6 days ago
Starmer could be Labour's last PM. That's what makes him so dangerous
Brace, dear readers, brace, for everything will get worse before it gets better. Sir Keir Starmer's premiership is holed below the waterline, his party on the verge of disintegration.
Starmer has lost control of immigration and of the public finances. Nobody knows what he stands for. It is a question of when, not if, he is forced to fire Rachel Reeves. It is unclear whether he will lead Labour into the next election, or even whether it will remain the dominant party of the Left.
Bring it on, I hear you say. But a desperate Starmer will be far worse than the incompetent, complacent version we have been subjected to so far. He no longer has anything to lose. He will target Middle England with wanton abandon, embracing Corbyn-lite policies to shore up his far-Left flank.
Every stupid idea in the collectivist arsenal – wealth taxes, the revaluation of council tax bands to hammer expensive homes, a cap on pension pots, the removal of pension tax relief, a war on Isas, steeper inheritance tax – is bound to make a comeback to fill his self-inflicted fiscal black hole.
The 'rich' will be asked to pay more for water and broadband via 'social tariffs'. Ed Miliband will be emboldened in his rush to net zero, minus the occasional tactical delay. There will be no end to the woke madness, rampant crime and unjust legal decisions.
As ludicrous as this might sound to outsiders aghast at Starmer's proto-socialism and disgusted by the human rights lawfare pushed by Lord Hermer, his attorney general, many Labour MPs and intellectuals actually believe that Starmer's error was to tack too far to the Right.
They believe he cares too much about a Red Wall that is already lost. Those in urban seats hated his warning that migration was turning Britain into 'an island of strangers' (the Red Wallers disagreed). Most saw Reeves's attempts at trimming a few benefits to placate the bond markets as this Government's foundational error (the Red Wall MPs agree). Others believe he is being too cautious when undoing Brexit. Many MPs want Britain immediately to recognise an independent Palestine – even though no such body would truly accept Israel's right to exist – a grotesque gesture that would confirm once again that pogroms and terrorism works.
The Prime Ministers' critics blame Morgan McSweeney, No 10 chief of staff, for the Government's supposedly centrist approach, and are convinced that Starmer listens too much to Tony Blair and his allies (such as Liz Lloyd, director of policy, delivery and innovation at No 10). There is talk that 15 Labour MPs may defect to the Greens if they choose as their new leader Zack Polanski, who wants to turn the party into a Left-wing populist alternative to Reform. It is hard to oust a Labour leader, but Starmer's position is weakening.
Labour's problem is the mirror image of the Tories'. Britain is undergoing a brutal realignment. Both parties were coalitions; the Tories had no rival to their Right and Labour none to their Left. Policies were designed to appeal to centrist 'median voters' and a few thousand swing electors in a few seats. Everything has changed, for three reasons.
First, the Blair-Brown-Osborne-Starmer managerialist orthodoxy has failed. The economy is toast, the public sector is kaput, social breakdown is rife and the ultra-high immigration model has gone badly wrong. The electorate craves new ideas.
Second, voters have become radicalised by culture wars. Previously uncontroversial views – on biological sex, on free speech – are now key markers of identity. Education has become more important than class, income or wealth when it comes to political affiliation, and, tragically, sectarian voting is back, fuelled by demographic change.
Third, the political marketplace is working: the public want more choice, and they are getting it. Nigel Farage's Reform is leading the polls, while on the far-Left the Greens and 'pro-Gaza' Independents are surging (with the latter's appeal probably underestimated by researchers).
Many no longer detect any difference between Labour and Tories, and no longer care which of the old duopoly is in power. On the Left, voting is becoming performative, an expression of identity and values, not a means to seize power; tactical voting is waning, and fragmentation rising.
The Labour coalition is gone, never to return. Its Right flank has fled to Reform. Some social democrats are opting for the Lib Dems, a party that could yet overtake Labour in parliament.
For Starmer, the only hope is to tack Left, appealing to Greens and Corbynites, to bash Israel and U-turn on cuts, but it won't work: this electorate has become so extreme that even a speech praising Marx and Engels would flop. Recognising Palestine wouldn't be sufficient; they would demand Russia-style sanctions. Higher benefits would be ridiculed as Austerity 2.0.
There are some around Starmer who believe he can muddle through, but they are deluded. Yes, the French are saying they will help with small boats (good luck with that), two polls suggest a smaller Reform lead, and £15 billion will be spent on buses in the North. So what? The big picture is apocalyptic.
Reeves will increase taxes at the Budget to fund her U-turns on winter fuel, the two-child benefits cap and personal independence payments, as well as public sector pay rises.
She will then need to rise taxes again and again over the next few years to put defence on course for 3.5 per cent of GDP, plus another 1.5 per cent on related spending – even before any further increases in spending on the welfare state in a doomed attempt to buy back votes. This could trigger a full-on fiscal crisis: the tax take is already maxed out and will surely fail to keep up with spending.
Labour is polling at 22 per cent, down 11.7 points on a pathetically poor election victory. Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn, Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot performed better than Starmer's current ratings. We need to go back to 1918, when Labour, still a fringe group, collected 20.8pc under William Adamson, for the party to be scoring so poorly. This is where Labour is heading, or worse.
Starmer could be its final PM, the closing chapter in a 100- year story. Let's hope he doesn't entirely ruin Britain on his way out.
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