Chronic failure
The rise of Keir Starmer tells us more about the parlous state of the Labour Party than it does about Keir Starmer.
Written by Jonathan Rutherford, Future of the Left
Keir Starmer is already a forgotten man. Labour MPs have deserted him for a selfie with Andy Burnham. His ministers calculate where their best interests lie in the coming regime change. He was never a solution to the crisis of our political system, just a hapless creation of it, who never understood that chronic failure was to be his fate.
This was clear back in 2020 when he became leader. Early efforts to establish a narrative and programme for government were met with his indifference, an attitude that pervaded the whole leadership. Nothing could penetrate the obduracy. The Tories were bad people. The adults would fix things. Each problem would be solved, one at a time. Every mistake, U-turn and political misconception thereafter was predictable. The missions were forgotten before they were remembered. The only surprise was how quickly it all fell apart.
Was Keir Starmer the only viable leader the Labour Party could find after fourteen years in opposition and in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn? A man without politics, who stood for one thing today and then something else tomorrow, who would have sounded hollow if you had rapped your knuckle against him.
The answer is, ‘yes he was’, although no-one had considered he might end up Prime Minister. The rise of Keir Starmer tells us more about the parlous state of the Labour Party than it does about Keir Starmer.
During the revisionist period of New Labour, the party jettisoned its history and traditions. Labour would be a progressive party, embrace Whiggism, and celebrate the liberal and the new. By 2010 the party was out of power and lost. Who and what did it now stand for? A new generation of Labour politicians faced with the conundrum gave it passing thought, and then blamed New Labour. They didn’t rediscover Labour’s roots because they didn’t try – that way lies the past and nostalgia.
Instead of following the example of New Labour and creating a revisionist politics for the new period, Labour relied on a moral righteousness in service to altruism – a belief that ‘our people need us’, ‘the country needs Labour’. It felt instinctively right and it didn’t require too much thinking about. Except the people didn’t need Labour or particularly like it. Brexit told them the feeling was mutual.
But for now we have just lost our sixth Prime Minister in 10 years, a man wholly unsuited for the task who shattered the illusion that Labour is a party of the people, the political class knows what it is doing, and all is well in SW1.
Can Andy Burnham bend the party and country to his will, to ‘change politics’ and give Labour ‘one last chance’? At the very least, he might shift the balance of power away from London toward the North and open the door and allow in a new generation with energy and ideas. We will give him a hand.