Labour Should Put Party First, Country Second

In politics, particularly within the UK, our politicians, and those commentating on them, like to talk about putting ‘country before party’. Keir Starmer is no exception to this rule. In fact, the Prime Minister has become its embodiment. Since becoming leader of the Labour Party he has - when asked about his leadership style - often quipped that his Labour Party is a party focused only on the nation’s interests, that it is one disinterested in internal spats. In fact, this statement has become something of crutch for Starmer and the way he governs. In 2026, Starmer should unlearn this and put his party before the country.

By now, it has become the norm that we view good parties as parties that focus on the country above all else, and in many cases it is essential they do this. It is admirable to think parties should not look inwards and become self-indulgent, but as admirable as this view is, it is also a rather reductive way to assess our politics. To understand why this is the case, we need to understand the way British politics works. 

This is largely true because the UK is a parliamentary democracy. As a result, everything (whether the public likes it or not) revolves around Westminster and the parliament that sits there. Keir Starmer, the UK’s apex politician, is only powerful thanks to his party in parliament, and, as a result, how he treats his parliamentary party (the 400-odd Labour MPs that make up the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)) is critical.  

Starmer, however, does not appear interested in his parliamentary party. In fact, he doesn’t seem to like his parliamentary party much at all. From the outset, his governing strategy has been one which has routinely humiliated his MPs, forcing them to defend unpopular, or wholly indefensible policies, only to walk them back months later. It is a ritual which makes his MPs look stupid, and Starmer look weak - and it is something which the party has spent virtually all its political capital on since 2024.

Such a strategy has been made worse by Starmer’s absence, in and around parliament. Over the course of his first 18 months in power he has largely ignored his MPs, and the PLP’s growing pleas to spend more time listening to it. For almost as long, the PLP’s pleas have fallen on deaf ears in Downing Street. 

Worse, when this situation produces a predictable breakdown in party discipline Downing Street has reached, all too often, for its favourite tool: discipline. Party discipline has often been wielded as a heavy-handed tool to crush dissent, only to permeate it further through the group of people who are supposed to work in lock step with Starmer for five long years. 

Predictably, such a strategy has caused the PLP to register its displeasure with increasing frequency. With each day that passes dissent in the parliamentary party seems to grow louder. There have been rebellions - symbolic and serious, murmurs about the way Downing Street runs the Whip’s office, and more recently questions about the leadership (which run all the way to the top). Yet, even with all this strife, Labour has largely shied away from engaging in a full throated debate about the way Downing Street and the PLP work together - if they are at all.

This doom loop scenario is made all the worse by the fact that Labour has been told that a good party puts country first and party second. Downing Street and its voices in the papers, have told the PLP that raising questions about internal party politics is a losing game, that it will be the death of the party and its electoral fortunes. This is wrong, and Labour shouldn’t fall for this. 

The party shouldn’t listen to the people who tell it to get on and govern. An unhappy party won’t, and cannot, produce good legislation that can push the UK forward. This is something which becomes even more problematic if the program of government involves extremely tough choices that require a united front. At odds with each other, Downing Street and the PLP have, by now, passed up the chance to make several aggressive reforms, and instead gone to war with each other - as was the case with welfare reform. 

As a result of this woeful relationship, our wider politics suffers. That is why Keir Starmer and the PLP need to put party before country. They need to engage with each other, or they need to be honest that this is not a relationship that benefits the country - and they need to do it now because our system of government will only make this situation more apparent if it drags on. 

The PLP needs to ask itself if Starmer is a good fit for a party that desperately wants (and needs) to produce heartfelt reform for Britain. To not engage with this debate about how the PLP is treated will only push the Britain it wants to build further out of reach.

Sometimes, a party must put itself before the country. This might seem short-sightedly selfish, but the interests of the country are presently best served by a self-centred Labour Party - especially when it comes to questions of how the party is run. Labour, especially the parliamentary party, will have to make the case that talking loudly and openly about the way its leader runs the parliamentary party (and whether he should even run it), rather than being selfish, is in the best interests of the country.

Illustration: Will Allen/Europinion