Labour needs to prove its electability

The Trident issue, about which there is "disturbing silence" according to Labour`s shadow defence secretary, Emily Thornberry, is likely to be back in the news this summer, when Cameron desperately attempts "to reunite his party after the fractious EU referendum campaign (Morning Star, 03/06/16). The likelihood is that, providing he is not immediately replaced by Johnson following a Brexit vote, or even a close victory for Remain, the prime minister will be fighting for his political life, and Labour needs to be prepared.

    If Cameron survives, Trident renewal will be on the agenda, but so will all the other Tory favourites likely to gain the majority of Tories supporting them. HS2 will be on the cards, and the main Labour focus should not only be on its unaffordable cost, but its dubious economic worth. Will shortening the London to Birmingham journey by twenty minutes or so really help to spurt economic growth? Isn`t the sixty billion plus it will cost needed, and better spent, elsewhere?

With Osborne at his side, Cameron is bound to use the "northern powerhouse" myth as a unifying factor.Surely Labour can be ready to denounce this for what it is - a sham idea, which Tories never expected to have to implement, and certainly never to back financially; the cuts to Labour-controlled councils in the north verify this.

  The third runway, something again which counters Tory claims to care about people in non-Tory voting areas, will reappear, as will the "One Nation" nonsense that Cameron uses to convince us that he cares.

 Whatever happens, the weeks following the referendum will be crucial for Labour. Preparing now for such eventualities will at least help to prove its electability.