11 May 2021 • 12:53am Jeremy Corbyn, then Labour leader, and Sir Keir Starmer, then shadow Secretary of State for Departing the European Union, after a meeting in 2019 with EU negotiators Credit: Reuters /FRANCOIS LENOIR SIR – Labour has lost its raison d’être. This was to advance the interests of a social stratum called Labour, which was disadvantaged socially and economically with respect to the rest of society. It was coupled with a dogma, derived from the 19th-century origins of socialism, that the economic interests of Labour were somehow different from the “capitalist class”. That has led the party to undervalue the importance of entrepreneurialism throughout its history. This dogma was expressed in the party’s former Clause Four, replaced in 1995.