THE Labour Party finds itself on the wrong side of history (again). All but ten Labour MPs nailed their colours firmly to the Remain mast.

As Parliamentarians, not delegates, they should be admired of course for their principles. But as we discovered after the Scottish Referendum campaign, facing your electorate screaming the mantra, "we saved the union", was not exactly a winning formula. Scottish Labour was wiped out. 

I fear that English Labour will follow suit. Not in the big cities or the tree-lined avenues of Hove, but in Labour's traditional heartlands. Large swathes of the Midlands, Northern England and just about every coastal community bar Brighton, voted out.

Many of these leavers were solid Labour voters. They will not take kindly to elected politicians invariably calling them "duped", "racists", "ignorant" and "stupid". This analysis may go down well among some of our metropolitan supporters. It will not wash with the market towns and the former coal mining communities. They voted for a country divorced from the EU.

And if they don't get it, Labour MPs in these heartland constituencies will pay the price.

The party desperately needs to map out what a leftist Britain post-EU looks like.

The Tories under May or Leadsom will go for Deregulated-Britain. Labour needs a new prospectus for Great Britain. That's what our core voters want: an entrepreneurial society where the free market is the servant not the master of our destiny; clear and unambiguous immigration controls; proper federalism, including the end of crony capitalism; universal free childcare; a massive social house building programme; and enhanced rights to sick pay and decent pensions for the millions of self-employed. The challenge for my party currently is that not very much of this will be acceptable to the cappuccino class, pro-Remain supporters, in the South.

  • Labour Councillor Tom Bewick led the Vote Leave campaign in Brighton and Hove