Who is Keir Starmer for? Who is he against? These are the questions that have haunted the Prime Minister throughout a premiership that cabinet ministers believe has desperately lacked political definition.
After Mark Carney triumphed as the anti-Trump in this year’s Canadian election, one MP close to No 10 observed: “To win as an incumbent, you need an enemy.” For critics in Labour – Andy Burnham chief among them – Starmer’s enemy has too often appeared to be his own party. The winter fuel payment cuts, the welfare bill, the “Island of strangers” speech – all were deemed “un-Labour”, a critique validated by their eventual withdrawal.
Starmer now finds himself in a parlous position among both country and party. “We’re going to have to be unpopular,” he declared as he defended Labour’s “tough decisions” a year ago. But even at his most fatalistic, did he ever envisage becoming, by one measure, the most unpopular prime minister in history? Even a majority of Labour members – not normally a regicidal sort – believe that he should be replaced as leader before the next general election.
And yet. Far from being despondent, Starmer has appeared energised in Liverpool. His motto could be that of the French general Ferdinand Foch: “My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent. I am attacking.”
With greater clarity than before, Starmer has named an “enemy” – Nigel Farage – and spoken of a “fight for the soul of the nation”, a much more emotive narrative than the bloodless “Plan for Change”. The Prime Minister, angered by accusations that he is seeking to “out-Reform Reform”, has drawn clear boundaries: Reform’s policy of abolishing migrants’ indefinite leave to remain was, he told the BBC, “immoral” and “racist”. No euphemism or triangulation – here is an unambiguous rejection of what No 10 regards as Farage’s “ethno-nationalism” (though critics lament that it should have come a week earlier).
There is political as well as moral logic in this choice: 58 per cent of Britons oppose the removal of leave to remain from those already here, and a yet larger number do not want Farage as prime minister. By fighting a “values-led” campaign, cabinet ministers such as David Lammy and Wes Streeting believe that Labour can summon a broad coalition – social democrats, liberals, soft Tories – against the populist right.
Even those normally sympathetic to Burnham believe he overplayed his hand by declaring that MPs had invited him to challenge Starmer. One soft-left MP often critical of No 10 remarks that the Manchester mayor should “shut up”, while a cabinet minister notes that Labour members – a “loyal tribe” – don’t like anyone “violently rocking the boat”. (Another senior Labour politician, by contrast, condemns the “pack of hyenas” that has descended on Burnham.) Lucy Powell, Burnham’s preferred deputy leadership candidate, is praised by supporters and opponents alike for framing herself as a constructive voice for members rather than a committed antagonist.
Starmer, meanwhile, has given his party much to cheer in Liverpool: the Hillsborough law, which will impose a “duty of candour” on public servants and which, as I reported last week, the Prime Minister drove through in the face of internal opposition in Whitehall (a model of Morgan McSweeney’s “insurgent government”); recognition of Palestinian statehood; and the clearest sign yet that the two-child benefit cap will be abolished (leaving Rachel Reeves with another £3bn to find by November’s Budget). In short, Starmer is looking more like the authentic social democrat that his longest-serving aides have always described him as.
But has Starmer’s fightback come too late? Though the next election may be four years away, no prime minister has ever recovered from the depth of unpopularity that the incumbent now occupies. And the stakes, as Starmer himself agrees, have rarely been higher. A Reform victory would not merely mean a change of government but a profound change of ideology. If Labour faces “the fight of our lives”, as the PM described it, the party could still conclude by May 2026 that it is not one Starmer can win.
This piece also appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[Further reading: How Starmer can avoid civil war]
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