Keir Confident For Now – But Has Labour’s Night Of The Long Knives Just Begun?

The increasing national instability that we currently see in the UK isn’t aided by constant leadership changes. Having said this, the competence of the Labour Party’s seventh prime minister is up for question, in view of the many failures in communications over the past 18 months of Labour in Downing Street. I am not a Labour hater; I’ve campaigned for them in the past, know many local Labour activists and feel that their local strategy is stronger than their work nationally. I also believe that the answer to modern centre-left politics is in embracing ‘wokeness’, not disparaging it. This is something that I feel the Labour Party has been all too ready to do during Keir Starmer’s tenure. The national Labour Party is letting down the work of the local Labour groups, because their comms never manage to percolate into the larger media sphere, and if comms doesn’t make an impact, then it’s not performing its sole purpose. It’s not performing its sole purpose because it doesn’t know what that purpose should be. Starmerism was birthed from a lack of a credible alternative after the Corbyn project crumbled under its failure to cut through.

Perhaps, charitably, Labour’s issue in office is an heir to Blair syndrome: wanting to ape Labour’s most electorally successful prime minister makes sense from an outward perspective. The problem is that Blair is mostly remembered for the negatives of his premiership than the successes: the Iraq War, unpreparedness for managing a global financial crisis, and an expansion of private sector involvement in UK state provision were all failures. These issues weigh heavily on the Labour Party even now, and although offset by undoubtedly good things, like the introduction of the minimum wage, the rollout of SureStart centres, and the Human Rights Act, these are not blockbuster policies. Put simply, good government is boring - you shouldn’t be hearing about it, and shouldn’t know its mechanisms. Business as usual is boring.

Now, some of what Starmer and the Labour Party have done in its most recent iteration has been successful on these grounds. The overhaul of the onshore wind ban, although contentious to rural communities, helps aid the UK’s energy security in the wake of global turmoil. Similarly, domestically, the Renters’ Rights Act grants tenants more security than they ever had before, and ends no-fault evictions. It also shores up an integral part of Labour’s crumbling voter base - the young vote. 

However, staking all they could on change at the last election didn’t help Labour, as their promise was too vague. Normal people don’t read political manifestos, because quite frankly sifting through an 136 page document isn’t most people’s idea of good bedtime reading, however light on detail that wishlist may have been. The simultaneous problem and benefit of this is that the architects of Labour’s manifesto are now no more, so this can now be developed on and tailored to Keir Starmer’s personal ambition more readily. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for Labour - they can be more radical, now that Starmer is no longer controlled by the Morgan McSweeney’s puppet strings. But if Starmer is as limp as we have seen him in the public eye, no matter how rousing he might be in private with Labour MPs, then this is the start of a journey on the road to nowhere. Equally awkward for the Prime Minister to confront is the current absence of a potential successor, and therefore the inevitability that he is the best of a bad set of options given the circumstances. 

While the hurricane of Epstein has merely been a rainy day for Health Secretary Wes Streeting as his mentor Peter Mandelson faces long overdue political oblivion, it still barred him from the leadership for now. As Angela Rayner’s fate still lies in the hands of an HMRC investigation, Starmer faces no viable challengers for the leadership. Whilst other figures within the Labour Party look impressive to seasoned political viewers, Nadia Whittome and Rachael Maskell are hardly household names. Their more left-wing alignment might also alienate shy Conservatives from backing them at a general election.

The polarity of British politics might aid Labour in the long term, as people hold their breath and vote for them at the ballot box to prevent Reform gaining what is appearing to be a certain victory at the 2029 general election, but it doesn’t make Labour an answer to a positive question that anyone is asking. This is also a very precarious position to be in. If the question was who has most successfully squandered political capital, then the answer would inevitably be Labour. They are not seen as doing enough, and what they are doing is poorly communicated. Social media could be the answer to the comms issue, but in order to actually work, Labour needs a seller. Who among the cabinet is that seller? Rachel Reeves - pessimistic, Pat McFadden - boring, Yvette Cooper - old news, Shabana Mahmood - radical in the wrong direction (mimicking Reform), Darren Jones - dry as a puffed rice cake, so who are we left with in terms of prominence? Ed Miliband has had a renaissance, but we saw what bile the press spread about him last time he ran for the leadership, and that would likely only get more intense on a second outing.

My feeling is that, unfortunately, we have not yet seen the next Labour leader emerge in the parliamentary party and won’t until members of the soft left are allowed back into the circle of trust and training ground that is the cabinet.

Image: Eliot Lord

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