9 September 2025

Only Emily Thornberry can save Keir Starmer from himself

Articulate, charismatic and funny, she is Labour’s answer to Nigel Farage.

On September 12th, the day after nominations for Labour’s deputy leadership close, I hope I will wake up to a Labour party that is no longer embarrassed by itself. I will know it is over its confidence crisis if I see Emily Thornberry on the ballot for deputy leader.

One of Labour’s most quintessentially British characteristics is its self-deprecation. We love making ourselves small. We are so unworthy, we tell the public whenever we go to elections. Please forgive us our sins, like not being racist enough, or for not coming down on the poor hard enough.

The public hates this. They can sniff a fake a mile off. The right-wing rags are incensed at our attempts to act tough: “Stop pretending your heart is not bleeding, you nasty liberals, we know you don’t have it in you to be cruel!”

If Rachel Reeves’s death by a thousand micro-scandals teaches us anything, it is that people really hate it when you present a glossy professional image that’s unreachable for most mortals, only to be discovered to be just as prone to making stuff up as the rest of us. It’s nice to think that we can bring back the time of statesmanship when all the evidence we had of a politician’s character was their prepared speeches and archived interviews, and our politicians did not need to charm or perform. Social media and constant, 360-degree access to people’s lives mean this world is gone. We are now living in the era of celebrity, and due to our chronic lack of self-confidence, Labour have failed to nurture the media talent required to respond.

But, there is one politician we’ve put on the bench who, we know from her days of fighting Boris Johnson, the Nigel Farage prequel, thrives in this most debasing environment. Emily Thornberry always made Labour’s Blairite-without-the-charisma puritans nervous. She speaks off-the-cuff, she has her own brand, and who can forget the photo she posted of a house covered in St George’s flags?

I almost had, being so distracted by the racial slurs committed recently by an ex-Reform MP currently under investigation. It is also unremarkable; there are so many photos of flags being posted online we are practically drowning in them. Indeed, we are encouraged to pretend we have lost all reason, and taste, and we are ordering cross-stencils and red and white paint to redecorate our pied-à-terres.

This deputy leadership is the soft left’s to lose, and there will be a lot of their candidates competing in this race with identical politics. I doubt the candidates will disagree on much, so it is how to achieve cut-through that should most trouble us. Unlike the Tories who ruthlessly forgive and promote flair, stamina and presence, the narcissism of small differences in Labour’s inside political battles has had us stubbornly stick to candidates based on how closely they are affiliated to this or that cause, when really most of our politicians given the chance would follow a social democratic agenda down to a tee. When we are not locked out of governing, it is lack of clout and confidence that’s stopping us from setting the tone.

I hasten to add that I am torn between the soft left and blue Labour. I’ve always been shilling for Britain, as flag-waving vulgarity comes naturally to a Greek. I am adamant that our patriotism should never be in question, and it was a mistake that we let it be in the past. But there is one thing that for sure unites voters who fancy flags and those who don’t: we both cringe at our timid political class’s attempts to convince us that they cross their Victoria sponge cakes with raspberries. “Oi, Keir Starmer, what’s so wrong with being a middle-class human rights barrister, mate? Aren’t you proud of being successful? Articulate? Of defending the weak?” Working-class people dream of being rich, not of being embarrassed by being rich. Put the whip down; the voters haven’t consented to our drab kinks.

Emily doesn’t have these problems. Emily loves being Emily: an Islington MP with all the treats and traps that come with it.

So her constituents love Europe, what of it? Sure, many are lefty liberals who hold “refugees welcome” placards and who know what the full LGBTQ+ acronym stands for – so what? She doesn’t, and indeed hasn’t, passed all her policy positions by an Islington South politburo. She just doesn’t spit in their face with every opportunity, and if you have a problem with that, she’ll meet you out the back in half an hour, camera on, no notes.

We are supposed to be entering stage two of the Keir Starmer project, but how will we ever know if Starmer has good ideas if he doesn’t have or allow any people around him who can articulate them?

Released from the shackles of our well-intentioned but neurotic backroom managers who forced on her a party line that defended war crimes, Emily would be a blessing for Labour’s morning rounds. Starmer’s team doesn’t have the confidence in the party to let their front bench be authentic. An Emily Thornberry accountable to the membership she empathises with anyway would save Starmer’s government from itself. We should thank Starmer for being a disloyal leader, not giving her a ministry. She now knows where her true loyalties need to be: she learned her lesson on Gaza. If we vote her in, she won’t let us down again.

People say Nigel Farage is a good politician because he seems like the sort of bloke you could share a pint with down the pub. Admit it: Emily Thornberry is the one Labour figure you’d be delighted to buy a gin and tonic for if you found yourself next to her on the train. You’d get a good story, and you just know she’d never miss her round.