. I still believe in his politics, his vision for a better society. But I’m struggling to defend his leadership. Not because I don’t believe in him, but because he seems to have stopped believing in himself. The fire that inspired millions has been dimmed by compromise and crisis management.

The Jeremy who stood up to Blair, who opposed the Iraq War, who never wavered in his principles - where is he now? Where’s the clarity, the conviction, the moral authority that made us follow him into battle? Here in Wales, we’re facing a particular nightmare. Plaid Cymru are positioning themselves as the “real” remain party for Welsh speakers, the Lib Dems are targeting our English-speaking remain seats, and the Brexit Party could split our leave vote with the Tories.

Mark Drakeford’s doing his best in the Senedd, but he can’t save us from this mess. Welsh Labour’s reputation won’t survive a UK-wide catastrophe.

We’ll continue to do what we can. Smile at voters, hand out cards, try to project confidence we don’t feel. But the real work - the ground operation that wins elections - that should have been finished weeks ago. We’re limping to the finish line instead of sprinting. The tragedy is that individually, our voters still believe in the cause. They’re just not energised enough to organise, not motivated enough to volunteer, not convinced enough to bring their friends. The movement has become a memory.

Whatever happens in the coming election - and I fear the worst - the movement Jeremy built will survive. The hundreds of thousands who joined the party, who believed another world was possible, who tasted what real political hope feels like - they won’t just disappear.

But it might take a generation to rebuild from the rubble we’re about to create. And by then, how much damage will the Tories have done? How many more people will have died from austerity? How much further will inequality have grown?

We’ll lose tomorrow. The only question is how badly. But somewhere in the wreckage, we’ll start again. We have to.

From the valleys to the coast, solidarity forever. Even when it hurts.