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To understand the Labour Party today one needs to appreciate how people in the party have reacted to the New Labour legacy. Karl Pike examines the efforts each of the three leaders have made in reforming the party's ideology, its democracy and organization and their political style and approach to the leadership.

This article explores the role of tradition in the social world and offers a theory of why some traditions 'stick'. Building on the ontological insight of 'as if realism', I argue that traditions are constitutive both of an actor's beliefs and of their institutional context, and so critical to political analysis. The relative resonance of traditions can be understood as contingent upon power relations and ideational maintenance of traditions by groups of upholders – what could be termed 'socially contingent'. Traditions help us understand why a person believes what they believe and how a person's strategic calculations are affected by perceptions of what others believe. They exert a powerful pull to political actors as orientation tools in complex social settings and through the symbols and argumentation attached by those who uphold them. While traditions are contingent upon people's beliefs, it is 'as if' they have a life of their own.

In its contribution to the study of political leadership, this article provides a distinctive analytical lens: political myth understood as meanings which animate a leadership project. Heavily constitutive of political leadership at a particular moment in time, political myths are important for understanding the resilience of a leadership project and the judgements of its actors. We demonstrate a way of applying this concept through an analysis of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership from 2015 to 2020 and the identification of four key elements of the 'Corbyn myth': a 'mould-breaking' stance on policy, a return to class politics for Labour, heralding a 'left wave' sweeping the world, and the moral and political repudiation of the Iraq War. Each element clearly emphasises the explicit rejection of New Labour. Our analysis provides a holistic account of the Corbyn project with greater specificity about the meanings attached to Corbyn's leadership by supporters.

AbstractEric Hobsbawm will forever be a giant intellectual figure. Yet, an aspect of his work is underappreciated—the case for a more pluralistic, dynamic and intellectually inquiring Labour Party. As such, his political thought is particularly relevant given the recent election of Keir Starmer, and the avowed quest for 'unity' in bringing Labour back to power. Hobsbawm came to believe that political strategies which sought to exploit social and political stratification and conflict—such as vilifying reformist political movements and those of moderate persuasion—doomed Labour to permanent opposition. A broad‐based people's party, uniting objectives of solidarity and aspiration, was the only viable class politics. Although from the Marxist tradition, Hobsbawm believed Labour's purpose was to make liberal democracy function more effectively, rather than creating an alternative economic and political system. Suggesting conflict was more suited to kung fu movies, Hobsbawm's predominant theme of 'anti‐factionalism with a purpose' remains apposite today.

AbstractCorbynism, to its internal critics, is a 'hard left' anachronism. New Labour, to its detractors, was basically Thatcherism. We argue that these meta narratives, critical to internal identity, are flawed. They are pulling the party apart for reasons of political strength and at the expense both of broader interpretation and longer‐term cohesion. Through an analysis of 'early' New Labour, we show that how Blair's project ended is not how it began, and therefore isn't the whole story. The now half‐forgotten history of New Labour in opposition holds important lessons, including for those trying—for the most part unsuccessfully—to keep the 'modernising' flame alive. If the modernisers are to win more converts to their cause they must learn to do what Blair and New Labour did in opposition and not what Blair says today. Drawing on the concept of Labour's 'ethos', we offer five lessons from the party's past.